POMPEY

Let me not thus (imperial Bench and Senate) Feel myself Beatrice about the ears, and tossed With others breathes to any coast they please: And not put some stay to my errors in them. The gods can witness that not my ambition Hath brought to question entry of my army; And therefore not suspected the effect, Of which that entry is supposed the cause: Which is a will in me, to give my power The rule of Rome's sole Empire; that most strangely Would put my will in others powers; and powers (Unforfeit by my fault) in others wills. My selfe-l we, out of which all this must rise: I will not wrong the known proofs of my love To this my native Cities public good, To quit, or think of; nor repeat those proofs Confirmed in those three triumphs I have made; For conquest of the whole inhabited world; First Afric, Europe, and then Asia, Which never Consul but my self could boast. Nor can blind Fortune vaunt her partial hand, In any partly of all my services, Though some have said, she was the page of Caesar, Both sailing, marching, fighting, and preparing His fights in very order of his battles: The parts she played for him inverting nature, As giving calmness to th'enraged sea; Imposing Summer's weather on stern winter; Winging the slowest foot he did command, And his most Cowherd making fierce of hand. And all this ever when the force of man Was quite exceeded in it all; and she In instant adding her clear deity. Yet, her for me, I both disclaim and scorn; And where all fortune is renounced, no reason Will think one man transferred with affectation Of all Pomes Empire; for he must have fortune That goes beyond a man; and where so many Their handfuls find with it; the one is m worser That undergoes it: and where that is cleared; Th'imputed means to it, which is my suit For entry of mine army, I confute. The gods inflict on men, diseases never, Or other outward maims; but to decipher, Correct, and order some rude vice within them: And why decipher they it, but to make Men note, and shun, and tax it to th'extreame? Nor will I see my Countries Hope's abused, In any man commanding in her Empire; If my more trial of him, makes me see more Into his intricasies; and my freedom Hath spirit to speak more, then observers servile. This charge of our fierce foe, the firiendly gods Have in our stregthen'd spirits beaten back With happy issue, and his forces lessened, Of two and thirty Ensigns forced from him, Two thousand soldiers slain. I boast it not, But only name the number. Too long protract we all means to recover His person quick or dead, for I still think His lose served fate, before we blue retreat; Though some affirm him seen, soon after fighting. Hence you mercenary Ruffians. How insolent a partly was this in you, To offer the imprisonment of Cato? When there is right in him (were form so answered With terms and place) to send us both to prison? If, of our own ambitions, we should offer Entry of our armies; for who knows That, of us both, the best friend to his Country, And freest from his own particular ends; (Being in his power) would not assume the Empire, And having it, could rule the State so well As now it's gouer'nd, for the common good? Led? 'tis Gold, And spirit of Gold too; to the politic dross With which false Caesar sounds men; and for which His praise and honour crowns them; who sounds not The inmost sand of Caesar? for but sand Is all the rope of your great parts affected. You speak well, and are learned; and golden speech Did Nature never give man; but to guild A copper soul in him; and all that learning That heartily is spent in painting speech, Is merely painted, and no solid knowledge. But y'aue another praise for temperance, Which nought commends your free choice to be temperate· For so you must be; at least in your meals, Since y'aue a malady that ties you to it; For fear of daily falls in your aspirings. And your disease the gods never gave to man; But such a one, as had a spirit too great For all his bodies passages to serve it, Which notes th'excesse of your ambition. The malady chancing where the pores and passages Through which the spirit of a man is born, So narrow are, and straight, that oftentimes They intercept it quite, and choke it up. And yet because the greatness of it notes A heat mere fleshly, and of bloods rank fire, Goats are of all beasts subjectest to it most. Away, I'll hear no more; I hear it thunder My Lords; All you that love the good of Room, I charge you, follow me; all such as slay, Are friends to Caesar, and their Countries' foes. If it, Our likeliest then was, not to hazard battle, Th'aduenture being so casual; if compared With our more certain means to his subversion? For finding now our army amply stored With all things fit to tarry surer time, Reason thought better to extend to length The war betwixt us; that his little strength May by degrees prove none; which urged now, (Consisting of his best and ablest soldiers) We should have found at one direct set battle Of matchless valours; their defects of victual Not tiring yet enough