You must declare them—
statira.
—Sir, what matter these?
The blood of beggars and the blood of kings,
Are they not equal in the sight of heaven?
By heaven we’re better known than by ourselves,
Great names might formerly have dazzled me;
They’re all forgotten in the silent tomb,
Let them be ever blotted from my mind.
the hierophants.
Vain glory and ambition we renounce.
In this point we’re agreed, but still the gods
Exact a full confession of the truth.
Say all, you shudder—
statira.
—So you will yourself.
[To the Priests and Priestesses.
You, who on heaven’s high majesty attend,
Who share my fate, whose lives are passed in prayer,
Religiously my secret ever keep.
the hierophants.
We swear it solemnly.
statira.
—Ere I proceed,
Say, is Cassander, that blood-thirsty man,
Admitted to your sacred mysteries?
the hierophants.
Madam, he is—
statira.
—Are then his crimes atoned?
the hierophants.
Of mercy every mortal stands in need.
If innocence alone could heaven approach,
Who in this temple would the gods adore?
All human virtue from repentance springs.
Such is the eternal order of the gods.
Mortals are guilty, but heaven pardons all.
statira.
If you then knew the barbarous, horrid deeds
Which make him sue for grace and vengeance dread,
If you knew that by him his master fell,
A master dear to heaven, and if you knew
What blood he shed within these flaming walls,
When even in dying Alexander’s eyes,
He gored the bosom of his weeping queen,
And threw her dying on her husband’s corpse,
You’ll still be more surprised when I’ve revealed
Secrets as yet unknown to human kind.
That wife who once on glory’s summit sat,
Whose memory bleeding Persia honors still,
Darius’ daughter, Alexander’s wife,
She’s here before you, ask her nothing more.
[The priests and priestesses lift up their hands and bend their bodies.]
the hierophants.
What have I heard, you gods whom crimes offend,
How do you strike your images on earth?
Statira in this temple, give me leave
Respect profoundest—
statira.
—Rise, thou reverend priest,
No longer am I mistress of the world,
Only respect the anguish of my mind.
In me of human greatness see the fate.
What my sire found the moment of his death,
I found in Babylon when drenched in blood
Darius, king of kings of throne deprived,
A fugitive in deserts, quite forlorn,
By his own treacherous followers was slain,
A stranger, wretched outcast of the earth,
Consoled his misery in his dying hour,
See you that woman to my court a stranger.
[Showing the inferior priestess.
Her hand, her hand alone preserved my life.
’Twas she that brought me from the slaughtered heap
Where my base friends had left me to expire;
She is of Ephesus; my steps she led
To this asylum on my realm’s confines.
I saw my spoils by numerous plunderers torn,
The field strewed o’er with dying and the dead,
All Alexander’s soldiers raised to kings,
And public robberies called great exploits.
The world I hated and its various woes;
I left it, and lived here interred alive.
I own I mourn a daughter much beloved,
Torn from me whilst I weltered in my gore.
This stranger here is all my family.
My husband, daughter, and Darius lost,
Heaven’s my resource alone—
the hierophants.
—Be heaven your prop.
From the throne which you lost to heaven you rise,
God’s temple is your court, be happy there.
Your grandeur though august was dangerous,
The throne was terrible, forget it quite
And look upon it with a pitying eye.
statira.
This temple, sir, sometimes has calmed my griefs,
But you may well conceive how much I’m shocked
At seeing by Cassander the same gods
Implored whom I’ve invoked against his head.
the hierophants.
This, I acknowledge, needs must give you pain:
But our law speaks to you and must be heard.
You have embraced it.—
statira.
—Could I ever think
It would so horrid an injunction lay?
The torch of my sad days grows pale and dim,
And these last moments which high heaven bestows
What purpose serve they?—
the hierophants.
—You’ll perhaps forgive,
You have yourself traced out your great career.
Proceed in it and never look behind.
Shades when unbound from cumbrous, fleshly chains,
Taste lasting rest, and are from passion free.
A new day gives them light, a cloudless day;
They live for heaven, their lot is like to ours.
Soon on our hearts a blest retreat bestows
Oblivion of our enemies and griefs.
statira.
I’m priestess now, ’tis true, though once a queen,
My duty’s