HANNIBAL

And you are pleased with them? That can Hannibal; Who through the twarthy vizard age and cares Have tanned his face with, blusheth at the change Of Soldiers into women. Why in stead Of Plume-crowned crests wear you not tires? and deck Your necks with gems, in stead of arming them With Corslets? Lay by all command, save only To set your distaff-servants tasks, and study Lascivious dressings, not wars discipline? Better employ invention how to court A Mistress in the fashionable garb, Than to contrive a useful stratagem Where force prevails not. You Like Carthaginians Speak from the sonles of men. Muster your Soldiers: We will again to Room, and with the terror Of our approach make earthquakes in the hearts Of her gowned Senators; burn the proud trophies, Adorn her Capitol, or make them scarecrows: Bury her high-ascending Towers in heaps Of their own ruins; and till Tiber's died With blood of his own children, not and arm Shall cease from slaughter. Have we cut our way Thorough Mountains, and thawed rocks of Ice for passage To reach the head of Room, and shall we not Triumph in her rich spoils? Yes; we will triumph. Or by the Genius of my native Carthage, And the religious oath I made my Father, When yet my youth had seen the progress but Of nine suns through the twelve celestial mansions, I'll level all the rugged Appennines; And mount the humblest valleys, Till their heads Be wrapped in clouds; whence thunder shall not force me, Till I survey the plains of Italy, Like earth manured chalked with the bones of Romans, After their slesh is buried in the gorges Of Kites and Vultures. What Lady's that? She's lovely. What unusual passion Soften me on a sudden? I me thinks Could play with air, and wanton with the breath Of such a Mistress: court her amorously, And not mistake a phrase, nor fright her tenderness With any repetitions of wars horrors. Cease your rebellion thoughts. I must be man, And keep my freedom. What did creation mean A woman for, but pleasure? Should not I Pursue it then since it's the end of all We either do or wish? it's actions soul That makes it live. I must enjoy it this way. Desire's a law set down by nature's counsel, And not to be disputed. To you (fair storehouse of your sexes excellence) I would direct the language of my heart. Lady it can speak. Nothing but passion. You have wounded it. And from the self same eye that shot the dart I must have balm to cure it. But I am your captive. And in that pleasant bondage would abide, Though I might force my ransom. Suspect Of such and ill, wrong's your own innocence. My love is zealous, and the passive flame Fed with a pure desire. I would enjoy you To mix our souls, not merely to delight The wanton senses. Yes; your eyes have done it. Although my skin be horney, and my flesh Almost insensible through daily weight Of heavy arms, the substance of my heart Is flexible, and takes impressions Of love from your perfections. It not derogates From the best difference in men composition To love: for that best speaks him man, and argues He hath a spirit capable of things Worthy his being. Come then perfect me With your addition: make my captivity A conquest, and I'll fixc. As from water Cast on bytumen, so from these sharp checks My flame increases. You express a soul Makes others valours but derivative From yours; as if the spring of all flowed thence; And we but drank our small proportions From your abundance. Our embraces would People the wasted world with Warriors. Hast thou brought her pearls Ravished from necks of richest Roman dams? I'll pave the path we tread to Hymen's joy With spovles of all the cities I have conquered. I am prepared: and if there were and accident That did exceed in horror, praise or wonder, Discourse it lively, that it may impress Something within to beget and act Shall parallel it. Then Room shall ransom them. Revenge is able Out of a flinty cowardice to strike The fire of valour, with that new supply I do expect from Carthage we'll to Room, And emulate this victory; nor let it Be your affliction that blind chance hath robbed Your former labours of their endue reward; Room will repair all. Not till now? When in my talons I had almost seized Rome's Eagle, and prepared my sharpened beak To prey upon her hear? Must I then leave Room unsubverted? So a man that strives To make himself eternal by erecting Of some stupendious monument, is forced To his last quiet ever the work be perfect. Leaving it but a lame and half design Of his ambition. No: passion shall submit Unto my best partly. Conquest of my self Shall speak me more in this, then if my power Had leveled her seven hills. I leave her only To grow more worthy of my victory. I will obey, though each unwilling step Wounds me beyond the cure of common patience. Commands of power must not be withstood. Great actions make men great; good actions good. This cold entertainment Does make me jealous. What art? Would! Scipio! Then the character report Give's of him's false. He scorns ignoble ways Of honour; to overcome by treachery. And findest it. 