ACT I.
SCENE I.
CASSANDER, SOSTHENES.
cassander.
—Yet it is too soon.
When I possess the crown, your faithful eyes
Shall be the witnesses of all my deeds.
Stay in this porch, the priestesses to-day
Present Olympia to the powers divine:
This day in secret she must expiate,
Sins which are even to herself unknown.
This day a better life I shall begin.
O! dear Olympia, may you never know
The heinous crime that’s hardly yet effaced,
To whom your birth you owe, what blood I’ve shed.
sosthenes.
Can then my lord, a girl in infancy.
Stolen on Euphrates’ banks, and by your sire
Condemned to slavery, in your royal breast
Raise such a conflict?—
cassander.
—Sosthenes, respect
A slave to whom the world should homage pay:
The wrongs of fate I labor to repair.
My father had his reasons to conceal
The noble blood to which she owed her birth.
What do I say? O cruel memory!
He set her down amongst the victims doomed
To bleed, that he might unmolested reign. . . . .
Although in cruelty and carnage bred
I pitied her, and turned my father’s heart;
I who the mother stabbed, the daughter saved,
My frenzy and my crime she never knew.
Olympia, may thy error ever last,
Though as a benefactor thou dost love
Cassander, quickly he would have thy hate
Wert thou to know what blood his hands have shed.
sosthenes.
I don’t into those secrets strive to pry.
Of your true interest I speak alone.
Of all the several monarchs who pretend
To Alexander’s throne, Antigones,
And he alone, is to your cause a friend.
cassander.
His friendship I have always held most dear.
I will to him be faithful—
sosthenes.
—He to you
Equal fidelity and friendship owes,
But since we’ve seen him enter first these walls,
His heart by secret jealousy seems filled,
And from your love he seems to be estranged.
cassander.
What matters it? Oh, ever honored shades
Of Alexander and Statira—Dust
Of a famed hero, of a demi-god,
By my remorse you are enough avenged.
Olympia from their shades appeased obtain
The peace for which my heart so long has sighed;
Let your bright virtues all my fears dispel,
Be my defence and heaven propitiate;
But to this porch, just opened ere the day,
I see Antigones the king advance.
SCENE II.
cassander, sosthenes, antigones, hermas.
antigones.
[To Hermas behind.
I must this secret know, it importunes me.
Even in his heart I’ll read what he conceals.
Depart, but be at hand—
cassander.
When scarce the sun
Darts his first rays, what cause can bring you here?
antigones.
Your interests, Cassander, since the gods
By penitence you have propitious made,
The earth between us we must strive to share.
No more war’s horrors Ephesus dismay;
Your secret mysteries which awe inspire
Have banished discord and calamities.
Monarchs’ contentions are awhile composed,
But this repose is short, and soon our climes
By flames and by the sword will be laid waste;
The sword’s not sheathed nor flames extinguished yet.
Antipater’s no more, your courage, cares,
His undertaking doubtless will complete,
The brave Antipater had never borne
To see Seleucus and the Lagides,
And treacherous Antiochus, insult
The tomb of Alexander, boldly seize
His conquests and his great successors brave.
cassander.
Would to the gods that Alexander could
From heaven’s height this daring man behold;
Would he were still alive—
antigones.
Your words surprise;
Can you then Alexander’s loss regret?
What can to such a strange remorse give rise!
Of Alexander’s death you’re innocent.
cassander.
Alas! I caused his death—
antigones.
—He justly fell.
That victim loudly all the Grecians claimed.
Long was the world of his ambition tired.
The poison that he drank from Athens came,
Perdiccas cast it in the sparkling bowl;
The bowl your father put into your hand,
But never intimated the design.
You then were young, you at the banquet served,
The banquet where the haughty tyrant died.
cassander.
The impious parricide excuse no more.
antigones.
Can you then abjectly thus deify
The murderer of Clitus, whose fell rage
Destroyed Parmenio, and who, madly vain,
Dishonoring his mother durst aspire