FOOTNOTES:
[336] ["Palladis Tamia,">[ 1598, p. 283.
[337] Verses to the memory of Shakespeare.
[338] "Polimanteia," &c., by W.C., 4to, Cambr., 1595. In the Epistle, &c. (Oldys's MSS. Notes on Langbaine.)
[339] "Origin of the Drama," vol. ii.
[THE ARGUMENT.]
Cornelia, the daughter of Metellus Scipio, a young Roman lady, as much accomplish'd with the graces of the body and the virtues of the mind as ever any was, was first married to young Crassus, who died with his father in the discomfiture of the Romans against the Parthians; afterward she took to second husband Pompey the Great, who (three years after), upon the first fires of the civil wars betwixt him and Cæsar, sent her from thence to Mitilen, there to attend the uncertain success of those affairs. And when he saw that he was vanquish'd at Pharsalia, returned to find her out, and carry her with him into Egypt, where his purpose was to have re-enforced a new army, and give a second assault to Cæsar.
In this voyage he was murdered by Achillus and Septimius the Roman before her eyes, and in the presence of his young son Sextus and some other Senators his friends. After which, she retired herself to Rome. But Scipio her father (being made general of those that survived after the battle,) assembled new forces, and occupied the greater part of Afric, allying himself to Juba, king of Numidia. Against all whom Cæsar (after he had ordered the affairs of Egypt and the state of Rome) in the end of winter marched. And there (after many light encounters) was a fierce and furious battle given amongst them, near the walls of Tapsus. Where Scipio seeing himself subdued and his army scattered, he betook himself with some small troop to certain ships, which he caused to stay for him.
Thence he sailed toward Spain, where Pompey's faction commanded, and where a sudden tempest took him on the sea, that drave him back to Hippon, a town in Afric, at the devotion of Cæsar, where (lying at anchor) he was assailed, beaten and assaulted by the adverse fleet; and for he would not fall alive into the hands of his so mighty enemy, he stabb'd himself, and suddenly leapt overboard into the sea, and there died.
Cæsar (having finished these wars, and quietly reduced the towns and places thereabout to his obedience) returned to Rome in triumph for his victories; where this most fair and miserable lady, having overmourn'd the death of her dear husband, and understanding of these cross events and hapless news of Afric, together with the piteous manner of her father's end, she took (as she had cause) occasion to redouble both her tears and lamentations, wherewith she closeth the catastrophe of this their tragedy.
CORNELIA
[ACT I.]
Cicero. Vouchsafe, immortals, and (above the rest)
Great Jupiter, our city's sole protector,
That if (provok'd against us by our evils)
You needs will plague us with your ceaseless wrath,
At least to choose those forth that are in fault,
And save the rest in these tempestuous broils:
Else let the mischief that should them befall,
Be pour'd on me, that one may die for all.
Oft hath such sacrifice appeas'd your ires,
And oft ye have your heavy hands withheld
From this poor people, when (with one man's loss)
Your pity hath preserv'd the rest untouch'd:
But we, disloyal to our own defence,
Faint-hearted do those liberties enthral,
Which to preserve (unto our after-good)
Our fathers hazarded their dearest blood.
Yet Brutus Manlius, hardy Scoevola,
And stout Camillus, are returned from Styx,
Desiring arms to aid our Capitol.
Yea, come they are, and fiery as before;
Under a tyrant see our bastard hearts
Lie idly sighing; while our shameful souls
Endure a million of base controls.
Poison'd ambition (rooted in high minds),
'Tis thou that train'st us into all these errors:
Thy mortal covetise[340] perverts our laws,
And tears our freedom from our franchis'd hearts.
Our fathers found thee at their former walls;
And humbled to their offspring left thee dying.
Yet thou, reviving, soil'dst[341] our infant town
With guiltless blood by brother's hands out-launch'd;
And hong'st (O hell) upon a fort half-finish'd
Thy monstrous murder for a thing to mark.
"But faith continues not where men command.
