Imaginary Conversations and Poems Part 1

Imaginary Conversations and Poems.

by Walter Savage Landor.

MARCELLUS AND HANNIBAL

_Hannibal._ Could a Numidian horseman ride no faster? Marcellus! oh!

Marcellus! He moves not--he is dead. Did he not stir his fingers?

Stand wide, soldiers--wide, forty paces; give him air; bring water; halt! Gather those broad leaves, and all the rest, growing under the brushwood; unbrace his armour. Loose the helmet first--his breast rises. I fancied his eyes were fixed on me--they have rolled back again. Who presumed to touch my shoulder? This horse? It was surely the horse of Marcellus! Let no man mount him. Ha! ha! the Romans, too, sink into luxury: here is gold about the charger.

_Gaulish Chieftain._ Execrable thief! The golden chain of our king under a beast's grinders! The vengeance of the G.o.ds hath overtaken the impure----

_Hannibal._ We will talk about vengeance when we have entered Rome, and about purity among the priests, if they will hear us. Sound for the surgeon. That arrow may be extracted from the side, deep as it is.

The conqueror of Syracuse lies before me. Send a vessel off to Carthage. Say Hannibal is at the gates of Rome. Marcellus, who stood alone between us, fallen. Brave man! I would rejoice and cannot. How awfully serene a countenance! Such as we hear are in the islands of the Blessed. And how glorious a form and stature! Such too was theirs!

They also once lay thus upon the earth wet with their blood--few other enter there. And what plain armour!

_Gaulish Chieftain._ My party slew him; indeed, I think I slew him myself. I claim the chain: it belongs to my king; the glory of Gaul requires it. Never will she endure to see another take it.

_Hannibal._ My friend, the glory of Marcellus did not require him to wear it. When he suspended the arms of your brave king in the temple, he thought such a trinket unworthy of himself and of Jupiter. The s.h.i.+eld he battered down, the breast-plate he pierced with his sword--these he showed to the people and to the G.o.ds; hardly his wife and little children saw this, ere his horse wore it.

_Gaulish Chieftain._ Hear me; O Hannibal!

_Hannibal._ What! when Marcellus lies before me? when his life may perhaps be recalled? when I may lead him in triumph to Carthage? when Italy, Sicily, Greece, Asia, wait to obey me? Content thee! I will give thee mine own bridle, worth ten such.

_Gaulish Chieftain._ For myself?

_Hannibal._ For thyself.

_Gaulish Chieftain._ And these rubies and emeralds, and that scarlet----?

_Hannibal._ Yes, yes.

_Gaulish Chieftain._ O glorious Hannibal! unconquerable hero! O my happy country! to have such an ally and defender. I swear eternal grat.i.tude--yes, grat.i.tude, love, devotion, beyond eternity.

_Hannibal._ In all treaties we fix the time: I could hardly ask a longer. Go back to thy station. I would see what the surgeon is about, and hear what he thinks. The life of Marcellus! the triumph of Hannibal! what else has the world in it? Only Rome and Carthage: these follow.

_Marcellus._ I must die then? The G.o.ds be praised! The commander of a Roman army is no captive.

_Hannibal._ [_To the Surgeon._] Could not he bear a sea voyage?

Extract the arrow.

_Surgeon._ He expires that moment.

_Marcellus._ It pains me: extract it.

_Hannibal._ Marcellus, I see no expression of pain on your countenance, and never will I consent to hasten the death of an enemy in my power. Since your recovery is hopeless, you say truly you are no captive.

[_To the Surgeon._] Is there nothing, man, that can a.s.suage the mortal pain? for, suppress the signs of it as he may, he must feel it. Is there nothing to alleviate and allay it?

_Marcellus._ Hannibal, give me thy hand--thou hast found it and brought it me, compa.s.sion.

[_To the Surgeon._] Go, friend; others want thy aid; several fell around me.

_Hannibal._ Recommend to your country, O Marcellus, while time permits it, reconciliation and peace with me, informing the Senate of my superiority in force, and the impossibility of resistance. The tablet is ready: let me take off this ring--try to write, to sign it, at least. Oh, what satisfaction I feel at seeing you able to rest upon the elbow, and even to smile!

_Marcellus._ Within an hour or less, with how severe a brow would Minos say to me, 'Marcellus, is this thy writing?'

Rome loses one man: she hath lost many such, and she still hath many left.

_Hannibal._ Afraid as you are of falsehood, say you this? I confess in shame the ferocity of my countrymen. Unfortunately, too, the nearer posts are occupied by Gauls, infinitely more cruel. The Numidians are so in revenge: the Gauls both in revenge and in sport. My presence is required at a distance, and I apprehend the barbarity of one or other, learning, as they must do, your refusal to execute my wishes for the common good, and feeling that by this refusal you deprive them of their country, after so long an absence.

_Marcellus._ Hannibal, thou art not dying.

_Hannibal._ What then? What mean you?

_Marcellus._ That thou mayest, and very justly, have many things yet to apprehend: I can have none. The barbarity of thy soldiers is nothing to me: mine would not dare be cruel. Hannibal is forced to be absent; and his authority goes away with his horse. On this turf lies defaced the semblance of a general; but Marcellus is yet the regulator of his army. Dost thou abdicate a power conferred on thee by thy nation? Or wouldst thou acknowledge it to have become, by thy own sole fault, less plenary than thy adversary's?

I have spoken too much: let me rest; this mantle oppresses me.

_Hannibal._ I placed my mantle on your head when the helmet was first removed, and while you were lying in the sun. Let me fold it under, and then replace the ring.

_Marcellus._ Take it, Hannibal. It was given me by a poor woman who flew to me at Syracuse, and who covered it with her hair, torn off in desperation that she had no other gift to offer. Little thought I that her gift and her words should be mine. How suddenly may the most powerful be in the situation of the most helpless! Let that ring and the mantle under my head be the exchange of guests at parting. The time may come, Hannibal, when thou (and the G.o.ds alone know whether as conqueror or conquered) mayest sit under the roof of my children, and in either case it shall serve thee. In thy adverse fortune, they will remember on whose pillow their father breathed his last; in thy prosperity (Heaven grant it may s.h.i.+ne upon thee in some other country!) it will rejoice thee to protect them. We feel ourselves the most exempt from affliction when we relieve it, although we are then the most conscious that it may befall us.

There is one thing here which is not at the disposal of either.

_Hannibal._ What?

_Marcellus._ This body.

_Hannibal._ Whither would you be lifted? Men are ready.

_Marcellus._ I meant not so. My strength is failing. I seem to hear rather what is within than what is without. My sight and my other senses are in confusion. I would have said--this body, when a few bubbles of air shall have left it, is no more worthy of thy notice than of mine; but thy glory will not let thee refuse it to the piety of my family.

_Hannibal._ You would ask something else. I perceive an inquietude not visible till now.

_Marcellus._ Duty and Death make us think of home sometimes.

_Hannibal._ Thitherward the thoughts of the conqueror and of the conquered fly together.

_Marcellus._ Hast thou any prisoners from my escort?

_Hannibal._ A few dying lie about--and let them lie--they are Tuscans.

The remainder I saw at a distance, flying, and but one brave man among them--he appeared a Roman--a youth who turned back, though wounded.

They surrounded and dragged him away, spurring his horse with their swords. These Etrurians measure their courage carefully, and tack it well together before they put it on, but throw it off again with lordly ease.

Marcellus, why think about them? or does aught else disquiet your thoughts?

_Marcellus._ I have suppressed it long enough. My son--my beloved son!