And they had best be guardians of the baggage.
    The shed will hold the weather from their sleep,
    The woodfire warm them--and, for beds, a cloak
    Is swansdown to a seasoned traveller:
    It has been mine for many a moon, and may
    Tonight, for aught it recks me.

    _Stralenheim_.                  And tomorrow
    I must be on my journey--and betimes.
    It is not more than three days travel, hence,                      160
    To Mansfeldt Castle.

    _Werner and Ulric_. Mansfeldt Castle!--

    _Stralenheim_.                           Aye!
    For thither tends my progress--so, betimes,
    Mine host I would be stirring--think of that!
    And let me find my couch of rest at present.

    _Werner_. You shall Sir--but--to Mansfeldt!--
                          [ULRIC _stops his father and says aside to him_,
                                                 _Silence--father--_
    Whate'er it be that shakes you thus--_tread down_--
    (_To Stralenheim_) My father, Sir, was born not far from Prague,
    And knows it's environs--and, when he hears,
    The name endeared to him by native thoughts,
    He would ask of it, and it's habitants--                           170
    You will excuse his plain blunt mode of question.

    _Stralenheim_. Indeed, perchance, then, he may aid my search.
    Pray, know you aught of one named Werner? who
    (But he no doubt has passed through many names),
    Lived long in Hamburgh--and has thence been traced
    Into Silesia--and not far from hence--
    But there we lost him; he who can disclose
    Aught of him, or his hiding-place, will find
    Advantage in revealing it.

    _Ulric_.                  Why so--Sir?

    _Stralenheim_. There are strong reasons to suspect this man        180
    Of crimes against the State--league with Swedes--
    And other evil acts of moment:--he
    Who shall deliver him, bound hand and foot,
    Will benefit his country and himself:
    I will reward him doubly too.

    _Ulric_.                      You know him?

    _Stralenheim_. He never met my eyes--but Circumstance
    Has led me to near knowledge of the man.
    He is a villain--and an enemy
    To all men--most to me! If earth contain him,
    He shall be found and fettered: I have hopes,                      190
    By traces which tomorrow will unravel,
    A fresh clue to his lurking spot is nigh.

    _Carl_. And, if I find it, I will break the thread.
    What, all the world against one luckless wight!
    And he a fugitive--I would I knew him!

    _Ulric_. You'd help him to escape--is it not so?

    _Carl_. I would, indeed!

    _Ulric_.                 The greater greenhorn you!
    I would secure him--nay--I will do so.

    _Stralenheim_. If it be so--my gratitude for aid,
    And rescue of my life from the wild waters,                        200
    Will double in it's strength and it's requital.
    Your father, too, perhaps can help our search?

    _Werner_. _I_ turn a spy--no--not for _Mansfeldt Castle_,
    And all the broad domain it frowns upon.

    _Stralenheim_. Mansfeldt again!--you know it then? perchance,
    You also know the story of it's lords?

    _Werner_. Whate'er I know, there is no bribe of thine
    Can swerve me to the crooked path thou pointest.
    The chamber's ready, which your rest demands.

    _Stralenheim_ (_aside_).
    'Tis strange--this peasant's tone is wondrous high,                210
    His air imperious--and his eye shines out
    As wont to look command with a quick glance--
    His garb befits him not--why, he may be
    The man I look for! now, I look again,
    There is the very lip--short curling lip--
    And the oerjutting eye-brow dark and large,
    And the peculiar wild variety
    Of feature, even unto the Viper's eye,
    Of that detested race, and it's descendant
    Who stands alone between me and a power,                           220
    Which Princes gaze at with unquiet eyes!
    This is no peasant--but, whate'er he be,
    Tomorrow shall secure him and unfold.

    _Ulric_. It will not please you, Sir, then to remain
    With us beyond tomorrow?

    _Stralenheim_. Nay--I do not say so--there is no haste.
    And now I think again--I'll tarry here--
    Perhaps until the floods abate--we'll see--
    In the mean time--to my chamber--so--Good Night!
                                                      [_Exit with_ WERNER.

    _Werner_. This way, Sir.

    _Carl_. And I to mine: pray, where are we to rest?                 230
    We'll sup within--

    _Ulric_.          What matter where--there's room.

    _Carl_. I would fain see my way through this vast ruin;
    Come take the lamp, and we'll explore together.

    _Josepha_ (_meeting them_). And I will with my son.

    _Ulric_.                          Nay--stay--dear mother!
    These chilly damps and the cold rush of winds
    Fling a rough paleness o'er thy delicate cheek--
    And thou seem'st lovely in thy sickliness
    Of most transparent beauty:--but it grieves me.
    Nay! tarry here by the blaze of the bright hearth:--
    I will return anon--and we have much                               240
    To listen and impart. Come, Carl, we'll find
    Some gorgeous canopy, and, thence, unroost
    It's present bedfellows the bats--and thou
    Shalt slumber underneath a velvet cloud
    That mantles o'er the couch of some dead Countess.
                                                 [_Exit_ CARL _and_ ULRIC.

    _Josepha_ (_sola_). It was my joy to see him--nothing more
    I should have said--which sent my gush of blood
    Back on my full heart with a dancing tide:
    It was my weary hope's unthought fulfilment,
    My agony of mother-feelings curdled                                250
    At once in gathered rapture--which did change
    My cheek into the hue of fainting Nature.
    I should have answered thus--and yet I could not:
    For though 'twas true--it was not all the truth.
    I have much suffered in the thought of Werner's
    Late deep distemperature of mind and fortunes,
    Which since have almost driven him into phrenzy:--
    And though that I would soothe, not share, such passions,
    And show not how they shake me:--when alone,
    I feel them prey upon me by reflection,                            260
    And want the very solace I bestowed;
    And which, it seems, I cannot give and have.
    Ulric must be my comforter--his father's
    Hath long been the most melancholy soul
    That ever hovered o'er the verge of Madness:
    And, better, had he leapt into it's gulph:
    Though to the Mad thoughts are realities,
    Yet they can play with sorrow--and live on.
    But with the mind of consciousness and care
    The body wears to ruin, and the struggle,                          270
    However long, is deadly----He is lost,
    And all around him tasteless:--in his mirth
    His very laughter moves me oft to tears,
    And I have turned to hide them--for, in him,
    As Sunshine glittering o'er unburied bones----
    Soft--he is here.----

    _Werner_.             Josepha--where is Ulric?

    _Josepha_. Gone with the other stranger to gaze o'er
    These shattered corridors, and spread themselves
    A pillow with their mantles, in the least ruinous:
    I must replenish the diminished hearth                             280
    In the inner chamber--the repast is ready,
    And Ulric will be here again.--

                       THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED:

                                 A DRAMA.

               INTRODUCTION TO _THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED_.

The date of the original MS. of _The Deformed Transformed_ is "Pisa,
1822." There is nothing to show in what month it was written, but it may
be conjectured that it was begun and finished within the period which
elapsed between the death of Allegra, April 20, and the death of
Shelley, July 8, 1822. According to Medwin (_Conversations_, 1824, p.
227), an unfavourable criticism of Shelley's ("It is a bad imitation of
_Faust_"), together with a discovery that "two entire lines" of
Southey's--

    "And water shall see thee,
    And fear thee, and flee thee"--

were imbedded in one of his "Songs," touched Byron so deeply that he
"threw the poem into the fire," and concealed the existence of a second
copy for more than two years. It is a fact that Byron's correspondence
does not contain the remotest allusion to _The Deformed Transformed_;
but, with regard to the plagiarism from Southey, in the play as written
in 1822 there is neither Song nor Incantation which could have contained
two lines from _The Curse of Kehama_.

As a dramatist, Byron's function, or _métier_, was twofold. In
_Manfred_, in _Cain_, in _Heaven and Earth_, he is concerned with the
analysis and evolution of metaphysical or ethical notions; in _Marino
Faliero_, in _Sardanapalus_, and _The Two Foscari_, he set himself "to
dramatize striking passages of history;" in _The Deformed Transformed_
he sought to combine the solution of a metaphysical puzzle or problem,
the relation of personality to individuality, with the scenic rendering
of a striking historical episode, the Sack of Rome in 1527.

In the note or advertisement prefixed to the drama, Byron acknowledges
that "the production" is founded partly on the story of a forgotten
novel, _The Three Brothers_, and partly on "the _Faust_ of the great
Goethe."

Arnaud, or Julian, the hero of _The Three Brothers_ (by Joshua
Pickersgill, jun., 4 vols., 1803), "sells his soul to the Devil, and
becomes an arch-fiend in order to avenge himself for the taunts of
strangers on the deformity of his person" (see _Gent. Mag._, November,
1804, vol. 74, p. 1047; and _post_, pp. 473-479). The idea of an escape
from natural bonds or disabilities by supernatural means and at the
price of the soul or will, the _un_-Christlike surrender to the tempter,
which is the _grund-stoff_ of the Faust-legend, was brought home to
Byron, in the first instance, not by Goethe, or Calderon, or Marlowe,
but by Joshua Pickersgill. A fellow-feeling lent an intimate and
peculiar interest to the theme. He had suffered all his life from a
painful and inconvenient defect, which his proud and sensitive spirit
had magnified into a deformity. He had been stung to the quick by his
mother's taunts and his sweetheart's ridicule, by the jeers of the base
and thoughtless, by slanderous and brutal paragraphs in newspapers. He
could not forget that he was lame. If his enemies had but possessed the
wit, they might have given him "the sobriquet of _Le Diable Boiteux_"
(letter to Moore, April 2, 1823, _Letters_, 1901, vi. 179). It was no
wonder that so poignant, so persistent a calamity should be "reproduced
in his poetry" (_Life_, p. 13), or that his passionate impatience of
such a "thorn in the flesh" should picture to itself a mysterious and
unhallowed miracle of healing. It is true, as Moore says (_Life_, pp.
45, 306), that "the trifling deformity of his foot" was the embittering
circumstance of his life, that it "haunted him like a curse;" but it by
no means follows that he seriously regarded his physical peculiarity as
a stamp of the Divine reprobation, that "he was possessed by an _idée
fixe_ that every blessing would be 'turned into a curse' to him" (letter
of Lady Byron to H. C. Robinson, _Diary, etc._, 1869, in. 435, 436). No
doubt he indulged himself in morbid fancies, played with the
extravagances of a restless imagination, and wedded them to verse; but
his intellect, "brooding like the day, a master o'er a slave," kept
guard. He would never have pleaded on his own behalf that the tyranny of
an _idée fixe_, a delusion that he was predestined to evil, was an
excuse for his shortcomings or his sins.

Byron's very considerable obligations to _The Three Brothers_ might have
escaped notice, but the resemblance between his "Stranger," or "Cæsar,"
and the Mephistopheles of "the great Goethe" was open and palpable.

If Medwin may be trusted (_Conversations_, 1824, p. 210), Byron had read
"_Faust_ in a sorry French translation," and it is probable that
Shelley's inspired rendering of "May-day Night," which was published in
_The Liberal_ (No. i., October 14, 1822, pp. 123-137), had been read to
him, and had attracted his attention. _The Deformed Transformed_ is "a
_Faustish_ kind of drama;" and Goethe, who maintained that Byron's play
as a whole was "no imitation," but "new and original, close, genuine,
and spirited," could not fail to perceive that "his devil was suggested
by my Mephistopheles" (_Conversations_, 1874, p. 174). The tempter who
cannot resist the temptation of sneering at his own wiles, who mocks for
mocking's sake, is not Byron's creation, but Goethe's. Lucifer talked
_at_ the clergy, if he did not "talk like a clergyman;" but the "bitter
hunchback," even when he is _solus_, sneers as the river wanders, "at
his own sweet will." He is not a doctor, but a spirit of unbelief!

The second part of _The Deformed Transformed_ represents, in three
scenes, the Siege and Sack of Rome in 1527. Byron had read Robertson's
_Charles the Fifth_ (ed. 1798, ii. 313-329) in his boyhood (_Life_, p.
47), but it is on record that he had studied, more or less closely, the
narratives of contemporary authorities. A note to _The Prophecy of
Dante_ (_Poetical Works_, 1901, iv. 258) refers to the _Sacco di Roma_,
descritto da Luigi Guicciardini, and the _Ragguaglio Storico ... sacco
di Roma dell' anno_ MDXXVII. of Jacopo Buonaparte; and it is evident
that he was familiar with Cellini's story of the marvellous gests and
exploits _quorum maxima pars fuit_, which were wrought at "the walls by
the Campo Santo," or on the ramparts of the Castle of San Angelo.

The Sack of Rome was a great national calamity, and it was something
more: it was a profanation and a sacrilege. The literature which it
evoked was a cry of anguish, a prophetic burden of despair. "Chants
populaires," writes M. Emile Gebhart (_De l'Italie_, "Le Sac de Rome en
1527," 1876, pp. 267, _sq._), "_Nouvelles_ de Giraldi Cintio, en forme
de Décaméron ... récits historiques ... de César Grollier, _Dialogues_
anonymes ... poésies de Pasquin, toute une littérature se developpa sur
ce thème douloureux.... Le _Lamento di Roma_, œuvre étrange,
d'inspiration gibeline, rappelle les espérances politiques exprimées
jadis par Dante ... 'Bien que César m'ait dépouilleé de liberté, nous
avons toujours été d'accord dans une même volonté. Je ne me lamenterais
pas si lui régnait; mais je crois qu'il est ressuscité, ou qu'il
ressuscitera véritablement, car souvent un Ange m'a annoncé qu'un César
viendrait me délivrer.'... Enfin, voici une chanson française que
répétaient en repassant les monts les soldats du Marquis de Saluces:--

    "Parlons de la déffaiete
    De ces pouvres Rommains,
    Aussi de la complainete
    De notre père saint.

    "'O noble roy de France,
    Regarde en pitié
    L'Eglise en ballance ...
    Pour Dieu! ne tarde plus,
    C'est ta mère, ta substance;
    O fils, n'en faictz reffus.'"

"Le dernier monument," adds M. Gebhart, in a footnote, "de cette
littérature, est le singulier drame de Byron, _The Deformed
Transformed_, dont Jules César est le héros, et le Sac de Rome le
cadre."

