ALEXANDER

The Persian Prince

 

A Tragedy in Five Acts

 

In the Manner of William Shakespeare

 

 

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Alexander, Prince and then King of Macedon

Philip, King of Macedon

Olympias, Queen of Macedon, mother to Alexander

The Ghost of Artaxerxes, Persian King

The Ghost of Philip

The Ghost of Cyrus the Great

Aristotle, philosopher and tutor

Callisthenes, historian and nephew to Aristotle

Attalus, Macedonian nobleman

Hephaestion, companion and general

Sisygambis, Queen Mother of Persia

Darius III, King of Persia

Cleitus, Macedonian general

Philotas, son of Parmenion

Parmenion, Macedonian general

Pausanias, bodyguard to Philip

Arrhidaeus, half-brother to Alexander

Persian Envoys, at Pella

The Blind Witness, a silent figure appearing throughout

Lords, soldiers, Persian nobles, messengers, spirits, a Chorus

PROLOGUE

Thunder.

A BLIND MAN enters carrying a staff.

He walks slowly across the stage.

He sees nothing.

Yet pauses before every throne.

 

A CHORUS enters.

 

CHORUS

Attend, good friends, and hear a tale untold,

Of kings whose crowns were forged from hidden blood.

Not all are sons who bear a father's name,

Nor all invaders strangers to the land.

The world remembers Macedon's bright star,

Yet stars may rise from distant eastern skies.

Here stands a prince divided in his soul,

Half forged by Greece, half called by Persia's fire.

Judge not too swiftly what is false or true.

For history itself doth wear a mask.

 

Exit CHORUS.

The Blind Man remains.

Blackout.

ACT I

The Bastard's Feast

Scene I

The Persian Envoys at Pella

 

The court of Philip at Pella. Philip is absent on campaign.

Persian Envoys stand in splendid robes. Young Alexander, barely sixteen,

receives them. The Blind Witness stands near the throne.

 

FIRST ENVOY

We bring greetings from the Great King Artaxerxes,

Lord of Lords, whose shadow falls on every sea,

To Philip's house, and to his honoured heir.

 

ALEXANDER

I am that heir.

Speak freely.

Macedon doth not make ambassadors kneel.

 

SECOND ENVOY

The Great King wonders at the breadth of Philip's realm,

And asks how many leagues his armies march.

 

ALEXANDER

Thou art sent to measure us.

I shall not be thy yardstick.

But I will ask thee this—

What is the temper of the Persian court?

What manner of men attend the Great King's throne?

What roads connect thy satrapies?

What rivers guard the eastern gates?

 

The Envoys exchange glances, surprised.

 

FIRST ENVOY

Prince, thou dost not ask what boys ask.

 

ALEXANDER

I am not a boy.

I am the future.

Answer me.

 

The Envoys answer at length. Alexander listens with fierce attention.

As the First Envoy speaks of Persepolis, Alexander's expression shifts—

recognition, not curiosity. The Blind Witness turns toward him slightly.

 

FIRST ENVOY

...and the palace of the Great King at Persepolis,

its columns tall as cedar groves, its terraces of stone—

 

ALEXANDER

(aside)

I have seen it.

Not with these eyes.

And yet—

I have seen it.

 

SECOND ENVOY

The prince falls silent.

 

ALEXANDER

I was thinking.

Forgive me.

Tell the Great King that Philip's heir

doth not forget a courtesy.

Nor a slight.

Nor a road.

 

The Envoys bow and exit. Alexander remains, motionless.

 

ALEXANDER

They spoke of rivers

as if they were but rivers.

But I heard them as veins.

The veins of something vast.

Something that waits.

 

Why does a land I have never trod

call to me like a name

spoken in a dream?

 

He touches his own chest. The Blind Witness does not move.

Thunder, distant.

Scene II

The Wedding Feast of Philip and Cleopatra

 

A great hall in Pella. Philip celebrates his marriage to Cleopatra.

Music. Wine. Nobles feast. Alexander sits apart.

The Blind Witness stands in a corner.

 

ATTALUS

A toast!

May Heaven bless this noble union.

