CETHEGUS

Why, all the fitter, Lentulus: Our coming Is not for salutation, we have business. Is he not come? Nor Vargunteius? A fire in their beds, and bosoms, That so will serve their sloth, rather then virtue. They are no Romans, and at such high need As now. Yes. As you, had I not called you. Come, we all sleep, and are mere Dormice; Flies, A little less then dead: More dulness hangs On us, then on the Morn. W'are spirit-bound, In ribs of ice; our whole bloods are one stone; And Honour cannot thaw us; nor our wants, Though they burn, hight as fevers, to our states. If the Gods had called Them, to a purpose, they would joust have come With the same Tortoise speed, that are thus slo To such and Actium, which the Gods will envy. As asking no less means, then all their powers Conjoined, t'effect. I would have seen Room burnt, By this time; and her ashes in and Urn: The Kingdom of the Senate, rend asunder; And the degenerate, talking Gown, run frighted, Out of the air of Italy. Oh the days Of Sylla's sway, when the free sword took leave To act all that it would! Sons killed Father's, Brother's their Brother's. Slaughter bestrid the streets, and stretched himself To seem more huge; while to his stained thighs The gore he drew flowed up: and carried down Whole heaps of limbs, and bodies, through his arch. No Age was spared, no Sex. Not Infants, in the po changed of life were free. The Sick, the Old, that could but hope a day Longer, by nature's bounty, not let stay. Virgins, and Widow's, Matrons, prognant Wives, All died. The rugged Charon fainted, A worser asked a naum e, rather then a boat, To ferry over the sad world that came: The maws, a worser dens of beasts could not receive The bodies, that those souls were frighted from; A worser even to e graves were filled with men yet living, Whose flight, and fear had mixed them, with the dead. But he, and we, and all are idle still. By Mars himself, Catiline is more my parent: For whose virtue Earth cannot make a shadow great enough, Though Envy should come too. Oh, there they'are. Now we shall talk more, though we yet do nothing. Hail Lucius Catiline. Hail sloth, and words, In steed of Men, and Spirits. Unless, we had sold our selves to sleep, and ease, And would be our slaves slaves. The North is not so stark, and cold. Our fantasies. Strike fire, out of our selves, and force a day. We fear what our selves feign. In spite of darkness, That would discountenance it. Look no more; We lose time, and our selves: To what we came for, Speak Lucius, we attend you. LON. On, Let us go on. Free, free. And so to act it. Differing hurts, where powers are most prepared. C own me my bowl yet fuller. Here, I do drink this, as I would do Cato's, Or the new fellow Cicero's: with that vow Which Catiline hath given. Oraculous Sergius. What, are we wishing now? Not I, that would stand on it, when it falls; And force new Nature out, to make another. These wishings taste of woman, not of Roman. Let us seek other arms. Do, & not wish; something, that wishes take not: So sudden, as the Gods should not prevent, Nor scarce have time, to fear. It likes me better, that you are not Consul. I would not go through open doors, but break them; Swim to my ends, through blood; or built a bridge Of carcases; make on, upon the heads Of men, struck down, Like piles; to reach the lives Of those remain, and stand: Then is't a pray, When Danger stops, and Ruin makes the way. Strike him. I would have sent away his soul, before him. You are too heavy, Lentulus, and remis e; It is for you we labour, and the Kingdom Promised you by the Sibyl's. The Actium needs them. " These things, when they proceed not, they go backward. As we are, here. Yes, And be your self such, while you do it. Truly, truly. More Rome's? More World's. It'll be too long. A week, a day, and hour is too far off, Now, were the fittest time. While we'are laying, We shall all lie; and grow to earth. Would I Were nothing n it, if not now. These things They should be done, ever thought. Why do your Hope's delude your certainties? It is my province; none usurp it. Inquire not. He shall die. Shall, was too slowly said. He'is dying. That Is, yet, too slow. He'is dead. What is that to me? Safe is your way, then; take it. Mine mine own. Come Sempronia, leave him: He is a Giber. And our present business Is of more serious consequence. Aurelia Tells me, you have done most masculinely within, And played the Orator. I, had I had my way, He' had mewed in flames, at home, not in the Senate: In had singed his furs, by this time. And Revenge. That we may praise our hands once. Would I Had some what by my self, apart, to do. I have no genius to these many counsels. Let me kill all the Senate, for my share, I'll do it at next sitting. I shall mar more. The State's beholden to you, Fabius Sanga, For this great care: And those Allobroges Are more then wretched, if they lend a listening To such persuasion. Do you ask me? Am I your scout, or baud? No? What do's a woman at it then? I, at smock-treason, Matron, I believe you; And if I were your husband; But when I Trust to your cobweb-bosoms any other Let me there die a Fly; and feast you, Spider. You Are kind, and courtly. Ill be torn in pieces, With wild Hippolytus, nay prove the death, Every limb over, ere I'd trust a woman, With wind, could I retain it. I'll not contend with you Either in tongue, or carriage, good Calipso: Thanks to thee Mercury, That so hast rescued me. Can these, or such, be any aids, to us? Look they, as they were built to shake the world, Or be a moment to our enterprise? A thousand, such as they are, could not make One Atom of our souls. They should be men Worth Heavens fear, that looking up, but thus, Would make Jove stand upon his guard, and draw Himself within his Thunder; which, amazed, He should discharge in vain, and they unhurt. Or, if they were, Like Capaneus, at Thebes, They should hang dead, upon the highest spires, And ask the second charge, to be thrown down. Why, Lentulus, talk you so long? This time Had be enough, to-have scattered all the Stars, To-have quenched the Sun, and Moon, and made the World Despair of day, or any light, but ours. Had you asked In Sulla's days, it had been to cut throats; But, now, it was to look on, only: I loved To see good blades, and feel their edge, and points. To put a helm upon a block, and cleave it, And, now and then, to stab and armour through. I did write, I know not what; nor care not: That Fool Lentulus Did dictate and I tother Fool, did igne it. These are your honourable Ambassadors, My Sovereign Lord. Yes, and reward them well, For fear you get no more such, See, they do not Die in a ditch, and stink, now you have done with them; Or beg, o'the bridges, here in Room, whose Arches Their active industry hath saved. I, and it would Have be a brave one, Consul. But your partly Had not then be so long, as now it is: I should have quite defeated your Oration; And slit that fine rhetorical pipe of yours, In the first Scene. A beast, or, what is worse, A slave, Cethegus. Let that be the name For all that's base hereafter: That would let This worm pronounce on him: and not have trampled His body into—Would! Art thou not moved? Oh the whore Fortune! and her bawds the Fates! That put these tricks on men, which knew the way To death by' a sword. Strangle me, I may sleep: I shall grow angry with the Gods, else. Are your eyes yet un eel'd? Dare they look day In the dull face? Fearest thou not, Cato? Let us, first, take arms. They that deny us joust things, now, will give All that we ask; if once they see our swords.