From the beginning it was easy to see the spirit which animated the spectators. After the first few lines, Brutus pronounces these:
Rome knows I prize her liberty beyond!
All that is dear. Yet though my bosom glows
With the same ardor, my opinion differs.
I cannot but behold this embassy
As the first homage paid by sovereign power
To Rome's free sons; we should accustom thus
The towering and despotic power of kings
To treat on even terms with our republic;
Till, Heaven accomplishing its just decrees,
The time shall come to treat with them as subjects.
A thunder of applause burst forth; it seemed as if France, like Rome, could foresee her lofty destiny. Brutus, interrupted in his speech, had to wait nearly ten minutes before he could continue. He was interrupted a second time, and with still more enthusiasm, when he came to these lines:
The realm, long crushed beneath his iron rod,
Through dint of suffering hath regained its virtue.
Tarquin hath fixed again our native rights;
And from the uncommon rankness of his crimes
Each public blessing sprang. Yon Tuscans now
May follow, if they dare, the bright example,
And shake off tyrants.
Here the consuls returned to the altar with the senate, and their march was accompanied with cries and applause; then there was silence, in expectation of the invocation.
The actor who played the part of Brutus pronounced the words in a loud voice:
O immortal power,
God of heroic chiefs, of warring hosts,
And of illustrious Rome! O Mars! receive
The vows we pour forth on thy sacred altar,
In the consenting senate's mingled name,
In mine and that of all thy genuine sons,
Who do not disgrace their fire! If hid within
Rome's secret bosom there exists a traitor
Who with base mind regrets the loss of kings,
And would behold again a tyrant lord—
May the wretch expire beneath a thousand tortures!
His guilty ashes scattered through the air,
The sport of winds, while naught remains behind
But his vile name, more loathsome to the tongue
Of latest times than that which Rome condemns
To utmost infamy, detested Tarquin's.
In times of political excitement it is not the value of the lines which is applauded, but simply their accordance with the sentiments of the audience. Rarely have more common-place tirades proceeded from the human mouth, yet never were the splendid verses of Corneille and Racine welcomed with such enthusiasm. But this enthusiasm, which seemed as if it could not increase, knew no bounds when, the curtain rising on the second act, the audience saw the young actor who played the part of Titus enter with his arm in a sling. An Austrian ball had broken it. It seemed as if the play could never proceed, so incessant was the applause.
The few lines referring to Titus and his patriotism were encored, and then, repulsing the offers of Porsenna, Titus says: