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Rodogune
A Dramatic Romance
Persons of the Drama
NICANOR, of the royal house, general-in-chief of the Syrian armies. THOAS
LEOSTHENES PHAYLLUS, an official, afterwards Minister of Timocles. PHILOCTETES, a youg Greek noble of Egypt, friend of Antiochus. MELITUS, a Court official. CALLICRATES, a young Greek noble of Syria. THERAS, a gentleman in waiting. AN EREMITE. CLEOPATRA, an Egyptian princess, sister of the reigning Ptolemy, Queen of Syria; widow successively of King Nicanor and his brother Antiochus. RODOGUNE, a princess of Parthia, prisoner in Antioch. EUNICE, daughter of Nicanor. CLEONE, sister of Phayllus, in attendance on the Queen. MENTHO, an Egyptian woman, nurse of Antiochus. ZOYLA, an attendant of Cleopatra.
Act I
Antioch. The Palace; a house by the sea.
The Palace in Antioch; Cleopatra's antechamber. Cleone is seated; to her enters Eunice.
CLEONE Always he lives!
EUNICE No, his disease, not he. For the divinity that sits in man From that afflicted body has withdrawn, — Its pride, its greatness, joy, command, the Power Unnameable that struggles with its world: The husk, the creature only lives. But that husk Has a heart, a mind and all accustomed wants, And having these must be, — O, it is pitiful, — Stripped of all real homage, forced to see That none but Death desires him any more.
CLEONE You pity?
EUNICE Seems it strange to you? I pity. I loved him not, — who did? But I am human And feel the touch of tears. A death desired Is still a death and man is always man
Page – 189 Although an enemy. If I ever slew, I think 'twould be with pity in the blow That it was needed.
CLEONE That's a foolish thought.
EUNICE If it were weakness and delayed the stroke.
CLEONE The Queen waits by him still?
EUNICE No longer now. For while officiously she served her lord, The dying monarch cast a royal look Of sternness on her. "Cease," he said, "O woman, To trouble with thy ill-dissembled joy My passing. Call thy sons! Before they come I shall have gone into the shadow. Yet Too much exult not, lest the angry gods Chastise thee with the coming of thy sons At which thou now rejoicest."
CLEONE Where is she then Or who waits on her?
EUNICE Rodogune.
CLEONE That slave! No nobler attendance?
Page – 190 EUNICE I think I hear the speech Of upstarts. Are you, Cleone, of that tribe?
CLEONE I marvel at your strange attraction, Princess, You fondle and admire a statue of chalk In a black towel dismally arranged!
EUNICE She has roses in her pallor, but they are The memory of a blush in ivory. She is all silent, gentle, pale and pure, Dim-natured with a heart as soft as sleep.
CLEONE She is a twilight soul, not frank, not Greek, Some Magian's daughter full of midnight spells. I think she is a changeling from the dead. I hate the sorceress!
EUNICE We shall have a king Who's young, Cleone; Rodogune is fair. What think you of it, you small bitter heart?
CLEONE He will prefer the roses and the day, I hope!
EUNICE Yourself, you think? O, see her walk! A floating lily in moonlight was her sister. Rodogune enters. RODOGUNE His agony ends at last.
Page – 191 CLEONE Why have you left Your mistress and your service, Rodogune?
RODOGUNE She will not have me near her now; she says I look at her with eyes too wondering and too large. So she expects alone her husband's end And her release. Alas, the valiant man, The king, the trampler of the fields of death! He called to victory and she ran to him, He made of conquest his camp-follower. How He lies forsaken! None regard his end; His flatterers whisper round him, his no more; His almost widow smiles. Better would men, Could they foresee their ending, understand The need of mercy.
CLEONE My sandal-string is loose; Kneel down and tie it, Parthian Rodogune.
