THE COVER DESIGN IS BY ELIHU VEDDER

UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME

FIVE MEN AND POMPEY

A Series of Dramatic Portraits

BY
STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT

Boston
The Four Seas Company
1915

Copyright, 1915, by
THE FOUR SEAS COMPANY
THE FOUR SEAS PRESS
BOSTON AND NORWOOD

CONTENTS

THE LAST BANQUET

THE LAST BANQUET

[SERTORIUS SPEAKS. B. C. 72]

Twelve years! Twelve years of striving! and at last

My power is—secure? Still Pompey lives

And has an army and Metellus strives

To wipe out his defeats. The net is cast:

Cast, and draws ever tighter: and my men

Grumble and mutter, near to mutiny.

Perpenna stirs up treason: like a fen

Of black and quaking marshes, my own camp

Boils up all foulness, gapes to swallow me.

The black death-chariot waits, the coursers stamp—

Yet I have made a law, have curbed the tribes,

Built up a senate, founded schools, withstood

For twelve long years the iron arm of Rome.

I have not spared my time, my gold, my blood.

And now all vanishes in plots and gibes—

I love this warm, brown land; it is my home.

And yet—to see the Forum once again!

Ah, Nydia! Nydia! Had you not died

I could have crossed the Alps, have crushed these men,

These unclean vultures, tearing at Rome’s side;

I could have brought back the Republic—then.

You died. I still fight on, but I am old.

Pompey is young, and though I beat him now,

He will be victor, as the end will show.

Ah, Plancus, enter! Is the night so cold

That you need shroud yourself in that great cloak?

You too, Perpenna, Cimon, you who broke

So bravely through the foe, you fear a draught?

Be seated, friends!

My comrades, we have laughed

And feasted for an hour together, yet

I have not told you why I summoned thus

My ten most trusted leaders to this feast.

Now is the time! I shall discharge the debt.

Glorious tidings come from out the East!

And Mithridates hurries aid to us—

Let not that goblet fall I pray thee, friend!—

Ah! Dog and traitor! So this was your end!

Guards! Guards!—I think you will not rise again,

Perpenna, from that blow! Guards! Ho there, men!

A-a-ah! Thank you, Pompey! No, you will not take

Me back to grace your triumph: they have done

Their work too well, your friends. My sands are run.

And you have burst all barriers left to break

That shielded the Republic. It is dead.

Not with a pomp of banners,

Not with a flare of spears,

Not with mourning or head downcast

The great Republic dies at last;

A sword in the heart and the hands bound fast,

Dead in the wreck of the years!

Pompey, Pompey, chief of pride,

Hero and lord of Rome!

You ride to a gallant triumph now,

Gay as the green and fruitful bough;

But the bough will be withered and dry enow

When you ride for the last time home!

Pompey, Pompey, laugh while you may!

Laugh as Polycrates laughed!

But ever, when life is most glorious,

I bid you think of Sertorius,

Of how he rode forth victorious,

And how he was slain by craft.

I have been slain by great lords;

But a slave shall strike you down,

A slave shall strike you down from behind,

And your strength shall fail, and your sight go blind,

And your body a nameless grave shall find,

You, that strove for a crown!

Pompey, Pompey, turn where you may!

You shall get but little ease.

For whether on sea or whether on land,

One picture shall ever before you stand—

A man struck down on a barren strand—

A head hacked off by the seas!

Pompey, Pompey, go where you will,

Double and turn again!

One thought shall you know till you lie in your grave;

A thought not even your soul can brave!—

The thought of a mean and evil slave,

And a knife that was forged in Spain!

So the Republic dies! and all my work

Is vain; the things I built are shattered now,

My task is done, the task I dared not shirk;

And I am very tired. Nydia, come!

Come as you came that day down the green walk,

The day I rode in triumph back to Rome,

After the Cimbri had been crushed—and talk,

Talk as we talked that day beside the pool,

Shadowed by ilex, where the golden hearts

Of lilies burned within the water cool,—

Nydia! But she stays not, she departs!

The marble seat—you lifted up your face—

I have fought long now. I am weary. Come!

Nydia! Nydia! and lead me home!

Home! How the Forum blazes in the sun!

The Roman faces and the kindly speech;

The melon-sellers, proffering to each

That comes, ripe, green-streaked melons—What! you shun

An old friend, Balbus? No! It was not I!

No! by the gods! I never gave consent

To those red days of massacre!——They cry!

Oh gods! they cry, cry, they are not yet dead!

They will not die: they hurl upon my head

Curses and prayers! I hear them in my tent!

They are not dead! Oh gods! They are not dead!

I never gave consent!

Still the time slips

And Nydia comes not. I am very tired.

The things are broken to which I aspired,

And you alone are left. Love! She is here

Nydia, Nydia....

LUCULLUS DINES—

LUCULLUS DINES—

[59 B. C.]

I dine in the Apollo room tonight,

With Cicero and Pompey! See to it!

Cicero! Pompey! But ten years ago

Lucullus was the hero, Conqueror

Of Mithridates, Rescuer of Rome!

All’s Pompey now; he goes far—and has gone;

And, with it all, is just the honest, brave,

Young captain that I saw that hot, raw, day;

The first day of my shame. Oh gods, gods, gods!