on their tough nerves, Where, on the other partly, to put them still In motion, and remotion, here and there; Enforcing them to fortifying still Where ever they set down; to siege a wall, Keep watch all night in armour: their most partly Can never bear it, by their years oppression; Spent heretofore too much in those steel toils. Why will you leave us? whither will you go To keep your worthiest person in more safety Then in my army, so devoted to you? Your pass (my truest friend, and worthy Father) May all good powers make sa e, and always answer Your infinite merits, with their Like protection. In which, I make no doubt but we shall meet With mutual greetings, or for absolute conquest Or peace preventing that our bloody stroke, Nor let our parting be dishonoured so, As not to take into our noblest notice Your self (most learned and admired Father) Whose merits, if I live, shall lack no honour. Porcius, Statilius, though your spirits with mine Would highly cheer me, yet you shall bestow them In much more worthy conduct; but love me, And wish me conquest, for your Countries' sake. You're my friends. Exeunt. Cat. Athen. Por. Sat. These friends thus gone, 'tis more then time we minded Our lost friend Vibius. His friendly presence, making up a third With both your persons, I as gladly welcome, As if Jones triple flame had gilded this field, And lightened on my right hand, from his shield. Far fly all other thought from my construction, And endue acceptance of the liberal honour, Your love hath done me, which the gods are witness, I take as stirred up in you by their favours, Nor less esteem it then and offering holy; Since, as of all things, man is said the measure, So your full merits measure forth a man. Your royal aides deserve of Room and Pompey Our utmost honours. Oh may now our fortune Not balance her broad breast betwixt two light wings, Nor on a slippery globe sustain her steps, But as the Spartans say, the Paphian Queen (The flood Eur tas passing) laid a side Her Glass, her Ceston, and her amorous graces, And in Lycurgus favour; armed her beauty's With Shield and Javelin, so may fortune now, The flood of all our enemies forces passing With her fair Ensigns, and arrived a ours, Displume her shoulders, cast off her winged shoes, Her faithless, and still-rolling stone spurn from her, And enter our powers as she may remain Our firm assistent that the general aids, Favours, and honours you perform to Room, May make her built with you her endless home. Let's force no omen from it, but avoid The vapours furies now by Jove employed. The wrathful tempest of the angry night, Where hell flies muffled up in clouds of pitch, Mingled with Sulphur, and those dreadful bolts, The Cyclops Ram in Jove's Artillery, Hath roused the furies, armed in all their horrors, Up to the envious seas, in spite of Caesar. Oh night, Oh jealous night, of all the noblest Beauty's, and glories, where the gods have stroke Their four digestions, from thy ghastly Chaos, Blush thus to drown them all in this hour signed By the necessity of sat for Caesar. I that have ransacked all the world for worth, To form in man the image of the gods, Must Like them have the power to check the worst Of all things under their celestial Empire, Stoop it, and burst it, or break through it all, With use and safety, till the Crown be set On all my actions; that the hand of nature In all her worst works aiming at and end, May in a masterpiece of hers be served With tops, and state fit for his virtuous Crown: Not lift arts thus far up in glorious frame, To let them vanish thus in smoke and shame. This river Anius (in whose mouth now lies A Pynnace I would pass in, to fetch on My armies dull rest from Brundusium ) That is at all times else exceeding calm, (By reason of a purling wind that flies Off from the shore each morning, driving up The billows far to sea) in this night yet, Bears such a terrible gale; put off from sea, As beats the land wind back, and thrusts the flood Up in such uproar, that no boat dare stir And on it is dispersed all Pompey's navy To make my peril yet more envious. Shall I yet shrink for all? were all, yet more? There is a certain needs that I must give Way to my pass; none, known, that I must live. Said Brutus -Like, give several witness all, That you acquit me whatsoever fallen. You sweetly ease my charge, your selves unburdening. Returned not yet our trumpet, sent to know Of Vibius certain state? He stuck at last yet, in their amid, it seemed. Oh Vibius, welcome, what a prisoner? With mighty Caesar, and so quickly ransomed? Was his grace so free· Nay, Sir, for his glory. That the main Conquest he so surely builds on, (Which ever is forerun with petty Fortune's) Take not effect, by taking any friend From all the most, my poor defence can make, But must be complete, by his perfect own. A peace? Is't possible? Believe me I was far from such a thought In his high stomach: Cato prophesied then. What think my Lords our Consuls, and friend Brutus? I, there's the true inspecton to his prospect. Devices of