that strives to blur thy blood, and girt defame
about my innocent and spotless brows.
HOW vain and vile a passion is this fear,
what base uncomely things it makes men do!
suspect their noblest friends, as I did this,
flatter poor enemies, entreat their servants,
stoop, court and catch at the benevolence
of creatures, unto whom, within this hour,
I would not have vouchsafed a quarter-look,
or piece of face! Now you that fools call gods,
hang all the sky with your prodigious signs,
fill earth with monsters, drop the scorpion down
out of the zodiac, or the fiercer lion,
roll all the world in darkness, and let loose
the enragéd winds to turn up groves and towns!
When I do fear again, let me be struck
with forkéd fire, and unpitied die;
who fears, is worthy of calamity.
REAT honours are great burdens, but on whom they're cast with envy, he doth bear two loads,
his cares must still be double to his joys
in any dignity; where, if he err,
he finds no pardon: and for doing well
a most small praise, and that wrung out by force.
I speak thus, Romans, knowing what the weight
of the high charge, you have trusted to me, is.
Not that thereby I would with art decline
the good, or greatness of your benefit;
for I ascribe it to your singular grace,
and vow to owe it to no title else,
except the gods, that Cicero is your consul.
I have no urns, no dusty monuments,
no broken images of ancestors;
but for myself I have prepared this strength.
making not reservation of yourselves,
(still your own foes), deliver you, as most
abated captives, to some nation
that won you without blows! Despising
for you the city, thus I turn my back:
there is a world elsewhere.
THE ANGELS' CAMP BY NIGHT
OW when ambrosial night, with clouds exhaled
from that high mount of God, whence light and
shade
spring both, the face of brightest heaven had changed
to grateful twilight-for night comes not there
in darker veil-and roseate dews disposed
all but the unsleeping eyes of God to rest:
wide over all the plain, and wider far
than all this globous earth in plain outspread—
such are the courts of God-the angelic throng,
dispersed in bands and files, their camp extend
by living streams among the trees of life,
pavilions numberless, and sudden reared,
celestial tabernacles, where they slept
fanned with cool winds; save those who, in their course,
melodious hymns about the sovran throne
alternate all night long.
642 ANTONIO AT THE VAULT IN WHICH HIS FATHER'S
MOST honoured Tomb, I'll not be long
OST honoured sepulcre, vouchsafe a wretch
ere I creep in thee, and with bloodless lips
kiss my cold father's cheek. I prythee, grave,
provide soft mould to wrap my carcase in.
Thou royal spirit of Andrugio, where'er thou hoverest,
once every night I'll dew thy funeral hearse
with my religious tears.
O blessed father of a cursed son,
thou diedst most happy, since thou livedst not
to see thy son most wretched, and thy wife
pursued by him that seeks my guiltless blood.
O, in what orb thy mighty spirit soars,
stoop and beat down this rising fog of shame,
WALLENSTEIN'S SOLILOQUY ON DEATH
why, 'tis man's nature, not his punishment. With this condition we all enter life,
to put it off again; 'tis but a garment,
and cannot last for ever; both its fashion
and stuff will soon wear out: why then should death
to me be terrible, since 'tis main folly
to fear that which we no way can avoid?
Oh! but to die surcharged with mortal sins,
such as can kill our everlasting beings
our souls-and send them hence to bathe in floods
of living fire; there, that's the frightful mischief;
the other's but a trifle: I, who never
could fear the other, at the thought of this
am more with death already; my vast crimes,
my horrid murders, fill that conscience in me,
which makes me know my guilt-that conscience
which, as my shadow, follows me.
CATILINE TO THE CONSPIRATORS
no time of calling back, or standing still.
Friends, be yourselves; keep the same Roman hearts
and ready minds you had yester-night. Prepare
to execute what we resolved; and let not
labour, or danger, or discovery fright you.
I'll to the army: you, the while, mature
things here at home: draw to you any aids
that you think fit, of men of all conditions,
of any fortunes, that may help a war.
I'll bleed a life, or win an empire for you.
Within these few days look to see my ensigns
here at the walls: be you but firm within,
mean time, to draw an envy on the consul
and give a less suspicion of our course,
let it be given out here in the city,
that I am gone an innocent man to exile.
MAXIMUS REJOICING OVER THE DEATH OF
ODS, what a sluice of blood have I let open!
My happy ends are come to birth; he's dead, and I revenged; the empire 's all a-fire,
and desolation everywhere inhabits;
and shall I live, that am the author of it,
to know Rome, from the awe o' the world, the pity?
My friends are gone before too, of my sending;
and shall I stay? is aught else to be lived for?
Is there another friend, another wife,
to linger here alive for? is not virtue,
in their two everlasting souls, departed,
and in their bodies' first flame fled to heaven?
Can any man discover this and love me?
for, though my justice were as white as truth,
my way was crooked to it; that condemns me.
J. FLETCHER
Ep. ND to what friends should I for aid apply?
AND
Mer. The royal race of Temenus, in Argos-
Ep. That house, like ours, intestine murder maims.
Mer. Thy Spartan cousins, Procles and his brother-
Ep. Love a won cause, but not a cause to win.
Mer. My father, then, and his Arcadian chiefs-
Ep. Mean still to keep aloof from Dorian broil.
Mer. Wait, then, until sufficient help appears.
Ep. Orestes in Mycenæ had no more.
Mer. He to fulfil an order rais'd his hand.
Ep. What order more precise had he than I?
Mer. Apollo peal'd it from his Delphian cave.
Ep. A mother's murder needed hest divine.
Mer. He had a hest, at least, and thou hast none.
Ep. The Gods command not where the heart speaks clear. Mer. Thou wilt destroy, I see, thyself and us.
CATO TO THE SENATE ON THE APPROACH OF
CESAR WITH HIS ARMY
`ATHERS, I cannot see that our affairs
are grown thus desperate. We have bulwarks round us;
within our walls are troops inured to toil
in Afric's heat, and seasoned to the sun;
Numidia's spacious kingdom lies behind us,
ready to rise at its young prince's call.
While there is hope, do not disturb the gods;
but wait at least till Cæsar's near approach
force us to yield. 'Twill never be too late
to sue for chains and own a conqueror.
Why should Rome fall a moment ere her time?
No, let us draw her term of freedom out
in its full length, and spin it to the last,
so shall we gain still one day's liberty;
and let me perish, but, in Cato's judgment,
a day, an hour, of virtuous liberty
is worth a whole eternity in bondage.
GOMERA'S LAMENT OVER his WIFE ORIANA, WHO BEING WRONGLY TAXED OF UNFAITHFULNESS BY HIM, HAD FALLEN INTO A SWOON, AND WAS TAKEN UP FOR DEAD
OW like a murderer I stand!-Look up
the vengeance I will take for't, Oriana,
and then in peace forsake me! Jealousy,
thou loathsome vomit of the fiends below,
what desperate hunger made me to receive thee
into my heart and soul? I'll let thee forth,
and so in death find ease. And does my fault, then,
deserve no greater punishment? no; I'll live
to keep thee for a Fury to torment me,
and make me know what hell is on the earth.
All joys and hopes forsake me! all men's malice,
and all the plagues they can inflict, I wish it,
fall thick upon me! let my tears be laughed at,
and may my enemies smile to hear me groan;
and dead, may I be pitiéd of none!
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