EUNICE You too may feel the need of mercy yet, Cleone. Cleopatra enters swiftly from the corridors of the Palace. CLEOPATRA Antiochus is dead, is dead, and I Shall see at last the faces of my sons. O, I could cry upon the palace-tops My exultation! Gaze not on me so, Eunice. I have lived for eighteen years With silence and my anguished soul within While all the while a mother's heart in me Cried for her children's eyelids, wept to touch
Page – 192 The little bodies that with pain I bore. The long chill dawnings came without that joy. Only my hateful husband and his crown, — His crown!
EUNICE To the world he was a man august, High-thoughted, grandiose, valiant. Leave him to death, And thou enjoy thy children.
CLEOPATRA He would not let my children come to me, Therefore I spit upon his corpse. Eunice, Have you not thought sometimes how strange it will feel To see my tall strong sons come striding in Who were two lisping babes, two pretty babes? Sometimes I think they are not changed at all And I shall see my small Antiochus With those sweet sunlight curls, his father's curls, And eyes in which an infant royalty Expressed itself in glances, Timocles Holding his brother's hand and toiling to me With eyes like flowers wide-opened by the wind And rosy lips that laugh towards my breast. Will it not be strange, so sweet and strange?
EUNICE And when Will they arrive from Egypt?
CLEOPATRA Ah, Eunice, From Egypt! They are here, Eunice.
EUNICE Here!
Page – 193 CLEOPATRA Not in this room, dear fool; in Antioch, hid Where never cruel eyes could come at them. O, did you think a mother's hungry heart Could lose one fluttering moment of delight After such empty years? Theramenes, — The swift hawk he is, — by that good illness helped Darted across and brought them. They're here, Eunice! I saw them not even then, not even then Could clasp, but now Antiochus is dead, Is dead, my lips shall kiss them! Messengers Abridge the road with tempest in their hooves To bring them to me!
EUNICE Imperil not with memories of hate The hour of thy new-found felicity; For souls dislodged are dangerous and the gods Have their caprices.
CLEOPATRA Will the Furies stir Because I hated grim Antiochus? When I have slain my kin, then let them wake. The man who's dead was nothing to my heart: My husband was Nicanor, my beautiful High-hearted lord with his bright auburn hair And open face. When he died miserably A captive in the hated Parthian's bonds, My heart was broken. Only for my babes I knit the pieces strongly to each other, My little babes whom I must send away To Egypt far from me! But for Antiochus, That gloomy, sullen and forbidding soul, Harsh-featured, hard of heart, rough mud of camps And marches, — he was never lord of me. He was a reason of State, an act of policy;
Page – 194 And he exiled my children. You have not been A mother!
EUNICE I will love with you, Cleopatra, Although to hate unwilling.
CLEOPATRA Love me and with me As much as your pale quiet Parthian's loved Whom for your sake I have not slain.
CLEONE She too, The Parthian! — blames you. Was it not she who said, Your joy will bring a curse upon your sons?
CLEOPATRA Hast thou so little terror?
EUNICE Never she said it!
CLEOPATRA Fear yet; be wise! I cannot any more Feel anger! Never again can grief be born In this glad world that gives me back my sons. I can think only of my children's arms. There is a diphony of music swells Within me and it cries a double name, Twin sounds, Antiochus and Timocles, Timocles and Antiochus, the two Changing their places sweetly like a pair Of happy lovers in my brain.
CLEONE But which
Page – 195 Shall be our king in Syria?
CLEOPATRA Both shall be kings, My kings, my little royal faces made To rule my breast. Upon a meaner throne What matters who shall reign for both? Zoyla enters. ¨ ZOYLA Madam, The banner floats upon that seaward tower.
CLEOPATRA O my soul, fly to perch there! Shall it not seem My children's robes as motherwards they run to me Tired of their distant play? She leaves the room followed by Zoyla. EUNICE You, you, Cleone! gods are not in the world If you end happily.
RODOGUNE Do not reproach her. I have no complaint against one human creature; Nature and Fate do all.
EUNICE Because you were born, My Rodogune, to suffer and be sweet As was Cleone to offend. O snake, For all thy gold and roses!
