SCENE III   Darkness. The Temple of Poseidon. Polydaon enters.   POLYDAON Cireas! Why, Cireas! Cireas! Knave, I call you! Is the rogue drunk or sleeps ? Cireas! you, Cireas! My voice comes echoing from the hollow shrine To tell me of solitude. Where is this drunkard ? A dreadful thing it is to stand alone In this weird temple. Forty years of use Have not accustomed me to its mute threatening. It seems to me as if dead victims moved With awful faces all about this stone Invisibly here palpable. And Ocean Groans ever like a wounded god aloud Against our rocky base, his vo

SCENE VI     Near the edge of the forest in Avunthie. Roomunwath, Yougundharayan, Alurca, Munjoolica, forces. ROOMUNWATH Stay, stay our march; 'tis Vuthsa's car arrives. The tired horses stumble as they pause. YOUGUNDHARAYAN There is a noise of armies close behind And out of woods the Avunthian wheels emerge. There arrive Vuthsa, Vicurna, Vasavadutta. VUTHSA My father, all things to their hour are true And I bring back my venture. Am I pardoned Its secrecy? YOUGUNDHARAYAN My pupil and son no more, But hero and monarch! Thou hast set thy foot Upon Avunthie's

Act Four   SCENE I     Swegn's fastness in the hills. Swegn, Hardicnut, Ragnar, with soldiers. SWEGN Fight on, fight always, till the gods are tired. In all this dwindling remnant of the past Desires one man to rest from virtue, cease From desperate freedom? HARDICNUT No man wavers here. SWEGN Let him depart unhurt who so desires. HARDICNUT Why should he go and whither? To Eric's sword That never pardons ? If our hearts were vile, Unworthily impatient of defeat, Serving not harassed right but chance and gain, Eric himself would keep them true. SWEGN    

  SCENE II   In the Temple of Poseidon. Cireas.   CIREAS I am done with thee, Poseidon Ennosigaios, man-slayer, ship-breaker, earth-shaker, lord of the waters! Never was faithful service so dirtily rewarded. In all these years not a drachma, not an obolus, not even a false coin for solace. And. when thou hadst mocked me with hope, when a Prince had promised me all my findings, puttest thou me off with two pauperized merchants of Babylon? What, thou takest thy loud ravenous glut of the treasures that should have been mine and roarest. derision at me with thy hundred-voiced laughters? Am I a sponge to suck up these insults? No!

SCENE IV       The same. Antiochus, Eunice, Rodogune. ANTIOCHUS , I put my hand on Antioch. Thou hast done well, O admirable quick Theramenes. This fight was lionlike. EUNICE         And like the lion Thou art, my warrior, thou canst now descend Upon Seleucus' city. How new 'twill seem After the mountains and the starlit skies To sleep once more in Antioch! RODOGUNE              I trust the stars And mountains better. They were kind to me. My blood within me chills when I look forward And think of Antioch. ANTIOCHUS These are the shadows from a clouded past

ERIC A dramatic romance CHARACTERS     ERIC SWEGN HARDICNUT RAGNAR GUNTHAR HARALD ASLAUG HERTHA   SCENE : Eric's Palace in his town of Yara. The Mountains, Swegn's Fastness.   Page – 473   Facsimile of a page from ERIC  Page – 475

Act Four   The palace in Antioch. Before the hills.   SCENE I     Cleopatra's chamber. Cleopatra, Zoyla. CLEOPATRA Will he not come this morning ? How my head aches! Zoyla, smooth the pain out of it, my girl, With your deft fingers. Oh, he lingers, lingers! Cleone keeps him still, the rosy harlot Who rules him now. She is grown a queen and reigns Insulting me in my own palace. Yes, He's happy in her arms; why should he care for me Who am only his mother ? ZOYLA Is the pain less at all? CLEOPATRA O, it goes deeper, deeper. Ever new revels, While s

Act One SCENE I   A rocky and surf-beat margin of land walled in with great frown- ing cliffs. Cireas, Diomede. CIREAS Diomede ? You here so early and in this wild wanton weather! DIOMEDE I can find no fault in the weather, Cireas; it is brilliant and frolicsome. CIREAS The rain has wept itself out and the sun has ventured into the open; but the wind is shouting like mad and the sea is still in a mighty passion. Has your mistress Andromeda sent you then with matin-offerings to Poseidon, or are you walking here to whip the red roses in your cheeks redder with the sea-breezes ? DIOMEDE

Act Four   SCENE I     A room in the royal apartments. Ungarica, Vasavadutta. UNGARICA Thou singest well; a cry of Vuthsa's art Has stolen into thy song. She takes Vasavadutta on her lap. Look up at me, My daughter, let me gaze into thy eyes And from their silence learn thy treasured thoughts. Thou knowest I can read 'twixt human lids The secrets of the throbbing heart ? I search In Vasavadutta's eyes by what strange skill Vuthsa has crept into my daughter's voice. Thou keepst thy lashes lowered ? thou wilt not let me look ? But that too I can read. VASAVADUTTA O mother, mother mine, Plag

SCENE II     A forest-glade in the Vindhya hills. Vicurna, a Captain. VICURNA The hunt rings distant still; but all the way Troops and more troops besiege. Where is Gopalaca ? CAPTAIN . Our work may, yet be rude before we reach Our armies on the frontier. VICURNA That I desire. O whistling of the arrows! I have yet To hear that battle music. CAPTAIN Someone comes, For wild things scurry forth. They take cover. Gopalaca enters. VICURNA Whither so swiftly? You are near the frontier for a banished man, Gopalaca. GOPALACA W