May lawful heirs arise from royal seed,

And save our realm from doubtful offspring's claims!

 

Laughter among some nobles. Alexander rises.

 

ALEXANDER

What venom creeps beneath thy honeyed words?

 

ATTALUS

I speak but truth.

The lawful tree bears lawful fruit.

 

ALEXANDER

And who art thou to measure royal blood?

 

ATTALUS

A man who knows.

 

Silence. Philip shifts uneasily on his seat.

 

ATTALUS

A kingdom wants a king of pure descent,

Not one who wears two faces like a coin

That buys in foreign markets.

I mean no harm, great Philip.

Yet truth, like wine, must out.

 

He raises his cup.

 

ATTALUS

Let us pray the gods vouchsafe to Macedon

A lawful, pure, and undivided heir!

 

Alexander draws his sword.

 

ALEXANDER

Old dog!

Thy tongue hath signed thy death.

Call me bastard to my face, if thou art bold enough,

Or drink thy toast to silence,

And pray I am less patient than I seem.

 

Philip lurches forward, drunk, sword half-drawn.

 

PHILIP

Enough!

Put up thy blade!

I am still king!

 

ALEXANDER

Then act it.

Or is a king he who sits and lets his son be slandered

at his own wedding board?

 

PHILIP

I said—enough!

 

Philip stumbles forward, sword raised at Alexander. He trips, falls.

Silence. Alexander looks down at his fallen father. Long pause.

 

ALEXANDER

Look.

The man who crossed from Europe into Asia,

Who made a continent his footstool—

Lies fallen here, between one table and another.

Conquered by wine.

And a new wife.

 

He sheathes his sword. Walks out. Absolute silence.

The Blind Witness watches Philip being helped to his feet.

Cleopatra weeps. Attalus drains his cup.

Scene III

Olympias' Chamber

 

Night. Olympias alone. Alexander enters, still carrying his sword.

 

ALEXANDER

Mother, what poison haunts my name?

Why do men whisper when I pass?

 

OLYMPIAS

Because the eagle frightens lesser birds.

 

ALEXANDER

Nay.

There is more.

Who am I?

 

OLYMPIAS

A king.

 

ALEXANDER

Whose son?

 

Long silence. Thunder.

 

OLYMPIAS

Ask not the stars to name their hidden fires.

There are truths that kingdoms cannot bear.

 

ALEXANDER

Then kingdoms shall be broken.

 

OLYMPIAS

Sit, my son.

There are things a mother carries

as a ship carries ballast—

not for beauty,

but to keep from capsizing.

 

When I was young,

and Philip was not yet my husband but my doom,

I dreamed a lightning bolt descended to my womb.

And in that dream I heard a voice—

not Philip's voice—

an older voice,

a voice that smelled of incense and of war.

 

ALEXANDER

Whose voice?

 

OLYMPIAS

The gods do not give names.

They give destinies.

Thou art no ordinary bastard, if bastard thou art at all.

Thou art the child of something larger than a man.

Than any man.

 

ALEXANDER

Then what?

 

OLYMPIAS

The east holds answers I dare not speak in Macedon.

Go there.

The answers will find thee.

 

She cups his face in both hands.

 

OLYMPIAS

But first survive what comes.

Philip's new wife breeds a threat.

And those who stand near thrones

must learn to read the shadows.

She lets him go. The Blind Witness has appeared in the doorway.

Neither notices. Exit Alexander.

Scene IV

The Pixodarus Affair

 

A private chamber at Pella. Alexander with Hephaestion.

A letter in Alexander's hand.

 

HEPHAESTION

Read it again.

 

ALEXANDER

Pixodarus of Caria

seeks a match for his daughter.

Philip proposes Arrhidaeus.

My half-brother.

The simpleton.

The man who cannot tie his sandal without instruction.

 

HEPHAESTION

And thou art jealous?

 

ALEXANDER

I am not jealous.

I am insulted.

Caria sits at the doorway of Asia.

To bind it to Macedon is to plant a foothold

on the very threshold of the east.

And Philip sends Arrhidaeus.

As if to say—

this is the son I trust.

This is the heir I honour.

Not thee.

 

HEPHAESTION

Do not act rashly.

 

ALEXANDER

I act precisely.

I shall send my own envoy to Pixodarus.

Privately.

I shall offer myself in Arrhidaeus's place.

 

HEPHAESTION

Thy father will—

 

ALEXANDER

My father will learn

that I did not wait for his permission

to claim what was mine.

 

He sends a letter. Pause. Time passes. He returns.

 

Philip enters, white with fury.

 

PHILIP

Thou hast ruined it.

Pixodarus withdrew his daughter entirely.

He wants no part of a kingdom

where a prince intrigues behind his father's back.

I was building alliances.

Thou wert building ego.

 

ALEXANDER

Thou wert building Arrhidaeus.

Thou wert making him my rival.

 

PHILIP

Arrhidaeus cannot scratch his ear without guidance!

He is no rival.

He is a puppet I keep for comfort.

Thou art my heir.

Thou—

But not if thou dost act like a jealous boy

every time I make a state decision.

 

ALEXANDER

If thou treat me as a boy,

I shall make thee regret it

in ways that become a man.

 

Long silence. Father and son regard each other across an abyss.

 

PHILIP

I banish thy companions.

Hephaestion, Ptolemy, Nearchus—

gone from court.

Let thee stand alone a season

and learn what it costs to act alone.

 

Philip exits. Alexander stands rigid.

 

HEPHAESTION

He loves thee.

Even now.

 

ALEXANDER

That is the cruelest form of war.

To be wounded by the one

who cannot stop himself from loving thee.

ACT II

The Philosopher's Cage

Scene I

Aristotle's academy at Mieza. Young men in study.

 

ARISTOTLE

The Greek was born to rule.

The barbarian to obey.

Thus Nature writes her sacred law.

 

ALEXANDER

And if a barbarian be wiser than a Greek?

 

ARISTOTLE

Impossible.

Wisdom is the flower of logos,

And logos is the inheritance of Hellas.

 

ALEXANDER

And if a king possess two fathers?

 

ARISTOTLE

Then one must be denied.

A man who serves two masters serves none.

 

ALEXANDER

Yet blood remembers.

Though tongues lie.

Though crowns deceive.

Though history itself be bought and sold.

 

ARISTOTLE

You speak in riddles.

 

ALEXANDER

Perhaps.

Or perhaps the riddle speaks through me.

Thou teachest me that the barbarian soul

is formed of lesser clay.

Yet thou hast not explained

why when I sleep

I dream in a tongue I was never taught.

 

Aristotle is silent. The Blind Witness appears at a doorway.

 

ARISTOTLE

Dreams are vapours.

Philosophy is reason.

Do not confuse the two.

 

ALEXANDER

And what is reason,

if it cannot account for what it cannot explain?

 

Exit Alexander. Aristotle watches him go, troubled.

Scene II

Night. Alexander alone by firelight.

The Ghost of Artaxerxes rises from shadow.

 

GHOST

Alexander.

 

ALEXANDER

What spirit walks?

 

GHOST

One whom thou hast sought thy whole life.

 

ALEXANDER

Art thou a dream?

 

GHOST

Dreams often wear the face of truth.

 

ALEXANDER

Name thyself.

 

GHOST

Artaxerxes.

King.

Father.

Shadow.

Destiny.

 

ALEXANDER

No!

 

GHOST

The blood of Cyrus flows within thy veins.

The throne thou seekest lies not west but east.

Awake, my son.

Awake.

 

Ghost vanishes.

 

ALEXANDER

If thou art gone,

I shall come to find thee.

Not in dreams.

In fire and iron.

In the ruin of every throne

that stands between us.

Scene III

The Conspiracy

 

A shadowed room. Olympias and Pausanias. Torchlight.

Pausanias is a young man, scarred, eyes hollow with a private wound.

 

PAUSANIAS

He permitted it.

While Attalus made sport of me before the army,

Philip looked away.

A king who looks away permits.

A king who permits is partner to the act.

 

OLYMPIAS

And thou hast borne it.

I honour thee for that.

Few men could.