Equals are ever bandying for the best:
A state divided cannot firmly stand.
Two kings within one realm could never rest."
This day, we see, the father and the son
Have fought like foes Pharsalia's miseries;
And with their blood made marsh the parched plains,
While th' earth, that groan'd to bear their carcases,
Bewail'd th' insatiate humours of them both;
That as much blood in wilful folly spent,
As were to tame the world sufficient.
Now, Parthia, fear no more, for Crassus' death
That he[342] will come thy borders to besiege:
Nor fear the darts of our courageous troops;
For those brave soldiers, that were sometime wont
To terrify thee with their names, are dead;
And civil fury, fiercer than thine hosts,
Hath in a manner this great town o'erturn'd,
That whilom was the terror of the world,
Of whom so many nations stood in fear,
To whom so many nations prostrate stoop'd,
O'er whom (save Heaven) nought could signiorise,
And whom (save Heaven) nothing could affright;
Impregnable, immortal, and whose power
Could never have been curb'd, but by itself.
For neither could the flaxen-hair'd High-Dutch
(A martial people, madding after arms),
Nor yet the fierce and fiery-humour'd French:
The Moor that travels to the Libyan sands,
The Greek, th' Arabian, Macedons or Medes,
Once dare t' assault it, or attempt to lift
Their humbled heads in presence of proud Rome.
But, by our laws from liberty restrain'd,
Like captives liv'd eternally enchain'd.
But, Rome (alas) what helps it that thou tied'st
The former world to thee in vassalage?
What helps thee now t' have tam'd both land and sea?
What helps it thee, that under thy control
The morn and midday both by east and west,
And that the golden sun, where'er he drive
His glitt'ring chariot, finds our ensigns spread:
Sith it contents not thy posterity;
But as a bait for pride (which spoils us all),
Embarks us in so perilous a way,
As menaceth our death and thy decay?
For, Rome, thou now resemblest a ship
At random wand'ring in a boist'rous sea,
When foaming billows feel the northern blasts!
Thou toil'st in peril, and the windy storm
Doth topside-turvey toss thee as thou float'st.
Thy mast is shiver'd, and thy mainsail torn,
Thy sides are beaten, and thy hatches broke.
Thou want'st thy tackling, and a ship unrigg'd
Can make no shift to combat with the sea.
See how the rocks do heave their heads at thee,
Which if thou shouldst but touch, thou straight becom'st
A spoil to Neptune, and a sportful prey
To th' Glaucs and Tritons, pleas'd with thy decay!
Thou vaunt'st not of thine ancestors in vain,
But vainly count'st thine own victorious deeds.
What helpeth us the things that they did then,
Now we are hated both of gods and men?
"Hatred accompanies prosperity,
For one man grieveth at another's good,
And so much more we think our misery,
The more that fortune hath with others stood:
So that we seld[343] are seen, as wisdom would,
To bridle time with reason as we should.
For we are proud, when Fortune favours us,
As if inconstant chance were always one,
Or, standing now, we should continue thus.
O fools, look back, and see the rolling stone,
Whereon she blindly lighting sets her foot,
And slightly sows that seldom taketh root."
Heaven heretofore (inclin'd to do us good)
Did favour us with conquering our foes,
When jealous Italy (exasperate
With our uprising) sought our city's fall.
But we, soon tickled with such flatt'ring hope,
Wag'd farther war with an insatiate heart,
And tir'd our neighbour countries so with charge,
And with their loss we did our bounds enlarge.
Carthage and Sicily we have subdued,
And almost yoked all the world beside:
And, solely through desire of public rule,
Rome and the earth are waxen all as one:
Yet now we live despoil'd and robb'd by one
Of th' ancient freedom, wherein we were born.
And e'en that yoke, that wont to tame all others,
Is heavily return'd upon ourselves.
"A note of chance that may the proud control,
And show God's wrath against a cruel soul.
For Heaven delights not in us, when we do
That to another, which ourselves disdain.
