Aufidius.I know it:
And my pretext to strike at him admits
A good construction.
(V. vi. 17.)
He will be heir of all, and his action will admit a good construction; that is enough for him. It only remains to keep another construction from being suggested; and he approves the conspirator’s advice:
When he lies along,
After your way his tale pronounced shall bury
His reasons with his body.
(V. vi. 57.)
It has sometimes been questioned whether such a man would give his fugitive rival a welcome which at the first and for some time seems so magnanimous, and if he did, whether the magnanimity was sincere. But Aufidius, though he is above all a lover of pre-eminence at whatever cost and therefore cannot for long stand the ordeal of being surpassed, is not without a soldier’s generosity; and moreover, the course which he was moved to adopt (and this is a more important consideration) would be one congenial to his meretricious love of ostentation and display. There is no rôle more soothing to worsted vanity and at the same time more likely to gain it the admiration it prizes, than that of patron to a formerly successful and now unfortunate rival. In the reflected glory, the benefactor seems to acquire the merits of the other in addition to a magnificence all his own. This, we may assume, was in part the motive of Aufidius; as appears from his own words, in which he shows himself well aware of his own generous behaviour: