he stars
Have written otherwise.

_Arb._ Though they came down,
And marshalled me the way in all their brightness,
I would not follow.

_Bel._ This is weakness--worse
Than a scared beldam's dreaming of the dead, 350
And waking in the dark.--Go to--go to.

_Arb._ Methought he looked like Nimrod as he spoke,
Even as the proud imperial statue stands
Looking the monarch of the kings around it,
And sways, while they but ornament, the temple.

_Bel._ I told you that you had too much despised him,
And that there was some royalty within him--What
then? he is the nobler foe.

_Arb._ But we
The meaner.--Would he had not spared us!

_Bel._ So--
Wouldst thou be sacrificed thus readily? 360

_Arb._ No--but it had been better to have died
Than live ungrateful.

_Bel._ Oh, the souls of some men!
Thou wouldst digest what some call treason, and
Fools treachery--and, behold, upon the sudden,
Because for something or for nothing, this
Rash reveller steps, ostentatiously,
'Twixt thee and Salemenes, thou art turned
Into--what shall I say?--Sardanapalus!
I know no name more ignominious.

_Arb._ But
An hour ago, who dared to term me such 370
Had held his life but lightly--as it is,
I must forgive you, even as he forgave us--
Semiramis herself would not have done it.

_Bel._ No--the Queen liked no sharers of the kingdom,
Not even a husband.[17]

_Arb._ I must serve him truly----

_Bel._ And humbly?

_Arb._ No, sir, proudly--being honest.
I shall be nearer thrones than you to heaven;
And if not quite so haughty, yet more lofty.
You may do your own deeming--you have codes,
And mysteries, and corollaries of 380
Right and wrong, which I lack for my direction,
And must pursue but what a plain heart teaches.
And now you know me.

_Bel._ Have you finished?

_Arb._ Yes--
With you.

_Bel._ And would, perhaps, betray as well
As quit me?

_Arb._ That's a sacerdotal thought,
And not a soldier's.

_Bel._