Page images
PDF
EPUB

And hangs on Dian's temple: Dear Valeria !
Vol. This is a poor epitome of yours,
Which by the interpretation of full time
May show like all yourself.

Cor.

The god of soldiers,

With the consent of supreme Jove, inform

Thy thoughts with nobleness; that thou may'st prove To shame unvulnerable, and stick i' the wars

Like a great sea-mark, standing every flaw,

And saving those that eye thee !

Vol.

Cor. That's my brave boy.

Your knee, sirrah.

Vol. Even he, your wife, this lady, and myself,

Are suitors to you.

Cor.

I beseech you, peace:

Or, if you'd ask, remember this before;

The things, I have forsworn to grant, may never
Be held by your denials. Do not bid me

Dismiss my soldiers, or capitulate

Again with Rome's mechanics:-Tell me not
Wherein I seem unnaturál: Desire not

To allay my rage and my revenges, with
Your colder reasons.

Vol.

O, no more, no more!

You have said, you will not grant us any thing.
For we have nothing else to ask, but that
Which you deny already: yet we will ask;
That, if you fail in our request, the blame

May hang upon your hardness; therefore hear us.
Cor. Aufidius, and you Volces, mark; for we'll
Hear nought from Rome in private.-Your request?
Vol. Should we be silent and not speak, our raiment,
And state of bodies would bewray what life

We have led since thy exile. Think with thyself,
How more unfortunate than all living women

Are we come hither: since that thy sight, which should
Make our eyes flow with joy, hearts dance with comfort,
Constrains them weep, and shake with fear and sorrow;
Making the mother, wife, and child, to see

The son, the husband, and the father, tearing
His country's bowels out. And to poor we,
Thine enmity's most capital: thou barr'st us
Our prayers to the gods, which is a comfort
That all but we enjoy: For how can we,
Alas! how can we for our country pray,
Whereto we are bound; together with thy victory,
Whereto we are bound? Alack! or we must lose
The country, our dear nurse; or else thy person,
Our comfort in the country. We must find
An evident calamity, though we had

Our wish, which side should win: for either thou
Must, as a foreign recreant, be ied

[ocr errors]

With manacles through our streets, or else
Triumphantly tread on thy country's ruin;
And bear the palm, for having bravely shed
Thy wife and children's blood. For myself, son,
I purpose not to wait on fortune, till

These wars determine: if I cannot persuade thee
Rather to show a noble grace to both parts,

Than seek the end of one, thou shalt no sooner
March to assault thy country, than to tread
(Trust to't, thou shalt not,) on thy mother,

Who brought thee to this world.

Vir.

Ay, and on me, That brought you forth this boy, to keep your name Living to time.

Boy.

He shall not tread on me;

I'll run away till I am bigger; but then I'll fight.
Cor. Not of a woman's tenderness to be,
Requires nor child's nor woman's face to see.
I have sat too long.

Vol.

Nay, go not from us thus. If it were so that our request did tend

To save the Romans, thereby to destroy

[Rising.

The Volces whom you serve, you might condemn us,

As poisonous of your honor: No; our suit,

Is, that you reconcile them: While the Volces

May say, This mercy we have show'd; the Romans,

This we received; and each in either side

Give the all-hail to thee, and cry Be bless'd

For making up this peace! Thou know'st great son,
The end of war's uncertain; but this certain,
That, if thou conquer Rome, the benefit
Which thou shalt thereby reap is such a name,
Whose repetition will be dogg'd with curses;
Whose chronicle thus writ,-The man was noble,
But with his last attempt he wip'd it out;
Destroy'd his country; and his name remains
To the ensuing age, abhorr'd. Speak to me, son:
Thou hast affected the fine strains of honor,
To imitate the graces of the gods;

To tear with thunder the wide cheeks o' the air,
And yet to charge thy sulphur with a bolt

That should but rive an oak. Why dost not speak?
Think'st thou it honorable for a noble man
Still to remember wrongs ?-Daughter, speak you.
He cares not for your weeping. Speak thou, boy:
Perhaps, thy childishness will move him more

Than can our reasons.-There is no man in the world
More bound to his mother; yet here he lets me prate,
Like one i' the stocks. Thou hast never in thy life
Show'd thy dear mother any courtesy;

When she, (poor hen !) fond of no second brood,
Has cluck'd thee to the wars, and safely home,

Loaden with honor. Say, my request's unjust,
And spurn me back: But, if it be not so,
Thou art not honest; and the gods will plague thee,
That thou restrain'st from me the duty, which
To a mother's part belongs. He turns away:
Down, ladies; let us shame him with our knees.
To his surname Coriolanus 'longs more pride,
Than pity to our prayers. Down; An end:
This is the last; So we will home to Rome,
And die amoug our neighbors.-Nay, behold us;
This boy, that cannot tell what he would have,
But kneels, and holds up hands, for fellowship,
Does reason our petition with more strength
Than thou hast to deny't.-Come, let us go:
This fellow had a Volscian to his mother;
His wife is in Corioli, and his child

Like him by chance:-Yet give us our despatch:
I am bush'd until our city be afire,

And then I'll speak a little.