'Tis only thy conspiracy with Syphax; Who makes his Court a privilege for that Fame will proclaim with blushes. Syphax th'art treacherous. To Hannibal and Carthage. It's a satisfaction. I bless the occasion makes us meet: my longings Were violent to see thee Scipio. Doubt not such a greeting When next we meet. Not to be calmed With words. Grow strong; be still a conqueror, Till I shall conquer thee. One Hannibal And Carthage poised but in and equal scale With twenty Rome's, and twenty Scipios, Shall weigh Like lead' gainst feathers. My brain is labouring. As giddy fancies when they do present Delightful shadows, seem to please the sense When it is quiet, and not capable Of any object, Till the dreamers joy Suddenly wakes him, and the false impressions Vanish to their first nothing, so have I Flattered my Hope's. If Syphax dare be private. They must not. The wrongs thou hast done Carthage must be witnessed: That when same speaks them loudest, partial men Make not their incredulity and excuse For what no satisfaction can restore, Thy honour lost in infamy. What error But to defend it self will strive (though vainly) To mock truth out of truth? Well Syphax knows The expectation of a state deluded Cannot but trouble it. A King is more Than a mean person, bounded with dimensions Of the bore man. His actions are his peoples; And what he does or suffers they must stand. Consider then when Carthage shall call up Revenge, and with all force pursue the injury To satisfaction; when her soldiers (Whom custom hath made pitiless) shall plough The wombs of teeming Mother's with their fauchions, To prevent the issue that might vindicate A father slain; make your Numidian Virgins The ruins of their pleasure, and not leave And altar to your gods, nor private Lar That may defend a household from their violence: When these (whose very repetition carry's Horror enough to fright men into peace) Shall happen— Full well their age wise with experience knows To disobey a Kings unjust commands Law and religion warrants. Syphax youth Were fitter to court beauty, than to fit At a states helm, and steer the various course It's subject to, by his green violent passion. With which his bed ever this had been enriched, Had Carthage found him kind: Fair Sophonisba. She from whose eyes The amorous sun, resigning first his own; Might be ambitious to derive new fires. Yet she to be reserved for his embraces, Who slights that honour all the neighbouring Kings Have been competitors for, and would lay down Their Crowns to purchase; fell their very beings To be translated into a possession Of Sophonisba. From a desire of friendship And league with Syphax: which his passionate love To Room and Scipio (that admits no reason) Denying, I must publish the dishonour Done to a Lady, at whose least command A Nation shall be armed, led by such Captains As in their emulation will declare What mortals owe to her divine perfections; That warrant her revenge as just a quarrel, As ever stirred up valour in a conscience Scruples had cowarded. Here my commission Takes end, and I must go. But if Syphax Should again suffer Scipio's menacies To fright his weakness out of this resolve I No more; it's Sophonisba. Come Sophonisba You must consent: ther's fame in't that will give you And everlasting being in the memory Oh benefits your Country will derive from't. Children shall first be taught to speak your name; And from their aged grandsires learn your story. Whose often repetition shall take from The tediousness of age, and make them seem As if they danced for joy, when palsies shake them. To give Syphax a satisfaction, your competitor False Massinissa, he that shar's your Kingdom. And would engross it all, hath long solicited For Sophonisba's love. He having now forsaken Carthage, she Out of her piety to do her Country A good, prefers you: and that her revenge May be pursued with greater violence, Allow's her self your right; though she's a treasure Might be disposed of to a more advantage Of Carthage strength. The not to be resisted power of beauty. Carthage I will salute thee now with joy. Nor shall the thought of thy ingratitude Make me less willing to pursue thy good Through a deep sea of vanquished. Roman's blood. Would! me thinks they should Salute me, though I bring not victory. When I presented them with wealth, their flatteries Were greater then became them. Am I less In merit now, then when success attended My actions! glued unto their seats, and Hannibal Entered. Grave father's. But patient! he that stand's Accused may challenge that, or justly tax ye Of more then tyranny. Would! my Judges. What envy though 'twere stilled from the black galls Ofleane Erinnis Adders, can so blemish My life or same, that from the least suspect I might incur a sentence! Wast for this I have through blood and sweat made Carthage great As Room her self; and had not politic dotage Infected with your private avarice (That would not spare me what my self bestowed Upon your case) prevented it by calling Me and my Army home, I had ever this Made Room your tributary; and am I Returned now to be judge, because I have After so many victories lost one battle! The monstrous by that of your ingratitude Were able to fright manhood from posterity, And check all undertakings. From mine own judgement that foresaw the danger My power could not prevent. Ther's no privilege Pulls him down. Under your gown for that. Learn to know man; Then be his judge. I hate your slattery, 'Tis mixed with scorn; and I will rather trample Upon your purple. Should Jove himself provoke me With a disgrace Like this, l'de challenge him To meet upon a cloud rammed full of thunder: And dart it at him, Till with flames I had Consumed the brass supporters of his heaven; Tumbling him down with all his petty gods Unto their first mortality. Let the respect Belikewise taught them that