Each single scorn would be far worse than dying.
Besides, I 'scape the stings of my own conscience,
Which will forever rack me with remembrance,
Haunt me by day, and torture me by night,
Casting my blotted honor in the way,
Where'er my melancholy thoughts shall guide me.
Brutus. But, is not death a very dreadful thing?
Titus. Not to a mind resolved. No, Sir; to me
It seems as natural as to be born.
Groans and convulsions, and discolored faces,
Friends weeping round us, crapes, and obsequies,
Make it a dreadful thing; the pomp of death
Is far more terrible than death itself.
Yes, Sir; I call the powers of Heaven to witness,
Titus dares die, if so you have decreed;
Nay, he shall die with joy to honor Brutus.
Brutus. Thou perfect glory of the Junian race!
Let me endear thee once more to my bosom,
Groan an eternal farewell to thy soul;
Instead of tears, weep blood, if possible;
Blood, the heart-blood of Brutus, on his child'
For thou must die, my Titus; die, my son!
I swear, the gods have doomed thee to the grave.
The violated genius of thy country
Bares his sad head, and passes sentence on thee.
This morning sun, that lights thy sorrows on
To the tribunal of this horrid vengeance,
Shall never see thee more!
Why am I worth thy sorrow' Why should the godlike Brutus shake to doom me? Why all these trappings for a traitor's hearse?
The gods will have it so.
Nor Heaven nor earth can have it otherwise.
Nay, Titus, mark! the deeper that I search,
My harassed soul returns the more confirmed.
Methinks I see the very hand of Jove
Moving the dreadful wheels of this affair,
Like a machine, they whirl thee to thy fate.
It seems as if the gods had preördained it,
To fix the reeling spirits of the People,
And settle the loose liberty of Rome.
"T is fixed; O, therefore, let not fancy dupe thee!
So fixed thy death, that 't is not in the power
Of gods or men to save thee from the axe.
Titus. The axe! O, Heaven! must I, then, fall so basely
What! Shall I perish by the common hangman?
Brutus. If thou deny me this, thou giv'st me nothing. Yes, Titus, since the gods have so decreed
That I must lose thee, I will take the advantage
Of thy important fate; cement Rome's flaws,
And heal her wounded freedom with thy blood.
I will ascend myself the sad tribunal,
And sit upon my son on thee, my Titus:
Behold thee suffer all the shame of death,
The lictor's lashes, bleed before the people;
Then, with thy hopes and all thy youth upon thee,
See thy head taken by the common axe,
Without a groan, without one pitying tear
(If that the gods can hold me to my purpose),
To make my justice quite transcend example.
Titus. Scourged like a bondman!
But I deserve it all; yet, here I fail;
The image of this suffering quite unmans me.
O, Sir! O, Brutus! must I call you father,
Yet have no token of your tenderness?
No sign of mercy ? What! not bate me that?
Can you resolve on all the extremity
Of cruel rigor? To behold me, too;
To sit, unmoved, and see me whipped to death!
Is this a father?
Ah, Sir, why should you make my heart suspect
That all your late compassion was dissembled ?
How can I think that you did ever love me?
Brutus. Think that I love thee, by my present passion,
By these unmanly tears, these earthquakes here;
These sighs, that twitch the very strings of life;
Think that no other cause on earth could move me
To tremble thus, to sob, or shed a tear,
Nor shake my solid virtue from her point,
But Titus' death. O, do not call it shameful
That thus shall fix the glory of the world.
I own thy suffering ought to unman me thus,
To make me throw my body on the ground,
To bellow like a beast, to gnaw the earth,
To tear my hair, to curse the cruel fates
That force a father thus to kill his child!
Titus. O, rise, thou violated majesty!
I now submit to all your threatened vengeance.
Come forth, ye executioners of justice!
Nay, all ye lictors, slaves, and common hangmen,
Come, strip me bare, unrobe me in his sight,
And lash me till I bleed ! Whip me, like furies!
And, when you've scourged me till I foam and fall,
For want of spirits, grovelling in the dust,
Then, take my head, and give it to his justice:-
By all the gods, I greedily resign it!
22 CATO'S SOLILOQUY ON IMMORTALITY. — Addison. Born, 1672, died, 1) 19.
IT must be so. - Plato, thou reasonest well
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?
Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror,
Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
'Tis the divinity that stirs within us,
'Tis Heaven itself, that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.
Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought!
Through what variety of untried being,
Through what new scenes and changes must we pass !
The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before me;
But shadows, clouds and darkness, rest upon it.
Here will I hold. If there's a Power above us,
And that there is, all Nature cries aloud
Through all her works,
He must delight in virtue.
And that which He delights in must be happy.
But when? or where? This world was made for Cæsar.
I'm weary of conjectures, this must end 'em.
Thus am I doubly armed. My death and life.
My bane and antidote, are both before me.
This in a moment brings me to my end;
But this informs me I shall never die.
The soul, secure in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years,
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amid the war of elements,
The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds.
23. QUARREL OF BRUTUS AND CASSIUS.—Shakspeare.
Cassius. That you have wronged me, doth appear in this You have condemned and noted Lucius Pella,
For taking bribes here of the Sardians ;
Wherein my letters (praying on his side,
Because I knew the man) were slighted off.
Brutus. You wronged yourself to write in such a case
Cas. At such a time as this, it is not meet
every nice offence should beer its comment.
* The dagger.
† Plato's Treatise
Bru. Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself
Are much condemned to have an itching palm.
To sell and mart your offices for gold,
To rndeservers.
You know that you are Brutus that speak this,
Or, by the gods, this speech were else your last!
Bru. The name of Cassius honors this corruption
And chastisement doth therefore hide his head
Bru. Remember March, the Ides of March remember Did not great Julius bleed for justice' sake?
What villain touched his body, that did stab,
And not for justice? What! shall one of us,
That struck the foremost man of all this world,
But for supporting robbers,
- shall we now
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes,
And sell the mighty space of our large honors
For so much trash as may be grasped thus?
I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon,
Than such a Roman!
Cas. Brutus, bay not me!
I'll not endure it. You forget yourself,
To hedge me in: I am a soldier, I,
Older in practice, abler than yourself
To make conditions.
Bru. Go to! you are not, Cassius.
Cas. I am.
Bru. I say you are not!
Cas. Urge me no more: I shall forget myself.
Have mind upon your health; tempt me no further!
Bru. Away, slight man!
Cas. Is 't possible?
Bru. Hear me, for I will speak.
Must I give way and room to your rash choler?
Shall I be frighted when a madman stares?
Cas. Must I endure all this?
Bru. All this? ay, more! Fret till your proud heart break
Go, show your slaves how choleric you are,
And make your bondmen tremble! Must I budge?
Must I observe you? Must I stand and crouch
Under your testy humor?
You shall digest the venom of your spleen,
Though it do split you; for, from this day forth,
I'll use you for my mirth,-yea, for my laughter,
When you are waspish!
bru. You say you are a better soldier:
Let it appear so; make your vaunting true,
And it shall please me well. For mine own part,
I shall be glad to learn of noble men.
Cas. You wrong me every way, you wrong me, Brutus
I said, an elder soldier, not a better.
I'd I say better?
Bru. If you did, I care not!
Cas. When Cæsar lived, he durst not thus have moved me Bru. Peace, peace: you durst not so have tempted him ' Cas. I durst not?
Cas. What? durst not tempt him?
Bru. For your life, you durst not!
Cas. Do not presume too much upon my love;
I may do that I shall be sorry for.
Bru. You have done that you should be sorry for. There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats;
For I am armed so strong in honesty,
That they pass by me as the idle wind,
Which I respect not. I did send to you
For certain sums of gold, which you denied me;
For I can raise no money by vile means:
By Heaven, I had rather coin my heart,
And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring
From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash
By any indirection! I did send
To you for gold to pay my legions,
Which you denied me. Was that done like Cassius?
Should I have answered Caius Cassius so?
When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous,
To lock such rascal counters from his friends,
Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts,
Dash him to pieces!
Cas. I denied you not.
Bru. You did.
Cas. I did not: - he was but a fool
A friend should bear his friend's infirmities,
That brought my answer back. - Brutus hath rived
But Brutus makes mine greater than they are.
Bru. I do not, till you practise them on me.
Cas. You love me not.
Bru. I do not like your
Cas. A friendly eye could never see such faults.
Bru. A flatterer's would not, though they do appear
As huge as high Olympus.
Cas. Come, Antony, and young Octavius, come! Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius,
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