IV
THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER
Scene from a Tragedy.—“The Life and Death of Alexander.” Anon. [Old Plays. Printed for Peter Buck, at the sign of the Temple, near the Inner-Temple-gate in Fleetstreet, 1701.]
Act V. Scene iv.—Babylon. A bed-chamber in Alexander’s Palace. Alexander sleeping in bed; Roxana attending.
Roxana. Full thrice hath Phœbus bath’d in Neptune’s flood,
Thrice hath the pale-fac’d moon increas’d and wan’d,
But Alexander is uncomforted.
Not watchful care, nor drugs, nor natural simples
Can hold at bay the sickness which pursues him.
Methinks that treason whets his murderous knife,
And meditates a foul and bloody deed.
I dare not sleep. Have pity on my woes,
Immortal gods! I know not friends from foes!
Enter a Slave
Slave. Madam.
Roxana. I know thou bringest some ill news.
Slave. Good madam, there is treason in the palace.
The Queen Statira, envious of thy issue,
Is plotting murder. She hath a strange syrup,
Brew’d by a wizard in Arabia,
More direful than the hebenon which Medea
Did cull in Colchos by the yawning graves.
She purposes, when sleep shall seize thee wholly,
To give my Lord o’ the juice.
Roxana.I thank you, slave,
I thank you, here is gold.
Slave.I thank you, madam.
[Exit Slave. Roxana feigns sleep.
Enter Queen Statira
Statira. My Lord, I come to say a last farewell,
Perchance the lying mist which seal’d thine eyes
Shall dissipate and we may be aton’d;
And, deaf to false Roxana, thou’lt prefer
Thy Royal spouse, and cancel and defy
Her bastard’s claim.
Roxana. Hence! hence, foul murd’ress hence!
Thou cursed thief who in the midnight season
Dost come to filch Great Alexander’s soul
With mixture dire of hellish property,
Begone! Thy treason is made palpable,
Thy baleful juice is harmless as pure water,
And thy dread weapon, turning on thyself,
Shall compass thine own ignomy.
Statira.Vain fool!
Thy scolding frights me not. I am Statira.
Nor canst thou with false accusation
Raze from this brow the seal of royalty,
Nor take away the sov’ranty of birth.
Albeit supplanted by a saucy caitiff,
Albeit slighted, I was once a Queen;
And I am still the daughter of Darius,
The King, whom kneeling Emperors called the Great.
Farewell, my Lord, with no more dreadful purpose
Have I come hither, than to say farewell.
I was thy spouse, and I will not importune
A faithless husband with a faithfulness
Unprofitable. So my Lord, farewell.
[Exit Statira. Alexander wakes.
Alexander. Roxana, take thy lute. My soul is heavy.
Sing me asleep with music, let me rest.
Song
’Twas in the merry month of May,
When the sweet birds do sing,
That Proserpine—ah! lack-a-day!—
Did go a-gathering.
She stoop’d and cull’d the violet,
The pansy and the oxlip wet.
But gloomy Dis the maid espied,
And yoked his horses six,
And in his wagon drove a bride
Across the doleful Styx.
’Twas in the merry month of May
She gathered flowers. Ah! lack-a-day!
Alexander. I thank you, ’tis a tuneful melody.
I am aweary. Sleep, impiteous sleep,
Unmitigable, uncorruptible gaoler,
Come, cloak my senses with thy leaden robe,
Lead me to durance in thy drowsy cell.
Enter Doctor
Doctor. How doth my Lord?
Roxana. Ill, ill beyond the power
Of simples, drugs, and the physician’s art.
In slumb’ry perturbation he’ll converse
With images of his distemper’d fancy;
Or he will bid me touch the instrument
And soothe his fever’d spirit with a strain.
Doctor. Are you not weary? It is now three nights
That you have watch’d.
Roxana. The canker of sharp grief,
The sleepless sorrow gnawing at my heart
Doth countervail outwearied nature’s claim.
I shall not sleep till Alexander wakes
To health, or till he sleeps to wake no more.
But, softly. See, he stirs.
Doctor.Good night, sweet lady.
Roxana. Good night to you.
[Exit Doctor. Roxana sleeps.
Alexander. The galleys ride at anchor!
To-morrow we’ll set sail for Italy,
Nor rest until we’ve pitch’d our tent in Rome,
And snatch’d the insolent jewel of the West.
But yesterday the Afric oracle
Bespake to me an unconfined sway,
An orb and empery unparallel’d.
And thence, when the barbarians of the West
Are mild as leashed hounds beneath our yoke,
And when each sev’ral province hath subscrib’d,
To India we’ll retrace our eager steps
And reach the undiscover’d sea beyond.
By the lush banks of Ganges, Alexander
Shall build a temple to his royal sire,
Great Jupiter. Thence we’ll to Babylon,
And plant there our abiding seat of rule
In the fix’d centre of the universe.
North, south, and east and west shall our dominion,
Like the spread rays of gold Hyperion,
Pierce to the distant corners of the globe.
Oh look, Seleucus, look, Hephæstion,
Look, the Swarth King in jewell’d burgonet,
All clinquant, mounted on an elephant,
Advances with his congregated host.
On veterans! On, on, Bucephalus!
The ford! The ford! The villains fly! Come, Ho!
Clitus, awake, Roxana, O.
Roxana.My Lord?
Alexander. Didst thou cry out?
Roxana. My Lord, I was asleep,
And knew not that I cried.
Alexander.Give me to drink.
Methought I was once more in India,
Crying my veterans to victory
Across the enchafed surges of Hydaspes,
My spirit fails. Come near to me, Roxana,
That I may breathe my last in fond adieu.
Roxana. Drink, my Lord, of this potion. It is mix’d
Of herb-grace by a sure apothecary.
Alexander. Farewell, Roxana. Hie thee to my mother,
Olympias, and tell her that I die
Her name upon my lips, a dutiful son.
Salute her with deep duty, say I needed
Her tenderness; say that I am the shadow,
The mockery and ruins of her boy
Who manag’d and bestrid Bucephalus.
Remain with her, and let our only child
Be nurs’d and school’d in martial exercise,
And taught, as I was taught, philosophy.
Farewell, adieu! The last of all the Greeks
Hath gone to meet Achilles.
Roxana.O my Lord!
Enter Messenger
Messenger. Most gracious liege, the veterans are here,
They press without.
Alexander.They shall be welcome. Ho!
Come quickly, veterans, or I am dead.
Roxana. My Lord! My husband!
Enter Veterans
Alexander.Friends, farewell to you,
Friends all and brothers all and countrymen,
Born of one soil in Macedonia,
Tell Macedon of how we fought together
Beyond Hydaspes. Grieve not overmuch,
That with the world half-conquer’d I must die,
Not fighting, but in bed, and like a woman.
I, to whom earth’s huge globe was all too small,
Must occupy a niggard urn of dust.
I am for India. Come, Bucephalus,
One charge and we are masters of the world!
[Dies.
Roxana. Great Alexander’s dead. That soaring spirit
Which fretted in the confines of the world,
Hath broken from its circumscribing clay.
Hyperion himself was not so bright,
Nor Mars so bold. Our Orient sun hath set.
Ashy eclipse shall darken the stale world:
Asia and Egypt to the furthest Ind,
And Greece, and Macedon, where he was born,
Shall mingle tears of everlasting woe.
Come bear his body hence, and build a pyre
More lofty than the walls of Babylon;
And when the funeral’s done, we’ll bear his urn,
Obsequiously in sad procession,
Across the Libyan desert, to the grove
Where stands the Temple of his father Jove.
Curtain.