 

PAUSANIAS

I have not borne it.

I carry it.

There is a difference.

One who bears a wound grows stronger.

One who carries it grows dangerous.

 

Olympias moves closer.

 

OLYMPIAS

There is a ceremony at Aegae.

Philip enters the theatre first.

Alone.

His bodyguard some paces behind.

A doorway narrow enough

that a man with purpose

might accomplish what the gods require.

 

PAUSANIAS

Thou speakest of killing a king.

 

OLYMPIAS

I speak of delivering a son.

My son.

Who waits in exile, whose companions are banished,

whose birthright drips away

like water from a cracked vessel.

I speak of necessity.

The gods call it differently.

They call it fate.

 

PAUSANIAS

And after?

 

OLYMPIAS

After—

horses will be waiting.

Or will not.

That too is fate.

 

She meets his eyes. He understands she offers him the deed but not the escape.

 

PAUSANIAS

Then I shall carry this weight one final day.

And set it down where it belongs.

 

He bows. Exits. Olympias stands alone.

 

OLYMPIAS

Forgive me, Philip.

Not for what I do,

but that thou madest it necessary.

A woman who fights for her son

is not a murderer.

She is a mother.

History will decide which word to use.

History is always written

by whoever survives.

 

She extinguishes the torch. Darkness.

Scene IV

The Theatre at Aegae

 

The theatre at Aegae. Trumpets. A procession.

Philip walks alone into the light, arms spread, accepting adulation.

He is briefly magnificent.

Pausanias steps from shadow.

A single blow.

Philip falls.

Screaming. Chaos.

 

The stage clears. Only Alexander remains, standing over his father's body.

The Blind Witness watches from a distance.

 

ALEXANDER

Is this what kings come to?

One moment the sun.

The next—a man on stone.

Philip.

Philip, thou great impossible man.

I never knew thee.

And now I never shall.

 

The Ghost of Philip rises. Not threatening — bewildered. A king who did not expect death.

 

GHOST OF PHILIP

Is it done?

 

ALEXANDER

It is done.

 

GHOST OF PHILIP

I did not think—

I never thought—

the boy I raised—

I was not—

there was so much I meant to say.

 

ALEXANDER

Say it now.

 

GHOST OF PHILIP

I built thee.

I built every road thou wilt travel.

Every army thou wilt command.

Every enemy thou wilt face,

I first broke upon my own body

so thou mightest find them weakened.

This was my love.

It was not gentle.

But it was real.

 

ALEXANDER

I know.

I knew it then.

I was too angry to confess it.

 

GHOST OF PHILIP

There is something else.

Something thy mother—

Alexander—

I do not know if thou art mine.

I chose not to know.

A man who loves a son

does not always require proof.

Remember that.

Whatever east reveals to thee—

remember that.

 

The Ghost dissolves. Alexander stands alone with a kingdom.

 

ALEXANDER

I am King.

God help the world.

ACT III

The Two Crowns

Scene I

After Issus — Sisygambis

 

The captured Persian royal tent. Sisygambis, Darius's mother, kneels

before Hephaestion, mistaking him for Alexander. She reaches his feet.

Alexander enters quietly and stands to one side.

 

SISYGAMBIS

Forgive me.

I thought this man the king.

 

ALEXANDER

Nay.

He too is Alexander.

 

SISYGAMBIS

Then greatness walks in many forms.

 

She studies his face at length.

 

SISYGAMBIS

Those eyes...

 

ALEXANDER

What of them?

 

SISYGAMBIS

Nothing.

And everything.

When I behold thee,

I remember another.

Long dead.

Yet living still.

 

Thou art not what we were told to expect.

They said the Macedonian was a butcher,

a northern wolf who howled for Persian gold.

But this face—

 

She stops herself.

 

ALEXANDER

Say it.

 

SISYGAMBIS

This face has Persian grief in it.

Not northern conquest.

The eyes of a man who has lost something

he was not certain he ever had.

 

ALEXANDER

Thy women,

thy daughters,

all thy household—

they shall be kept as royal persons.

Not as captives.

Thou art not conquered.

Thou art found.