RODOGUNE I did not think Her guiltless sons must pay her debt. Account
Page – 196 Is kept in heaven and our own offences Too heavy a load for us to bear. Rodogune and Eunice go out. CLEONE The doll, The Parthian puppet whom she fondles so, She hardly has a glance for me! I am glad This gloomy, grand Antiochus is dead. O now for pastime, dances, youth and flowers! Youth, youth! for we shall have upon the throne No grey beard longer, but some glorious boy Made for delight with whom we shall be young For ever. (to Phayllus, as he enters) Rejoice, brother; he is dead.
PHAYLLUS It was my desire and fear that killed him then; For he was nosing into my accounts. When shall we have these two king-cubs and which Is the crowned lion?
CLEONE That is hidden, Phayllus; You know it.
PHAYLLUS I know; I wish I also knew Why it was hidden. Perhaps there is no cause Save the hiding! Women feign and lie by nature As the snake coils, no purpose served by it. Or was it the grim king who'ld have it so?
CLEONE They are in Antioch.
Page – 197 PHAYLLUS That I knew.
CLEONE You knew?
PHAYLLUS Before Queen Cleopatra. They do not sleep Who govern kingdoms; they have ears and eyes.
CLEONE Knew and they live!
PHAYLLUS Why should one slay in vain? A dying man has nothing left to fear Or hope for. He belongs to other cares. Whichever of these Syrian cubs be crowned, He will be hungry, young and African; He will need caterers.
CLEONE Shall they not be found?
PHAYLLUS In Egypt they have other needs than ours. There lust's almost as open as feasting is; Science and poetry and learned tastes Are not confined to books, but life's an art. There are faint mysteries, there are lurid pomps; Strong philtres pass and covert drugs. Desire Is married to fulfilment, pain's enjoyed And love sometimes procures his prey for death. He'll want those strange and vivid colours here, Not dull diplomacies and hard rough arms. Then who shall look to statecraft's arid needs If not Phayllus?
Page – 198 CLEONE We shall rise?
PHAYLLUS It is that I came to learn from you. I have a need for growth; I feel a ray come nearer to my brow, The world expands before me. Will you assist, — For you have courage, falsehood, brains, — my growth? Your own assisted, — that is understood.
CLEONE Because I am near the Queen?
PHAYLLUS That helps, perhaps, But falls below the mark at which I aim. If you were nearer to the King, — why, then!
CLEONE Depend on me.
PHAYLLUS Cleone, we shall rise.
Page – 199
The colonnade of a house in Antioch, overlooking the sea. Antiochus, Philoctetes.
ANTIOCHUS The summons comes not and my life still waits.
PHILOCTETES Patience, beloved Antiochus. Even now He fronts the darkness.
ANTIOCHUS Nothing have I spoken As wishing for his death. His was a mould That should have been immortal. But since all Are voyagers to one goal and wishing's vain To hold one traveller back, I keep my hopes. O Philoctetes, we who missed his life, Should have the memory of his end! Unseen He goes from us into the shades, unknown: We are denied his solemn hours.
PHILOCTETES All men Are not like thee, my monarch, and this king Was great but dangerous as a lion is Who lives in deserts mightily alone. Admire him from that distance.
ANTIOCHUS O fear and base suspicion, evillest part Of Nature, how you spoil our grandiose life!
Page – 200 All heights are lowered, our wide embrace restrained, God's natural sunshine darkened by your fault. We were not meant for darkness, plots and hatred Reading our baseness in another's mind, But like good wrestlers, hearty comrades, hearty foes, To take and give in life's great lists together Blows and embraces.
PHILOCTETES A mother's love, a mother's fears Earn their excuse.
ANTIOCHUS I care not for such love. O Philoctetes, all this happy night I could not sleep; for proud dreams came to me In which I sat on Syria's puissant throne, Or marched through Parthia with the iron pomps Of war resounding in my train, or swam My charger through the Indus undulant, Or up to Ganges and the torrid south Restored once more the Syrian monarchy. It is divinity on earth to be a king. PHILOCTETES But if the weaker prove the elder born? If Timocles were Fate's elected king?
