Chapter 16Scene 4

The same. Antiochus, Eunice, Rodogune. ANTIOCHUS I put my hand on Antioch. Thou hast done well, O admirable quick Theramenes. This fight was lionlike. EUNICE And like the lion Thou art, my warrior, thou canst now descend Upon Seleucus’ city. How new ’twill seem After the mountains and the starlit skies To sleep once more in Antioch! RODOGUNE I trust the stars And mountains better. They were kind to me. My blood within me chills when I look forward And think of Antioch. ANTIOCHUS These are the shadows from a clouded past Which shall not be repeated, Rodogune. This is not Antioch that thou knewst, the prison Of thy captivity, thou enterest now, Not Antioch of thy foes, but a new city And thy own kingdom. RODOGUNE Are the gods so good?

Rodogune ANTIOCHUS The gods are strong; they love to test our strength Like armourers hammering steel. Therefore ’twas said That they are jealous. No, but high and stern Demanding greatness from the great; they strike At every fault they see, perfect themselves Labour at our perfection. What rumour increases Approaching from the mountains? Thoas, thou? Thoas enters. Thy brow is dark. Is it Theramenes? Returns our fortune broken? THOAS Broken and fallen. We who are left bring back Theramenes Upon whose body twenty glorious wounds Smile at defeat. ANTIOCHUS Theramenes before me! How have you kept me lying in my tent! I thought our road was clear of foemen. THOAS The gods Had other resources that we knew not of. Within the passes, on the summit couch The spears of Macedon. They have arrived From the sea, from Antioch. ANTIOCHUS The Macedonians! Then Our day is ended; we must think of night. We reach our limit, Thoas. THOAS That’s if we choose;

Act IV, Scene 4 For there are other tidings. ANTIOCHUS They should be welcome. THOAS Phraates, thy imperial father, comes With myriad hosts behind him thunder-hooved, Not for invasion armed as Syria’s foe, But for the husband of his Rodogune. Shall we recoil upon these helpers? Death Can always wait. ANTIOCHUS Perhaps. Leave me awhile, Thoas; for we must sit alone tonight, My soul and I together. Rodogune, Thoas goes. Wouldst thou go back to Parthia, to thy country? RODOGUNE I have no country, I have only thee. I shall be where thou art; it is all I know And all I wish for. ANTIOCHUS Eunice, wilt thou go To Antioch safe? My mother loves thee well. EUNICE I follow her and thee. What talk is this? I shall grow angry. ANTIOCHUS Am I other, Eunice, Than once I was? Is there a change in me Since first I came into your lives from Egypt?

Rodogune EUNICE You are my god, my warrior and the same You ever were. ANTIOCHUS To her and thee I am. Sleep well, my Rodogune, for thou and I, Not sure of Fate, are of each other sure. To thee what else can matter? RODOGUNE Nothing else. Rodogune and Eunice enter the interior of the tent. ANTIOCHUS A god! Yes, I have godlike stirrings in me. Shall they be bounded by this petty world The sea can span? If Rome, Greece, Africa, Asia and all the undiscovered globe Were given me for my garden, all glory mine, All men my friends, all women’s hearts my own, Would there not still be bounds, still continents Unvanquished? O thou glorious Macedonian, Thou too must seek at last more worlds to conquer. Hast thou discovered them? This earth is but a hillock when all’s said, The sea an azure puddle. All tonight Seems strange to me; my wars, ambition, fate And what I am and what I might have been, Float round me vaguely and withdraw from me Like grandiose phantoms in a mist. Who am I? Whence come I? Whither go, or wherefore now? Who gave me these gigantic appetites That make a banquet of the world? who set These narrow, scornful and exiguous bounds To my achievement? O, to die, to pass,

Act IV, Scene 4 Nothing achieved but this, “He tried great things, Accomplished small ones.” If this life alone Be given us to fail or to succeed, Then ’tis worth keeping. The Parthian treads our land! Phraates’ hooves dig Grecian soil once more! The subtle Parthian! He has smiled and waited Till we were weak with mutual wounds and now Stretches his foot towards Syria. Have I then Achieved this only, my country’s servitude? Shall that be said of me? It galls, it stabs. My fame! “Destroyer of Syria, he undid The great Seleucus’ work.” Whatever else O’ertake me, in this the strong gods shall not win. I will give up my body and sword to Timocles, Repel the Parthian, save from this new death, These dangerous allies from Macedon Syria, then die. But wherefore die? Should I not rather go With my sole sword into the changeful world, Create an empire, not inherit one? Are there not other realms? has not the East Great spaces? In huge torrid Africa Beyond the mystic sources of the Nile There must be empires. Or if with a ship One sailed for ever through the infinite West, Through Ocean and still Ocean for three years, Might not one find the old Atlantic realms No fable? Thy narrow lovely littoral, O blue Mediterranean, India, Parthia, Is this the world? I thirst for mightier things Than earth has. But for what I dreamed, to bound Upon Nicanor through the deep-bellied passes Or fall upon the Macedonian spears, It were glorious, yet a glorious cowardice, Too like self-slaughter. Is it not more heroic

Rodogune To battle with than to accept calamity? Unless indeed all thinking-out is vain And Fate our only mover. Seek it out, my soul, And make no error here; for on this hour The future of the man Antiochus, What future he may have upon the earth In name or body lies. Reveal it to me, Zeus! In Antioch or upon the Grecian spears, Where lies my fate? While he is speaking, the Eremite enters. EREMITE Before thee always. ANTIOCHUS How Cam’st thou or whence? I know thy ominous look. EREMITE The how inquire not nor the whence, but learn The end is near which I then promised thee. ANTIOCHUS So then, defeat and death were from the first My portion! Wherefore were these thoughts gigantical With which I came into my mother ready-shaped If they must end in the inglorious tomb? EREMITE Despise not proud defeat, scorn not high death. The gods accept them sternly. ANTIOCHUS Yes, as I shall, But not submissively.

Act IV, Scene 4 EREMITE Break then, thou hill Unsatisfied with thy own height. The gods Care not if thou resist or if thou yield; They do their work with mortals. To the Vast Whence thou, O ravening, strong and hungry lion, Overleaping cam’st the iron bars of Time, Return! thou hast thy tamers. God of battles! Son of Nicanor! strong Antiochus! Depart and be as if thou wert not born. The gods await thee in Antioch. He departs. ANTIOCHUS I will meet them there. Break me. I see you can, O gods. But you break A body, not this soul; for that belongs, I feel, To other masters. It is settled then. Tomorrow sets in Antioch.