 

She looks at him a long time.

 

SISYGAMBIS

Found.

That is a strange word for a conqueror to use.

 

ALEXANDER

I am a strange conqueror.

 

She takes his hand as if he were a son. The Blind Witness stands behind her.

Scene II

Alexander alone at night, east of Issus.

 

ALEXANDER

Am I invader?

Am I heir?

Am I destroyer?

Am I son?

The earth beneath my feet cries Persia.

The army at my back cries Greece.

Both summon me.

Both claim me.

Yet neither wholly knows me.

 

O Fate!

Why fashion men from contradiction?

Why plant two fires in a single breast

and call the burning glory?

 

I shall go on.

Not because I am certain,

but because uncertainty

is the only honest road.

ACT IV

The Empire of Mirrors

Scene I

Persepolis

 

Persepolis. Flames rise. The Greek generals and Callisthenes urge the burning.

 

CALLISTHENES

Remember Greece!

Burn this monument of tyranny!

 

MACEDONIAN LORDS

Burn it!

Burn it!

 

ALEXANDER

What do we burn?

A city?

Or memory?

A kingdom?

Or ourselves?

 

CALLISTHENES

The enemy.

 

ALEXANDER

And if the enemy wears my face?

 

Silence. Flames grow.

 

CALLISTHENES

You speak treason.

 

ALEXANDER

Perhaps truth sounds treasonous

when lies have ruled too long.

Let it burn.

I shall rebuild it better.

Or carry its ashes as my conscience.

 

He watches the flames. The Blind Witness stands in the firelight.

Alexander's face shows no triumph. Only recognition.

Scene II

The Tomb of Cyrus

 

A lonely valley in Persia. Moonlight. The tomb of Cyrus stands broken,

desecrated by looters. Alexander enters with Hephaestion and guards.

 

ALEXANDER

Who hath profaned this sacred sepulchre?

What barbarous hand hath robbed the dead?

 

HEPHAESTION

The treasure-hunters, sire.

Gold hath no reverence.

 

ALEXANDER

Gold?

Gold?

Is there no corner of the earth

where greed doth not make war upon the grave?

 

He approaches the tomb. Kneels.

 

ALEXANDER

Here slept the lion of the ancient world.

The shepherd king.

The father of empires.

And now—

a broken stone.

A handful of dust.

 

O Cyrus.

Had fate exchanged our cradles,

I might have called thee father.

 

Thunder. A ghostly figure emerges.

 

GHOST OF CYRUS

Rise, son of two kingdoms.

 

ALEXANDER

What vision breaks upon my soul?

 

GHOST OF CYRUS

The dead know truths

the living dare not speak.

 

ALEXANDER

Tell me.

Whose blood beats in my breast?

 

GHOST OF CYRUS

Thou seekest a father.

Yet fathers are but doors.

Seek destiny instead.

 

Thou art not Greek.

Thou art not Persian.

Thou art what comes after both.

The wound between them.

And therefore their bridge.

 

ALEXANDER

Am I Greek?

Persian?

Macedonian?

 

GHOST OF CYRUS

Thou art the question

that outlives every answer.

I was shepherd once,

then king,

then this—

dust and legend.

The legend is the thing that travels.

Build thyself a legend worth the distance.

 

Ghost vanishes.

 

ALEXANDER

Restore this tomb.

Let every stone be set aright.

For kings who honour the dead

need not fear judgment from the living.

Scene III

The Trial of Philotas

 

A makeshift court in the field. Alexander seated. Philotas in chains.

The army watches.

 

PHILOTAS

I know of no conspiracy.

I heard a rumour from a drunken man.

I thought it nothing.

Would I plot against a king

I have served since boyhood?

 

ALEXANDER

Thou heardest it.

Thou said nothing.

Three days passed.

That silence is its own confession.

 

PHILOTAS

I am Parmenion's son.

My father bled for thee at Granicus.

At Issus.

At Gaugamela.

This family is built from Macedonian bone.

Try us on that evidence,

not on a drunkard's table-talk.

 

ALEXANDER

A king cannot afford to distinguish

between the silence of innocence

and the silence of loyalty.