ANTIOCHUS
Dear merry Timocles! he would not wish
To wear the iron burden of a crown;
If he has joy, it is enough for him.
Sunshine and laughter and the arms of friends
Guard his fine monarchy of cheerful mind.
PHILOCTETES
If always Fate were careful to fit in
Page – 201
The nature with the lot! But she sometimes
Loves these strange contrasts and crude ironies.
ANTIOCHUS
Has not nurse Mentho often sworn to me
That I, not he, saw earth the first?
PHILOCTETES
And when Did woman's tongue except in wrath or malice Deliver truth that's bitter?
ANTIOCHUS Philoctetes, Do you not wish me to be king?
PHILOCTETES Why left I then Nile in his fields and Egypt slumbering Couchant upon her sands, but to pursue Your gallant progress sailing through life's seas Shattering opponents till your flag flew high, Sole admiral-ship of all this kingly world? But since upon this random earth unjust We travel stumbling to the pyre, not led By any Power nor any law, and neither What we desire nor what we deserve Arrives, but unintelligible dooms O'ertake us and the travesty of things, It is better not to hope too much.
ANTIOCHUS
It is better To lift our hopes heaven-high and to extend them As wide as earth. Heaven did not give me in vain This royal nature and this kingly form, These thoughts that wear a crown. They were not meant
Page – 202 For mockery nor to fret a subject's heart. Do you not hear the ardour of those hooves? My kingdom rides to me. He hastens to the other end of the colonnade. PHILOCTETES O glorious youth Whose young heroic arms would gird the world, I like a proud and anxious mother follow, Desiring, fearing, drawn by cords of hope and love, Admire and doubt, exult and quake and chide. She is so glad of her brave, beautiful child, But trembles lest his courage and his beauty Alarm the fatal jealousy that watches us From thrones unseen. Thoas and Melitus enter from the gates. THOAS Are these the Syrian twins?
PHILOCTETES The elder of them only, Antiochus Of Syria.
THOAS Son of Nicanor! Antiochus The high Seleucid travels the dull stream And Syria's throne is empty for his heir.
ANTIOCHUS A glorious sun has fallen then from heaven Saddening the nations, even those he smote. It is the rule of Nature makes us rise Despite our hearts replacing what we love, And I am happy who am called so soon To rule a nation of such princely men. Are you not Thoas?
Page – 203 THOAS Thoas of Macedon.
ANTIOCHUS Thoas, we shall be friends. Will it be long Before we march together through the world To stable our horses in Persepolis? He turns to speak to Timocles who has just entered and goes into the house.
MELITUS This is a royal style and kingly brow.
THOAS The man is royal. What a face looks forth From under that bright aureole of hair!
TIMOCLES I greet you, Syrians. Shall I know your names?
MELITUS Melitus. This is Thoas.
TIMOCLES Melitus? Oh yes, of Macedon.
MELITUS No, Antioch.
TIMOCLES It is the same. We talked of you in Alexandria and in Thebes, All of you famous captains. Your great names Are known to us, as now yourselves must be Known and admired and loved.
Page – 204 MELITUS Your courtesy Overwhelms me; but I am no captain, only The King's poor chamberlain, your servant come To greet you.
TIMOCLES Not therefore less a cherished friend Whose duty helps our daily happiness. Thoas, your name is in our country's book Inscribed too deeply to demand poor praise From one who never yet has drawn his sword In anger.
THOAS I am honoured, Prince. Do not forget Your mother is waiting for you after eighteen years.
TIMOCLES My mother! O, I have a mother at last. You lords shall tell me as we go, how fair She is or dark like our Egyptian dames, Noble and tall or else a brevity Of queenhood. And her face — but that, be sure, Is the sweet loving face I have seen so often In Egypt when I lay awake at night And heard the breezes whispering outside With many voices in the moonlit hours. It is late, Thoas, is it not, a child to see His mother when eighteen years have made him big? This, this is Paradise, a mother, friends And Syria. In our swart Egypt 'twas no life, — Although I liked it well when I was there; But O, your Syria! I have spent whole hours Watching your gracile Syrian women pass With their bright splendid faces. And your flowers, What flowers! and best of all, your sun, not like
Page – 205 That burning Egypt, but a warmth, a joy And a kind brightness. It will be all pleasure To reign in such a country.
ANTIOCHUS (returning from the house) Let us ride Into our kingdom.
TIMOCLES Antioch in sweet Syria, The realm for gods, and Daphne's golden groves, And swift Orontes hastening to the sea! Ride by me, Melitus, tell me everything.
Page – 206 Cleopatra's antechamber in the Palace. Cleopatra, seated; Rodogune.
CLEOPATRA It is their horsehooves ride into my heart. It shall be done. What have I any more To do with hatred? Parthian Rodogune, Have you forgotten now your former pomps And princely thoughts in high Persepolis, Or do your dreams still linger near a throne?
RODOGUNE I think all fallen beings needs must keep Some dream out of their happier past, — or else How hard it would be to live!
CLEOPATRA O, if some hope survive In the black midst of care, however small, We can live, then only, O then only.
RODOGUNE Hope! I have forgotten how men hope.
CLEOPATRA Is your life hard In Syrian Antioch, Rodogune, a slave To your most bitter foemen?
Page – 207 RODOGUNE Not when you speak So gently. Always I strive to make it sweet By outward harmony with circumstance And a calm soul within that is above My fortunes.
CLEOPATRA Parthian, you have borne the hate My husband's murder bred in me towards all Your nation. When I felt you with my heel, I trampled Tigris and Euphrates then And Parthia suffered. Therefore I let you live Half-loving in your body my revenge. But these are cruel and unhappy thoughts I hope to slay and bury with the past Which gave them birth. Will you assist me, girl? Will you begin with me another life And other feelings?
RODOGUNE If our fates allow Which are not gentle. CLEOPATRA My life begins again, My life begins again in my dear sons And my dead husband lives. All's sweetly mended. I do not wish for hatred any more. The horrible and perilous hands of war Appal me. O, let our peoples sit at ease In Grecian Antioch and Persepolis, Mothers and children, clasping those golden heads Deep, deep within our bosoms, never allow Their going forth again to bonds and death. Peace, peace, let us have peace for ever more.
Page – 208 RODOGUNE And will peace take me to my father's arms?
CLEOPATRA Or else detain you on a kingly throne. There are happier fetters.
RODOGUNE If it must be so!
CLEOPATRA Art thou insensible or fearst to rise? I cannot think that even in barbarous lands Any called human are so made that they prefer Serfhood and scourge to an imperial throne. Or is there such a soul?
RODOGUNE Shall I not know My husband first?
CLEOPATRA I did not ask your choice, But gave you a command to be obeyed Like any other that each day I give.
RODOGUNE Shall I be given him as a slave, not wife?
CLEOPATRA You rise, I think, too quickly with your fate. Or art thou other than I saw or thou Feignedst to be? Hast thou been wearing all this while Only a mask of smooth servility, Thou subtle barbarian?
Page – 209 RODOGUNE Speak not so harshly to me Who spoke so gently now. I will obey.
CLEOPATRA Hop'st thou by reigning to reign over me Restoring on a throne thy Parthian soul?
RODOGUNE What shall I be upon the Syrian throne Except your first of slaves who am now the last, The least considered? I hope not to reign, Nor ever have desired ambitious joys, Only the love that I have lacked so long Since I left Parthia.
CLEOPATRA Obey me then. Remember, The hand that seats thee can again unthrone.
RODOGUNE I shall remember and I shall obey. She retires to her station. CLEOPATRA Her flashes of quick pride are quickly past. After so many cruel, black and pitiless years Shall not the days to come conspire for joy? The Queen shall be my slave, a mind that's trained To watch for orders, one without a party In Syria, with no will to take my son from me Or steal my sovereign station. O, they come! Slowly, my heart! break not with too much bliss. Eunice comes in swiftly. EUNICE Am I the first to tell you they have come?