a new fordge to entrap me? I rest in Caesars shades? walk his strowed paths? Sleep in his quiet waves? I'll sooner trust Hibernian Bogs, and quicksands; and hell mouth Take for my sanctuary: in bade parts That no extremes will better, nature's finger Hath marked him to me, to take heed of him. What thinks my Brutus ? This offered peace of his is sure a snare To make our war the bloodier, whose fit fear Makes me I dare not now (in thoughts maturer Then late enclin'de me) put in use the Counsel Your noble father Cato (parting) gave me, Whose much too tender shunning innocent blood, This battle hazards now, that must cost more. Say all men so? I grieve you do, Because I rather wish to err with Cato Then with the truth go of the world beside; But since it shall abide this other stroke. You gods that our great Roman Genius Have made, not give us one days conquest only, Nor grow in conquests for some little time, As did the Genius of the Macedons ; Nor be by land great only, Like Laconians ; Nor yet by sea alone, as was the Athenians ; Nor slowly sti red up, Like the Persian Angel; Nor rocked asleep soon, Like the Ionian spirit. But made our Roman Genius, fiery, watchful, And even from Rome's prime, joined his youth with hers, Grow as she grew, and firm as earth abide, By her increasing pomp, at sea, and shore, In peace, in battle; against Greece as well As our Barbarian foes; command yet further You firm and joust gods, our assistful Angel For Room, and Pompey, who now fights for Room ; That all these royal Laws, to us, and justice Of common safety, may the selflove drown Of tyrannous Caesar ; and my care for all Your Altars crowned with endless festival. Exeunt. I cannot, Sir, abide men's open mouths, Nor be ill spoken of; nor have my counsels And circumspections, turned on me for fears, With mocks and scandals that would make a man Of led, a lightning; in the desperatest onset That ever trampled under death, his life. I bear the touch of fear for all their safeties. Or for mine own? enlarge with twice as many Self-lives, self-fortunes? they shall sink beneath Their own cred lities, before I cross them. Come, haste, dispose our battle. By all world's he that moves me next to bear Their scoffs and imputations of my fear For any cause, shall bear this sword to hell. Away, to battle; good my Lord led you The whole six thousand of our young Patricians, Placed in the left wing to environ Caesar. My father Scipio shall led the battle; Domitius the left wing; I the right Against Marc Anthony. Take now your fills You beastly doters on your barbarous wills. Exeunt. Thus have the gods their justice, men their wills, And I, by men's wills ruled; my self renouncing, Am by my Angel and the gods abhorred; Who drew me, Like a vapour, up to heaven To dash me Like a tempest against the earth: Oh the deserved terrors that attend On humane confidence! had ever men Such outrage of presumption to be victor's Before they armed? To send to Room before For houses near the market place, their tents Strewed all with flowers, and nosegays; tables covered With cups and banquets; bays and myrtle garlands, As ready to do sacrifice for conquest Rather then arm them for fit fight t'enfore it; Which when I saw, I knew as well th'euent As now I feel it, and because I raged In that presage, my Genius showing me clearly (As in a mirror) all this cursed issue; And therefore urged all means to put it off For this day, or from these fields to some other, Or from this om nous confidence, till I saw Their spirits settled in some graver knowledge Of what belonged to such a deer decision; They spotted me with fear, with love of glory, To keep in my command so many Kings, So great and army; all the hellish blastings That could be breathed on me, to strike me blind Of honour, spirit and soul: And should I then Save them that would in spite of heaven be ruinde? And, in their safeties ruin me and mine In everlasting rage of their detraction. Upbraid me not; go to, go on. Oh the strange carriage of their acts, by which Men order theirs; and their devotions in them; Much rather striving to entangle men In pathless error, then with regular right Confirm their reasons, and their pieties light. For now Sir, whatsoever was foreshown By heaven, or prodigy; ten parts more for us, Forewarning us, deterring us, and all Our blind and brainless frenzies, then for Caesar ; All yet will be ascribde to his regard Given by the gods for his good parts, preferring Their gloss (being stark impostures) to the justice, Love, honour, piety, of our laws and Country. Though I think these are arguments enough For my acquittal, that for all these fought. Gods help me, as I am; What ever my untouched command of millions Through all my eight and fifty years, hath woonne, This one day (in the world's esteem) hath lost. So vile is praise and dispraise by event. For I am still my self in every worth The world could grace me with, had this days Even In one blaze joined, with all my other Conquests. And shall my comforts in my wellknown self Fail me for