belongs to me. And if my labour hath maintained their ease. In which they have both studied and established Civil formalities, my rugged life Did never practice, it may well excuse A greater error. Who is my accuser? My self! my self will be my judge then: And maketh'abus'd seat honoured for a justice, Which your corrupted souls would never suffer Your power to execute. Look Carthaginians; And if your reasons eyes can see the errors Your blinded envy led it to, with blushes Guide them to reformation. I that took And oath at nine years old before the Altar, When it was smoking with the horrid sacrifice Of immolated men, to be Rome's enemy, And perfect what my Father had begun; I that transferred the wealth of Spain to Carthage, And thorough the frozen Alps melted my way Into the fertile plains of Italy; That waded with my army thorough the fens Of gloomy Arnus, in whose fogs I lost One of my bodies comfortable lights; I that overthrew six Consuls, and at Cannas In one sighed killed a hundred Roman Senators, And thence presented Carthage with a prey That might outvie and Indian treasury Cramed with the choicest wealth; I that abroad While here you bathed in pleasures made my body Propose against a tempest, and endured the rage Of more prodigious storms then ever frighted Mortals into religion. Thy malice Hanno Like to the broken some a rock beats back Upon the angry main, fowl's thine own bosom. I am above it; and in spite of thee Or all the battery of thy calumnies, Will stand Like a Colossus to be gazed at By all beneath me, when the scorn of men Shall lash thy envy with the whips of Satires: Who vainly dost attempt to ruin that Is built for fame. It becomes you better, When your grave nod and formal hem strik's terror Through the affrighted malefactors heart; Who for some slight offence expects his judgement, No less than banishment, or confiscation Of all his substance; which is shared amongst you, The public use neglected. But in vain I tax your vices, when your souls are fullyed With and ingratitude to me, that makes All others white as innocence compared With that black monster. Carthage I disclaim thee, And rather then employ my power again To raise thy head above others, in thy ruins I'll hide mine own. And but for reverence I bear the ashes of mine ancestors, I would my self plough furrows in thy womb, And sow my faction only for th'increase Of mine own greatness. You are deceived. You're weak enough already; there's no needs Of a sedition to subvert your state. Can ye resist the Romans, and make peace Upon your own conditions? O inhumane treachery! But for preventing justice that will fallen Heavy upon you by some other instrument, 'Twere piety to wash corruption From this abused place with your bloods; whose stains Would yet infect the pavement, and remain Like blushes in the marble to betray The gilded ye died for. When the Romans practice Their tyranny upon you, wish in vain Ye had and Hannibal. Into some desert to converse with beasts; Th'have grateful souls. Carthage me thinks and earthquake Should palsy thy old joints, & shrink thy head Into thy shoulders: or thy Genius wrap thee In a perpetual cloud to hide the shame Of this base act. Revenge, I'll court thee through The ruin of mine own. Carthage shall see Not mine from her, her greatness grew from me. All those that love me follow. Exeunt, Senators remaining. You are noble, And Like a King with judgement valve me. My mind was never subjected: I have known So much of both, that neither of the pastimes Fortune delights her self with, can incline me To height above a moderate, nor decline me Below my self. Prosperity, adversity; Both make one even scale, and weight being added To either, shows the difference. He's not man Will be dejected or exalted. Every one Should temper the condition of his state, Such as the present makes it, with the fear Or hope of after change: and when he labour's In the extremity of one, or slows I'th swelling height of th'other, still his mind Should be the same. Chance varies every way; But virtues course is constant. If to descend my Country. Or to compel encroaching To satisfaction, such as would deprive us Of earth that nature in her legacy Made our proportion be a justice, I Did never injury; for these were only The motives to my actions. Fame I know Could not be silent, but she must inform Even the remotest dwellers, how proud Room (Whose infant greatness by ambition nursed Is now in growing, and will spread it self If a prevention stay it not, beyond All limits of the yet known world) insults Over her neighbouring Provinces. From Carthage She hath enfore't Sicilia (the world's granary) And other Hands: and her General Swollen with his fortune, hath attempted farther To overslow all Afric. You may likewise Expect he will encroach upon your Asia; Antiochus being already vanquished, And sled to Ephesus. If nothing else, Your safety should invite you to take arms, Though but defensive. States that never knew A change but in their growth, which a long peace Hath brought unto perfection, are Like steel; Which being neglected will consume it self With its ownerust. So does security Eat through he hearts of states while they are sleeping And lulled in her false quiet. Prusias therefore Should dwell no longer in so great a danger. If he'll not be a Soldier, let him arm His people; Hannibal will be their Captain, And led them unto actions that shall take Fam. with the wonder, Till I have