And the ambiguous oracle did trust,-
So overthrown by Cyrus, as was just;
Who him pursues to Sardis, takes the town,
Where all that dare resist are slaughtered down.
Disguiséd, Crœsus hoped to escape in the throng,
Who had no might to save himself from wrong;
But as he passed, his son, who was born dumb,
With pressing grief and sorrow overcome
Among the tumult, bloodshed, and the strife,
Broke his long silence, cried, "Spare Croesus' life!"
Croesus thus known, it was great Cyrus' doom-
A hard decree-to ashes he consume.
Then on a woodpile set, where all might eye,
He "Solon! Solon! Solon!" thrice did cry.
The reason of those words Cyrus demands,
Who Solon was, to whom he lifts his hands.
Then to the king he makes this true report:
That Solon sometime at his stately court
His treasures, pleasures, pomp, and power did see,
And, viewing all, at all naught moved was he.
When Croesus, angry, urged him to express
If ever king equaled his happiness,
Quoth he, "That man for happy we commend
Whose happy life attains a happy end."
Cyrus, with pity moved, knowing a king's stand,
Now up and down, as fortune turns her hand,
Weighing the age and greatness of the prince,—
His mother's uncle, stories do evince,-
Gave him his life and took him for a friend,
Did to him still his chief designs commend.
Next war the restless Cyrus thought upon
Was conquest of the stately Babylon,
Now treble-walled, and moated so about
That all the world they need not fear nor doubt.
To drain this ditch he many sluices cut,
But till convenient time their heads kept shut.
That night Belshazzar feasted all his rout
He cut those banks and let the river out,
And to the walls securely marches on,
Not finding a defendant thereupon;
Entering the town, the sottish king he slays,
Upon earth's richest spoils each soldier preys.
Here twenty years' provision good he found.
Forty-five miles this city scarce could round.
This head of kingdoms, Chaldea's excellence,
For owls and satyrs made a residence;
Yet wondrous monuments this stately queen
A thousand years after had to be seen.
Cyrus doth now the Jewish captives free;
An edict made the temple builded be;
He, with his uncle, Daniel sets on high,
And caused his foes in lions' dens to die.
Long after this he 'gainst the Scythians goes,
And Tomyris' son and army overthrows;
Which to revenge she hires a mighty power,
And sets on Cyrus in a fatal hour,
There routs his host, himself a prisoner takes,
And at one blow the world's head headless makes-
The which she bathed within a butt of blood,
Using such taunting words as she thought good.
But Xenophon reports he died in his bed.
In honor, peace, and wealth, with a gray head,
And in his town of Pasargadæ lies;
Where some long after sought in vain for prize,
But in his tomb was only to be found
Two Scythian bows, a sword, and target round;
And Alexander, coming to the same,
With honors great did celebrate his fame.
Three daughters and two sons he left behind,
Ennobled more by birth than by their mind.
Thirty-two years in all this prince did reign,
But eight whilst Babylon he did retain;
And though his conquests made the earth to groan,
Now quiet lies under one marble stone,
And with an epitaph himself did make
To show how little land he then should take.
Cambyses, no ways like his noble sire,
Yet to enlarge his state had some desire.
His reign with blood and incest first begins,
Then sends to find a law for these his sins.
That kings with sisters match no law they find
But that the Persian king may act his mind.
He wages war, the fifth year of his reign,
'Gainst Egypt's king, who there by him was slain;
And all of royal blood that came to hand
He seized first of life and then of land.
But little Narus 'scaped that cruel fate,
Who, grown a man, resumed again his state.
He next to Cyprus sends his bloody host,
Who, landing soon upon that fruitful coast,
Made Evelthon, their king, with bended knee
To hold his own of his free courtesy.
The temple he destroys, not for his zeal,
For he would be professed god of their weal;
Yea, in his pride, he venturéd so far
To spoil the temple of great Jupiter-
But as they marchéd o'er those desert sands
The stormed dust o'erwhelmed his daring bands.
But scorning thus by Jove to be outbraved,
A second army he had almost graved;
But vain he found to fight with elements,
So left his sacrilegious bold intents.
The Egyptian Apis then he likewise slew,
Laughing to scorn that sottish calvish crew.
If all this heat had been for pious end,
Cambyses to the clouds we might commend;
But he that 'fore the gods himself prefers
Is more profane than gross idolaters.
He after this, upon suspicion vain,
Unjustly caused his brother to be slain;
Praxaspes into Persia then is sent
To act in secret this his lewd intent.
His sister, whom incestuously he wed,
Hearing her harmless brother thus was dead,
His woeful death with tears did so bemoan
That by her husband's charge she caught her own;
She with her fruit at once were both undone
Who would have borne a nephew and a son.
O hellish husband, brother, uncle, sire,
Thy cruelty all ages will admire.
This strange severity he sometimes used
Upon a judge for taking bribes accused:
Flayed him alive, hung up his stufféd skin
Over his seat, then placed his son therein,
To whom he gave this in remembrance—
Like fault must look for the like recompense.
His cruelty was come unto that height
He spared nor foe, nor friend, nor favorite.
'T would be no pleasure, but a tedious thing,
To tell the facts of this most bloody king;
Feared of all, but loved of few or none,
All wished his short reign past before 't was done.
At last two of his officers, he hears,
Had set one Smerdis up, of the same years
And like in feature to his brother dead,
Ruling as they thought best under this head.
The people, ignorant of what was done,
Obedience yielded as to Cyrus' son.
|