Cor.

O mother, mother!
[Holding VOLUMNIA by the hands, silent.
What have you done? Behold, the heavens do ope,
The gods look down, and this unnatural scene
They laugh at. O my mother, mother! O!
You have won a happy victory to Rome:
But, for your son,-believe it, O, believe it,
Most dangerously you have with him prevail'd,
If not most mortal to him. But, let it come;-
Aufidius, though I cannot make true wars,

I'll frame convenient peace. Now, good Aufidius,
Were you in my stead, say, would you have heard
A mother less? or granted less, Aufidius?

Auf. I was moved withal.

Cor.
I dare be sworn, you were:
And, sir, it is no little thing, to make

Mine eyes to sweat compassion. But, good sir,
What peace you'll make, advise me for my part,
I'll not to Rome, I'll back with you, and pray you,
Stand to me in this cause.-O mother! wife!

Auf. I am glad, thou hast set thy mercy and thy honor
At difference in thee: out of that I'll work
Myself a former fortune.

[Aside.

[The Ladies make signs to CORIOLANUS. Cor. Ay, by and by; [To VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, &c. But we will drink together; and you shall bear

A better witness back than words, which we,

On like conditions will have counter-seal'd.
Come, enter with us. Ladies, you deserve
To have a temple built you: all the swords
In Italy, and her confederate arms,
Could not have made this peace.

THE HEAD OF MEMNON.-HORACE SMITH.

In Egypt's centre, when the world was young,
My statue soar'd aloft-a man-shaped tower,
O'er hundred-gated Thebes, by Homer sung,
And built by Apis' and Osiris' power.

When the sun's infant eye more brightly blazed,
I mark'd the labors of unwearied time;
And saw, by patient centuries up-raised,
Stupendous temples, obelisks sublime!

Hewn from the rooted rock, some mightier mound
Some new colossus more enormous springs,

So vast, so firm, that, as gazed around,

I thought them, like myself, eternal things.

Then did I mark in sacerdotal state,

Psammis the king, whose alabaster tomb, (Such the inscrutable decrees of fate,)

Now floats athwart the sea to share my doom.

O Thebes, I cried, thou wonder of the world!
Still shalt thou soar, its everlasting boast:
When lo! the Persian standards were unfurl'd,
And fierce Cambyses led the invading host.

Where from the east a dust of cloud proceeds,
A thousand banner'd suns at once appear;
Nought else was seen;-but sound of neighing steeds
And faint barbaric music met mine ear.

Onward they march, and foremost I descried
A cuirassed Grecian band in phalanx dense,
Around them throng'd, in oriental pride,

Commingled tribes-a wild magnificence.

Dogs, cats, and monkeys in their van they show,
Which Egypt's children worship and obey;
They fear to strike a sacrilegious blow,
And fall-a pious, unresisting prey.

Then havoc, leaguing with infuriate zeal,
Palaces, temples, cities are o'erthrown;
Apis is stabb'd!-Cambyses thrusts the steel,
And shuddering Egypt heaved a general groan !

The firm Memnonium mock'd their feeble power,
Flames round its granite columns hiss'd in vain,
The head of Isis, frowning o'er each tower,

Look'd down with indestructible disdain.

Mine was a deeper aud more quick disgrace :

Beneath my shade a wondering army flock'd; With force combined, they wrench'd me from my base, And earth beneath the dread concussion rock'd.

Nile from his banks receded with affright,

The startled Sphynx long trembled at the sound; While from each pyramid's astounded height,

The loosun'd stones slid rattling to the ground.

I watch'd, as in the dust supine I lay,

The fall of Thebes-as I had mark'd its fameTill crumbling down, as ages roll'd away,

Its site a lonely wilderness became !

The throngs that choked its hundred gates of yore,
Its fleets, its armies, were no longer seen;
Its priesthood's pomp, its Pharaohs were no more-
All-all were gone-as if they ne'er had been!

Deep was the silence now, unless some vast
And time-worn fragment thunder'd to its base;
Whose sullen echoes, o'er the desert cast,
Died in the distant solitude of space.

Or haply, in the palaces of kings,

Some stray jackal sate howling on the throne:
Or, on the temple's holiest altar, springs
Some gaunt hyæna, laughing all alone.

Nature o'erwhelms the relics left by time;-
By slow degrees entombing all the land;
She buries every monument sublime,

Beneath a mighty winding-sheet of sand.
Vain is each monarch's unremitting pains,
Who in the rock his place of burial delves;
Behold! their proudest palaces and fanes

Are subterraneous sepulchres themselves.

Twenty-three centuries unmoved I lay,

And saw the tide of sand around me rise; Quickly it threaten'd to engulf its prey,

And close in everlasting night mine eyes.

Snatch'd in this crisis from my yawning grave,
Belzoni roll'd me to the banks of Nile,
And slowly heaving o'er the western wave,
This massy fragment reach'd the imperial isle.

In London, now with face erect I gaze

On England's pallid sons, whose eyes upcast,
View my collossal features with amaze,
And deeply ponder on my glories past.

« PreviousContinue »