Must Rome have always victories, victories,

Incredible conquests till the whole world reels,

And still thrust traps into my path until

I fall at last?

When Pompey came I knew.

Oh he was kind, quite kind, considerate

Of the old bitter man there who had failed,

Recalled without a triumph! He was kind

In all his splendid, conquering, strength and youth!

Yet, I had beaten Mithridates. So

Let the old lion growl through teeth once sharp!

This sordid squabble of a vulgar crowd

Of stiff patricians, ranting demagogues,

Serves well for others. I, I have my trees,

My cherries, rooted firm in Roman soil,

Shedding a delicate whiteness on the hills

When spring comes. A far greater triumph that

Than all my conquests.

Yes, they know me well,

These young men, “That old dragon on the hill,

Who gives such gorgeous dinners. Gods, his wines!

Fit for Apollo!”

Yes, an excellent host,

Learned in sauces, skilled in oysters, game;

Within whose heart no spark of ancient fire

Burns on.... Oh Power! Power! Once to lead

An army, once again, and see the thick

Rain of the Parthian arrows and the blaze

As forty brazen cohorts broke the foe!

The thin lines buckle, the black masses fly!

Imperator Romanus!

No, Lucullus,

But the good host who—plants his cherry-trees!

Love? I have loved once, once.... That awful day

We stormed in through the gates of Amisus....

The loot-mad soldiers, howling, smote the town

Down in a mud of blood and dirt and wine,

Bodies and gold and priceless tapestries.

Half-mad I rushed to stop them, beat and struck;

I think they would have murdered me at once,

But that one drunkard yelled “The General!

Lower your swords, lads! Sir, we won this town!

You take your pleasures and let us take ours!”

I reeled into the blackness of an arch,

And saw before me, white-robed, laurel-crowned,

Just such a maiden as might once have danced

Along the friezes of the Parthenon;

A face like that on an old silver coin,

Demetrius sent me, clear-cut, beautiful

With all the burning beauty of the Greek.

Pure and serene her grey eyes gazed in mine....

We spoke few words; what need to speak at all

When just our eyes told all we had to tell,

There in the soft, cool blackness, splashed with light

From the red pools of burning wine without?

Few words. They chime like little silver bells

Within my heart now, or like trumpet blasts

Bear up my soul a little towards the gods.

We had three years. She died before my fall.

I thought of love as a crooked knife,

As a soft and passionate lord;

Born when the kings’ beards dipped in wine

And the gold cups clashed on the board.

But my love came like a blast of cold,

A straight, clean, sword.

I thought of love as a secret thing,

For an hour of incensed ease,

When breast and breast together cling,

Under sweet-scented trees.

My love is all good-comradeship,

More great than these.

I thought of love as a toy for a day,

Soon to be over-passed;

Light and frail as a hollow shell,

That into the brook is cast.

My love holds while the earth endures,

And the suns stand fast.

I thought of love as mixed with earth,

One with the bloom of the sods.

My love is air and wine and fire,

Breaker of metes and rods,

A slender javelin tipped with light,

Hurled at the gods.

Life lies before me like a platter of coins.

“Here are the new ones! Mark the choice design!”

All cry: for me the others fade and dim,

And one alone shines clear, an old Greek coin

Demetrius sent me ... and that lovely face....

Pompey would say that I am growing old,

And Cicero would turn a phrase with me

In his next great oration, as a type

Of the old fool who mumbles of days past.

Meanwhile I have my orchards—and my feasts.

Those turbot now; the sauce is very good,

A peacock’s breast is good, too, at this time,

With other things, as——old Falernian,

Tarentine oysters, and sweet wines from Thrace....

Tarentine oysters and sweet wines from Thrace.

THE FORLORN CAMPAIGN

THE FORLORN CAMPAIGN

[CRASSUS IN PARTHIA. B. C. 53]

Go then, Valerius. Let the legions know,

That I will answer this new embassy

Within the hour.... They will mutiny,

If I refuse these terms.... What shall I do?

What shall I do? The trap is plain enough

To me; but they, they only see the rough,

Long road and the red, ever-circling cloud

Of horsemen, raining arrows on them there.

Gods! And the mountains are so near, so near!

Scarce three days march ... that we shall never make.

I boasted once. The gods like not the proud.

And I shall die in this red waste of sand,

Though my heart tremble and my stiff limbs shake.

A thousand slaves bowed down at my command;

I lived in ivory palaces of delight;

I ruled an empire ... here is all my might;

An old and wearied man in a bare tent,

Whence, presently, I shall go out to die.

How they will rage at Rome! Each will outvie

The next in fury: none will dare lament.

Caesar will listen with a little smile,

A smile like two blue ice-cliffs as they part,

Slow-rising from the deep caves of his heart.

Pompey will bow his great gold head awhile,

And say, “He died a Roman. It is well.”

Perhaps be sad, a little. For the rest,

That yelping pack of nobles, they will howl

How, “Crassus was a madman at the best,

And in this last attempt, a blind old owl,

A drink-crazed miser with a wooden sword.

He blundered here and here! His whole campaign

Was one great blunder!” So with one accord,

They howl.

To praise is hard, easy to damn.