It is unlikely that Byron, who read everything he could lay his hands
upon, and spared no trouble to master his "period," had not, either at
first or second hand, acquainted himself with specimens of this popular
literature. (For _La Presa e Lamento di Roma_, _Romæ Lamentatio_, etc.,
see _Lamenti Storici dei Secoli xiv., xv_. (Medin e Fratri), _Scelta di
Curiosità_, etc., 235, 236, 237, Bologna, 1890, vol. iii. See, too, for
"Chanson sur la Mort du Connétable de Bourbon," _Recueil de Chants
historiques français_, par A. J. V. Le Roux de Lincy, 1842, ii. 99.)

_The Deformed Transformed_ was published by John Hunt, February 20,
1824. A third edition appeared February 23, 1824.

It was reviewed, unfavourably, in the _London Magazine_, March, 1824,
vol. 9, pp. 315-321; the _Scots Magazine_, March, 1824, N.S. vol. xiv.
pp. 353-356; and in the _Monthly Review_, March, 1824, Enlarged Series,
103, pp. 321, 324. One reviewer, however (_London Magazine_), had the
candour to admit that "Lord Byron may write below himself, but he can
never write below us!"

For the unfinished third part, _vide post_, pp. 532-534.

                              ADVERTISEMENT

This production is founded partly on the story of a novel called "The
Three Brothers[201]," published many years ago, from which M. G. Lewis's
"Wood Demon"[202] was also taken; and partly on the "Faust" of the great
Goethe. The present publication[203] contains the two first Parts only,
and the opening chorus of the third. The rest may perhaps appear hereafter.

                             DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

                      Stranger, _afterwards_ Cæsar

                      Arnold.

                      Bourbon.

                      Philibert.

                      Cellini.

                      Bertha.

                      Olimpia.

                     _Spirits, Soldiers, Citizens of Rome,
                     Priests, Peasants, etc._

                      THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED:[cv]

                                 PART I.

                          SCENE I.--_A Forest_.

                 _Enter_ ARNOLD _and his mother_ BERTHA.

    _Bert._ Out, Hunchback!

    _Arn._                 I was born so, Mother![204]

    _Bert._                                       Out,
    Thou incubus! Thou nightmare! Of seven sons,
    The sole abortion!

    _Arn._              Would that I had been so,
    And never seen the light!

    _Bert._                  I would so, too!
    But as thou _hast_--hence, hence--and do thy best!
    That back of thine may bear its burthen; 'tis
    More high, if not so broad as that of others.

    _Arn._ It _bears_ its burthen;--but, my heart! Will it
    Sustain that which you lay upon it, Mother?
    I love, or, at the least, I loved you: nothing                      10
    Save You, in nature, can love aught like me.
    You nursed me--do not kill me!

    _Bert._                      Yes--I nursed thee,
    Because thou wert my first-born, and I knew not
    If there would be another unlike thee,
    That monstrous sport of Nature. But get hence,
    And gather wood![205]

    _Arn._           I will: but when I bring it,
    Speak to me kindly. Though my brothers are
    So beautiful and lusty, and as free
    As the free chase they follow, do not spurn me:
    Our milk has been the same.

    _Bert._                    As is the hedgehog's,                    20
    Which sucks at midnight from the wholesome dam
    Of the young bull, until the milkmaid finds
    The nipple, next day, sore, and udder dry.
    Call not thy brothers brethren! Call me not
    Mother; for if I brought thee forth, it was
    As foolish hens at times hatch vipers, by
    Sitting upon strange eggs. Out, urchin, out!
                                                           [_Exit_ BERTHA.

    _Arn._ (_solus_). Oh, mother!--She is gone, and I must do
    Her bidding;--wearily but willingly
    I would fulfil it, could I only hope                                30
    A kind word in return. What shall I do?

                                [_ARNOLD begins to cut wood: in doing this
                                     he wounds one of his hands_.

    My labour for the day is over now.
    Accursed be this blood that flows so fast;
    For double curses will be my meed now
    At home--What home? I have no home, no kin,
    No kind--not made like other creatures, or
    To share their sports or pleasures. Must I bleed, too,
    Like them? Oh, that each drop which falls to earth
    Would rise a snake to sting them, as they have stung me!
    Or that the Devil, to whom they liken me,                           40
    Would aid his likeness! If I must partake[206]
    His form, why not his power? Is it because
    I have not his will too? For one kind word
    From her who bore me would still reconcile me
    Even to this hateful aspect. Let me wash
    The wound.

                             [ARNOLD _goes to a spring, and stoops to wash
                                     his hand: he starts back_.

    They are right; and Nature's mirror shows me,
    What she hath made me. I will not look on it
    Again, and scarce dare think on't. Hideous wretch
    That I am! The very waters mock me with                             50
    My horrid shadow--like a demon placed
    Deep in the fountain to scare back the cattle
    From drinking therein.                                   [_He pauses_.
                           And shall I live on,
    A burden to the earth, myself, and shame
    Unto what brought me into life? Thou blood,
    Which flowest so freely from a scratch, let me
    Try if thou wilt not, in a fuller stream,
    Pour forth my woes for ever with thyself
    On earth, to which I will restore, at once,
    This hateful compound of her atoms, and                             60
    Resolve back to her elements, and take
    The shape of any reptile save myself,
    And make a world for myriads of new worms!
    This knife! now let me prove if it will sever
    This withered slip of Nature's nightshade--my
    Vile form--from the creation, as it hath
    The green bough from the forest.

                             [ARNOLD _places the knife in the ground, with
                                    the point upwards_.

                                    Now 'tis set,
    And I can fall upon it. Yet one glance
    On the fair day, which sees no foul thing like
    Myself, and the sweet sun which warmed me, but                      70
    In vain. The birds--how joyously they sing!
    So let them, for I would not be lamented:
    But let their merriest notes be Arnold's knell;
    The fallen leaves my monument; the murmur
    Of the near fountain my sole elegy.
    Now, knife, stand firmly, as I fain would fall!

                           [_As he rushes to throw himself upon the knife,
                               his eye is suddenly caught by the fountain,
                               which seems in motion_.

    The fountain moves without a wind: but shall
    The ripple of a spring change my resolve?
    No. Yet it moves again! The waters stir,
    Not as with air, but by some subterrane                             80
    And rocking Power of the internal world.
    What's here? A mist! No more?--

                       [_A cloud comes from the fountain. He stands gazing
                             upon it: it is dispelled, and a tall black
                             man comes towards him_.[207]

    _Arn._                           What would you? Speak!
    Spirit or man?

    _Stran._       As man is both, why not
    Say both in one?

    _Arn._          Your form is man's, and yet
    You may be devil.

    _Stran._         So many men are that
    Which is so called or thought, that you may add me
    To which you please, without much wrong to either.
    But come: you wish to kill yourself;--pursue
    Your purpose.

    _Arn._       You have interrupted me.

    _Stran._ What is that resolution which can e'er                     90
    Be interrupted? If I be the devil
    You deem, a single moment would have made you
    Mine, and for ever, by your suicide;
    And yet my coming saves you.

    _Arn._                       I said not
    You _were_ the Demon, but that your approach
    Was like one.

    _Stran._      Unless you keep company
    With him (and you seem scarce used to such high
    Society) you can't tell how he approaches;
    And for his aspect, look upon the fountain,
    And then on me, and judge which of us twain                        100
    Looks likest what the boors believe to be
    Their cloven-footed terror.

    _Arn._                      Do you--dare _you_
    To taunt me with my born deformity?

    _Stran._ Were I to taunt a buffalo with this
    Cloven foot of thine, or the swift dromedary
    With thy Sublime of Humps, the animals
    Would revel in the compliment. And yet
    Both beings are more swift, more strong, more mighty
    In action and endurance than thyself,
    And all the fierce and fair of the same kind                       110
    With thee. Thy form is natural: 'twas only
    Nature's mistaken largess to bestow
    The gifts which are of others upon man.

    _Arn._ Give me the strength then of the buffalo's foot,[cw]
    When he spurns high the dust, beholding his
    Near enemy; or let me have the long
    And patient swiftness of the desert-ship,
    The helmless dromedary!--and I'll bear[cx]
    Thy fiendish sarcasm with a saintly patience.

    _Stran._ I will.

    _Arn._ (_with surprise_). Thou _canst?_

    _Stran._                          Perhaps. Would you aught else?   120

    _Arn._ Thou mockest me.

    _Stran._                Not I. Why should I mock
    What all are mocking? That's poor sport, methinks.
    To talk to thee in human language (for
    Thou canst not yet speak mine), the forester
    Hunts not the wretched coney, but the boar,
    Or wolf, or lion--leaving paltry game
    To petty burghers, who leave once a year
    Their walls, to fill their household cauldrons with
    Such scullion prey. The meanest gibe at thee,--
    Now _I_ can mock the mightiest.[cy]

    _Arn._                           Then waste not                    130
    Thy time on me: I seek thee not.

    _Stran._                         Your thoughts
    Are not far from me. Do not send me back:
    I'm not so easily recalled to do
    Good service.

    _Arn._        What wilt thou do for me?

    _Stran._                               Change
    Shapes with you, if you will, since yours so irks you;
    Or form you to your wish in any shape.

    _Arn._ Oh! then you are indeed the Demon, for
    Nought else would wittingly wear mine.

    _Stran._                               I'll show thee
    The brightest which the world e'er bore, and give thee
    Thy choice.

    _Arn._       On what condition?

    _Stran._                       There's a question!                 140
    An hour ago you would have given your soul
    To look like other men, and now you pause
    To wear the form of heroes.

    _Arn._                     No; I will not.
    I must not compromise my soul.

    _Stran._                       What soul,
    Worth naming so, would dwell in such a carcase?

    _Arn._ 'Tis an aspiring one, whate'er the tenement
    In which it is mislodged. But name your compact:
    Must it be signed in blood?

    _Stran._                   Not in your own.

    _Arn._ Whose blood then?

    _Stran._                 We will talk of that hereafter.
    But I'll be moderate with you, for I see                           150
    Great things within you. You shall have no bond
    But your own will, no contract save your deeds.
    Are you content?

    _Arn._           I take thee at thy word.

    _Stran._   Now then!--
             [_The Stranger approaches the fountain, and turns to_ ARNOLD.

                          A little of your blood.[208]

    _Arn._                                        For what?

    _Stran._ To mingle with the magic of the waters,
    And make the charm effective.

    _Arn._ (_holding out his wounded arm_). Take it all.

    _Stran._ Not now. A few drops will suffice for this.

                      [_The Stranger takes some of_ ARNOLD'S _blood in his
                             hand, and casts it into the fountain_.

    Shadows of Beauty!
      Shadows of Power!
    Rise to your duty--                                                160
      This is the hour!
    Walk lovely and pliant[cz]
      From the depth of this fountain,
    As the cloud-shapen giant
      Bestrides the Hartz Mountain.[209]
    Come as ye were,
      That our eyes may behold
    The model in air
      Of the form I will mould,
    Bright as the Iris                                                 170
      When ether is spanned;--
    Such _his_ desire is,                           [_Pointing to_ ARNOLD.
      Such _my_ command![da]
    Demons heroic--
      Demons who wore
    The form of the Stoic
      Or sophist of yore--
    Or the shape of each victor--
      From Macedon's boy,
    To each high Roman's picture,                                      180
      Who breathed to destroy--
    Shadows of Beauty!
      Shadows of Power!
    Up to your duty--
      This is the hour!

                        [_Various phantoms arise from the waters, and pass
                            in succession before the Stranger and_ ARNOLD.

    _Arn._ What do I see?

    _Stran._              The black-eyed Roman,[210] with
    The eagle's beak between those eyes which ne'er
    Beheld a conqueror, or looked along
    The land he made not Rome's, while Rome became
    His, and all theirs who heired his very name.                      190

    _Arn._ The phantom's bald; _my_ quest is beauty. Could I
    Inherit but his fame with his defects!

    _Stran._ His brow was girt with laurels more than hairs.[211]
    You see his aspect--choose it, or reject.
    I can but promise you his form; his fame
    Must be long sought and fought for.

    _Arn._                              I will fight, too,
    But not as a mock Cæsar. Let him pass:
    His aspect may be fair, but suits me not.

    _Stran._ Then you are far more difficult to please
    Than Cato's sister, or than Brutus's mother,                       200
    Or Cleopatra at sixteen[212]--an age
    When love is not less in the eye than heart.
    But be it so! Shadow, pass on!
                                [_The phantom of Julius Cæsar disappears_.

    _Arn._                          And can it
    Be, that the man who shook the earth is gone,[db]
    And left no footstep?

    _Stran._             There you err. His substance
    Left graves enough, and woes enough, and fame
    More than enough to track his memory;
    But for his shadow--'tis no more than yours,
    Except a little longer and less crooked
    I' the sun. Behold another!                [_A second phantom passes_.

    _Arn._                     Who is he?                              210

    _Stran._ He was the fairest and the bravest of
    Athenians.[213] Look upon him well.

    _Arn._                             He is
    More lovely than the last. How beautiful!

    _Stran._ Such was the curled son of Clinias;--wouldst thou
    Invest thee with his form?

    _Arn._                     Would that I had
    Been born with it! But since I may choose further,
    I will _look_ further.          [_The shade of Alcibiades disappears_.

    _Stran._              Lo! behold again!

    _Arn._ What! that low, swarthy, short-nosed, round-eyed satyr,
    With the wide nostrils and Silenus' aspect,
    The splay feet and low stature![214] I had better                  220
    Remain that which I am.

    _Stran._               And yet he was
    The earth's perfection of all mental beauty,
    And personification of all virtue.
    But you reject him?

    _Arn._             If his form could bring me
    That which redeemed it--no.

    _Stran._                     I have no power
    To promise that; but you may try, and find it
    Easier in such a form--or in your own.

    _Arn._ No. I was not born for philosophy,
    Though I have that about me which has need on't.
    Let him fleet on.

    _Stran._          Be air, thou Hemlock-drinker!                    230
                      [_The shadow of Socrates disappears: another rises_.

    _Arn._ What's here? whose broad brow and whose curly beard
    And manly aspect look like Hercules,[215]
    Save that his jocund eye hath more of Bacchus
    Than the sad purger of the infernal world,
    Leaning dejected on his club of conquest,[216]
    As if he knew the worthlessness of those
    For whom he had fought.

    _Stran._                It was the man who lost
    The ancient world for love.

    _Arn._                      I cannot blame him,
    Since I have risked my soul because I find not
    That which he exchanged the earth for.

