—————— Now bid me run
And I will strive with things impossible,
Yea get the better of them.
Julius Cæsar, act 2. sc. 3.
Vos mains seules ont droit de vaincre un invincible.
Le Cid, act 5. sc. last.
Que son nom soit beni. Que son nom soit chanté.
Que l’on celebre ses ouvrages
Au de la de l’eternité.
Esther, act 5. sc. last.
Me miserable! which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is hell: myself am hell:
And in the lowest deep, a lower deep
Still threat’ning to devour me, opens wide;
To which, the hell I suffer seems a heav’n.
Paradise Lost, book 4.
Of the third branch, take the following samples.
Lucan, talking of Pompey’s sepulchre,
—————— Romanum nomen, et omne
Imperium Magno est tumuli modus. Obrue saxa
Crimine plena deûm. Si tota est Herculis Oete,
Et juga tota vacant Bromio Nyseia; quare
Unus in Egypto Magno lapis? Omnia Lagi
Rura tenere potest, si nullo cespite nomen
Hæserit. Erremus populi, cinerumque tuorum,
Magne, metu nullas Nili calcemus arenas.
L. 8. l. 798.
Thus in Rowe’s translation:
Where there are seas, or air, or earth, or skies,
Where-e’er Rome’s empire stretches, Pompey lies.
Far be the vile memorial then convey’d!
Nor let this stone the partial gods upbraid.
Shall Hercules all Oeta’s heights demand,
And Nysa’s hill for Bacchus only stand;
While one poor pebble is the warrior’s doom
That fought the cause of liberty and Rome?
If fate decrees he must in Egypt lie,
Let the whole fertile realm his grave supply,
Yield the wide country to his awful shade,}
Nor let us dare on any part to tread,}
Fearful we violate the mighty dead.}
The following passages are pure rant. Coriolanus speaking to his mother,