made Room (Who Like th'earths issue heaps up hills on hills, To raise her proud head) nothing. My right hand Jove -Like is armed with thunder, which shall sligh Winged with prodigious slames of just revenge To punish her impiety. You valve Those scruples more than a full weight of honour. Heaven gave the difference to you but to be The sigure of that power, that will exact A just account of a Kings greater actions, Then what inferiors owe to their creation. Th'essentiall partly of your eternity Depends upon that point: and can you more Express your self heavens minister, then when You do the things agree with't? In that consists your danger. She's masked in policy, and Like a Statesman Without religion, steers her course by shows And mere appearance to what ever ends Amoition points her. Be not then too rash. Make not the greatness which is yet your own Derivative from her. IT will leave your name A stain in times records, and blot the tables That should preserve it. To reconcile us! Time shall first run back To his beginning, and the world return To its first Chaos ever I will admit Of such a word. L'et those that fawn upon The smiles of peace and softness to delight Their wanton appetites, practice their low Effeminate souls in fears and passion. Each thought of mine shall be a numerous Army To lead' gainst Room: in my imagination I will fight with her still, though I want Soldiers. Would! Scipio and Flaminius Amongst the Roman Legates! there's some treachery. Inform thy self Himulco. His pursuing Exit. My course, imports no good, and my sad soul Labours with a prophetic apprehension Of something he intends. Beready thou, Thou my last refuge. That person yet Is free, and capable of new designs, To make himself full owner of a glory Above Scipio's conquest. 'Tis not thy success Declines me the least step towards subjection Of my still high built Hope's: which being strongly Propped with my resolutions, shall in time Raise monuments of fame unto my actions. Let not one chance exalt thee. Hannibal, Though Carthage owns him not, command's a world Greater than her, or Room. Be not deceived With too much confidence. The more th'are pressed, The more palms flourish. That that would make Scipio Look downwards, lifts me up. I study man Better from practice, than thou canst from books. Thy learning's but opinion, mine known truth; Subject to no gross errors, such as cannot Be reconciled, but by production Of new and greater. Did thy learned Master's Of Arts, with whom even armed thou hast conversed Before a battle joined (if fame speak truth) By their instructions show thee surer ways To victory, than Fortune joined to valour, And a full strength of men? Least of virtue, That left a just cause to support a wrong one; Such was his fallen from Carthage. Alexander The first best Captain. Pyrrhus. Doubtless my self. If I Had conquered Scipio, I had then been first. How art satisfied? Am I yet safe? Why what hast seen? I am then betrayed. Can Kings be treacherous? have they mortal parts Subject to that corruption stains with leprosy The glorious brow of honour! Can creation Be in her different works so negligent As not to perfect them? She's idle when She makes Kings, should be Like gods, less then men. Prusias and Scipio, thus I mock your plots. Be treacherous now; you shall have nothing but Hannibal's earth to work on. Takes the poison. It's too late. All help is vain as your conspiracy. It was no juggling sop to wrap the senses In slumbers Like death, Colches never yielded A juice more baneful. I went still prepared Thus to overcome your malice; which discovered, My death bears me above it. Persuade thy flatterers To credit it: Those that would deify The virtues in thy book, not of thy mind. Practice hath taught me how to read men's souls. Do not I know then thy hypocrisy Plasters the wounded credit of thy act! But if thou healest it, there will be a scar To show posterity that what thou didst Was full of base corruption. Tell thy Philosophers The earth hath not a centre; that the day Is not illumined by the Sun; that fire Is colder than the ever-frozen rocks That bear the North-end of th'earths Axletree: When they allow these paradoxes, I Will credit Scipio. Work on thou brave minister Of my last victory over my self. Quench thy unnatural flames with my scortcht bowels. Now thou hast met a heat, which joined to thine Makes all the frame Like the bright forge, whence Jove Hath his artillery. My heat, my heart; Quench it Eridanus: but it would dry Thy waters up. I'm wrapped in greater fires Then the rash boy thou chokest. Would this were Oetam; That Like the furious Theban I might built Mine own pile, and the flame as it ascends Transform it self into a constellation; Or fix ith' upper region of the ay re Like a perpetual comet to fright Room With his prodigious light. Me thinks and earthquake Totters the aged fabric that so long Hath born me on't, and the divided poles Embrace to kiss each other. And inversion Of nature's order shall attend the fate Of dying Hannibal. So Oaks eradicated By a prodigious whirlwind, tear the earth Through which their large roots spread themselves. No less then the whole world to be my grave. Music every place Surfeits with this lasciviousness. I perceive Errors in my behaviour. Court a woman, When I should threaten vengeance! But she's fair. Hang beauty: that and ease are the only engines To ruin virtue. Ladies pray withdraw: the affairs of men are handling.