    _Stran._                              Since so far                 240
    You seem congenial, will you wear his features?

    _Arn._ No. As you leave me choice, I am difficult.
    If but to see the heroes I should ne'er
    Have seen else, on this side of the dim shore,
    Whence they float back before us.

    _Stran._                         Hence, Triumvir,
    Thy Cleopatra's waiting.
                         [_The shade of Antony disappears: another rises_.

    _Arn._                  Who is this?
    Who truly looketh like a demigod,
    Blooming and bright, with golden hair, and stature,
    If not more high than mortal, yet immortal
    In all that nameless bearing of his limbs,                         250
    Which he wears as the Sun his rays--a something
    Which shines from him, and yet is but the flashing
    Emanation of a thing more glorious still.
    Was _he e'er human only?_[217]

    _Stran._                   Let the earth speak,
    If there be atoms of him left, or even
    Of the more solid gold that formed his urn.

    _Arn._ Who was this glory of mankind?

    _Stran._                              The shame
    Of Greece in peace, her thunderbolt in war--
    Demetrius the Macedonian, and
    Taker of cities.

    _Arn._           Yet one shadow more.                              260

    _Stran._ (_addressing the shadow_). Get thee to Lamia's lap!
            [_The shade of Demetrius Poliorcetes vanishes: another rises_.
                                      I'll fit you still,
    Fear not, my Hunchback: if the shadows of
    That which existed please not your nice taste,
    I'll animate the ideal marble, till
    Your soul be reconciled to her new garment

    _Arn._ Content! I will fix here.

    _Stran._                         I must commend
    Your choice. The godlike son of the sea-goddess,
    The unshorn boy of Peleus, with his locks
    As beautiful and clear as the amber waves
    Of rich Pactolus, rolled o'er sands of gold,                       270
    Softened by intervening crystal, and
    Rippled like flowing waters by the wind,
    All vowed to Sperchius[218] as they were--behold them!
    And _him_--as he stood by Polixena,
    With sanctioned and with softened love, before
    The altar, gazing on his Trojan bride,
    With some remorse within for Hector slain
    And Priam weeping, mingled with deep passion
    For the sweet downcast virgin, whose young hand
    Trembled in _his_ who slew her brother. So                         280
    He stood i' the temple! Look upon him as
    Greece looked her last upon her best, the instant
    Ere Paris' arrow flew.

    _Arn._                I gaze upon him
    As if I were his soul, whose form shall soon
    Envelope mine.

    _Stran._       You have done well. The greatest
    Deformity should only barter with
    The extremest beauty--if the proverb's true
    Of mortals, that Extremes meet.

    _Arn._                          Come! Be quick!
    I am impatient.

    _Stran._        As a youthful beauty
    Before her glass. _You both_ see what is not,                      290
    But dream it is what must be.

    _Arn._                        Must I wait?

    _Stran._ No; that were a pity. But a word or two:
    His stature is twelve cubits; would you so far
    Outstep these times, and be a Titan? Or
    (To talk canonically) wax a son
    Of Anak?

    _Arn._ Why not?

    _Stran._        Glorious ambition!
    I love thee most in dwarfs! A mortal of
    Philistine stature would have gladly pared
    His own Goliath down to a slight David:
    But thou, my manikin, wouldst soar a show                          300
    Rather than hero. Thou shalt be indulged,
    If such be thy desire; and, yet, by being
    A little less removed from present men
    In figure, thou canst sway them more; for all
    Would rise against thee now, as if to hunt
    A new-found Mammoth; and their curséd engines,
    Their culverins, and so forth, would find way
    Through our friend's armour there, with greater ease
    Than the Adulterer's arrow through his heel
    Which Thetis had forgotten to baptize                              310
    In Styx.

    _Arn._  Then let it be as thou deem'st best.

    _Stran._ Thou shalt be beauteous as the thing thou seest,
    And strong as what it was, and----

    _Arn._                          I ask not
    For Valour, since Deformity is daring.[219]
    It is its essence to o'ertake mankind
    By heart and soul, and make itself the equal--
    Aye, the superior of the rest. There is
    A spur in its halt movements, to become
    All that the others cannot, in such things
    As still are free to both, to compensate                           320
    For stepdame Nature's avarice at first.
    They woo with fearless deeds the smiles of fortune,
    And oft, like Timour the lame Tartar,[220] win them.

    _Stran._ Well spoken! And thou doubtless wilt remain
    Formed as thou art. I may dismiss the mould
    Of shadow, which must turn to flesh, to incase
    This daring soul, which could achieve no less
    Without it.

    _Arn._      Had no power presented me
    The possibility of change, I would
    Have done the best which spirit may to make                        330
    Its way with all Deformity's dull, deadly,
    Discouraging weight upon me, like a mountain,
    In feeling, on my heart as on my shoulders--
    A hateful and unsightly molehill to
    The eyes of happier men. I would have looked
    On Beauty in that sex which is the type
    Of all we know or dream of beautiful,
    Beyond the world they brighten, with a sigh--
    Not of love, but despair; nor sought to win,
    Though to a heart all love, what could not love me                 340
    In turn, because of this vile crookéd clog,
    Which makes me lonely. Nay, I could have borne
    It all, had not my mother spurned me from her.
    The she-bear licks her cubs into a sort
    Of shape;--my Dam beheld my shape was hopeless.
    Had she exposed me, like the Spartan, ere
    I knew the passionate part of life, I had
    Been a clod of the valley,--happier nothing
    Than what I am. But even thus--the lowest,
    Ugliest, and meanest of mankind--what courage                      350
    And perseverance could have done, perchance
    Had made me something--as it has made heroes
    Of the same mould as mine. You lately saw me
    Master of my own life, and quick to quit it;
    And he who is so is the master of
    Whatever dreads to die.

    _Stran._               Decide between
    What you have been, or will be.

    _Arn._                         I have done so.
    You have opened brighter prospects to my eyes,
    And sweeter to my heart. As I am now,
    I might be feared--admired--respected--loved                       360
    Of all save those next to me, of whom I
    Would be belovéd. As thou showest me
    A choice of forms, I take the one I view.
    Haste! haste!

    _Stran._      And what shall _I_ wear?

    _Arn._                                 Surely, he
    Who can command all forms will choose the highest,
    Something superior even to that which was
    Pelides now before us. Perhaps _his_
    Who slew him, that of Paris: or--still higher--
    The Poet's God, clothed in such limbs as are
    Themselves a poetry.

    _Stran._            Less will content me;                          370
    For I, too, love a change.

    _Arn._                    Your aspect is
    Dusky, but not uncomely.[221]

    _Stran._                  If I chose,
    I might be whiter; but I have a _penchant_
    For black--it is so honest, and, besides,
    Can neither blush with shame nor pale with fear;
    But I have worn it long enough of late,
    And now I'll take your figure.

    _Arn._                         Mine!

    _Stran._                            Yes. You
    Shall change with Thetis' son, and I with Bertha,
    Your mother's offspring. People have their tastes;
    You have yours--I mine.

    _Arn._                  Despatch! despatch!

    _Stran._                                  Even so.                 380

                             [_The Stranger takes some earth and moulds it
                                  along the turf, and then addresses
                                  the phantom of Achilles_.

    Beautiful shadow
      Of Thetis's boy!
    Who sleeps in the meadow
      Whose grass grows o'er Troy:
    From the red earth, like Adam,[222]
      Thy likeness I shape,
    As the Being who made him,
      Whose actions I ape.
    Thou Clay, be all glowing,
      Till the Rose in his cheek                                       390
    Be as fair as, when blowing,
      It wears its first streak!
    Ye Violets, I scatter,
      Now turn into eyes!
    And thou, sunshiny Water,
      Of blood take the guise!
    Let these Hyacinth boughs
      Be his long flowing hair,
    And wave o'er his brows,
      As thou wavest in air!                                           400
    Let his heart be this marble
      I tear from the rock!
    But his voice as the warble
      Of birds on yon oak!
    Let his flesh be the purest
      Of mould, in which grew
    The Lily-root surest,
      And drank the best dew!
    Let his limbs be the lightest
      Which clay can compound,                                         410
    And his aspect the brightest
      On earth to be found!
    Elements, near me,
      Be mingled and stirred,
    Know me, and hear me,
      And leap to my word!
    Sunbeams, awaken
      This earth's animation![dc]
    'Tis done! He hath taken
      His stand in creation!                                           420

                  [ARNOLD _falls senseless; his soul passes into the shape
                         of Achilles, which rises from the ground; while
                         the phantom has disappeared, part by part,
                         as the figure was formed from the earth_.

    _Arn._ (_in his new form_). I love, and I shall be beloved! Oh, life!
    At last I feel thee! Glorious Spirit!

    _Stran._                             Stop!
    What shall become of your abandoned garment,
    Yon hump, and lump, and clod of ugliness,
    Which late you wore, or were?

    _Arn._                       Who cares? Let wolves
    And vultures take it, if they will.

    _Stran._                            And if
    They do, and are not scared by it, you'll say
    It must be peace-time, and no better fare
    Abroad i' the fields.

    _Arn._               Let us but leave it there;
    No matter what becomes on't.

    _Stran._                    That's ungracious;                     430
    If not ungrateful. Whatsoe'er it be,
    It hath sustained your soul full many a day.

    _Arn._ Aye, as the dunghill may conceal a gem
    Which is now set in gold, as jewels should be.

    _Stran._ But if I give another form, it must be
    By fair exchange, not robbery. For they[223]
    Who make men without women's aid have long
    Had patents for the same, and do not love
    Your Interlopers. The Devil may take men,[dd]
    Not make them,--though he reap the benefit                         440
    Of the original workmanship:--and therefore
    Some one must be found to assume the shape
    You have quitted.

    _Arn._            Who would do so?

    _Stran._                         That I know not,
    And therefore I must.

    _Arn._                You!

    _Stran._                  I said it ere
    You inhabited your present dome of beauty.

    _Arn._ True. I forget all things in the new joy
    Of this immortal change.

    _Stran._                In a few moments
    I will be as you were, and you shall see
    Yourself for ever by you, as your shadow.

    _Arn._ I would be spared this.

    _Stran._                       But it cannot be.                   450
    What! shrink already, being what you are,
    From seeing what you were?

    _Arn._                    Do as thou wilt.

    _Stran._ (_to the late form of_ ARNOLD, _extended on the earth_).
          Clay! not dead, but soul-less!
            Though no man would choose thee,
          An Immortal no less
            Deigns not to refuse thee.
          Clay thou art; and unto spirit
          All clay is of equal merit.
          Fire! _without_ which nought can live;
          Fire! but _in_ which nought can live,                        460
            Save the fabled salamander,
            Or immortal souls, which wander,
          Praying what doth not forgive,
          Howling for a drop of water,
              Burning in a quenchless lot:
          Fire! the only element
            Where nor fish, beast, bird, nor worm,
              Save the Worm which dieth not,
            Can preserve a moment's form,
          But must with thyself be blent:                              470
          Fire! man's safeguard and his slaughter:
          Fire! Creation's first-born Daughter,
            And Destruction's threatened Son,
            When Heaven with the world hath done:
          Fire! assist me to renew
          Life in what lies in my view
            Stiff and cold!
          His resurrection rests with me and you!
          One little, marshy spark of flame--[224]
          And he again shall seem the same;                            480
            But I his Spirit's place shall hold!

                        [_An ignis-fatuus flits through the wood and rests
                             on the brow of the body. The Stranger
                             disappears: the body rises_.

    _Arn._ (_in his new form_). Oh! horrible!

    _Stran._ (_in_ ARNOLD'S _late shape_). What! tremblest thou?

    _Arn._                                   Not so--
    I merely shudder. Where is fled the shape
    Thou lately worest?

    _Stran._           To the world of shadows.
    But let us thread the present. Whither wilt thou?

    _Arn._ Must thou be my companion?

    _Stran._                          Wherefore not?
    Your betters keep worse company.

    _Arn._                          _My_ betters!

    _Stran._ Oh! you wax proud, I see, of your new form:
    I'm glad of that. Ungrateful too! That's well;
    You improve apace;--two changes in an instant,                     490
    And you are old in the World's ways already.
    But bear with me: indeed you'll find me useful
    Upon your pilgrimage. But come, pronounce
    Where shall we now be errant?

    _Arn._                       Where the World
    Is thickest, that I may behold it in
    Its workings.

    _Stran._     That's to say, where there is War
    And Woman in activity. Let's see!
    Spain--Italy--the new Atlantic world[225]--
    Afric with all its Moors. In very truth,
    There is small choice: the whole race are just now                 500
    Tugging as usual at each other's hearts.

    _Arn._ I have heard great things of Rome.

    _Stran._                                  A goodly choice--
    And scarce a better to be found on earth,
    Since Sodom was put out. The field is wide too;
    For now the Frank, and Hun, and Spanish scion
    Of the old Vandals, are at play along
    The sunny shores of the World's garden.

    _Arn._                                 How
    Shall we proceed?

    _Stran._         Like gallants, on good coursers.
    What, ho! my chargers! Never yet were better,
    Since Phaeton was upset into the Po[226].                          510
    Our pages too!

             _Enter two Pages, with four coal-black horses_.

    _Arn._          A noble sight!

    _Stran._                      And of
    A nobler breed. Match me in Barbary,
    Or your Kochlini race of Araby[de][227],
    With these!

    _Arn._     The mighty steam, which volumes high
    From their proud nostrils, burns the very air;
    And sparks of flame, like dancing fire-flies wheel
    Around their manes, as common insects swarm
    Round common steeds towards sunset.

    _Stran._                           Mount, my lord:
    They and I are your servitors.

    _Arn._                        And these
    Our dark-eyed pages--what may be their names?                      520

    _Stran._ You shall baptize them.

    _Arn._                           What! in holy water?

    _Stran._ Why not? The deeper sinner, better saint.

    _Arn._ They are beautiful, and cannot, sure, be demons.

    _Stran._ True; the devil's always ugly: and your beauty
    Is never diabolical.

    _Arn._               I'll call him
    Who bears the golden horn, and wears such bright
    And blooming aspect, _Huon_;[228] for he looks
    Like to the lovely boy lost in the forest,
    And never found till now. And for the other
    And darker, and more thoughtful, who smiles not,                   530
    But looks as serious though serene as night,
    He shall be _Memnon_[229], from the Ethiop king
    Whose statue turns a harper once a day.
    And you?

