John Dryden

“ But here in Egypt whet my blunted horns,
And meditate new fights, and chew my loss.
Ah! why, ye gods, must Cleomenes wait
On this effeminate, luxurious court,
For tardy helps of base Egyptian bands?
Why have not I, whose individual mind
Would ask a nation of such souls to inform it,
Why have not I ten thousand hands to fight
It all myself, and make the work my own?
Enter Cratesiclea, Cleora, and Cleonidas.
Crat. Is this well done? or like the king of Sparta?
Or like my son? to waste your time in tears?
What have you done, that you avoid mankind,
And sculk in corners like a guilty slave? ”

“ SCENE II.—The Street before Lopez's House.
Enter Sancho, habited like Don Alonzo de Cardona, with a hunch-back, Dalinda meeting him.
Dal. I watched your coming at the window, and told my father. He's coming out to welcome you.
San. But if I chance to break out into a little wit sometimes, you'll excuse my frailty.
Dal. Pugh, you are so suspicious of yourself, and have so little reason for it. Be as witty as you can; I fear you not.
Enter Don Lopez, and salutes him.
Lop. Noble Conde, you are welcome from the wars. And who did best in the battle, I beseech your honour? ”

“ Sos. No, I thank you; you may whistle me long enough; a beaten dog has always the wit to avoid his master.
Merc. I permit thee to be Sosia again.
Sos. 'Tis an unfortunate name, and I abandon it: he that has an itch to be beaten, let him take it up for Sosia;—What have I said now! I mean for me; for I neither am nor will be Sosia.
Merc. But thou may'st be so in safety; for I have acknowledged myself to be god Mercury.
Sos. You may be a god, for aught I know; but the devil take me if ever I worship you, for an unmerciful deity as you are. ”

“ Oh, still thou think'st to fly a fool to mark.
Phil. I fled from Merlin, free as air that bore me,
To unfold to Osmond all his deep designs.
Grim. I believe nothing: Oh thou fond impostor,
When wert thou last in hell? Is not thy name
Forgot, and blotted from the infernal roll?
But since thou sayest, thy errand was to Osmond,
To Osmond shalt thou go: march, know thy driver.
Phil. [Kneeling.] Oh spare me, Grimbald, and I'll be thy slave,
Tempt hermits for thee, in their holy cells,
And virgins, in their dreams.
Grim. Canst thou, a devil, hope to cheat a devil? ”

“ Let me alone, I'll cudgel him away;
But I abhor so villainous a shape.
Jup. Take it, I charge thee on thy duty, take it;
Nor dare to lay it down, till I command.
I cannot bear a moment's loss of joy.—
Night appears above in a chariot.
Look up, the Night is in her silent chariot,
And rolling just o'er Thebes: Bid her drive slowly, [22]
Or make a double turn about the world;
While I drop Jove, and take Amphitryon's dress,
To be the greater, while I seem the less.
[Exit Jupiter.
Merc. [To Night.] Madam Night, a good even to you! Fair and softly, I beseech you, madam ”

“ For, if it is not dishonourable for the race of Hercules to serve the successors of Philip and Alexander, we shall save a long voyage, by delivering ourselves up to Antigonus, who probably surpasseth Ptolemy, as much as the Macedonians do the Egyptians: but if we think it mean to submit to those whose arms have conquered us, why should we choose him for our lord, by whom we have not yet been beaten? Is it, that instead of one, we might appear meaner than two, whilst we fly Antigonus, and flatter Ptolemy? Or, is it for your mother's sake that you retreat to Egypt? ”

“ If not, all Egypt's numbered in myself.
Cleom. I'm all on fire.—Now for a lucky pull
At fate's last lottery!
I long to see the colour, white or black:
That's the gods' work; and if I fall their shame,
Let them ne'er think of making heroes more,
If cowards must prevail.
Panth. The fewer hands,
The fewer partners in the share of honour.
Cleom. Come, my Pantheus;—lead, my best Cleanthes!
We three to all the world. ”

