And the buildings of my fancy: only
There’s one thing wanting, which I doubt not but
Our Rome will cast upon thee.
(II. i. 214.)
Yet she has one feeling that outweighs both her maternal and her aristocratic instincts, and that is devotion to her country. This is the first and last and noblest thing in her. It is the basis and mainspring of the training of her son; she wishes him to serve the fatherland. It is the basis and mainspring of her patrician partisanship; she honestly believes that the nobles alone are fit to steer Rome to safety and honour. And to it she is willing to sacrifice the two other grand interests of her life. When the call comes she is ready for Rome, with its mechanics and tribunes as well as its senators and patricians, to persuade her son to the step that will certainly imperil and probably destroy him. It is public spirit of no ordinary kind that makes such a nature disregard the dearest ties of family and caste, and all personal motives of love and vengeance, to intercede for the city as a whole. But she puts her country first, and her words show that she never even questions the sacredness of its claim:
Thou know’st, great son,
The end of war’s uncertain, but this certain,
That, if thou conquer Rome, the benefit
Which thou shalt thereby reap is such a name,
Whose repetition will be dogg’d with curses;