    _Stran._ I have ten thousand names, and twice
    As many attributes; but as I wear
    A human shape, will take a human name.

    _Arn._ More human than the shape (though it was mine once)
    I trust.

    _Stran._ Then call me Cæsar.

    _Arn._                       Why, that name
    Belongs to Empire, and has been but borne
    By the World's lords.

    _Stran._             And therefore fittest for                     540
    The Devil in disguise--since so you deem me,
    Unless you call me Pope instead.

    _Arn._                           Well, then,
    Cæsar thou shalt be. For myself, my name
    Shall be plain Arnold still.

    _Cæs._                      We'll add a title[df]--
    "Count Arnold:" it hath no ungracious sound,
    And will look well upon a billet-doux.

    _Arn._ Or in an order for a battle-field.

    _Cæs._ (_sings_).
        To horse! to horse! my coal-black steed
          Paws the ground and snuffs the air!
        There's not a foal of Arab's breed                             550
          More knows whom he must bear;
          On the hill he will not tire,
          Swifter as it waxes higher;
          In the marsh he will not slacken,
          On the plain be overtaken;
          In the wave he will not sink,
          Nor pause at the brook's side to drink;
          In the race he will not pant,
          In the combat he'll not faint;
          On the stones he will not stumble,                           560
          Time nor toil shall make him humble;
          In the stall he will not stiffen,
          But be wingèd as a Griffin,
          Only flying with his feet:
          And will not such a voyage be sweet?
          Merrily! merrily! never unsound,
          Shall our bonny black horses skim over the ground!
        From the Alps to the Caucasus, ride we, or fly!
        For we'll leave them behind in the glance of an eye.
                                [_They mount their horses, and disappear_.

              SCENE II.--_A Camp before the walls of Rome_.

                           ARNOLD _and_ CÆSAR.

    _Cæs._ You are well entered now.

    _Arn._                           Aye; but my path
    Has been o'er carcasses: mine eyes are full[dg]
    Of blood.

    _Cæs._    Then wipe them, and see clearly. Why!
    Thou art a conqueror; the chosen knight
    And free companion of the gallant Bourbon,
    Late constable of France[230]; and now to be
    Lord of the city which hath been Earth's Lord
    Under its emperors, and--changing sex,
    Not sceptre, an Hermaphrodite of Empire--
    _Lady_ of the old world[231].

    _Arn._                       How _old?_ What! are there             10
    _New_ worlds?

    _Cæs._       To _you_. You'll find there are such shortly,
    By its rich harvests, new disease, and gold;
    From one _half_ of the world named a _whole_ new one,
    Because you know no better than the dull
    And dubious notice of your eyes and ears.

    _Arn._ I'll trust them.

    _Cæs._                  Do! They will deceive you sweetly,
    And that is better than the bitter truth.

    _Arn._ Dog!

    _Cæs._       Man!

    _Arn._            Devil!

    _Cæs._                  Your obedient humble servant.

    _Arn._ Say _master_ rather. Thou hast lured me on,
    Through scenes of blood and lust, till I am here.                   20

    _Cæs._ And where wouldst thou be?

    _Arn._                           Oh, _at_ peace--_in_ peace!

    _Cæs._ And where is that which is so? From the star
    To the winding worm, all life is motion; and
    In life _commotion_ is the extremest point
    Of life. The planet wheels till it becomes
    A comet, and destroying as it sweeps
    The stars, goes out. The poor worm winds its way,
    Living upon the death of other things,
    But still, like them, must live and die, the subject
    Of something which has made it live and die.                        30
    You must obey what all obey, the rule
    Of fixed Necessity: against her edict
    Rebellion prospers not.

    _Arn._                  And when it prospers----

    _Cæs._ 'Tis no rebellion.

    _Arn._                     Will it prosper now?

    _Cæs._ The Bourbon hath given orders for the assault,
    And by the dawn there will be work.

    _Arn._                              Alas!
    And shall the city yield? I see the giant
    Abode of the true God, and his true saint,
    Saint Peter, rear its dome and cross into
    That sky whence Christ ascended from the cross,                     40
    Which his blood made a badge of glory and
    Of joy (as once of torture unto him),--
    God and God's Son, man's sole and only refuge!

    _Cæs._ 'Tis there, and shall be.

    _Arn._                            What?

    _Cæs._                                The Crucifix
    Above, and many altar shrines below.
    Also some culverins upon the walls,
    And harquebusses, and what not; besides
    The men who are to kindle them to death
    Of other men.

    _Arn._        And those scarce mortal arches,[232]
    Pile above pile of everlasting wall,                                50
    The theatre where Emperors and their subjects
    (Those subjects _Romans_) stood at gaze upon
    The battles of the monarchs of the wild
    And wood--the lion and his tusky rebels
    Of the then untamed desert, brought to joust
    In the arena--as right well they might,
    When they had left no human foe unconquered--
    Made even the forest pay its tribute of
    Life to their amphitheatre, as well
    As Dacia men to die the eternal death                               60
    For a sole instant's pastime, and "Pass on
    To a new gladiator!"--Must it fall?

    _Cæs._ The city, or the amphitheatre?
    The church, or one, or all? for you confound
    Both them and me.

    _Arn._            To-morrow sounds the assault
    With the first cock-crow.

    _Cæs._                   Which, if it end with
    The evening's first nightingale, will be
    Something new in the annals of great sieges;
    For men must have their prey after long toil.

    _Arn._ The sun goes down as calmly, and perhaps                     70
    More beautifully, than he did on Rome
    On the day Remus leapt her wall.

    _Cæs._                          I saw him.

    _Arn._ You!

    _Cæs._      Yes, Sir! You forget I am or was
    Spirit, till I took up with your cast shape,
    And a worse name. I'm Cæsar and a hunch-back
    Now. Well! the first of Cæsars was a bald-head,
    And loved his laurels better as a wig
    (So history says) than as a glory.[233] Thus
    The world runs on, but we'll be merry still.
    I saw your Romulus (simple as I am)                                 80
    Slay his own twin, quick-born of the same womb,
    Because he leapt a ditch ('twas then no wall,
    Whate'er it now be); and Rome's earliest cement
    Was brother's blood; and if its native blood
    Be spilt till the choked Tiber be as red
    As e'er 'twas yellow, it will never wear
    The deep hue of the Ocean and the Earth,
    Which the great robber sons of fratricide
    Have made their never-ceasing scene of slaughter,
    For ages.

    _Arn._    But what have these done, their far                       90
    Remote descendants, who have lived in peace,
    The peace of Heaven, and in her sunshine of
    Piety?

    _Cæs._ And what had _they_ done, whom the old
    Romans o'erswept?--Hark!

    _Arn._                   They are soldiers singing
    A reckless roundelay, upon the eve
    Of many deaths, it may be of their own.

    _Cæs._ And why should they not sing as well as swans?
    They are black ones, to be sure.

    _Arn._                          So, you are learned,
    I see, too?

    _Cæs._     In my grammar, certes. I
    Was educated for a monk of all times,                              100
    And once I was well versed in the forgotten
    Etruscan letters, and--were I so minded--
    Could make their hieroglyphics plainer than
    Your alphabet.

    _Arn._         And wherefore do you not?

    _Cæs._ It answers better to resolve the alphabet
    Back into hieroglyphics. Like your statesman,
    And prophet, pontiff, doctor, alchymist,
    Philosopher, and what not, they have built
    More Babels, without new dispersion, than
    The stammering young ones of the flood's dull ooze,                110
    Who failed and fled each other. Why? why, marry,
    Because no man could understand his neighbour.
    They are wiser now, and will not separate
    For nonsense. Nay, it is their brotherhood,
    Their Shibboleth--their Koran--Talmud--their
    Cabala--their best brick-work, wherewithal
    They build more----

    _Arn._ (_interrupting him_). Oh, thou everlasting sneerer!
    Be silent! How the soldier's rough strain seems
    Softened by distance to a hymn-like cadence!
    Listen!

    _Cæs._ Yes. I have heard the angels sing.                          120

    _Arn._ And demons howl.

    _Cæs._                 And man, too. Let us listen:
    I love all music.

                     _Song of the Soldiers within_.

                The black bands came over
                  The Alps and their snow;
                With Bourbon, the rover,
                  They passed the broad Po.
                We have beaten all foemen,
                  We have captured a King[234],
                We have turned back on no men,
                  And so let us sing!                                  130
                Here's the Bourbon for ever!
                  Though penniless all,
                We'll have one more endeavour
                  At yonder old wall.
                With the Bourbon we'll gather
                  At day-dawn before
                The gates, and together
                  Or break or climb o'er
                The wall: on the ladder,
                  As mounts each firm foot[dh],                        140
                Our shout shall grow gladder,
                  And Death only be mute[235].
                With the Bourbon we'll mount o'er
                  The walls of old Rome,
                And who then shall count o'er[di]
                  The spoils of each dome?
                Up! up with the Lily!
                  And down with the Keys!
                In old Rome, the seven-hilly,
                  We'll revel at ease.                                 150
                Her streets shall be gory,
                  Her Tiber all red,
                And her temples so hoary
                  Shall clang with our tread.
                Oh, the Bourbon! the Bourbon[236]!
                  The Bourbon for aye!
                Of our song bear the burden!
                  And fire, fire away!
                With Spain for the vanguard,
                  Our varied host comes;                               160
                And next to the Spaniard
                  Beat Germany's drums;
                And Italy's lances
                  Are couched at their mother;
                But our leader from France is,
                  Who warred with his brother.
                Oh, the Bourbon! the Bourbon!
                  Sans country or home,
                We'll follow the Bourbon,
                  To plunder old Rome.                                 170

    _Cæs._           An indifferent song
    For those within the walls, methinks, to hear.

    _Arn._ Yes, if they keep to their chorus. But here comes
    The general with his chiefs and men of trust[dj].
    A goodly rebel.

          _Enter the Constable_ BOURBON _"cum suis," etc., etc._

    _Phil._          How now, noble Prince,
    You are not cheerful?

    _Bourb._             Why should I be so?

    _Phil._ Upon the eve of conquest, such as ours,
    Most men would be so.

    _Bourb._               If I were secure!

    _Phil._ Doubt not our soldiers. Were the walls of adamant,
    They'd crack them. Hunger is a sharp artillery.                    180

    _Bourb._ That they will falter is my least of fears.
    That they will be repulsed, with Bourbon for
    Their chief, and all their kindled appetites
    To marshal them on--were those hoary walls
    Mountains, and those who guard them like the gods
    Of the old fables, I would trust my Titans;--
    But now----

    _Phil._    They are but men who war with mortals.

    _Bourb._ True: but those walls have girded in great ages,
    And sent forth mighty spirits. The past earth
    And present phantom of imperious Rome[dk]                          190
    Is peopled with those warriors; and methinks
    They flit along the eternal City's rampart,
    And stretch their glorious, gory, shadowy hands,
    And beckon me away!

    _Phil._            So let them! Wilt thou
    Turn back from shadowy menaces of shadows?

    _Bourb._ They do not menace me. I could have faced,
    Methinks, a Sylla's menace; but they clasp,
    And raise, and wring their dim and deathlike hands,
    And with their thin aspen faces and fixed eyes
    Fascinate mine. Look there!

    _Phil._                    I look upon                             200
    A lofty battlement.

    _Bourb._            And there!

    _Phil._                       Not even
    A guard in sight; they wisely keep below,
    Sheltered by the grey parapet from some
    Stray bullet of our lansquenets, who might
    Practise in the cool twilight.

    _Bourb._                      You are blind.

    _Phil._ If seeing nothing more than may be seen
    Be so.

    _Bourb._ A thousand years have manned the walls
    With all their heroes,--the last Cato[237] stands
    And tears his bowels, rather than survive
    The liberty of that I would enslave.                               210
    And the first Cassar with his triumphs flits
    From battlement to battlement.

    _Phil._                        Then conquer
    The walls for which he conquered and be greater!

    _Bourb._ True: so I will, or perish.

    _Phil._                              You can _not_.
    In such an enterprise to die is rather
    The dawn of an eternal day, than death.
                                   [_Count_ ARNOLD _and_ CÆSAR _advance_.

    _Cæs._ And the mere men--do they, too, sweat beneath
    The noon of this same ever-scorching glory?

    _Bourb._                                   Ah!
    Welcome the bitter Hunchback! and his master,
    The beauty of our host, and brave as beauteous,                    220
    And generous as lovely. We shall find
    Work for you both ere morning.

    _Cæs._                        You will find,
    So please your Highness, no less for yourself.

    _Bourb._ And if I do, there will not be a labourer
    More forward, Hunchback!

    _Cæs._                  You may well say so,
    For _you_ have seen that back--as general,
    Placed in the rear in action--but your foes
    Have never seen it.

    _Bourb._           That's a fair retort,
    For I provoked it:--but the Bourbon's breast
    Has been, and ever shall be, far advanced                          230
    In danger's face as yours, were you the _devil_.

    _Cæs._ And if I were, I might have saved myself
    The toil of coming here.

    _Phil._                 Why so?

    _Cæs._                         One half
    Of your brave bands of their own bold accord
    Will go to him, the other half be sent,
    More swiftly, not less surely.

    _Bourb._                      Arnold, your
    Slight crooked _friend's_ as snake-like in his words
    As his deeds.

    _Cæs._        Your Highness much mistakes me.
    The first snake was a flatterer--I am none;
    And for my deeds, I only sting when stung.                         240

    _Bourb._ You are brave, and _that's_ enough for me; and quick
    In speech as sharp in action--and that's more.
    I am not alone the soldier, but the soldiers'
    Comrade.

    _Cæs._   They are but bad company, your Highness;
    And worse even for their friends than foes, as being
    More permanent acquaintance.

    _Phil._                      How now, fellow!
    Thou waxest insolent, beyond the privilege
    Of a buffoon.

    _Cæs._       You mean I speak the truth.
    I'll lie--it is as easy: then you'll praise me
    For calling you a hero.

    _Bourb._               Philibert!                                  250
    Let him alone; he's brave, and ever has
    Been first, with that swart face and mountain shoulder,
    In field or storm, and patient in starvation;
    And for his tongue, the camp is full of licence,
    And the sharp stinging of a lively rogue
    Is, to my mind, far preferable to
    The gross, dull, heavy, gloomy execration
    Of a mere famished sullen grumbling slave,[dl]
    Whom nothing can convince save a full meal,
    And wine, and sleep, and a few Maravedis,                          260
    With which he deems him rich.