Page – 210 CLEOPATRA O girl, thy tongue rain joy upon the world, That speaks to me of heaven! Cleone enters. CLEONE ((to Eunice) They are more beautiful than heaven and earth. (to Cleopatra) Thy children's feet are on the palace stairs.
CLEOPATRA O no! not of the palace but my heart; I feel their tread ascending. Be still, be still, Thou flutterer in my breast: I am a queen And must not hear thee. Thoas and Melitus enter bringing in Antiochus and Timocles. THOAS Queen, we bring her sons To Cleopatra.
CLEOPATRA I thank you both. Approach. Why dost thou beat so hard within to choke me? She motions to them to stop and gazes on them in silence. TIMOCLES This is my mother. She is what I dreamed!
EUNICE O high inhabitants of Greek Olympus, Which of you all comes flashing down from heaven To snare us mortals with this earthly gaze, These simulations of humanity?
Page – 211 CLEOPATRA Say to the Syrians they shall know their king In the gods' time and hour. But these first days Are for a mother.
THOAS None shall grudge them to thee, Remembering the gods' debt to thee, Cleopatra. Thoas and Melitus leave the chamber. CLEOPATRA My children, O my children, my sweet children! Come to me, come to me, come into my arms. You beautiful, you bright, you tall heart-snarers, You are all your father.
TIMOCLES Mother, my sweet mother! I have been dreaming of you all these years, Mother!
CLEOPATRA And was the dream too fair, my child? O strange, sweet bitterness that I must ask My child his name!
TIMOCLES I am your Timocles.
CLEOPATRA You first within my arms! O right, 'tis right! It is your privilege, my sweet one. Kiss me. O yet again, my young son Timocles. O bliss, to feel the limbs that I have borne Within me! O my young radiant Timocles, You have outgrown to lie upon my lap: I have not had that mother's happiness.
Page – 212 TIMOCLES Mother, I am still your little Timocles Playing at bigness. You shall not refuse me The sweet dependent state which I have lost In that far motherless Egypt where I pined.
CLEOPATRA And like a child too, little one, you'ld have All of your mother to yourself. Must I Then thrust you from me? Let Antiochus, My tall Antiochus have now his share.
RODOGUNE He is all high and beautiful like heaven From which he came. I have not seen before A thing so mighty.
ANTIOCHUS Madam, I seek your blessing; let me kneel To have it.
CLEOPATRA Kneel! O, in my bosom, son! Have you too dreamed of me, Antiochus?
ANTIOCHUS Of great Nicanor's widow and the Queen Of Syria and my sacred fount of life.
CLEOPATRA These are cold haughty names, Antiochus. Not of your mother, not of your dear mother?
ANTIOCHUS You were for me the thought of motherhood, A noble thing and sacred. This I loved.
Page – 213 CLEOPATRA No more? Are you so cold in speech, my son? O son Antiochus, you have received Your father's face; I hope you have his heart. Do you not love me?
ANTIOCHUS Surely I hope to love.
CLEOPATRA You hope!
ANTIOCHUS O madam, do not press my words.
CLEOPATRA I do press them. Your words, your lips, your heart, Your radiant body noble as a god's I, I made in my womb, to give them light Bore agony. I have a claim upon them all. You do not love me?
ANTIOCHUS The thought of you I have loved, Honoured and cherished. By your own decree We have been to each other only thoughts; But now we meet. I trust I shall not fail In duty, love and reverence to my mother.
EUNICE His look is royal, but his speech is cold.
RODOGUNE Should he debase his godhead with a lie? She is to blame and her unjust demand.
Page – 214 CLEOPATRA It is well. My heart half slew me for only this! O Timocles, my little Timocles, Let me again embrace you, let me feel My child who dreamed of me for eighteen years In Egypt. Sit down here against my knee And tell me of Egypt, — Egypt where I was born, Egypt where my sweet sons were kept from me, Dear Egypt, hateful Egypt!
