To him the stranger appeals against the projects of Alexander, which extend on one side to the unknown sources of the Nile and the Garden of Paradise, and on the other to the Antipodes and ancient Chaos. The infernal monarch convenes his assembly. He calls the victims from their undying torments,—
"quibus mors
Est non posse mori,"—
where ice and snow are punishments, as well as fire. The satraps of Styx are collected, and the ancient serpent addresses sibilations from his hoarse throat:—
"Hie ubi collecti satrapæ Stygis et tenebrarum,
Consedere duces, et gutture sibila rauco
Edidit antiquus serpens."
He commands the death of the Macedonian king before his plans can be executed. Treason rises and proposes poison. All Hell applauds; and Treason, in disguise, fares forth to instruct the agent. The whole scene suggests sometimes Dante and sometimes Milton. Each was doubtless familiar with it. Meanwhile Alexander returns to Babylon. The universe is in suspense, not knowing to which side he will direct his arms. Ambassadors from all quarters come to his feet. In the pride of power he seems to be universal lord. At a feast, surrounded by friends, he drinks the fatal cup. His end approaches, and he shows to the last his grandeur and his courage. The poet closes, as he began, with a salutation to his patron.
Such is the sketch of a curiosity of literature. It is interesting to look upon this little book, which for a time played so considerable a part; to imagine the youthful students who were once nurtured by it; to recognize its relations to an age when darkness was slowly yielding to light; to note its possible suggestions to great poets who followed, especially to Dante; and to behold it lost to human knowledge, and absolutely forgotten, until saved by a single verse, which, from its completeness of form and its proverbial character, must live as long as the Latin language endures. The verse does not occupy much room; but it is a sure fee simple for the poet. And are we not told by an ancient, that it is something, in whatever place or recess you may be, to have made yourself master of a single lizard?
"Est aliquid, quocumque loco, quocumque recessu,
Unius sese dominum fecisse lacertæ."
A poem of ten books shrinks to a very petty space. There is a balm of a thousand flowers, and here is a single hexameter which is the express essence of many times a thousand verses. It was the jest of the grave-digger, in "Hamlet," that the noble Alexander, returning to dust and loam, had stopped a bung-hole. But the memorable poem celebrating him is reduced as much, although it may be put to higher uses.