    _Cæs._                        It would be well
    If the earth's princes asked no more.

    _Bourb._                             Be silent!

    _Cæs._ Aye, but not idle. Work yourself with words![dm]
    You have few to speak.

    _Phil._                What means the audacious prater?

    _Cæs._ To prate, like other prophets.

    _Bourb._                              Philibert!
    Why will you vex him? Have we not enough
    To think on? Arnold! I will lead the attack
    To-morrow.

    _Arn._     I have heard as much, my Lord.

    _Bourb._ And you will follow?

    _Arn._                        Since I must not lead.

    _Bourb._ 'Tis necessary for the further daring
    Of our too needy army, that their chief
    Plant the first foot upon the foremost ladder's
    First step.

    _Cæs._      Upon its topmost, let us hope:
    So shall he have his full deserts.

    _Bourb._                          The world's
    Great capital perchance is ours to-morrow.[dn]
    Through every change the seven-hilled city hath
    Retained her sway o'er nations, and the Cæsars
    But yielded to the Alarics, the Alarics
    Unto the pontiffs. Roman, Goth, or priest.
    Still the world's masters! Civilised, barbarian,
    Or saintly, still the walls of Romulus
    Have been the circus of an Empire. Well!
    'Twas _their_ turn--now 'tis ours; and let us hope
    That we will fight as well, and rule much better.

    _Cæs._ No doubt, the camp's the school of civic rights.
    What would you make of Rome?

    _Bourb._                    That which it was.

    _Cæs._ In Alaric's time?

    _Bourb._                 No, slave! in the first Cæsar's,
    Whose name you bear like other curs----

    _Cæs._                             And kings!
    'Tis a great name for blood-hounds.

    _Bourb._                           There's a demon
    In that fierce rattlesnake thy tongue. Wilt never
    Be serious?

    _Cæs._      On the eve of battle, no;--
    That were not soldier-like. 'Tis for the general
    To be more pensive: we adventurers
    Must be more cheerful. Wherefore should we think?
    Our tutelar Deity, in a leader's shape,
    Takes care of us. Keep thought aloof from hosts!
    If the knaves take to thinking, you will have
    To crack those walls alone.

    _Bourb._                    You may sneer, since
    'Tis lucky for you that you fight no worse for 't.

    _Cæs._ I thank you for the freedom; 'tis the only                  300
    Pay I have taken in your Highness' service.

    _Bourb._ Well, sir, to-morrow you shall pay yourself.
    Look on those towers; they hold my treasury:
    But, Philibert, we'll in to council. Arnold,
    We would request your presence.

    _Arn._                          Prince! my service
    Is yours, as in the field.

    _Bourb._                   In both we prize it,
    And yours will be a post of trust at daybreak.

    _Cæs._ And mine?

    _Bourb._         To follow glory with the Bourbon.
    Good night!

    _Arn._ (_to_ CÆSAR). Prepare our armour for the assault,
    And wait within my tent.
                              [_Exeunt_ BOURBON, ARNOLD, PHILIBERT, _etc._

    _Cæs._ (_solus_).       Within thy tent!                           310
    Think'st thou that I pass from thee with my presence?
    Or that this crooked coffer, which contained
    Thy principle of life, is aught to me
    Except a mask? And these are men, forsooth!
    Heroes and chiefs, the flower of Adam's bastards!
    This is the consequence of giving matter
    The power of thought. It is a stubborn substance,
    And thinks chaotically, as it acts,
    Ever relapsing into its first elements.
    Well! I must play with these poor puppets: 'tis                    320
    The Spirit's pastime in his idler hours.
    When I grow weary of it, I have business
    Amongst the stars, which these poor creatures deem
    Were made for them to look at. 'Twere a jest now
    To bring one down amongst them, and set fire
    Unto their anthill: how the pismires then
    Would scamper o'er the scalding soil, and, ceasing
    From tearing down each other's nests, pipe forth
    One universal orison! ha! ha!                          [_Exit_ CÆSAR.

                                 PART II.

          SCENE I.--_Before the walls of Rome.--The Assault: the
          Army in motion, with ladders to scale the walls_;[238]
         BOURBON _with a white scarf over his armour, foremost_.

                     _Chorus of Spirits in the air_.

                    I.

    'Tis the morn, but dim and dark.[do]
    Whither flies the silent lark?
    Whither shrinks the clouded sun?
    Is the day indeed begun?
    Nature's eye is melancholy
    O'er the city high and holy:
    But without there is a din
    Should arouse the saints within,
    And revive the heroic ashes
    Round which yellow Tiber dashes.                                    10
    Oh, ye seven hills! awaken,
    Ere your very base be shaken!

                    II.

    Hearken to the steady stamp!
    Mars is in their every tramp!
    Not a step is out of tune,
    As the tides obey the moon!
    On they march, though to self-slaughter,
    Regular as rolling water,
    Whose high-waves o'ersweep the border
    Of huge moles, but keep their order,                                20
    Breaking only rank by rank.
    Hearken to the armour's clank!
    Look down o'er each frowning warrior,
    How he glares upon the barrier:
    Look on each step of each ladder,
    As the stripes that streak an adder.

                    III.

    Look upon the bristling wall,
    Manned without an interval!
    Round and round, and tier on tier,
    Cannon's black mouth, shining spear,                                30
    Lit match, bell-mouthed Musquetoon,
    Gaping to be murderous soon;
    All the warlike gear of old,
    Mixed with what we now behold,
    In this strife 'twixt old and new,
    Gather like a locusts' crew.
    Shade of Remus! 'tis a time
    Awful as thy brother's crime!
    Christians war against Christ's shrine:--
    Must its lot be like to thine?                                      40

                    IV.

    Near--and near--and nearer still,
    As the Earthquake saps the hill,
    First with trembling, hollow motion,
    Like a scarce awakened ocean,
    Then with stronger shock and louder,
    Till the rocks are crushed to powder,--
    Onward sweeps the rolling host!
    Heroes of the immortal boast!
    Mighty Chiefs! eternal shadows!
    First flowers of the bloody meadows                                 50
    Which encompass Rome, the mother
    Of a people without brother!
    Will you sleep when nations' quarrels
    Plough the root up of your laurels?
    Ye who weep o'er Carthage burning,
    Weep not--_strike_! for Rome is mourning![239]

                    V.

    Onward sweep the varied nations!
    Famine long hath dealt their rations.
    To the wall, with hate and hunger,
    Numerous as wolves, and stronger,                                   60
    On they sweep. Oh, glorious City!
    Must thou be a theme for pity?
    Fight, like your first sire, each Roman!
    Alaric was a gentle foeman,
    Matched with Bourbon's black banditti!
    Rouse thee, thou eternal City;
    Rouse thee! Rather give the torch
    With thine own hand to thy porch,[dp]
    Than behold such hosts pollute
    Your worst dwelling with their foot.                                70

                    VI.

    Ah! behold yon bleeding spectre!
    Ilion's children find no Hector;
    Priam's offspring loved their brother;
    Rome's great sire forgot his mother,
    When he slew his gallant twin,
    With inexpiable sin.
    See the giant shadow stride
    O'er the ramparts high and wide!
    When the first o'erleapt thy wall,
    Its foundation mourned thy fall.                                    80
    Now, though towering like a Babel,
    Who to stop his steps are able?
    Stalking o'er thy highest dome,
    Remus claims his vengeance, Rome!

                    VII.

    Now they reach thee in their anger:
    Fire and smoke and hellish clangour
    Are around thee, thou world's wonder!
    Death is in thy walls and under.
    Now the meeting steel first clashes,
    Downward then the ladder crashes,                                   90
    With its iron load all gleaming,
    Lying at its foot blaspheming!
    Up again! for every warrior
    Slain, another climbs the barrier.
    Thicker grows the strife: thy ditches
    Europe's mingling gore enriches.
    Rome! although thy wall may perish,
    Such manure thy fields will cherish,
    Making gay the harvest-home;
    But thy hearths, alas! oh, Rome!--                                 100
    Yet be Rome amidst thine anguish,
    Fight as thou wast wont to vanquish!

                    VIII.

    Yet once more, ye old Penates!
    Let not your quenched hearts be Atés!
    Yet again, ye shadowy Heroes,
    Yield not to these stranger Neros!
    Though the son who slew his mother
    Shed Rome's blood, he was your brother:
    'Twas the Roman curbed the Roman;--
    Brennus was a baffled foeman.                                      110
    Yet again, ye saints and martyrs,
    Rise! for yours are holier charters!
    Mighty Gods of temples falling,
    Yet in ruin still appalling!
    Mightier Founders of those altars,
    True and Christian,--strike the assaulters!
    Tiber! Tiber! let thy torrent
    Show even Nature's self abhorrent.
    Let each breathing heart dilated
    Turn, as doth the lion baited!                                     120
    Rome be crashed to one wide tomb,
    But be still the Roman's Rome![240]

                 [BOURBON, ARNOLD, CÆSAR, _and others, arrive at the foot
                      of the wall_. ARNOLD _is about to plant his ladder_.

    _Bourb._ Hold, Arnold! I am first.

    _Arn._                             Not so, my Lord.

    _Bourb._ Hold, sir, I charge you! Follow! I am proud
    Of such a follower, but will brook no leader.
                        [BOURBON _plants his ladder, and begins to mount_.
    Now, boys! On! on!
                               [_A shot strikes him, and_ BOURBON _falls_.

    _Cæs._             And off!

    _Arn._                     Eternal powers!
    The host will be appalled,--but vengeance! vengeance!

    _Bourb._ 'Tis nothing--lend me your hand.

                      [BOURBON _takes_ ARNOLD _by the hand, and rises; but
                            as he puts his foot on the step, falls again_.

                                           Arnold! I am sped.
    Conceal my fall[241]--all will go well--conceal it!
    Fling my cloak o'er what will be dust anon;                        130
    Let not the soldiers see it.

    _Arn._                     You must be
    Removed; the aid of----

    _Bourb._                No, my gallant boy!
    Death is upon me. But what is _one_ life?
    The Bourbon's spirit shall command them still.
    Keep them yet ignorant that I am but clay,
    Till they are conquerors--then do as you may.

    _Cæs._ Would not your Highness choose to kiss the cross?
    We have no priest here, but the hilt of sword
    May serve instead:--it did the same for Bayard[242].

    _Bourb._ Thou bitter slave! to name _him_ at this time!            140
    But I deserve it.

    _Arn._ (_to_ CÆSAR). Villain, hold your peace!

    _Cæs._ What, when a Christian dies? Shall I not offer
    A Christian "Vade in pace[243]?"

    _Arn._                        Silence! Oh!
    Those eyes are glazing which o'erlooked the world,
    And saw no equal.

    _Bourb._          Arnold, shouldst thou see
    France----But hark! hark! the assault grows warmer--Oh!
    For but an hour, a minute more of life,
    To die within the wall! Hence, Arnold, hence!
    You lose time--they will conquer Rome without thee.

    _Arn._ And without _thee_.

    _Bourb._                   Not so; I'll lead them still            150
    In spirit. Cover up my dust, and breathe not
    That I have ceased to breathe. Away! and be
    Victorious.

    _Arn._      But I must not leave thee thus.

    _Bourb._ You must--farewell--Up! up! the world is winning.
                                                          [BOURBON _dies_.

    _Cæs._ (_to_ ARNOLD). Come, Count, to business.

    _Arn._                      True. I'll weep hereafter.

                           [ARNOLD _covers_ BOURBON'S _body with a mantle,
                                mounts the ladder, crying_

    The Bourbon! Bourbon! On, boys! Rome is ours!

    _Cæs._ Good night, Lord Constable! thou wert a Man.

                    [CÆSAR _follows_ ARNOLD; _they reach the battlement;_
                        ARNOLD _and_ CÆSAR _are struck down_.

    _Cæs._ A precious somerset! Is your countship injured?

    _Arn._ No.                                     [_Remounts the ladder_.

    _Cæs._ A rare blood-hound, when his own is heated!
    And 'tis no boy's play. Now he strikes them down!                  160
    His hand is on the battlement--he grasps it
    As though it were an altar; now his foot
    Is on it, and----What have we here?--a Roman?
    The first bird of the covey! he has fallen             [_A man falls_.
    On the outside of the nest. Why, how now, fellow?

    _Wounded Man_. A drop of water!

    _Cæs._                         Blood's the only liquid
    Nearer than Tiber.

    _Wounded Man_. I have died for Rome.                          [_Dies_.

    _Cæs._ And so did Bourbon, in another sense.
    Oh, these immortal men! and their great motives!
    But I must after my young charge. He is                            170
    By this time i' the Forum. Charge! charge!
                            [CÆSAR _mounts the ladder; the scene closes_.

          SCENE II.--_The City_.--_Combats between the Besiegers
     and Besieged in the streets_. _Inhabitants flying in confusion_.

                             _Enter_ CÆSAR.

    _Cæs._ I cannot find my hero; he is mixed
    With the heroic crowd that now pursue
    The fugitives, or battle with the desperate.
    What have we here? A Cardinal or two
    That do not seem in love with martyrdom.
    How the old red-shanks scamper! Could they doff
    Their hose as they have doffed their hats, 'twould be
    A blessing, as a mark[244] the less for plunder.
    But let them fly; the crimson kennels now
    Will not much stain their stockings, since the mire                10
    Is of the self-same purple hue.

     _Enter a Party fighting_--ARNOLD _at the head of the Besiegers_.

                                   He comes,
    Hand in hand with the mild twins--Gore and Glory.[dq]
    Holla! hold, Count!

    _Arn._              Away! they must not rally.

    _Cæs._ I tell thee, be not rash; a golden bridge
    Is for a flying enemy. I gave thee
    A form of beauty, and an
    Exemption from some maladies of body,
    But not of mind, which is not mine to give.
    But though I gave the form of Thetis' son,
    I dipped thee not in Styx; and 'gainst a foe                        20
    I would not warrant thy chivalric heart
    More than Pelides' heel; why, then, be cautious,
    And know thyself a mortal still.

    _Arn._                          And who
    With aught of soul would combat if he were
    Invulnerable? That were pretty sport.
    Think'st thou I beat for hares when lions roar?
                                         [ARNOLD _rushes into the combat_.

