MYRRHA.

Why

Dwells thy mind rather upon that man's name
Than on his mate's in villany?

SARDANAPALUS.

The other

Is a mere soldier, a mere tool, a kind

Of human sword in a friend's hand; the priest
Is master-mover of his warlike puppet:

But I dismiss them from my mind.-Yet pause,
My Myrrha! dost thou truly follow me,

Freely and fearlessly?

MYRRHA.

And dost thou think

A Greek girl dare not do for love that which

An Indian widow braves for custom?

Embrace, but not the last; there is one more.

SARDANAPALUS.

True, the commingling fire will mix our ashes.

MYRRHA.

And pure as is my love to thee, shall they,

Purged from the dross of earth, and earthly passion,

Mix pale with thine. A single thought yet irks me.

Say it.

SARDANAPALUS.

MYRRHA.

It is that no kind hand will gather

The dust of both into one urn.

SARDANAPALUS.

The better:

Rather let them be borne abroad upon
The winds of heaven, and scatter'd into air,
Than be polluted more by human hands
Of slaves and traitors; in this blazing palace,
And its enormous walls of reeking ruin,
We leave a nobler monument than Egypt
Hath piled in her brick mountains, o'er dead kings,
Or kine, for none know whether those proud piles
Be for their monarch, or their ox-god Apis:

So much for monuments that have forgotten
Their very record!

MYRRHA.

Then farewell, thou earth!

And loveliest spot of earth! farewell Ionia!

Be thou still free and beautiful, and far
Aloof from desolation! My last prayer

Was for thee, my last thoughts, save one, were of thee!

SARDANAPALUS.

And that?

MYRRHA.

Is yours.

(The trumpet of PANIA sounds without. SARDANAPALUS.

Hark!

MYRRHA.

Now!

SARDANAPALUS.

Adieu, Assyria!

I loved thee well, my own, my fathers' land,
And better as my country than my kingdom.
I satiated thee with peace and joys; and this
Is my reward! and now I owe thee nothing,
Not even a grave.

(As MYRRHA springs forward to throw herself into the flames, the

curtain falls.

NOTES TO SARDANAPALUS.

Note 1, page 273, line 20.

And thou, my own Ionian Myrrha.

The Ionian name had been still more comprehensive, having included the Achaians and the Boeotians, who, together with those to whom it was afterwards confined, would make nearly the whole of the Greek nation, and among the orientals it was always the general name for the Greeks.»-MITFORD'S Greece, vol. i. p. 199.

Note 2, page 285, lines 21 to 24.

Sardanapalus

The king, and son of Anacyndaraxes,

In one day built Anchialus and Tarsus.

Eat, drink, and love; the rest's not worth a fillip."

«<For this expedition he took only a small chosen body of the phalanx, but all his light troops. In the first day's march he reached Anchialus, a town said to have been founded by the king of Assyria, Sardanapalus. The fortifications, in their magnitude and extent, still in Arrian's time, bore the character of greatness which the Assyrians appear singularly to have affected in works of the kind. A monument representing Sardanapalus was found there, warranted by an inscription in Assyrian characters, of course in the old Assyrian language, which the Greeks, whether well or ill, interpreted thus: Sardanapalus, son of Anacyndaraxes, in one day founded Anchialus