BRUTUS

Most loyal Lords and faithful followers That have with me unworthy General, Passed the greedy gulf of Ocean, Leaving the confines of fair Italy, Behold our Brutus draws nigh his end, And I must leave you though against my will, My sinews shrunk, my numbed senses fail, A chilling cold possesses all my bones, Black ugly death with visage pale and won, Presents himself before my dazzled eyes, And with his dart prepared is to strike, These arms my Lords, these never daunted arms, That oft have quelled the courage of my foes, And eke dismayed my neighbours arrogancy, Now yield to death, overlaid with crooked age, Devoid of strength and of their proper force, Even as the lusty cedar worn with years, That far abroad her dainty odore throws, Amongst all the daughters of proud Lebanon, This heart my Lords, this near appalled heart, That was a terror to the bordering lands, A doleful scourge unto my neighbour Kings, Now by the weapons of unpartial death, Is clove asunder and bereft of life, As when the sacred oak with thunderbolts, Sent from the fiery circuit of the heavens, Sliding along the airs celestial valts, Is rend and cloven to the very roots. In vain therefore I strangle with this foe, Then welcome death, since God will have it so. Nay Corinus you mistake my mind In construing wrong the cause of my complaints, I feared to yield my self to fatal death, Cod knows it was the least of all my thought, A greater care torments my very bones, And makes me tremble at the thought of it, And in you Lordings does the substance lie. The ̄ harken to your sovereigns latest words, In which I will unto you all unfold, Our royal mind and resolute intent, When golden Hebe daughter to great Jove, Covered my manly cheeks with youthful down, Unhappy slaughter of my luckless sire, Drove me and old Assarachus mine am, As exiles from the bounds of Italy, So that perforce we were constrained to fly To Grecians Monarch noble Pandrassus, There I alone did undertake your cause, There I restored your antique liberty, Though Greciam frowned, and all Mollossia stormed, Though brave Antigonus with martial band, In pitched field encountered me and mine, Though Pandrassus and his contributories, With all the out of their confederates, Sought to deface our glorious memory, And wipe the name of Trojans from the earth, Him did I captivate with this mine arm, And by compulsion for st him to agree To certain articles which there we did propound, From Graeciam through the boisterous Hellespont, We came unto the fields of Lestrigon, Whereas our brother Corineius was, Which when we passed the Cicillian gulf, And so transfretting the Illician sea, Arrived on the coasts of Aquitaine, Where with and army of his barbarous Gauls Goffarius and his brother Gathelus Encountering with our host, sustained the foil, And for your sakes my Turnus there I lost, Turnus that slew six hundredth men at arms All in and hour, with his sharp battle-axe, From thence upon the strons of Albion To Corus haven happily we came, And quelled the giants, comne of Albions raze, With Gogmagog son to Samotheus, The cursed Captain of that damned crew, And in that I'll at length I placed you. Now let me see if my laborious toils, If all my care, if all my grievous wounds, If all my diligence were well employed. Then loyal peers ince you are all agreed, And resolute to follow Brutus hosts, Favour my sons, favour these Orphans Lords, And shield them from the dangers of their foes, Locrine the column of my family, And only pillar of my weakened age. Locrine draw near, worser awe near unto thy sire, And take thy latest blessings at his hands, And or thou art the eldest of my sons, Be thou a captain to thy brethren, And imitate thy aged father's steps, Which will conduct thee to true honours gate, For if thou follow sacred we tues lore, Thou shalt be crowned with a laurel branch, And wear a wreathe of sempiternal fame, Sorted amongst the glorious happy ones. C m er. The glory of mine age. And darling of thy mother Ju oger, Take thou the South for thy dominion, From thee there shall proseed a royal raze, That shall maintain he honour of this land, That sway the regal sceptre with their hands. And Albanact thy father's only joy, Yoongst in years, but not the yoongst in mind, A perfect pattern of all chivalry, Take thou the North for thy dominion, A country full of hills and ragged rocks, Replenished with fierce untamed beasts, As correspondent to thy martial thoughts, Live long my sons with endless happiness, And bear firm concordance amongst your selves, Obey the counsels of these father's graven, That you may better bear out violence, But suddenly through weakness of my age, And the defect of youthful puissance, My malady increases more and more, And cruel death hasteneth his quickened pace, To dispossess me of my earthly shape, Mine eyes wax dim, overcast with clouds of age, The pangs of death compass my crazed bones, Thus to you all my blessings I bequeathe, And with my blessings, this my fleeting soul. My glass is run, and all my Misery's Do end with life: death closeth up mine eyes, My soul is haste flies to the Elisian fields.