“ Ptol. The greatest in the world: to see the man,
Whom even his foes extol, his friends adore,
And all mankind admire.
Cleom. Say rather, sir,
A man forsaken of his better stars,
A banished prince, the shadow of a king.
Ptol. My father's friend.
Cleom. I must not think so vainly of myself,
To be what you have said; lest it upbraid you,
To let your father's friend for three long months
Thus dance attendance for a word of audience.
Cas. Now, by my soul, 'tis nobly urged: He speaks
As if he were in Sparta, on his throne;
Not asking aid, but granting.
How little looks our pageant prince to him! ”

“ Such bargain-loves, as I with Phædra treat,
Are all the leagues and friendships of the great;
All seek their ends, and each would other cheat.
They only seem to hate, and seem to love;
But interest is the point on which they move.
Their friends are foes, and foes are friends again,
And, in their turns, are knaves, and honest men.
Our iron age is grown an age of gold:
'Tis who bids most; for all men will be sold. ”

“ Peace, thou disputing fool!—
Learn this; If thou could'st comprehend my ways,
Then thou wert Jove, not I; yet thus far know,
That, for the good of human kind, this night
I shall beget a future Hercules,
Who shall redress the wrongs of injured mortals,
Shall conquer monsters, and reform the world.
Merc. Ay, brother Phœbus; and our father made all those monsters for Hercules to conquer, and contrived all those vices on purpose for him to reform too, there's the jest on't.
Phœ. Since arbitrary power will hear no reason,
'Tis wisdom to be silent. ”

“ For whom your lost Alphonso you disdain.
If one must die, to set your honour free,
You have already cast the lot on me.
Death is the only way to clear my fame,
Which must be branded with a coward's name,
If basely I resign Victoria's charms,
And tamely give you to my rival's arms.
Vict. To give me to my father is no crime.
Alph. 'Tis still the same; your father gives you him.
Ungrateful woman!
Vict. More ungrateful man! ”

“ We rage at first with ill-dissembled scorn;
Then, falling from our height, more basely mourn;
And man, the insulting tyrant, takes his turn,
Leaves us to weep for our neglected charms,
And hugs another mistress in his arms;
And, that which humbles our proud sex the most,
Of all our slighted favours makes his boast. [Exit Cassandra.
Enter Cleomenes.
Cleom. Her words, her every look, confess she loves me;
And therefore she detains these hostages,
As pawns of my return to her and Egypt. [294]
Thus far 'tis plain and obvious:—But the picture;
That Helen: There's the riddle of her love. ”

“ Merc. 'Tis a good girl; I will be secret: and, further, I will be assisting to thee in thy filching; for thou and I were born under the same planet.
Phæd. And we shall come to the same end too, I'm afraid.
Merc. No, no; since thou hast wit enough already to cozen a judge, thou needst never fear hanging.
Phæd. And will you make yourself a younger man, and be handsome too, and rich? for you, that know hearts, must needs know, that I shall never be constant to such an ugly old Sosia. ”

“ Osm. Father of gods and men, great Woden, hear!
Mount thy hot courser, drive amidst thy foes,
Lift high thy thundering arm, let every blow
Dash out a misbelieving Briton's brains!
Osw. Father of gods and men, great Woden, hear!
Give conquest to thy Saxon race, and me!
Osm. Thor, Freya, Woden, hear, and spell your Saxons,
With sacred Runick rhymes, from death in battle;
Edge their bright swords, and blunt the Britons' darts!— [20]
No more, great prince; for see my trusty fiend,
Who all the night has winged the dusky air.—
Grinbald, a fierce earthy Spirit, arises. ”

“ Enter Cleanthes.
Cleom. Not worth the seeking. Are these fit to atone
For Cleomenes' mother, son, and wife?
But what the gods have left us, we must take.
Clean. 'Tis all in vain: we have no further work.
The people will not be dragged out to freedom;
They bar their doors against it. Nay, the prisoners
Even guard their chains, as their inheritance,
And man their very dungeons for their masters,
Lest godlike liberty, the common foe,
Should enter in, and they be judged hereafter
Accomplices of freedom.
Panth. Then we may sheath our swords.
Clean. We may, Pantheus ”

“ Mer. Why, 'tis my hopeful devil. Now mark me, Philidel;
I will employ thee, for thy future good.
Thou know'st, in spite of valiant Oswald's arms,
Or Osmond's powerful spells, the field is ours.
Phil. Oh, master! hasten
Thy dread commands; for Grimbald is at hand,
Osmond's fierce fiend; I snuff his earthy scent.
The conquering Britons he misleads to rivers,
Or dreadful downfals of unheeded rocks;
Where many fall, that ne'er shall rise again. ”

“ Then must I rust in Egypt, never more
Appear in arms, and be the chief of Greece?
Now, by yon blue palace,
The mansion of my great forefather, Hercules,
I would lose o'er again Sellasia's field,
Rather than fight behind,
When proud Aratus led the Grecian van.
Cleon. What, when the lively trumpets sound a charge,
The word of battle may be Hercules,
And after our great grandsire's name, Aratus
Cries,—Cleomenes, bring you up the rear.
Panth. If fortune takes not off this boy betimes,
He'll make mad work, and elbow all his neighbours. ”

“ Now Cleomenes had a generous and great soul: he was as temperate and moderate in his pleasures as Agis, but not so very cautious, circumspect, and gentle; a spur of passion always galled him, and his eagerness to pursue that which he thought good and just, was violent and heady. To make men willing to obey, he conceived to be the best discipline; but likewise to break the stubborn, and force them to be better, was, in his opinion, commendable and brave. This disposition made him dislike the management of the city. The citizens lay dissolved in supine idleness and pleasures ”

“ Thus, in her death, the modesty of her mind appeared, and set the guard upon her body, which she always kept when alive; and she, in the declining age of the Spartans, shewed, that women were no unequal rivals of the men, and was an instance of such a courage as would not sneak to the affronts of fortune. A few days after, those that watched the hanging body of Cleomenes, saw a very great snake winding about his head, and covering his face, so that no bird of prey should fly at it. ”

“ Lest I be forced to live, and led in triumph,
Defrauded of my fate. I've earned it well,
And finished all my task: This is my place,
Just at my master's feet.—Guard him, ye gods,
And save his sacred corpse from public shame.
[He falls on his Sword, and lies at the foot of Cleomenes.—Dies.
Enter Sosibius, Cassandra, and Egyptians.
Sosib. 'Twas what my heart foreboded: There he lies,
Extended by the man whom best he loved!
A better friend than son.
Cas. What's he, or thou? or Ptolemy? or Egypt?
Or all the world, to Cleomenes lost?
[328]
Sosib. Then I suspected right. ”

“ Why, Phædra! Bromia!——
Merc. Peace, fellow; if my wife hears thee, we are both undone. At a word, Phædra and Bromia are very busy; one in making a caudle for my lady, and the other in heating napkins, to rub down my lord when he rises from bed.
Amph. Amazement seizes me!
Merc. At what art thou amazed? My master and my lady had a falling out, and are retired, without seconds, to decide the quarrel. If thou wert not a meddlesome fool, thou wouldst not be thrusting thy nose into other people's matters. ”

“ Nature has given me my portion in sense, with a pox to her, and turned me out into the wide world to starve upon it. She has given Sancho an empty noddle; but fortune, in revenge, has filled his pockets: just a lord's estate in land and wit. ”

“ From the king downward, (if there be a downward,
From Ptolemy to any of his slaves,)
No true Egyptian ever knew in horses
The far side from the near.
Clean. Cleomenes told thee true: Thou shouldst have brought
A soft pad strumpet for our monarch's use;
Though, thanked be hell, we want not one at home,—
Our master's mistress, she that governs all.
'Tis well, ye powers, ye made us but Egyptians:
You could not have imposed
On any other people such a load,
As an effeminate tyrant and a woman. ”

“ Time and Death shall depart, and say, in flying,
Love has found out a way to live by dying.
Cleom. [To Clean.] Is this the council of the Egyptian king?
And am I called upon the grave debate,
To judge of trilling notes, and tripping feet?
Clean. 'Tis of a piece with all the rest of Ptolemy;
A singing and a dancing government.—
O Egypt, Egypt! thou art grown the lees
Of all the world; the slime of thy own Nile.
Sure we had neither human sires, nor mothers;
The sun and Nile begot us: We're so cowardly,
And yet so proud; so many gods we have. [266]
And yet not one!—
Cleom. ”

“ My name is Philidel, my lot in air,
Where, next beneath the moon, and nearest heaven,
I soar, and have a glimpse to be received,
For which the swarthy dæmons envy me.
Mer. Thy business here?
Phil. To shun the Saxon wizard's dire commands,
Osmond, the awfullest name, next thine, below.
'Cause I refused to hurl a noisome fog
On christened heads, the hue and cry of hell
Is raised against me, for a fugitive sprite.
Mer. Osmond shall know, a greater power protects thee. ”

“ TO MR DRYDEN ON HIS CLEOMENES.
Has youth then lost its great prerogative?
And does the soul alone for age survive?
Like embryos sleeping in their seeds, seem nought,
'Till friendly time does ripen it to thought? ”

“ In the art of exciting pity, she had a power beyond all the actresses I have yet seen, or what your imagination can conceive. Of the former of these two great excellencies, she gave the most delightful proofs in almost all the heroic plays of Dryden and Lee; and of the latter, in the softer passions of Otway's Monimia and Belvidera. In scenes of anger, defiance, or resentment, while she was impetuous and terrible, she poured out the sentiment with an enchanting harmony ”

“ Lay down thy vengeful sword; 'tis fatal here:
What need of arms, where no defence is made?
A love-sick virgin, panting with desire,
No conscious eye to intrude on our delights:
For this thou hast the Syrens' songs despised;
For this, thy faithful passion I reward.
Haste then, to take me longing to thy arms.
Arth. O love! O Merlin! whom should I believe?
Em. Believe thyself, thy youth, thy love, and me;
They, only they, who please themselves, are wise. ”

“ If a true account may be expected by future ages from the present, your lordship will be delivered over to posterity in a fairer character than I have given; and be read, not in the preface of a play, (whose author is not vain enough to promise immortality to others, or to hope it for himself,) but in many pages of a chronicle, filled with praises of your administration. For, if writers be just to the memory of King Charles II., they cannot deny him to have been an exact knower of mankind, and a perfect distinguisher of their talents. ”

“ As for other objections, I never heard any worth answering; and, least of all, that foolish one which is raised against me by the sparks, for Cleomenes not accepting the favours of Cassandra. They would not have refused a fair lady! I grant they would not; but, let them grant me, that they are not heroes; and so much for the point of honour [37] . A man might have pleaded an excuse for himself, if he had been false to an old wife, for the sake of a young mistress; but Cleora was in the flower of her age, and it was yet but honey-moon with Cleomenes; and so much for nature. ”

“ You are not Ptolemy;
Nor is he Cleomenes.
Cleom. I'll press him home,
To give me my dispatch; few ships will serve
To bear my little band, and me, to Greece:
I will not ask him one of his Egyptians;
No, let him keep them all for slaves and stallions,
Fit only to beget their successors.
Clean. Excepting one Egyptian,—that's myself.
Cleom. Thou need'st not be excepted; thou art only
Misplanted in a base degenerate soil;
But Nature, when she made thee, meant a Spartan.
Panth. Then if your father will but second us—
Clean. ”

“ Accursed thy temple! more accursed thy priests!
The gods are theirs, not ours; and when we pray
For happy omens, we their price must pay.
In vain at shrines the ungiving suppliant stands;
This 'tis to make a vow with empty hands:
Fat offerings are the priesthood's only care;
They take the money, and heaven hears the prayer.
Without a bribe their oracles are mute;
And their instructed gods refuse the suit. ”

“ Good my lord, what is become of my poor bedfellow, your man Sosia? you keep such a billing and cooing here, to set one's mouth a watering—what I say, though I am a poor woman, I have a husband as well as my lady; and should be as glad as she, of a little honest recreation.
Phæd. And what have you done with your old friend, and my old sweetheart, Judge Gripus? has [27] he brought me home a crammed purse, that swells with bribes? if he be rich, I will make him welcome like an honourable magistrate; but if he has not had the wit to sell justice, he judges no causes in my court, I warrant him. ”

“ When I consider what has passed between the count and me, there's little reason to believe a man should put on a foul shirt again, when he has put it off already, and has change of linen by him. However, my father shall know nothing of this disguise; for he, that sold my first maidenhead to the lord, may sell my second to the fool; and that would be too much in conscience, that a woman, once in twice, should not have the letting her own freehold. And therefore I will have the selling of myself, and Sancho shall have the refusal of the bargain. ”