My life is my country’s; my honor, my own!
Sert. O, Regulus! think of the pangs in reserve!
Reg. What menace should make me from probity swerve?
Sert. Refinements of pain will these miscreants find
To daunt and disable the loftiest mind.
Reg. And ’tis to a Roman thy fears are addressed!
Sert. Forgive me. I know thy unterrified breast.
Reg. Thou know’st me but human—as weak to sustain
As thyself, or another, the searchings of pain.
This flesh may recoil, and the anguish they wreak