No More Learning

What have I done to thee, or to the people,
That thou shouldst rail, or they rise up against me?

_Sal. _ Of what thou hast done to me, I speak not.

_Sar. _ But
Thou think'st that I have wronged the Queen: is't not so?

_Sal. _ _Think! _ Thou hast wronged her!

_Sar. _ Patience, Prince, and hear me.
She has all power and splendour of her station, 210
Respect, the tutelage of Assyria's heirs,
The homage and the appanage of sovereignty.
I married her as monarchs wed--for state,
And loved her as most husbands love their wives.
If she or thou supposedst I could link me
Like a Chaldean peasant to his mate,
Ye knew nor me--nor monarchs--nor mankind.

_Sal. _ I pray thee, change the theme: my blood disdains
Complaint, and Salemenes' sister seeks not
Reluctant love even from Assyria's lord!
220
Nor would she deign to accept divided passion
With foreign strumpets and Ionian slaves.
The Queen is silent.

_Sar. _ And why not her brother?

_Sal. _ I only echo thee the voice of empires,
Which he who long neglects not long will govern.

_Sar. _ The ungrateful and ungracious slaves! they murmur
Because I have not shed their blood, nor led them
To dry into the desert's dust by myriads,
Or whiten with their bones the banks of Ganges;
Nor decimated them with savage laws, 230
Nor sweated them to build up Pyramids,
Or Babylonian walls.

_Sal. _ Yet these are trophies
More worthy of a people and their prince
Than songs, and lutes, and feasts, and concubines,
And lavished treasures, and contemned virtues.

_Sar. _ Or for my trophies I have founded cities:
There's Tarsus and Anchialus, both built
In one day--what could that blood-loving 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.