Judge others, as thou would'st be judg'd again;
And do but as thou wouldst be done unto.
For, sooth to say (in reason), we deserve
To have the selfsame measure that we serve."
What right had our ambitious ancestors
(Ignobly issued from the cart and plough)
To enter Asia? What, were they the heirs
To Persia or the Medes, first monarchies?
What interest had they to Africa?
To Gaul or Spain? Or what did Neptune owe us
Within the bounds of farther Britainy?
Are we not thieves and robbers of those realms,
That ow'd us nothing but revenge for wrongs?
What toucheth us the treasure or the hopes,
The lives or liberties, of all those nations,
Whom we by force have held in servitude;
Whose mournful cries and shrieks to heaven ascend,
Importuning both vengeance and defence
Against this city, rich of violence?
"'Tis not enough (alas) our power t' extend,
Or overrun the world from east to west,
Or that our hands the earth can comprehend,
Or that we proudly do, what like us best.[344]
He lives more quietly, whose rest is made,
And can with reason chasten his desire,
Than he that blindly toileth for a shade,
And is with others' empire set on fire.
Our bliss consists not in possessions,
But in commanding our affections;
In virtue's choice, and vice's needful chace
Far from our hearts, for staining of our face."
Chorus. Upon thy back (where Misery doth sit),
O Rome, the heavens with their wrathful hand
Revenge the crimes thy fathers did commit.
But if (their farther fury to withstand,
Which o'er thy walls thy wrack sits menacing)
Thou dost not seek to calm heaven's ireful king,
A farther plague will pester all the land.
"The wrath of heaven, (though urg'd) we see, is slow
In punishing the evils we have done:
For what the father hath deserv'd we know,
Is spared in him and punish'd in the son.
But to forgive the apter that they be,
They are the more displeased, when they see
That we continue our offence begun."
"Then from her loathsome cave doth Plague repair,
That breathes her heavy poisons down to hell;
Which with their noisome fall corrupt the air,
Or meagre Famine, which the weak foretell,
Or bloody War (of other woes the worst)
Which where it lights doth show the land accurs'd,
And ne'er did good, wherever it befell."
War, that hath sought th' Ausonian fame to rear,
In warlike Emony[345] (now grown so great
With soldiers' bodies that were buried there),
Which yet to sack us toils in bloody sweat:
T' enlarge the bounds of conquering Thessaly,
Through murder, discord, wrath, and enmity,
Even to the peaceful Indian's pearled seat.
Whose entrails fir'd with rancour, wrath, and rage,
The former petty combats did displace,
And camp to camp did endless battles wage,
Which on the mountain-tops of warlike Thrace
Made thund'ring Mars (Dissension's common friend)
Amongst the forward soldiers first descend,
Arm'd with his blood-besmeared keen coutelace.
Who first attempted to excite to arms
The troops enraged with the trumpet's sound,
Headlong to run and reck no after-harms;
Where in the flow'red meads dead men were found,
Falling as thick (through warlike cruelty)
As ears of corn for want of husbandry;
That (wastful) shed their grain upon the ground.
O war, if thou wert subject but to death,
And by desert might'st fall to Phlegethon,
The torment that Ixion suffereth,
Or his whose soul the vulture seizeth on,
Were all too little to reward thy wrath:
Nor all the plagues that fiery Pluto hath
The most outrageous sinners laid upon.
Accursed caitiffs! wretches that we are!
Perceive we not that for the fatal doom
The Fates make haste enough, but we (by war)
Must seek in hell to have a hapless room?
Or fast enough do foolish men not die,
But they (by murder of themselves) must hie,
Hopeless to hide them in a hapless tomb?
All sad and desolate our city lies,
And for fair corn-ground are our fields surcloy'd
With worthless gorse,[346] that yearly fruitless dies,
And chokes the good, which else we had enjoy'd.
Death dwells within us, and if gentle peace
Descend not soon, our sorrows to surcease,
Latium (already quail'd) will be destroy'd.