Both look the same in the dark.

And in the dark is where daggers live.

 

Philotas looks at him — not with hatred, but with terrible understanding.

 

PHILOTAS

Thou hast already decided.

 

ALEXANDER

I decide nothing.

The army decides.

 

He looks at the assembled soldiers. Their silence is verdict.

 

PHILOTAS

Then tell my father—

tell Parmenion—

I did not betray thee.

Tell him I said so.

With the last breath I have.

 

Guards lead Philotas away. Silence. A Messenger approaches.

 

MESSENGER

My lord.

Parmenion is in Media.

He commands three armies.

He will hear of his son's fate.

 

Long silence. Alexander stares ahead.

 

ALEXANDER

Then he must not hear it

long enough to act upon it.

 

He hands the Messenger a sealed order. Exit Messenger. Hephaestion remains.

 

HEPHAESTION

Parmenion did nothing.

 

ALEXANDER

Parmenion commands three armies

and buries a son today.

That combination

is not a fact a king can afford to leave alive.

 

Do not mistake me for cruel.

Cruelty is pleasure in the act.

I take no pleasure.

I take necessity.

 

He exits. Hephaestion stands alone. The Blind Witness is behind him.

Scene IV

The Banquet at Maracanda

 

Music. Wine. Persian nobles and Macedonian generals.

 

FIRST COURTIER

Alexander surpasseth Philip.

 

SECOND COURTIER

Philip was but dawn.

Alexander is the sun.

 

CLEITUS

Take care.

The sun forgets

who taught it first to rise.

 

ALEXANDER

What meanest thou?

 

CLEITUS

I mean that Philip built the ladder

whereon thou climb'st to heaven.

 

ALEXANDER

Old man,

thy tongue grows reckless.

 

CLEITUS

And thy ears grow Persian.

 

Silence.

 

ALEXANDER

Enough.

 

CLEITUS

Nay.

Hear truth once more.

The Macedonian blood

won every kingdom that thou boastest of.

Yet now thou bow'st before eastern robes

and call'st thyself the son of Ammon.

Tell me—

was Philip not enough?

 

Alexander freezes.

 

CLEITUS

Or dost another father haunt thy dreams?

 

Silence. Alexander seizes a spear.

 

HEPHAESTION

My lord!

 

CLEITUS

Strike then.

For tyrants fear no enemy

so much as memory.

 

Alexander kills him. Long silence.

 

ALEXANDER

What have I done?

 

HEPHAESTION

Killed thy friend.

 

ALEXANDER

Nay.

I have slain

the last witness to my childhood.

 

I am beyond redemption now.

Or—

I was always here.

And did not know it.

 

Leave me.

 

He collapses beside the body of Cleitus. Weeps. The Blind Witness enters

and stands at a distance — the only witness who does not judge.

Scene V

The Proskynesis Debate

 

The court of Alexander. Persian nobles prostrate themselves.

The Macedonian generals stand upright, uneasy.

 

ALEXANDER

It is the custom of Persia.

I ask only what Persia already gives.

 

CALLISTHENES

It is the custom of Persia.

We are not Persia.

 

ALEXANDER

Are we not?

We rule it.

We breathe its air.

We eat its bread.

We wear its robes.

At what point does a man become

the thing he governs?

 

CALLISTHENES

Never.

A Greek bows before the gods.

Before men—

even kings—

he stands erect.

This is not pride.

This is philosophy.

This is the very root of what separates Hellas

from every eastern court.

 

ALEXANDER

Thou art Aristotle's pupil.

He taught thee that the barbarian bows

because his soul is bent.

I have walked among the Persians, Callisthenes.

Their souls are not bent.

Their custom is different.

There is a distance between the two

that philosophy has not yet learned to cross.

 

CALLISTHENES

Then philosophy shall cross it with words,

not prostration.

Thou art a man, Alexander.

Son of Philip.

King of Macedon.

Whatever eastern gods thou court,

whatever blood thy mother claims runs through thee—

thou art a man.

And men must not receive

the reverence owed to gods.

It corrupts the man.

It corrupts the god.

And it corrupts the truth

that holds all things in place.

 

Silence. Alexander regards him with cold admiration.

 

ALEXANDER

Thou art the most dangerous kind of man.

The one who is entirely right

about everything

except the moment he is standing in.

 

He turns away.

 

ALEXANDER

I shall not force the Greeks to bow.

Today.

 

Callisthenes watches him go. He knows what Today means.

Scene VI

The Execution and the Last Letter

 

A dungeon. Callisthenes in chains.

Then — a separate chamber, Athens. Aristotle reads a letter.

 

CALLISTHENES

I served Greece!

 

ALEXANDER

And I sought mankind.

There lies our quarrel.

 

CALLISTHENES

You have become Persian!

 

ALEXANDER

Perhaps.

Or perhaps I always was.

 

I do not kill thee for what thou art.

I kill thee for what thou will become

if I let thee write the history

of what I am becoming.

Thou art too honest for a king to survive.

 

Exit guards with Callisthenes. Darkness. Light rises on Aristotle alone in Athens.

 

ARISTOTLE

(reading a letter, to himself)

Callisthenes is dead.

My nephew.

My best mind.

Fed to a king's necessity.

 

I taught him to think.

And thinking killed him.

This is my accomplishment:

I produced a man who could not stop

speaking truth in a court

that had run out of patience for it.

 

And I—

I taught his killer.

I sharpened the blade

that did not know itself a blade.

 

He sets down the letter. His hands tremble slightly.

 

ARISTOTLE

There are men in Athens

who say Alexander intends to return.

Intends to bring his east with him.

To remake Hellas in his new image.

 

We cannot permit it.

The polis is the highest form of human life.

One man over all the earth—

this is not a king.

This is a disease.

A philosopher who does not treat a disease

when he sees it

is no philosopher.

He is a coward.

 

He picks up a small vial. Regards it.

 

ARISTOTLE

I know poisons.

Every philosopher who studied at Plato's knee

learned what Socrates proved:

that the state will eventually kill the honest mind.

I have merely reversed the order.

 

Forgive me, Alexander.

Thou wert my finest work.

But masterpieces that burn their makers

must be extinguished.

This is philosophy.

This is the cold,

clear,

merciless love of wisdom.

 

He hands the vial to a servant.

 

ARISTOTLE

See that this reaches Babylon.

 

Exit servant. Aristotle sits in darkness.

The Blind Witness appears behind him. Aristotle does not see it.

Nobody ever does, until it is too late.

ACT V

Babylon

Scene I

The Dying

 

Babylon. A chamber in the palace. Alexander lies on a low bed.

Generals file past. He can no longer speak easily. The Blind Witness sits beside him.

 

FIRST GENERAL

To whom dost thou leave the empire?

 

Alexander raises his hand with enormous effort. A pause.

 

ALEXANDER

(barely audible)

To the strongest.

 

The generals exchange glances — that answer will drown the world.

They file out. Only the Blind Witness remains, and then Hephaestion's absence

fills the room — he died already. Alexander is aware of it.

 

ALEXANDER

At last.

A companion who asks no questions.

Who art thou?

 

The Blind Witness says nothing.

 

ALEXANDER

No answer.

Wisdom indeed.

The world spent years demanding names.

Greek.

Persian.

King.

Conqueror.

Bastard.

God.

Yet none could tell me who I was.

Perhaps the blind see more than we.

 

Hephaestion would have known.

He always knew.

He was the only one who looked at me

and saw—not the mask—

not the campaign—

but the frightened boy at Pella

asking his mother whose name he bore.

 

I am tired of the question.

Let it die with me.

Let history answer it,

or not.

History is slower than I am,

and less reliable.

 

The voices of memory rise around him.

 

HEPHAESTION'S VOICE

Alexander!

OLYMPIAS' VOICE

My son!

PHILIP'S VOICE

My heir!

GHOST OF ARTAXERXES

My blood!

 

ALEXANDER

And there it is.

The chorus of fathers.

Yet death requires no genealogy.

Only silence.

 

If I had lived—

if there had been one more decade—

I think I was building something

that had no name yet.