their false fires, Demetrius? Take grief for them, as if The rotten-hearted world could steep my soul In filthy putrefaction of their own? Since their applauses fail me? that are hisses To every found acceptance? I confess, That till th'affaire was passed, my passion flamed, But now 'tis helpless, and no cause in me, Rest in these embers my unmoved soul, With any outward change, this distich minding; No man should more allow his own lose, woes, (Being passed his fault) then any stranger does. And for the world's false loves, and airy honours, What soul that ever loved them most in life, (Once severed from this breathing sepulchre) Again came and appeared in any kind Their kind admirer still, or did the state Of any best man here, associate? And every true soul should be here so severed From love of such men, as here drown their souls As all the world does? Cato sole accepted, To whom I'll fly now, and my wife in way (Poor Lady, and poor children, worse then fatherless) Visit, and comfort. Come Demetrius They disguise themselves. We now must suit our habits to our Fortune's And since these changes ever chance to greatest. Nor desire to be (Do fortune, to exceed it, what she can) A Pompey, or a Caesar, but a man. Exeunt. The world is altered since Demetrius ; offer to go by. But every great Lady must have her husband Great still, or her love will be little. I would then, not honour, but adore her: could you Submit your self cheerfully to your husband, Supposing him fallen? 'Tis the greatest greatness in the world you undertake. In supposition. Is it possible? A woman, losing greatness, still as good, As at her greatest? Oh gods, was I ever Great till this minute? View me better. Not I, but mine army. No fault in me, in it: no conquest of me: I tread this low earth as I trod on Caesar. Must I not hold my self, though loose the world? Nor loose I less; a world lost at one clap, 'Tis more then Jove ever thundered with. What glory I it to have my hand hurl So vast a volley through the groaning air? And is't not great, to turn griefs thus to joys, That break the hearts of others? Oh my Cornelia : let us still be good, And we shall still be great: and greater far In every solid grace, then when the tumor And boil of rotten observation swelled us. Griefs for wants outward, are without our cure, Greatness, not of it self, is never sure. Before, we went upon heaven, rather treading The virtues of it under oot, in making The vicious world our heaven; then walking there Even here, as knowing that our home; con emning All forged eauens here raised; setting hills on hills. Vulcan from heaven fell, yet on's feet did light, And stood no less a God then at his height; At lowest things lie fast we now are Like The two Poles propping heaven, on which heaven moves; And they are fixed, and quiet, being above All motion far; we rest above the heavens. 'Tis enough for me That Pompey knows it. I will stand no more On others legs: nor built one joy without me. If ever I be worth a house again, I'll built all inward: not a light shall open The common outway: no expense, no art, No ornament, no door will I use there, But raise all plain, and rudely, Like a rampier, Against the false society of men That still batters All reason piecemeal. And for earthy greatness All heavenly comforts ratifies to air, I'll therefore live in dark, and all my light, Like ancient Temples, let in at my top. This were to turn ones back to all the world, And only look at heaven. Empedocles Recured a mortal plague through all his Country, With stopping up the yawning of a hill, From whence the hollow and unwholesome South Exhaled his venomed vapor. And what else Is any King, given over to his lustest, But even the poisoned cleft of that cracked mountain, That all his kingdom plagues with his example? Which I have stopped now, and so cured my Country Of such a sensual pestilence: When therefore our diseas'de affections Harmful to humane freedom; and stormelike Inferring darkness to infected mind Oppress our comforts: 'tis but letting in The light of reason, and a purer spirit, Take in another way; Like rooms that fight With window against the wind, yet let in sighed. What armed men are they? I will, and Cyris, my poor daughter too. Even that high hand that hurled me down thus low, Keep you from rising high: I hear: now tell me. I think (my friend) you once served under me: Nod only? not a word deign? what are these? Cornelia? I am now not worth men's words. I, I come. Exit Pom. They draw and follow. See heavens your sufferings, is my Countries love, The justice of and Empire; piety; Worth this end in their leader: last yet life, And bring the gods off fairer: after this Who will adore, or serve the deities? Be no woman, but a Goddess then; & make good thy greatness; I am cheerfully fallen; be cheerful. I'll kiss my children first. It is to imitate Jove, that from the wounds Of softest clouds, beats up the terriblest sounds. I now am good, for good men still have least, That betwixt themselves and God might rise their rest.