TIMOCLES I loved it well because it bore my mother, But not so well, my mother far from me.
CLEOPATRA What was your life there? Your mornings and your evenings, Your dreams at night, I must possess them all, All the sweet years my arms have lost. Did you Rising in those clear mornings see the Nile, Our father Nile, flow through the solemn azure Past the great temples in the sands of Egypt? You have seen hundred-gated Thebes, my Thebes, And my high tower where I would sit at eve Watching your kindred sun? And Alexandria With the white multitude of sails! My brother, The royal Ptolemy, did he not love To clasp his sister in your little limbs? There is so much to talk of; but not now! Eunice, take them from me for a while. Take Rodogune and call the other slaves. Let them array my sons like the great kings They should have been so long. Go, son Antiochus; Go, Timocles, my little Timocles.
ANTIOCHUS We are the future's greatness, therefore owe Some duty to the grandeurs of the past.
Page – 215 The great Antiochus lies hardly cold, Garbed for his journey. I would kneel by him And draw his mightiness into my soul Before the gloomy shades have taken away What earth could hardly value.
EUNICE This was a stab. Is there some cold ironic god at work?
CLEOPATRA The great Antiochus! Of him you dreamed? You are his nephew! Parthian, take the prince To the dead King's death-chamber, then to his own.
ANTIOCHUS She was the Parthian! Great Antiochus, Syria thou leav'st me and her and Persia afterwards To be my lovely captive. He goes out with Rodogune.
TIMOCLES (as he follows Eunice) Tell me, cousin, — I knew not I had such sweet cousins here, — Was this the Parthian princess Rodogune?
EUNICE Phraates' daughter, Prince, your mother's slave.
TIMOCLES There are lovelier faces then than Syria owns. He goes out with Eunice. CLEOPATRA You gods, you gods in heaven, you give us hearts For life to trample on! I am sick, Cleone.
Page – 216 CLEONE Why, Madam, what a son you have in him, The joyous fair-faced Timocles, yet you are sick!
CLEOPATRA But the other, oh, the other! Antiochus! He has the face that gives my husband back to me, But does not love me.
CLEONE Yet he will be king. You said he was the elder.
CLEOPATRA Did I say it? I was perplexed.
CLEONE He will be king, a man With a cold joyless heart and thrust you back Into some distant corner of your house And rule instead and fill with clamorous war Syria and Parthia and the banks of Indus Taking our lovers and our sons to death! Our sons! Perhaps he will take Timocles And offer him, a lovely sacrifice, To the grim god of battles.
CLEOPATRA My Timocles! my only joy! Oh, no! We will have peace henceforth and bloodless dawns. My envoys ride today.
CLEONE He will recall them. This is no man to rest in peaceful ease While other sceptres sway the neighbouring realms.
Page – 217 War and Ambition from his eyes look forth; His hand was made to grasp a sword-hilt. Queen, Prevent it; let our Timocles be king.
CLEOPATRA What did you say? Have you gone mad, Cleone? The gods would never bless such vile deceit. O, if it could have been! but it cannot.
CLEONE It must. Timocles dead, you a neglected mother, A queen dethroned, with one unloving child, — Childless were better, — and your age as lonely As these long nineteen years have been. Then you had hope, You will have none hereafter.
CLEOPATRA If I thought that, I would transgress all laws yet known or made And dare Heaven's utmost anger. Gods who mock me, I will not suffer to all time your wrongs. Hush, hush, Cleone! It shall not be so. I thought my heart would break with joy, but now What different passion tugs at my heart-strings, Cleone, O Cleone! O my sweet dreams, Where have you gone yielding to pangs and fears Your happy empire? Am I she who left Laughing the death-bed of Antiochus? She goes into her chamber. CLEONE We must have roses, sunlight, laughter, Prince, Not cold, harsh light of arms. Your laurels, laurels! We'll blast them quickly with a good Greek lie. Where he has gone, admire Antiochus, Not here repeat him.
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