Not Greek.

Not Persian.

Something after both.

Something the world was not ready for.

 

Perhaps it is never ready.

Perhaps that is why it keeps producing men like me.

To try again.

To fail better.

 

He falls silent. His breathing slows.

Scene II

The Fathers

 

The Ghost of Artaxerxes appears. Philip appears opposite him.

Alexander stands between them — not dying now, but luminous.

This is the space between the last breath and the last silence.

 

GHOST OF PHILIP

He was mine.

I raised him.

 

GHOST OF ARTAXERXES

He was mine.

I begot him.

 

GHOST OF PHILIP

I forged the sword.

 

GHOST OF ARTAXERXES

I forged the blood.

 

ALEXANDER

Enough!

Neither made me whole.

A man is not his father.

Nor his father's dream.

 

I was Macedon.

I was Persia.

I was both.

And neither.

 

I was the wound that would not close.

And therefore the scar that held two worlds together.

If there is glory in that—

it was bought at a price

I did not choose to pay

but paid in full.

 

The two ghosts reach toward him simultaneously — not in competition now, but in loss.

Alexander extends one hand to each.

Then all three dissolve.

 

Silence.

The Blind Witness alone on stage.

EPILOGUE

The Historians' Quarrel

 

An empty space. Two figures emerge from opposite sides of the stage.

GREEK HISTORIAN — aged, precise, carrying scrolls.

PERSIAN HISTORIAN — aged, precise, carrying different scrolls.

They have been arguing this argument for two thousand years.

 

GREEK HISTORIAN

He was the greatest Greek who ever lived.

The culmination of Hellenic genius—

Homer's man of wrath made flesh,

Achilles without the sulking,

Odysseus without the cunning.

He spread the light of reason

across the darkness of the east.

 

PERSIAN HISTORIAN

He was a conqueror.

He burned Persepolis.

He killed Parmenion without trial.

He murdered his friend at dinner.

He demanded prostration.

He called himself a god.

He destroyed an empire

that had kept the world in order for two centuries.

 

GREEK HISTORIAN

He built cities.

He brought philosophy to the steppes.

He opened trade routes

that fed ten million people

for a hundred years after his death.

 

PERSIAN HISTORIAN

He also killed the men who built those roads.

And the men who protected those cities.

And the men who kept those trade routes safe.

He is your hero because your civilization

writes the histories.

But I have also read them.

And they are written in blood

that has no Greek name.

 

Pause. The two historians look at each other.

 

GREEK HISTORIAN

He was extraordinary.

 

PERSIAN HISTORIAN

He was catastrophic.

 

GREEK HISTORIAN

Perhaps those are the same word,

in a large enough language.

 

Pause.

 

PERSIAN HISTORIAN

He wept at Cyrus's tomb.

That I grant.

No other conqueror wept for what he found.

They only wept when they lost.

He wept for a dead king he never met.

That—

I cannot explain.

 

GREEK HISTORIAN

Perhaps because he recognized him.

 

PERSIAN HISTORIAN

As what?

 

GREEK HISTORIAN

As himself.

Arriving earlier.

From the other direction.

 

Silence. They look at the empty centre of the stage where Alexander was.

 

PERSIAN HISTORIAN

What was he?

 

GREEK HISTORIAN

I have written forty years on that question.

 

PERSIAN HISTORIAN

As have I.

 

GREEK HISTORIAN

And?

 

PERSIAN HISTORIAN

He was the question.

Not the answer.

 

They look at each other. A long moment. Something like respect.

 

The Blind Witness steps forward. For the first and only time, he speaks.

 

BLIND WITNESS

Kings perish.

Empires perish.

Truth survives them both.

 

Yet no man sees it whole.

 

I have stood beside every throne

in every age.

I have watched the powerful believe

they were the point of the story.

They were not.

 

The point of the story

is that there is no point.

Only the searching.

Only the wound.

Only the bridge

that the next generation walks across

without knowing who built it,

or what it cost.

 

He extinguishes a single lamp.

 

The two historians remain a moment in the dimming light.

Then they too are gone.

 

Darkness.