    _Cæs._ A precious sample of humanity!
    Well, his blood's up; and, if a little's shed,
    'Twill serve to curb his fever.

                                [ARNOLD _engages with a Roman, who retires
                                    towards a portico_.

    _Arn._                          Yield thee, slave!
    I promise quarter.

    _Rom._            That's soon said.

    _Arn._                              And done----                     30
    My word is known.

    _Rom._           So shall be my deeds.
                                [_They re-engage_. CÆSAR _comes forward_.

    _Cæs._ Why, Arnold! hold thine own: thou hast in hand
    A famous artisan, a cunning sculptor;
    Also a dealer in the sword and dagger.
    Not so, my musqueteer; 'twas he who slew
    The Bourbon from the wall.[245]

    _Arn._                     Aye, did he so?
    Then he hath carved his monument.

    _Rom._                           I yet
    May live to carve your better's.

    _Cæs._ Well said, my man of marble! Benvenuto,
    Thou hast some practice in both ways; and he                        40
    Who slays Cellini will have worked as hard
    As e'er thou didst upon Carrara's blocks.

                      [ARNOLD _disarms and wounds_ CELLINI, _hit slightly:
                          the latter draws a pistol, and fires; then
                          retires, and disappears through the portico_.

    _Cæs._ How farest thou? Thou hast a taste, methinks,
    Of red Bellona's banquet.

    _Arn._ (_staggers_). 'Tis a scratch.
    Lend me thy scarf. He shall not 'scape me thus.

    _Cæs._ Where is it?

    _Arn._             In the shoulder, not the sword arm--
    And that's enough. I am thirsty: would I had
    A helm of water!

    _Cæs._           That's a liquid now
    In requisition, but by no means easiest
    To come at.

    _Arn._      And my thirst increases;--but                           50
    I'll find a way to quench it.

    _Cæs._                       Or be quenched
    Thyself.

    _Arn._   The chance is even; we will throw
    The dice thereon. But I lose time in prating;
    Prithee be quick.                        [CÆSAR _binds on the scarf_.
                     And what dost thou so idly?
    Why dost not strike?

    _Cæs._              Your old philosophers
    Beheld mankind, as mere spectators of
    The Olympic games. When I behold a prize
    Worth wrestling for, I may be found a Milo.[246]

    _Arn._ Aye, 'gainst an oak.

    _Cæs._                    A forest, when it suits me:
    I combat with a mass, or not at all.                                60
    Meantime, pursue thy sport as I do mine;
    Which is just now to gaze, since all these labourers
    Will reap my harvest gratis.

    _Arn._                       Thou art still
    A fiend!

    _Cæs._   And thou--a man.

    _Arn._ Why, such I fain would show me.[dr]

    _Cæs._                                 True--as men are.

    _Arn._ And what is that?

    _Cæs._                  Thou feelest and thou see'st.

                        [_Exit_ ARNOLD, _joining in the combat which still
                           continues between detached parties. The
                           scene closes_.

        SCENE III.--_St. Peter's--The interior of the Church--The
         Pope at the Altar--Priests, etc., crowding in confusion,
          and Citizens flying for refuge, pursued by Soldiery_.

                             _Enter_ CÆSAR.

    _A Spanish Soldier_. Down with them, comrades, seize upon those lamps!
    Cleave yon bald-pated shaveling to the chine!
    His rosary's of gold!

    _Lutheran Soldier_. Revenge! revenge!
    Plunder hereafter, but for vengeance now--
    Yonder stands Anti-Christ!

    _Cæs._ (_interposing_).    How now, schismatic?
    What wouldst thou?

    _Luth. Sold._      In the holy name of Christ,
    Destroy proud Anti-Christ.[247] I am a Christian.

    _Cæs._ Yea, a disciple that would make the founder
    Of your belief renounce it, could he see
    Such proselytes. Best stint thyself to plunder.                     10

    _Luth. Sold._ I say he is the Devil.

    _Cæs._                               Hush! keep that secret,[ds]
    Lest he should recognise you for his own.

    _Luth. Sold._ Why would you save him? I repeat he is
    The Devil, or the Devil's vicar upon earth.

    _Cæs._ And that's the reason: would you make a quarrel
    With your best friends? You had far best be quiet;
    His hour is not yet come.

    _Luth. Sold._            That shall be seen!

                             [_The Lutheran Soldier rushes forward: a shot
                                strikes him from one of the Pope's Guards,
                                and he falls at the foot of the Altar_.

    _Cæs._ (_to the Lutheran_). I told you so.

    _Luth. Sold._               And will you not avenge me?

    _Cæs._ Not I! You know that "Vengeance is the Lord's:"
    You see he loves no interlopers.

    _Luth. Sold._ (_dying_).         Oh!                                20
    Had I but slain him, I had gone on high,
    Crowned with eternal glory! Heaven, forgive
    My feebleness of arm that reached him not,
    And take thy servant to thy mercy. 'Tis
    A glorious triumph still; proud Babylon's
    No more; the Harlot of the Seven Hills
    Hath changed her scarlet raiment for sackcloth
    And ashes!                                       [_The Lutheran dies_.

    _Cæs._     Yes, thine own amidst the rest.
    Well done, old Babel!

                     [_The Guards defend themselves desperately, while the
                           Pontiff escapes, by a private passage, to the
                           Vatican and the Castle of St. Angelo_.[248]

    _Cæs._                Ha! right nobly battled!
    Now, priest! now, soldier! the two great professions,               30
    Together by the ears and hearts! I have not
    Seen a more comic pantomime since Titus
    Took Jewry. But the Romans had the best then;
    Now they must take their turn.

    _Soldiers_.                   He hath escaped!
    Follow!

    _Another Sold._ They have barred the narrow passage up,
    And it is clogged with dead even to the door.

    _Cæs._ I am glad he hath escaped: he may thank me for't
    In part. I would not have his bulls abolished--
    'Twere worth one half our empire: his indulgences
    Demand some in return; no, no, he must not                          40
    Fall;--and besides, his now escape may furnish
    A future miracle, in future proof
    Of his infallibility.                      [_To the Spanish Soldiery_.
                         Well, cut-throats!
    What do you pause for? If you make not haste,
    There will not be a link of pious gold left.
    And _you_, too, Catholics! Would ye return
    From such a pilgrimage without a relic?
    The very Lutherans have more true devotion:
    See how they strip the shrines!

    _Soldiers_.                    By holy Peter!
    He speaks the truth; the heretics will bear                         50
    The best away.

    _Cæs._         And that were shame! Go to!
    Assist in their conversion.
             [_The Soldiers disperse; many quit the Church, others enter_.

    _Cæs._                     They are gone,
    And others come: so flows the wave on wave
    Of what these creatures call Eternity,
    Deeming themselves the breakers of the Ocean,
    While they are but its bubbles, ignorant
    That foam is their foundation. So, another!

              _Enter_ OLIMPIA, _flying from the pursuit--She
                         springs upon the Altar_.

    _Sold._ She's mine!

    _Another Sold._ (_opposing the former_).
                       You lie, I tracked her first: and were she
    The Pope's niece, I'll not yield her.                   [_They fight_.

    _3d Sold._ (_advancing towards_ OLIMPIA). You may settle
    Your claims; I'll make mine good.

    _Olimp._                          Infernal slave!                   60
    You touch me not alive.

    _3d Sold._             Alive or dead!

    _Olimp._ (_embracing a massive crucifix_). Respect your God!

    _3d Sold._ Yes, when he shines in gold.
    Girl, you but grasp your dowry.

                     [_As he advances_, OLIMPIA, _with a strong and sudden
                           effort, casts down the crucifix; it strikes the
                           Soldier, who falls_.

    _3d Sold._                     Oh, great God!

    _Olimp._ Ah! now you recognise him.

    _3d Sold._                          My brain's crushed!
    Comrades, help, ho! All's darkness!                          [He dies.

    _Other Soldiers_ (_coming up_).
    Slay her, although she had a thousand lives:
    She hath killed our comrade.

    _Olimp._                     Welcome such a death!
    You have no life to give, which the worst slave
    Would take. Great God! through thy redeeming Son,
    And thy Son's Mother, now receive me as                             70
    I would approach thee, worthy her, and him, and thee!

                             _Enter_ ARNOLD.

    _Arn._ What do I see? Accurséd jackals! Forbear!

    _Cæs._ (_aside and laughing_). Ha! ha! here's equity! The dogs
    Have as much right as he. But to the issue!

    _Soldiers_. Count, she hath slain our comrade.

    _Arn._                                         With what weapon?

    _Sold._ The cross, beneath which he is crushed; behold him
    Lie there, more like a worm than man; she cast it
    Upon his head.

    _Arn._        Even so: there is a woman
    Worthy a brave man's liking. Were ye such,
    Ye would have honoured her. But get ye hence,                       80
    And thank your meanness, other God you have none,
    For your existence. Had you touched a hair
    Of those dishevelled locks, I would have thinned
    Your ranks more than the enemy. Away!
    Ye jackals! gnaw the bones the lion leaves,
    But not even these till he permits.

    _A Sold._ (_murmuring_).            The lion
    Might conquer for himself then.

    _Arn._ (_cuts him down_).      Mutineer!
    Rebel in hell--you shall obey on earth!
                                           [_The Soldiers assault_ ARNOLD.

    _Arn._ Come on! I'm glad on't! I will show you, slaves,
    How you should be commanded, and who led you                        90
    First o'er the wall you were so shy to scale,
    Until I waved my banners from its height,
    As you are bold within it.
         [ARNOLD _mows down the foremost; the rest throw down their arms_.

    _Soldiers_.                Mercy! mercy!

    _Arn._ Then learn to grant it. Have I taught you _who_
    Led you o'er Rome's eternal battlements?

    _Soldiers_. We saw it, and we know it; yet forgive
    A moment's error in the heat of conquest--
    The conquest which you led to.

    _Arn._                        Get you hence!
    Hence to your quarters! you will find them fixed
    In the Colonna palace.

    _Olimp._ (_aside_).   In my father's                               100
    House!

    _Arn._ (_to the Soldiers_). Leave your arms; ye have no further need
    Of such: the city's rendered. And mark well
    You keep your hands clean, or I'll find out a stream
    As red as Tiber now runs, for your baptism.

    _Soldiers_ (_deposing their arms and departing_). We obey!

    _Arn._ (_to_ OLIMPIA). Lady, you are safe.

    _Olimp._                                  I should be so,
    Had I a knife even; but it matters not--
    Death hath a thousand gates; and on the marble,
    Even at the altar foot, whence I look down
    Upon destruction, shall my head be dashed,
    Ere thou ascend it. God forgive thee, man!                         110

    _Arn._ I wish to merit his forgiveness, and
    Thine own, although I have not injured thee.

    _Olimp._ No! Thou hast only sacked my native land,--
    No injury!--and made my father's house
    A den of thieves! No injury!--this temple--
    Slippery with Roman and with holy gore!
    No injury! And now thou wouldst preserve me,
    To be----but that shall never be!

                [_She raises her eyes to Heaven, folds her robe round her,
                      and prepares to dash herself down on the side of
                      the Altar opposite to that where_ ARNOLD _stands_.

    _Arn._                           Hold! hold!
    I swear.

    _Olimp._ Spare thine already forfeit soul
    A perjury for which even Hell would loathe thee.                   120
    I know thee.

    _Arn._       No, thou know'st me not; I am not
    Of these men, though----

    _Olimp._                 I judge thee by thy mates;
    It is for God to judge thee as thou art.
    I see thee purple with the blood of Rome;
    Take mine, 'tis all thou e'er shalt have of me,
    And here, upon the marble of this temple,
    Where the baptismal font baptized me God's,
    I offer him a blood less holy
    But not less pure (pure as it left me then,
    A redeeméd infant) than the holy water                             130
    The saints have sanctified!

                    [OLIMPIA _waves her hand to_ ARNOLD _with disdain, and
                          dashes herself on the pavement from the Altar_.

    _Arn._                      Eternal God!
    I feel thee now! Help! help! she's gone.

    _Cæs._ (_approaches_).                  I am here.

    _Arn._ Thou! but oh, save her!

    _Cæs._ (_assisting him to raise_ OLIMPIA). She hath done it well!
    The leap was serious.

    _Arn._                Oh! she is lifeless!

    _Cæs._                                     If
    She be so, I have nought to do with that:
    The resurrection is beyond me.

    _Arn._                        Slave!

    _Cæs._ Aye, slave or master, 'tis all one: methinks
    Good words, however, are as well at times.

    _Arn._ Words!--Canst thou aid her?

    _Cæs._                           I will try. A sprinkling
    Of that same holy water may be useful.                             140
                            [_He brings some in his helmet from the font_.

    _Arn._ 'Tis mixed with blood.

    _Cæs._                       There is no cleaner now
    In Rome.

    _Arn._ How pale! how beautiful! how lifeless!
    Alive or dead, thou Essence of all Beauty,
    I love but thee!

    _Cæs._          Even so Achilles loved
    Penthesilea;[249] with his form it seems
    You have his heart, and yet it was no soft one.

    _Arn._ She breathes! But no, 'twas nothing, or the last
    Faint flutter Life disputes with Death.

    _Cæs._                                 She breathes.

    _Arn._ _Thou_ say'st it? Then 'tis truth.

    _Cæs._                                   You do me right--
    The Devil speaks truth much oftener than he's deemed:              150
    He hath an ignorant audience.

    _Arn._ (_without attending to him_). Yes! her heart beats.
    Alas! that the first beat of the only heart
    I ever wished to beat with mine should vibrate
    To an assassin's pulse.

    _Cæs._                  A sage reflection,
    But somewhat late i' the day. Where shall we bear her?
    I say she lives.

    _Arn._          And will she live?

    _Cas._                             As much
    As dust can.

    _Arn._ Then she is dead!

    _Cæs._                   Bah! bah! You are so,
    And do not know it. She will come to life--
    Such as you think so, such as you now are;
    But we must work by human means.

    _Arn._                          We will                            160
    Convey her unto the Colonna palace,
    Where I have pitched my banner.

    _Cæs._                         Come then! raise her up!

    _Arn._ Softly!

    _Cæs._        As softly as they bear the dead,
    Perhaps because they cannot feel the jolting.

    _Arn._ But doth she live indeed?

