CATO

Now will the two Suns of our Roman Heaven ( Pompey & Caesar ) in their Tropic burning, With their contention, all the clouds assemble That threaten tempests to our peace & Em pire, Which we shall shortly see pour down in blood, Civil and natural, wild and barbarous turning. From both their Armies, Now gathered near our Italy, contending To enter severally: Pompey's brought so near By Rome's consent; for fear of tyrannous Caesar, Which Caesar fearing to be done in favour Of Pompey, and his passage to the Empire, Hath brought on his for intervention. And such a flock of Puttock's follow Caesar, For fallen of his ill-disposed Purse (That never yet spared Cross to Aquiline virtue) As well may make all civil spirits suspicious. Look how against great reins, a standing Pool Of Paddocks, Toads, and water-Snakes put up Their speckled throats above the venomous Lake, Croaking and gasping for some fresh fallen drops To quench their poisond thirst; being near to stifle With clotterd purgings of their own foul bane; So still, where Caesar goes, there thrust up head, Impostors, Flatterers, Favorites, and Bawds, Buffons, Intelligencers, select wits; Close Murderers, Montibanckes, and decayed Thieves, To gain their baneful lives reliefs from him. From Britain, Belgia, France, and Germany, The scum of either Country, (chused by him, To be his black Guard, and read Agents here) Swarming about him. He's too wise, Statilius, For all is nothing. Away Statilius ; how long shall thy love Exceed thy knowledge of me, and the Gods? Whose rights thou wrongest for my right? have not? Their powers to guard me, in a cause of theirs? Their justice, and integrity included, In what I stand for? he that fears the Gods, For guard of any goodness; all things fears; Earth, Seas, and Air; Heaven, darkness, broad daylight, Rumor, and Silence, and his very shade: And what and Aspen soul hath such a creature? How dangerous to his soul is such a fear? In whose cold fits, is all heavens justice shaken To his faint thoughts; and all the goodness there Endue to all good men, by the gods own vows, Nay, by the firmness of their endless Being, All which shall fail as soon as any one Good to a good man in them: for his goodness Proceeds from them, and is a beam of theirs. Oh never more, Statilius, may this fear Taint thy bold bosom, for thy self, or friend. More then the gods are fearful to defend. Welcome; come stand by me in what is fit For our poor Cities safety; nor respect Her proudest foes corruption, or our danger Of what seen face soever. I know it; yet let us do Like our selves. Exeunt. He is the man that sits so close to Caesar, And holds the law there, whispering; see the Cowherd Hath guards of armed men God, against one naked. I'll partly their whispering virtue. Come in; —Away unworthy grooms. Where fit place is not given, it must be taken. Said Like a God. Put them to death then, and strike dead our fear, That well you urge, by their unfit surival. Rather then keep it quick; and two lives give it, By entertaining Pompey's army too. That gives as great cause of our fear, as they. For their conspiracy, only was to make One Tyrant over all the State of Room. And Pompey's army, suffered to be entered, Is, to make him, or give him means to be so. In purpose; clearly Sir, Which I'll illustrate, with a clear example. If it be day, the Sun's above the earth; Which follows not (yowl answer) for it's day When first the morning breaks; and yet is then The body of the Sun beneath the earth; But he is virtually above it too, Because his beams are there, and who then knows not His golden body will soon after mount. So Pompey's army entered Italy, Yet Pompey's not in Room ; but Pompey's beams Who sees not there? and consequently, he Is in all means enthroned in empery. All that needs I took away before; and reasons gave For a necessity to keep it out Whose entry (I think) he himself affects not. Since I as well think he affects not empire, And both those thoughts hold; since he loves his Country, In my great Hope's of him too well to seek His sole rule of her, when so many souls, So hard a task approve it; nor my Hope's Of his sincere love to his Country, built On sandier grounds then Caesars ; since he can As good Cards show for it as Caesar did, And quit therein the close aspersion Of his ambition, seeking to employ His army in the breast of Italy. What rests then, this of all parts being disclaimed? He shall not read it. Thou shalt be dumb as soon. My Lords, you make all Room amazed to hear. Oh boast not that, Their lose is yours, my Lord. I so advised, and yet repent it not, But much rejoice in so much saved blood As had been poured out in the stroke of battle, Whose fury thus prevented, comprehends Your Countries' good, and Empires in whose care Let me beseech you that in all this war, You sack no City, subject to our Rule, Nor put to sword one Citizen of Room ; But when the needful fury of the sword Can make no fit distinction in main battle, That you will please still to prolong the stroke Of absolute decision to these jars, Considering you shall strike it with a man Of much skill and experience, and one That will his Conquest fell at infinite rate, If that must end your difference; but I doubt There will come humble offer on his partly, Of honoured peace to you, for whose sweet name So cried out to you in our late-met Senate, Lost no fit offer of that wished treaty. Take pity on your Countries' blood as much As possible may stand without the