-44_Rodogune-Act Two-Scene-1.htm

A hall in the palace.
Cleone, Phayllus.

PHAYLLUS

Worry the conscience of the Queen to death
Like the good bitch thou art. If this goes well,
I may sit unobserved on Syria’s throne.

CLEONE

Do not forget me.

PHAYLLUS

Do not forget thyself,
Then how shall I forget thee ?

CLEONE

I shall remember.

PHAYLLUS

If for a game you are the queen, Cleone,
And I your minister, how would you start
Your play of reigning ?

CLEONE

I would have many perfect tortures made
To hurt the Parthian with, for every nerve
A torture. I would lie in flowers the while
Drinking sweet Cyprian wine and hear her moan.

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PHAYLLUS

I do not like your thought, have better ones.

CLEONE

Shall I not satisfy my love, my hate ?
Then just as well I might not reign at all.

PHAYLLUS

O hatred, love and wrath, you instruments

By which we are driven! Cleone, the gods use these

For their own purposes, not we for ours.

CLEONE

I’ll do my will, Phayllus; you do yours.

PHAYLLUS

Our kingdom being won! It is not, yet.

(turning away)

She’s too violent for my calmer ends;

Lust drives her, not ambition. I wait on you,
You gods who choose. If Fate intends my rise,
She will provide the instruments and cause.

Timocles enters from the inner palace.

TIMOCLES

I think I am afraid to speak to her.
I never felt so with the Egyptian girls
In Thebes or Alexandria. Are you not
Phayllus ?

PHAYLLUS

You remember faces well,
And have the trick for names, the monarch’s trick.

TIMOCLES

Antiochus, all say, will be the king.

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PHAYLLUS

But I say otherwise and what I say
Has a strange gift of happening.

TIMOCLES

You’re my friend!

This is your sister ?

PHAYLLUS

My own and therefore yours.

TIMOCLES

This is your sister?

PHAYLLUS

Cleone.

TIMOCLES

A name that in its sound agrees
With Syria’s roses. Are you too my friend,
Cleone?

CLEONE

Your subject, prince.

TIMOCLES

And why not both ?

CLEONE

To serve is better.

TIMOCLES

Shall I try your will?

(embracing her)

Thou art warm fire against the lips, thou rose,
Cleone.

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CLEONE

May I test in turn?

TIMOCLES

Oh, do!

CLEONE

A rose examines by her thorns, — as thus.

She strikes him lightly on the cheek and goes out.

TIMOCLES (looking uncertainly at Phayllus who is
stroking his chin)

It was a courtesy, — our Egyptian way.

PHAYLLUS

Hers was the Syrian. Do not excuse yourself;

I am her brother.

TIMOCLES (turns as if to go, hesitates,
then comes back)

Oh, have you met, Phayllus,
A Parthian lady here named Rodogune ?

PHAYLLUS

Blows the wind east ? But if it brings me good,
Let it blow where it will. I know the child.
She’s fair. You’ld have her?

TIMOCLES

Fie on you, Phayllus!

PHAYLLUS

Prince, I have a plain tongue which, when I hunger,
Owns that there is a belly. Speak in your language!
I understand men’s phrases though I use them not.

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TIMOCLES

Think not that evil! she is not like those,
The common flowers which have a fair outside
Of beauty, but the common hand can pluck.
We wear such lightly, smell and throw away.
She is not like them.

PHAYLLUS

No? Yet are they all
Born from one mother Nature. What if she wears
The quick barbarian’s robe called modesty?
There is a woman always in the end
Behind that shimmering. Pluck the robe, ’twill fall;

Then is she Nature’s still.

TIMOCLES

I have seen her eyes, they are a liquid purity.

PHAYLLUS

And yet a fish swims there which men call love,
But truth names lust or passion. Fear not, prince;

The fish will rise to such an angler’s cast.

TIMOCLES

Mistake me not, nor her. These things are done,
But not with such as she; she is heaven-pure
And must like heaven be by worship won.

PHAYLLUS

What is it then that you desire of her
Or ask of me? I can do always much.

TIMOCLES

O nothing else but this, only to kneel,

Look up at her and touch the little hand

That fluttered like a moonlit butterfly

About my mother’s hair. If she consenting smiled  

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A little, I might even dare so much.

PHAYLLUS

Why, she’s your slave-girl!

TIMOCLES  

I shall kneel to her
Some day and feel her hand upon my brow.

PHAYLLUS

What animal this is, I hardly know,
But know it is the animal for me:

My genius tells me. Prince, I need a bribe
Before I’ll stir in this.

TIMOCLES

What bribe, Phayllus?

PHAYLLUS

A name, — your friend.

TIMOCLES

O more than merely friend!
Bring me into the temple dim and pure
Whence my own hopes and fears now bar me out,
Then I am yours, Phayllus, you myself
For all things.

PHAYLLUS

Remember me when you have any need.

He goes out.

TIMOCLES

I have a friend! He is the very first

Who was not conquered by Antiochus.

Now has this love like lightning leaped at me!

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