Yet these are trophies

More worthy of a people and their prince

Than songs, and lutes, and feasts, and concubines,

And lavished treasures, and contemnéd virtues.

Sar. Or for my trophies I have founded cities:

There's Tarsus and Anchialus, both built

In one day what could that bloodloving beldame,

My martial grandam, chaste Semiramis,
Do more, except destroy them?
Sal.
'Tis most true; 240

I own thy merit in those founded cities,
Built for a whim, recorded with a verse
Which shames both them and thee to
coming ages.

Sar. Shame me! By Baal, the cities, though well built,

Are not more goodly than the verse! Say what

Thou wilt 'gainst me, my mode of life or rule,

But nothing 'gainst the truth of that brief record.

Why, those few lines contain the history Of all things human: hear

danapalus,

"Sar249

The king, and son of Anacyndaraxes, In one day built Anchialus and Tarsus. Eat, drink, and love; the rest's not worth a fillip."

Sal. A worthy moral, and a wise inscription,

me

For a king to put up before his subjects! Sar. Oh, thou wouldst have doubtless set up edicts

When we take those from others, we nor know

What we have taken, nor the thing we give.

Sal. Wouldst thou not take their
lives who seek for thine?

Sar. That's a hard question But
I answer, Yes.

Cannot the thing be done without?
Who are they

Whom thou suspectest? - Let them be arrested.

Sal. I would thou wouldst not ask me; the next moment 300 Will send my answer through thy babbling troop

Of paramours, and thence fly o'er the palace,

Even to the city, and so baffle all.
Trust me.

Sar. Thou knowest I have done so
ever;

Take thou the signet.

Sal.

[Gives the signet.

I have one more request.

If need be, wilt thou wear them?

Sar. Will I not? .Oh! if it must be so, and these rash slaves

Will not be ruled with less, I'll use the sword

Till they shall wish it turned into a distaff.

Sal. They say thy Sceptre's turned to that already.

Sar. That's false! but let them say so: the old Greeks,

Of whom our captives often sing, related

The same of their chief hero, Hercules, Because he loved a Lydian queen: thou

Sal.

Passing my own as suited me.
Thou stopp'st 360
Short of the duties of a king; and there-
fore

They say thou art unfit to be a monarch.
Sar. They lie. Unhappily, I am

unfit

To be aught save a monarch; else for me The meanest Mede might be the king instead.

Sal. There is one Mede, at least, who seeks to be so.

Sar. What mean'st thou !
secret; thou desirest

'tis thy

Few questions, and I'm not of curious

nature.

Take the fit steps; and, since necessity Requires, I sanction and support thee.

Ne'er

370 Was man who more desired to rule in peace

The peaceful only if they rouse me, better

They had conjured up stern Nimrod

from his ashes,