danger Of hindering her justice on her foes, Which all the gods to your full wish dispose. My person is the least, my Lord, I valve; I am commanded by our powerful Senate, To view the Cities, and the kingdoms situate About your either army, that which side Soever conquer, no disordered stragglers Puffed with the Conquest, or by needs impeld, May take their swinge more then the care of one May curb and order in these neighbour confines My chief pass yet resolves for Utica. What fears fly here on all sides? what wild looks Are squinted at me from men's mere suspicions That I am wild my self, and would enforce What will be taken from me by the Tyrant. I ask my life of him? No, Statilius. Men that have forfeit lives by breaking laws, Or have been overcome, may beg their lives, But I have ever been in every justice Better then Caesar, and was never conquered, Or made to fly for life, as Caesar was. But have been victor ever, to my wish, against whomsoever ever hath opposed; Where Caesar now is conquered in his Conquest, In the ambition, he till now denied; Taking upon him to give life, when death Is tenfold endue to his most tyrannous self. No right, no power given him to raise and army, Which in despite of Room he leads about Slaughtering her loyal subjects, Like and outlaw, Nor is he better. Tongue, show, falsehood are, To bloodiest death's his parts so much admired, Vainglory, villainy; and at best you can, Fed with the parings of a worthy man. My fame affirm my life received from him? I'll rather make a beast my second father. Must a man go to law then, when he may Enjoy his own in peace? If I can use Mine own my self, must I of force, reserve it To serve a Tyrant with it? All joust men Not only may enlarge their lives, but must, From all rule tyrannous, or live unjust. By death. I'll prove he is. Are not the lives of all men bound to justice? And therefore not to serve injustice: Justice it self ought ever to be free, And therefore every joust man being a partly Of that free justice, should be free as it. That all That know not what law is, nor freely can Perform the fitting justice of a man In kingdoms common good, may been forced. But is not every joust man to him self The perfectest law Then to himself Is every joust men life subordinate. Again, Sir; Is not our free soul infused To every body in her absolute end To rule that body? in which absolute rule Is she not absolutely Empress of it? And being Empress, may she not dispose It, and the life in it, at her joust pleasure? No; she not destroys it When she dislives it; that their freedoms may Go firm together, Like their powers and organs, Rather then let it live a rebel to her, Profaning that divine conjunction Betwixt her and it; nay, a disjunction making Betwixt them worse then death; in killing quick That which in joust death lives: being dead to her If to her rule dead; and to her alive, If dying in her joust rule. Yet 'tis free, and kept Fit for rejunction in men second life; Which dying rebel to the soul, is far Unfit to join with her in perfect life. It shall. In apparent reason; Which I'll prove clearly. As nature works in all things to and end, So in appropriate honour of that end, All things precedent have their natural frame; And therefore is there a proportion Betwixt the ends of those things and their primes: For else there could not be in their creation, Always, or for the most partly, that firm form In their still Like existence; that we see In each full creature. What proportion then Hath and immortal with a mortal substance? And therefore the mortality to which A man is subject; rather is a sleep, Then bestial death; since sleep and death are called The twins of nature. For if absolute death And bestial seize the body of a man, Then is there no proportion in his parts, His soul being free from death, which otherwise Retains divine proportion For as sleep No disproportion holds with humane souls, But aptly quickens the proportion Betwixt them and bodies, making bodies fitter To give up forms to souls, which is their end: So death (twin-born of sleep) resolving all Men bodies heavy parts; in lighter nature Makes a reunion with the spritely soul; When in a second life their beings given, Holds their proportion firm, in highest heaven. Passed doubt, though others Think heaven a world too high for our low reaches. Not knowing the sacred sense of him that sings, Jove can let down a golden chain from heaven, Which tied to earth, shall fetch up earth and seas; And what's that golden chain, but our pure souls, A golden beam of him, let down by him, That governed with his grace, and drawn by him, Can hoist this earthy body up to him, The sea, and air, and all the elements Compressed in it: not while 'tis thus concrete, But fined by death, and then given heavenly heat. 