Political seductions: the show of war in Byron's Sardanapalus - Lord Byron

Criticism, Wntr, 2002 by Daniela Garofalo

Salmenes claims that he shares this concern about the king's effeminacy with all of the king's subjects. He declares himself to be "the mouthpiece of the people" (I.ii.82). He hears the "echoes of the nation's voice," (I.ii.95) which, according to Salmenes, calls for "A king" (102). Later in the same scene of Act I, Salmenes also claims to "echo thee the voice of empires" (I.ii.224). The voice of the nation and the voice of empires seem to be the same voice because both call for the restoration of an aggressive imperial power and the wars that allow empires to expand. The events of the play, the uprising and the civil war, suggest that Salmenes has heard the people well.

But the people do not want simply war and its spoils. As Myrrha, the king's concubine, puts it, the people require "the show of war" (I.ii.532), a spectacle in which the leader's prowess functions as the point of identification for them. (24) The people of Assyria clamor for a return to centralized power and a theatricality of state that offers the visual pleasure of concentrated power, of power that is all the more extraordinary for belonging to the single individual leader, rather than to a multiplicity of competing individuals.

Because the theatricality of war is as vital to the king's power as is the actual might of his troops, Salmenes and Myrrha must rouse the king not only to fight but also to display himself before the people. When the revolt begins, Salmenes urges the king "To arm himself, altho but for a moment / And show himself unto the soldiers: his / Sole presence in this instant might do more / Than hosts can do in his behalf" (III.i.95-98). But with rebel armies threatening his destruction, the king takes time to quibble about his attire. Refusing the battle helmet offered him, he calls for one adorned with gems. Warned that "All men will recognize you" (141) with so conspicuous an ornament, he cries "I go forth to be recognized" (III.i.143). Before stepping onto the battlefield, Sardanapalus calls for a mirror and wastes precious time admiring his military attire: "This cuirass fits me well, the baldric better, / And the helm not at all. Methinks I seem / Passing well in these toys" (III.i. 163-65). On the one hand, the king understands the role he must play and offers his rebel people what they have clamored for--a sight of their king in battle. On the other hand, this over-investment in his appearance marks the king's continuing effeminacy.

Throughout the play, Salmenes, Myrrha, and even the rebel leaders, speculate that beneath the king's effeminate exterior beats a manly heart. Salmenes wishes to believe that Sardanapalus possesses an inner, manly self that will reemerge: "Keep thou awake that energy /Which sleeps at times, but is not dead within thee, / And thou may'st yet be glorious in thy reign, / As powerful in thy realm" (I.i.382-85). (25) Although to others he seems transformed (Myrrha declares her love for him because "now I know thee" [108]), this call to arms does not mark a profound manifestation of a true self previously latent. The king whose manliness lies dormant and must be roused is a fantasy of the king's subjects and does not really explain Sardanapalus's actions at the end of the play. The king removes one costume to take on another. His carelessness about appearing on the battlefield and his attention to details of costume suggest not a latent courage made manifest but, rather, the actor's preparation for a performance. Sardanapalus maintains a distance from his martial role that both Myrrha and Salmenes fail to see. Unlike Salmenes and Myrrha's account of the king's transformation from harem ruler to warrior, Sardanapalus enacts yet another performance in which the man who should be king discovers the "falsehood / Of this my station." It is no great leap for the man who has played at being king for so long to ascend a new stage and play the warrior. Whether in the harem or on the battlefield, though, the performances are similar; as one soldier comments, the king "fights as he revels!" (III.i.213). And Myrrha concurs that he "rushes from the banquet to battle, /As though it were a bed of love" (III.i.223-24).