Enter Scipio and Lælius, with the complements of Roman Generals before them. At the other door, Massinissa and Jugurth. Cornets sound marches.
Mass. Let not the virtue of the world suspect
Sad Massinissa’s faith; nor once condemn
Our just revolt. Carthage first gave me life;
Her ground gave food, her air first lent me breath:
The earth was made for men, not men for earth.
Scipio, I do not thank the gods for life,
Much less vile men, or earth; know, best of lords,
It is a happy being, breath well famed,
For which Jove sees these thus.[349] Men, be not fool’d
With piety to place, tradition’s fear; 10
A just man’s country Jove makes everywhere.
Sci. Well urgeth Massinissa; but to leave
A city so ingrate, so faithless, so more vile
Than civil speech can name, fear not; such vice
To scourge is Heaven’s grateful sacrifice.
Thus all confess, first they have broke a faith
To the[e] most due, so just to be observed,
That barbarousness itself may well blush at them:
Where is thy passion? They have shared thy crown,
The proper right of birth, contrived thy death: 20
Where is thy passion? Given thy beauteous spouse
To thy most hated rival. Statue, not man!
And last, thy friend Gelosso (man worth gods)
With tortures have they rent to death.
Mass. O Gelosso!
For thee full eyes——
Sci. No passion for the rest?
Mass. O Scipio,
My grief for him may be expressed by tears,
But for the rest, silence, and secret anguish
Shall waste—shall waste! Scipio, he that can weep,
Grieves not, like me, private deep inward drops 30
Of blood. My heart! for god’s right give me leave
To be a short time man.
Sci. Stay, prince.
Mass. I cease;
Forgive if I forget thy presence. Scipio,
Thy face makes Massinissa more than man,
And here before your steady power a vow
As firm as fate I make: when I desist
To be commanded by thy virtue, Scipio,
Or fall from friend of Rome,[350] revenging gods
Afflict me with[351] your torture. I have given
Of passion and of faith, my heart.
Sci. To counsel then; 40
Grief fits weak hearts, revenging virtue men.
Thus I think fit, before that Syphax know
How deeply Carthage sinks, let’s beat swift march
Up even to Cirta, and whilst Syphax snores
With his, late thine——