'Tis a good cheerful doctrine for good men. But (son and servants) this is only argued To spend our deer time well, and no life urges To any violence further then his owner And graver men hold fit. Lets talk of Caesar, He's the great subject of all talk, and he Is hotly hasting on. Is supper ready? Why then let's in and eat; Our cool submission will quench Caesars heat. Statilus My reasons must not strengthen you in error, Nor learned Athenodorus gentle yielding. Talk with some other deep Philosophers. Or some divine Priest of the knowing gods, And hear their reasons; in mean time come sup. Exeunt. Who took my sword hence? Dumb? I do not ask For any use or care of it: but hope I may be answered. Go Sir, let me have it. Exit Mar. Poor slaves, how terrible this death is to them? If men would sl epe, they would be wrath with all That interrupt them Physic ache to take The golden rest it brings: both pay and pray For good, and soundest naps all friends consenting In those kind invocations; praying all Good rest, the gods vouchsafe you; put when death (Sleeps natural brother) comes; (that's nothing worse, But better; being more rich; and keeps the store; Sleep ever fickle, wayward still, and poor) Oh how men grudge, and shake, and ear, and fly His stern approaches? all their comforts taken In aith, and knowledge of the bliss and beauty's That watch their wakings in and endless life: Drowned in the pains and horrors of their sense Sustainde but for and hour; be all the earth Rapt with this error, lie pursue my reason, And hold that as my light and fiery pillar, Th'eternall law of heaven and earth no firmer. But while I seek to conquer conquering Caesar, My soft-splen'd servants overrule and curb me. Where's he I sent to fetch and place my sword Where late I left it? Dumb to? Come another! Where's my sword hung here? The rest come in there. Where's the sword I charged you To give his place again? I'll break your lips open, Spite of my freedom; all my servants, friends; My son and all, will needs betray me naked To the armed malice of a foe so fierce And Bear-like, mankind of the blood of virtue. Oh gods, who ever saw me thus contemned? Go call my son in; tell him, that the less He shows himself my son, the less I'll care To live his father. If the gods Give over all, I'll fly the world with them. Athenodorus, I admire the changes. I note in heavenly providence. When Pompey Did all things out of course, passed right, passed reason, He stood invincible against the world: Yet, now his cares grew pious, and his powers Set all up for his Country, he is conquered. You hear (my Master's) what a life this is, And use much reason to respect it so. But mine shall serve you. Yet restore my sword, Lest too much you presume, and I conceive You front me Like my Fortune's. Where's Statilius ? And would not take his leave of his poor friend? Then the Philosophers have stoop't his spirit, Which I admire, in one so free, and knowing, And such a fiery hater of base life, Beside, being such a vowed and noted foe To our great Conqueror. But I advised him To spare his youth, and live. Brutus? Of mine honour (Although he be my son in law) I must say There went as worthy, and as learned a President As lives in Rome's whole rule, for all life's actions; And yet your sister Porciam (his wife) Would scarce have done this. But (for you my son) However Caesar deals with me; be counsailde By your experienced father, not to touch At any Actium of the public weal, Nor any rule bear near her politic stern: For, to be upright, and sincere therein Like Catos son, the times corruption Will never bear it: and, to sooth the time, You shall do basely, and unworthy your life; Which, to the gods I wish, may outweigh mine In every virtue; howsoever ill You thrive in honour. And what needed you Urge my kind care of any charge that nature Imposes on me? have I ever shown Loves least defect to you? or any dues The most indulgent father (being discreet) Could do his dearest blood? do you me right In judgement, and in honour; and dispense With passionate nature: go, neglect me not, But send my sword in. Go, 'tis I that charge you. What have I now to think on in this world? No one thought of the world, I go each minute Discharged of all cares that may fit my freedom. The next world, and my soul, then let me serve With her last utterance, that my body may With sweetness of the passage drown the sour That death will mix with it: the Consuls souls That slew themselves so nobly, scorning life Led under Tyrants Sceptres, mine would see. For we shall know each other; and passed death Retain those forms of knowledge learned in life; Since, if what here we learn, we there shall loose, Oh immortality were not life, but time. And that our souls in reason are immortal, Then natural and proper objects prove; Which immortality and knowledge are. For to that to object ever is referred The nature of the soul, in which the acts Of her high faculties are still employde. And that true object must her powers obtain To which they are in natur S aim directed. Since it absurd to have her S to and object Which possibly she never can aspire. Oh is it found? lay down Upon the bed (my boy) Exit Pa. Poor men; a boy Must be presenter; manhood at no hand Must serve so foul a fact; for so are called (In common mouths) men's fairest acts of all. Unsheath; is't sharp? 'tis sweet. Now I am safe, Come Caesar, quickly now, or loose your vassal. Now wing thee, deer soul, and receive her heaven. The earth, the air, and seas I know, and all The joys, and horrors of their peace and wars, And now will see the gods state, and the stars. We? which we intend you? Have you already bought the peoples voices? Or bear our Consul or our Senate here So small love to their Courtry; that their wills Beyond their Countries right are so perverse, To give a Tyrant here entire command? Which I have proved as clear as day, they do, If either the Conspirators surviving Be let to live; or Pompey's army entered; Both which, Beatrice one sole path; and threat one danger. Stand off; now they are not. Have he my curse that my life's least partly saves. Just men are only free, the rest are slaves.