    _Cæs._                           Nay, never fear!
    But, if you rue it after, blame not me.

    _Arn._ Let her but live!

    _Cæs._                  The Spirit of her life
    Is yet within her breast, and may revive.
    Count! count! I am your servant in all things,
    And this is a new office:--'tis not oft                            170
    I am employed in such; but you perceive
    How staunch a friend is what you call a fiend.
    On earth you have often only fiends for friends;
    Now _I_ desert not mine. Soft! bear her hence,
    The beautiful half-clay, and nearly spirit!
    I am almost enamoured of her, as
    Of old the Angels of her earliest sex.[250]

    _Arn._ Thou!

    _Cæs._      I! But fear not. I'll not be your rival.

    _Arn._ Rival!

    _Cæs._       I could be one right formidable;
    But since I slew the seven husbands of                             180
    Tobias' future bride (and after all
    Was smoked out by some incense),[251] I have laid
    Aside intrigue: 'tis rarely worth the trouble
    Of gaining, or--what is more difficult--
    Getting rid of your prize again; for there's
    The rub! at least to mortals.

    _Arn._                       Prithee, peace!
    Softly! methinks her lips move, her eyes open!

    _Cæs._ Like stars, no doubt; for that's a metaphor
    For Lucifer and Venus.

    _Arn._                To the palace
    Colonna, as I told you!

    _Cæs._                 Oh! I know                                  190
    My way through Rome.

    _Arn._              Now onward, onward! Gently!
                           [_Exeunt, bearing_ OLIMPIA. _The scene closes_.

                                PART III.

      SCENE I.--_A Castle in the Apennines, surrounded by a wild but
      smiling Country. Chorus of Peasants singing before the Gates_.

                                _Chorus_.

                    I.

             The wars are over,
               The spring is come;
             The bride and her lover
               Have sought their home:
    They are happy, we rejoice;
    Let their hearts have an echo in every voice!

                    II.

    The spring is come; the violet's gone,
    The first-born child of the early sun:[dt]
    With us she is but a winter's flower,
    The snow on the hills cannot blast her bower,                       10
    And she lifts up her dewy eye of blue
    To the youngest sky of the self-same hue.

                    III.

    And when the spring comes with her host
    Of flowers, that flower beloved the most
    Shrinks from the crowd that may confuse
    Her heavenly odour and virgin hues.

                    IV.

    Pluck the others, but still remember
    Their herald out of dim December--
    The morning star of all the flowers,
    The pledge of daylight's lengthened hours;                          20
    Nor, midst the roses, e'er forget
    The virgin--virgin Violet.

                             _Enter_ CÆSAR.

                          _Cæs._ (_singing_).
    The wars are all over,
      Our swords are all idle,
      The steed bites the bridle,
    The casque's on the wall.
    There's rest for the rover;
      But his armour is rusty,
      And the veteran grows crusty,
    As he yawns in the hall.                                            30
      He drinks--but what's drinking?
      A mere pause from thinking!
    No bugle awakes him with life-and-death call.

                               _Chorus_.

        But the hound bayeth loudly,
          The boar's in the wood,
        And the falcon longs proudly
          To spring from her hood:
        On the wrist of the noble
          She sits like a crest,
        And the air is in trouble                                       40
          With birds from their nest.

                                _Cæs_.
        Oh! shadow of Glory!
          Dim image of War!
        But the chase hath no story,
          Her hero no star,
        Since Nimrod, the founder
          Of empire and chase,
        Who made the woods wonder
          And quake for their race.
        When the lion was young,                                        50
          In the pride of his might,
        Then 'twas sport for the strong
          To embrace him in fight;
        To go forth, with a pine
          For a spear, 'gainst the mammoth,
        Or strike through the ravine[du]
          At the foaming behemoth;
        While man was in stature
          As towers in our time,
        The first born of Nature,                                       60
          And, like her, sublime!

                                    _Chorus_.

        But the wars are over,
          The spring is come;
        The bride and her lover
          Have sought their home:
    They are happy, and we rejoice;
    Let their hearts have an echo from every voice!
                                         [_Exeunt the Peasantry, singing_.

        FRAGMENT OF THE THIRD PART OF _THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED_.

                                _Chorus_.

    When the merry bells are ringing,
    And the peasant girls are singing,
    And the early flowers are flinging
      Their odours in the air;
    And the honey bee is clinging
    To the buds; and birds are winging
      Their way, pair by pair:
    Then the earth looks free from trouble
    With the brightness of a bubble:
    Though I did not make it,                                           10
    I could breathe on and break it;
    But too much I scorn it,
    Or else I would mourn it,
    To see despots and slaves
    Playing o'er their own graves.

                          _Enter_ COUNT ARNOLD.

            {_Mem._ Jealous--Arnold of Cæsar.
            {Olympia at first not liking Cæsar
            {--then?--Arnold jealous of himself
            {under his former figure, owing to
            {the power of intellect, etc., etc., etc.

    _Arnold_. You are merry, Sir--what? singing too?

    _Cæsar_.                                         It is
    The land of Song--and Canticles you know
    Were once my avocation.

    _Arn._              Nothing moves you;
    You scoff even at your own calamity--
    And such calamity! how wert thou fallen                             20
    Son of the Morning! and yet Lucifer
    Can smile.

    _Cæs._     His shape can--would you have me weep,
    In the fair form I wear, to please you?

    _Arn._                                 Ah!

    _Cæs._ You are grave--what have you on your spirit!

    _Arn._                                               Nothing.

    _Cæs._ How mortals lie by instinct! If you ask
    A disappointed courtier--What's the matter?
    "Nothing"--an outshone Beauty what has made
    Her smooth brow crisp--"Oh, Nothing!"--a young heir
    When his Sire has recovered from the Gout,
    What ails him? "Nothing!" or a Monarch who 30
    Has heard the truth, and looks imperial on it--
    What clouds his royal aspect? "Nothing," "Nothing!"
    Nothing--eternal nothing--of these nothings
    All are a lie--for all to them are much!
    And they themselves alone the real "Nothings."
    Your present Nothing, too, is something to you--
    What is it?

    _Arn._      Know you not?

    _Cæs._                   I only know
    What I desire to know! and will not waste
    Omniscience upon phantoms. Out with it!
    If you seek aid from me--or else be silent.                         40
    And eat your thoughts--till they breed snakes within you.

    _Arn._ Olimpia!

    _Cæs._          I thought as much--go on.

    _Arn._ I thought she had loved me.

    _Cæs._                             Blessings on your Creed!
    What a good Christian you were found to be!
    But what cold Sceptic hath appalled your faith
    And transubstantiated to crumbs again
    The _body_ of your Credence?

    _Arn._                      No one--but--
    Each day--each hour--each minute shows me more
    And more she loves me not--

    _Cæs._                     Doth she rebel?

    _Arn._ No, she is calm, and meek, and silent with me,               50
    And coldly dutiful, and proudly patient--
    Endures my Love--not meets it.

    _Cæs._                        That seems strange.
    You are beautiful and brave! the first is much
    For passion--and the rest for Vanity.

    _Arn._ I saved her life, too; and her Father's life,
    And Father's house from ashes.

    _Cæs._                        These are nothing.
    You seek for Gratitude--the Philosopher's stone.

    _Arn._ And find it not.

    _Cæs._                  You cannot find what is not.
    But _found_ would it content you? would you owe
    To thankfulness what you desire from Passion?                       60
    No! No! you would be _loved_--what you call loved--
    _Self-loved_--loved for _yourself_--for neither health,
    Nor wealth, nor youth, nor power, nor rank, nor beauty--
    For these you may be stript of--but _beloved_
    As an abstraction--for--you know not what!
    These are the wishes of a moderate lover--
    And _so_ you love.

    _Arn._             Ah! could I be beloved,
    Would I ask wherefore?

    _Cæs._               Yes! and not believe
    The answer--You are jealous.

    _Arn._                       And of whom?

    _Cæs._ It may be of yourself,[252] for Jealousy                     70
    Is as a shadow of the Sun. The Orb
    Is mighty--as you mortals deem--and to
    Your little Universe seems universal;
    But, great as He appears, and is to you,
    The smallest cloud--the slightest vapour of
    Your humid earth enables you to look
    Upon a Sky which you revile as dull;
    Though your eyes dare not gaze on it when cloudless.
    Nothing can blind a mortal like to light.
    Now Love in you is as the Sun--a thing                              80
    Beyond you--and your Jealousy's of Earth--
    A cloud of your own raising.

    _Arn._                       Not so always!
    There is a cause at times.

    _Cæs._                    Oh, yes! when atoms jostle,
    The System is in peril. But I speak
    Of things you know not. Well, to earth again!
    This precious thing of dust--this bright Olimpia--
    This marvellous Virgin, is a marble maid--
    An Idol, but a cold one to your heat
    Promethean, and unkindled by your torch.

    _Arn._ Slave!

    _Cæs._         In the victor's Chariot, when Rome triumphed,        90
    There was a Slave of yore to tell him truth!
    You are a Conqueror--command your Slave.

    _Arn._ Teach me the way to win the woman's love.

    _Cæs._ Leave her.

    _Arn._            Where that the path--I'd not pursue it.

    _Cæs._ No doubt! for if you did, the remedy
    Would be for a disease already cured.

    _Arn._ All wretched as I am, I would not quit
    My unrequited love, for all that's happy.

    _Cæs._ You have possessed the woman--still possess.
    What need you more?

    _Arn._         To be myself possessed--                            100
    To be her heart as she is mine.

FOOTNOTES:

[201] {473}[_The Three Brothers_, by Joshua Pickersgill, junior, was
published in 1803. There is no copy of _The Three Brothers_ in the
British Museum. The following extracts are taken from a copy in the
Bodleian Library at Oxford (vol. 4, cap. xi. pp. 229-350):--

"Arnaud, the natural son of the Marquis de Souvricour, was a child
'extraordinary in Beauty and Intellect.' When travelling with his
parents to Languedoc, Arnaud being 8 years old, he was shot at by
banditti, and forsaken by his parents. The Captain of the band nursed
him. 'But those perfections to which Arnaud owed his existence, ceased
to adorn it. The ball had gored his shoulder, and the fall had
dislocated it; by the latter misadventure his spine likewise was so
fatally injured as to be irrecoverable to its pristine uprightness.
Injuries so compound confounded the Captain, who sorrowed to see a
creature so charming, at once deformed by a crooked back and an
excrescent shoulder.' Arnaud was found and taken back to his parents.
'The bitterest consciousness of his deformity was derived from their
indelicate, though, perhaps, insensible alteration of conduct.... Of his
person he continued to speak as of an abhorrent enemy.... "Were a
blessing submitted to my choice, I would say, [said Arnaud] be it my
immediate dissolution." "I think," said his mother, ... "that you could
wish better." "Yes," adjoined Arnaud, "for that wish should be that I
ever had remained unborn."' He polishes the broken blade of a sword, and
views himself therein; the sight so horrifies him that he determines to
throw himself over a precipice, but draws back at the last moment. He
goes to a cavern, and conjures up the prince of hell. "Arnaud knew
himself to be interrogated. What he required.... What was that answer
the effects explain.... There passed in liveliest portraiture the
various men distinguished for that beauty and grace which Arnaud so much
desired, that he was ambitious to purchase them with his soul. He felt
that it was his part to chuse whom he would resemble, yet he remained
unresolved, though the spectator of an hundred shades of renown, among
which glided by Alexander, Alcibiades, and Hephestion: at length
appeared the supernatural effigy of a man, whose perfections human
artist never could depict or insculp--Demetrius, the son of Antigonus.
Arnaud's heart heaved quick with preference, and strait he found within
his hand the resemblance of a poniard, its point inverted towards his
breast. A mere automaton in the hands of the Demon, he thrust the point
through his heart, and underwent a painless death. During his trance,
his spirit metempsychosed from the body of his detestation to that of
his admiration ... Arnaud awoke a Julian!'"]

[202] {474}[For a _résumé_ of M. G. Lewis's _Wood Demon_ (afterwards
re-cast as _One O'clock; or, The Knight and the Wood-Demon_, 1811), see
"First Visit to the Theatre in London," _Poems_, by Hartley Coleridge,
1851, i., Appendix C, pp. cxcix.-cciii. The _Wood Demon_ in its original
form was never published.]

[203] [Mrs. Shelley inscribed the following note on the fly-leaf of her
copy of _The Deformed Transformed_:--

"This had long been a favourite subject with Lord Byron. I think that he
mentioned it also in Switzerland. I copied it--he sending a portion of
it at a time, as it was finished, to me. At this time he had a great
horror of its being said that he plagiarised, or that he studied for
ideas, and wrote with difficulty. Thus he gave Shelley Aikins' edition
of the British poets, that it might not be found in his house by some
English lounger, and reported home; thus, too, he always dated when he
began and when he ended a poem, to prove hereafter how quickly it was
done. I do not think that he altered a line in this drama after he had
once written it down. He composed and corrected in his mind. I do not
know how he meant to finish it; but he said himself that the whole
conduct of the story was already conceived. It was at this time that a
brutal paragraph[*] alluding to his lameness appeared, which he repeated
to me lest I should hear it from some one else. No action of Lord
Byron's life--scarce a line he has written--but was influenced by his
personal defect."

[*] It is possible that Mrs. Shelley alludes to a sentence in the
_Memoirs, etc., of Lord Byron_. (by Dr. John Watkin), 1822, p. 46: "A
malformation of one of his feet, and other indications of a rickety
constitution, served as a plea for suffering him to range the hills and
to wander about at his pleasure on the seashore, that his frame might be
invigorated by air and exercise."]

[cv] {477} _The Deformed--a drama.--B. Pisa, 1822_.

[204] [Moore (_Life_, p. 13) quotes these lines in connection with a
passage in Byron's "Memoranda," where, in speaking of his own
sensitiveness on the subject of his deformed foot, he described the
feeling of horror and humiliation that came over him, when his mother,
in one of her fits of passion, called him "_a lame brat!_"... "It may
be questioned," he adds, "whether that whole drama [_The Deformed
Transformed_] was not indebted for its origin to that single
recollection."

Byron's early letters (_e.g._ November 2, 11, 17, 1804, _Letters_, 1898,
i. 41, 45, 48) are full of complaints of his mother's "eccentric
behaviour," her "fits of phrenzy," her "caprices," "passions," and so
forth; and there is convincing proof--see _Life_, pp. 28, 306;
_Letters_, 1898, ii. 122 (incident at Bellingham's execution);
_Letters_, 1901, vi. 179 (_Le Diable Boiteux_)--that he regarded the
contraction of the muscles of his legs as a more or less repulsive
deformity. And yet, to quote one of a hundred testimonies,--"with regard
to Lord Byron's features, Mr. Mathews observed, that he was the only man
he ever contemplated, to whom he felt disposed to apply the word
_beautiful_" (_Memoirs of Charles Matthews_, 1838, ii. 380). The
looker-on or the consoler computes the magnitude and the liberality of
the compensation. The sufferer thinks only of his sufferings.]

[205] {478}[So, too, Prospero to Caliban, _Tempest_, act i. sc. 2, line
309, etc.]

[206] {479}[Compare--"Have not partook oppression." _Marino Faliero_,
act i. sc. 2, line 468, _Poetical Works_, 1901, iv. 362, note 1.]

[207] {480}[Compare the story of the philosopher Jamblichus and the
raising of Eros and Anteros from their "fountain-dwellings."--_Manfred_,
act ii. sc. 2, line 93, _Poetical Works_, 1901, iv. 105, note 2.]

[cw] {481} _Give me the strength of the buffalo's foot_ (_which marks
me_).--[MS.]

[cx] _The sailless dromedary_----.--[MS.]

[cy] {482} _Now I can gibe the mightiest_.--[MS.]

[208] {483}[So, too, in _The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus_ (Marlowe's
_Works_, 1858, p. 112), Faustus stabs his arm, "and with his proper
blood Assures his soul to be great Lucifer's."]

[cz]

    _Walk lively and pliant_.
    _You shall rise up as pliant_.--[MS, erased.]

[209] This is a well-known German superstition--a gigantic shadow
produced by reflection on the Brocken. [See Brewster's _Letters on
Natural Magic_, 1831, p. 128.]

[da] _And such my command_.--[MS.]

[210] {484}["Nigris vegetisque oculis."--Suetonius, _Vitæ C. Julius
Cæsar_, cap. xiv., _Opera Omnia_, 1826, i. 105.]

[211] [_Vide post_, p. 501, note 1.]

[212] ["Sed ante alias [Julius Cæsar] dilexit M. Bruti matrem Serviliam
... dilexit et reginas ... sed maxime Cleopatram" (_ibid._, i. 113,
115). Cleopatra, born B.C. 69, was twenty-one years old when she met
Cæsar, B.C. 48.]

[db]

                                 _And can_
    _It be? the man who shook the earth is gone_.--[MS.]

[213] {485}["Upon the whole, it may be doubted whether there be a name
of Antiquity which comes down with such a general charm as that of
_Alcibiades_. _Why?_ I cannot answer: who can?"--_Detached Thoughts_
(1821), No. 108, _Letters_, 1901, v. 461. For Sir Walter Scott's note on
this passage, see _Letters_, 1900, iv. 77, 78, note 2.]

[214] [The outside of Socrates was that of a satyr and buffoon, but his
soul was all virtue, and from within him came such divine and pathetic
things, as pierced the heart, and drew tears from the hearers.--Plato,
_Symp_., p. 216, D.]

[215] {486}["Anthony had a noble dignity of countenance, a graceful
length of beard, a large forehead, an aquiline nose: and, upon the
whole, the same manly aspect that we see in the pictures and statues of
Hercules."--Plutarch's _Lives_, Langhorne's Translation, 1838, p. 634.]

[216] [As in the "Farnese" Hercules.]

[217] [The beauty and mien [of Demetrius Poliorcetes] were so inimitable
that no statuary or painter could hit off a likeness. His countenance
had a mixture of grace and dignity; and was at once amiable and awful;
and the unsubdued and eager air of youth was blended with the majesty of
the hero and the king.--Plutarch's _Lives_, Langhorne's Translation,
1838, p. 616.

Demetrius the Besieger rescued Greece from the sway of Ptolemy and
Cassander, B.C. 307. He passed the following winter at Athens, where
divine honours were paid to him under the title of "the Preserver" (ὁ
Σωτήρ [o(Sôtê/r]). He was "the shame of Greece in peace," by reason of
his profligacy--"the citadel was so polluted with his debaucheries, that
it appeared to be kept sacred in some degree when he indulged himself
only with such _Hetæræ_ as Chrysis, Lamia, Demo, and Anticyra." He was
the unspiritual ancestor of Charles the Second. Once when his father,
Antigonus, had been told that he was indisposed, "he went to see him;
and when he came to the door, he met one of his favourites going out. He
went in, however, and, sitting down by him, took hold of his hand. 'My
fever,' said Demetrius, 'has left me.' 'I knew it,' said Antigonus, 'for
I met it this moment at the door.'"--Plutarch's _Lives_, _ibid._, pp.
621-623.]

[218] {488}[Spercheus was a river-god, the husband of Polydora, the
daughter of Peleus. Peleus casts into the river the hair of his son
Achilles, in the pious hope that his son-in-law would accept the votive
offering, and grant the youth a safe return from the Trojan war. See
_Iliad_, xxiii. 140, _sqq._]

[219] {489}["Whosoever," says Bacon, "hath anything fixed in his person
that doth induce contempt, hath also a perpetual spur in himself to
rescue and deliver himself from scorn; therefore, all deformed persons
are extreme bold; first, as in their own defence, as being exposed to
scorn, but in process of time by a general habit; also it stirreth in
them industry, and especially of this kind, to watch and observe the
weakness of others, that they may have somewhat to repay." (Essay
xliv.). Byron's "chief incentive, when a boy, to distinction was that
mark of deformity on his person, by an acute sense of which he was first
stung into the ambition of being great."--_Life_, p. 306.]

[220] [Timúr Bey, or Timúr Lang, _i.e._ "the lame Timúr" (A.D.
1336-1405), was the founder of the Mogul dynasty. He was the Tamerlane
of history and of legend. Byron had certainly read the selections from
Marlowe's _Tamburlaine the Great_, in Lamb's _Specimens of English
Dramatic Poets_.]

[221] {491}["I am black, but comely."--_Song of Solomon_ i. 5.]

[222] Adam means "_red earth_," from which the first man was formed.
[The word _adām_ is said to be analogous to the Assyrian _admu_,
"child"--_i.e._ "one made" by God.--_Encycl. Bibl._, art. "Adam."]

[dc] {492} _This shape into Life_.--[_MS_.]

[223] {493}[The reference is to the _homunculi_ of the alchymists. See
Retzsch's illustrations to Goethe's _Faust_, 1834, plates 3, 4, 5.
Compare, too, _The Second Part of Faust_, act ii.--

    "The glass rings low, the charming power that lives
    Within it makes the music that it gives.
    It dims! it brightens! it will shape itself.
    And see! a graceful dazzling little elf.
    He lives! he moves! spruce mannikin of fire,
    What more can we? what more can earth desire?"

Anster's Translation, 1886, p. 91.]

[dd] _Your Interloper_----.--[MS.]

[224] {494}[Compare _Prisoner of Chillon_, stanza ii. line 35, _Poetical
Works_, 1091, iv. 15, note i. Compare, too, the dialogue between
Mephistopheles and the Will-o'-the Wisp, in the scene on the Hartz
Mountains, in _Faust_, Part I. (see Anster's Translation, 1886, p.
271).]

[225] {495}[The immediate reference is to the composite forces, German,
French, and Spanish, of the Imperial Army under the command of Charles
de Bourbon: but there is in lines 498-507 a manifest allusion to the
revolutionary movements in South America, Italy, and Spain, which were
at their height in 1822. (See the _Age of Bronze_, section vi. lines
260, _sq._, _post_, pp. 555-557.)]

[226] {496}[See Euripides, _Hippolytus_, line 733.]

[de] _Kochlani_----.--[MS.]

[227] [Kochlani horses were bred in a central province of Arabia.]

[228] [Byron's knowledge of Huon of Bordeaux was, most probably, derived
from Sotheby's _Oberon; or, Huon de Bourdeux: A Mask_, published in
1802. For _The Boke of Duke Huon of Burdeux_, done into English by Sir
John Bourchier, Lord Berners, see the reprint issued by the Early
English Text Society (E.S., No. xliii. 1884); and for _Analyse de Huon
de Bordeaux, etc._, see _Les Epopées Françaises_, by Léon Gautier, 1880,
ii. 719-773.]

[229] {497}[The so-called statue of Memnon, the beautiful son of
Tithonus and Eos (Dawn), is now known to be that of Amenhotep III., who
reigned in the eighteenth dynasty, about 1430 B.C. Strabo, ed. 1807. p.
1155, was the first to record the musical note which sounded from the
statue when it was touched by the rays of the rising sun. It used to be
argued (see Gifford's note to _Don Juan_, Canto XIII. stanza lxiv. line
3, ed. 1837, p. 731) that the sounds were produced by a trick, but of
late years it has been maintained that the Memnon's wail was due to
natural causes, the pressure of suddenly-warmed currents of air through
the pores and crevices of the stone. After the statue was restored, the
phenomenon ceased. (See _La statue vocale de Memnon_, par J. A. Letronne,
Paris, 1833, pp. 55, 56.)]

[df] _We'll add a "Count" to it_.--[MS.]

[dg] {498} ----_my eyes are full_.--[MS.]

[230] [Charles de Bourbon, Comte de Montpensier et de la Marche, Dauphin
d'Auvergne, was born February 17, 1490. He served in Italy with Bayard,
and helped to decide the victory of Agnadello (A.D. 1510). He was
appointed Constable of France by Francis I., January, 1515, and fought
at the battle of Marignano, September 13, 1515. Not long afterwards he
lost the king's favour, who was set against him by his mother, Louise de
Savoie; was recalled from his command in Italy, and superseded by Odet
de Foix, brother of the king's mistress. It was not, however, till he
became a widower (Susanne, Duchesse de Bourbon, died April 28, 1521)
that he finally broke with Francis and attached himself to the Emperor
Charles V. _Madame_, the king's mother, not only coveted the vast
estates of the house of Bourbon, but was enamoured of the Constable's
person, and, so to speak, gave him his choice between marriage and a
suit for his fiefs. Charles would have nothing to say to the lady's
proposals or to her son's entreaties, and seeing that rejection meant
ruin, he "entered into a correspondence with the Emperor and the King
[Henry VIII.] of England ... and, finding this discovered, went into the
Emperor's service."

After various and varying successes, both in the South of France and in
Lombardy, he found himself, in the spring of 1527, not so much the
commander-in-chief as the popular _capo_ of a mixed body of German,
Spanish, and Italian _condottieri_, unpaid and ill-disciplined, who had
mutinied more than once, who could only be kept together by the prospect
of unlimited booty, and a timely concession to their demands. "To Rome!
to Rome!" cried the hungry and tumultuous _landsknechts_, and on May 5,
1527, the "late Constable of France," at the head of an army of 30,000
troops, appeared before the walls of the sacred city. On the morning of
the 6th of May, he was killed by a shot from an arquebuse. His epitaph
recounts his honours: "Aucto Imperio, Gallo victo, Superatâ Italiâ,
Pontifice obsesso, Româ captâ, Borbonius, Hic Jacet;" but in Paris they
painted the sill of his gate-way yellow, because he was a renegade and a
traitor. He could not have said, with the dying Bayard, "Ne me plaignez
pas-je meurs sans avoir servi contre _ma patrie, mon roy_, et mon
serment." (See _Modern Universal History_, 1760, xxiv. 150-152, Note C;
_Nouvelle Biographie Universelle_, art. "Bourbon.")]

[231] {499}[The contrast is between imperial Rome, the Lord of the
world, and papal Rome, "the great harlot which hath corrupted the earth
with her fornications" (_Rev._ ii. 19). Compare Part II. sc. iii. line
26, _vide post_, p. 521.]

[232] {500}[Compare _Manfred_, act iii. sc. 4, line 10; and _Childe
Harold_, Canto IV. stanza cxxviii. line 1; _Poetical Works_, 1901, iv.
131, 1899, ii. 423, note 2.]

[233] {501}["Calvitii vero deformitatem iniquissime ferret, sæpe
obtrectatorum jocis obnoxiam expertus. Ideoque et deficientem capillum
revocare a vertice assuerat, et ex omnibus decretis sibi a Senatu
populoque honoribus non aliud aut recepit aut usurpavit libentius, quam
jus laureæ coronæ perpetuo gestandæ."--Suetonius, _Opera Omnia_, 1826,
pp. 105, 106.]

[234] {503}[Francis the First was taken prisoner at the Battle of Pavia,
February 24, 1525.]

[dh] _With a soldier's firm foot_.--[MS.]

[235] [Compare _The Siege of Corinth_, line 752, _Poetical Works_, 1900,
iii. 483. There is a note of tragic irony in the soldiers' vain-glorious
prophecy.]

[di] _With the Bourbon will count o'er_.--[MS.]

[236] {504}[Brantôme (_Memoires, etc._, 1722, i. 215) quotes a "chanson"
of "Les soldats Espagnols" as they marched Romewards. "Calla calla Julio
Cesar, Hannibal, y Scipion! Viva la fama de Bourbon."]

[dj] _The General with his men of confidence_.--[MS.]

[dk] {505} _And present phantom of that deathless world_.--[MS.]

[237] {506}[When the Uticans decided not to stand a siege, but to send
deputies to Cæsar, Cato determined to put an end to his life rather than
fall into the hands of the conqueror. Accordingly, after he had retired
to rest he stabbed himself under the breast, and when the physician
sewed up the wound, he thrust him away, and plucked out his own
bowels.--Plutarch's _Lives_, Langhorne's Translation, 1838, P. 553.]

[dl] {507} _Of a mere starving_----.--[MS.]

[dm] ----_Work away with words_.--[MS.]

[dn] {508} _First City rests upon to-morrow's action_.--[MS.]

[238] {510}["Dès l'aube du lundi 6 mai 1527, le connétable, à cheval, la
cuirasse couverte d'un manteau blanc, marcha vers le Borgo, dont les
murailles, à la hauteur de San-Spirito, étaient d'accès facile....
Bourbon mit pied à terre, et, prenant lui-même une échelle l'appliqua
tout près de la porte Torrione."--_De l'Italie_, par Émile Gebhart,