Cornelia. And will ye needs bedew my dead-grown joys,
And nourish sorrow with eternal tears?
O eyes, and will ye ('cause I cannot dry
Your ceaseless springs) not suffer me to die?
Then make the blood from forth my branch-like veins,
Like weeping rivers, trickle by your vaults;
And sponge my body's heat of moisture so,
As my displeased soul may shun my heart.
Heavens, let me die, and let the Destinies
Admit me passage to th' infernal lake;
That my poor ghost may rest where powerful fate
In death's sad kingdom hath my husband lodg'd.
Fain would I die, but darksome ugly death
Withholds his dart, and in disdain doth fly me,
Maliciously knowing, that hell's horror
Is milder than mine endless discontent;
And that, if death upon my life should seize,
The pain supposed would procure mine ease.
But, ye sad Powers, that rule the silent deeps
Of dead-sad night, where sins do mask unseen:
You that amongst the darksome mansions
Of pining ghosts 'twixt sighs, and sobs, and tears,
Do exercise your mirthless empery:[347]
Ye gods (at whose arbitrement all stand),
Dislodge my soul, and keep it with yourselves,
For I am more than half your prisoner.
My noble husbands (more than noble souls)
Already wander under your commands.
O, then shall wretched I, that am but one,
(Yet once both theirs) survive, now they are gone?
Alas! thou should'st, thou should'st, Cornelia,
Have broke the sacred thread that tied thee here,
When as thy husband Crassus (in his flower)
Did first bear arms, and bare away my love.
And not (as thou hast done) go break the bands,
By calling Hymen once more back again.
Less hapless, and more worthily thou might'st
Have made thine ancestors and thee renown'd:
If (like a royal dame), with faith fast kept,
Thou with thy former husband's death had'st slept.
But partial Fortune and the powerful Fates,
That at their pleasures wield our purposes,
Bewitch'd my life, and did beguile my love.
Pompey, the fame that ran of thy frail honours,
Made me thy wife, thy love, and (like a thief)
From my first husband stole my faithless grief.
But if (as some believe) in heaven or hell
Be heavenly powers or infernal spirits,
That care to be aveng'd of lovers' oaths—
Oaths made in marriage, and after broke;
Those powers, those spirits (mov'd with my light faith),
Are now displeas'd with Pompey and myself,
And do with civil discord (furthering it)
Untie the bands that sacred Hymen knit:
Else only I am cause of both their wraths,
And of the sin that sealeth up thine eyes;
Thine eyes (O deplorable Pompey!)—I am she,
I am that plague, that sacks thy house and thee.
For 'tis not heaven, nor Crassus ('cause he sees
That I am thine) in jealousy pursues us.
No, 'tis a secret cross, an unknown thing,
That I receiv'd from heaven at my birth,
That I should heap misfortunes on their head,
Whom once I had receiv'd in marriage-bed.
Then ye, the noble Romulists that rest,
Henceforth forbear to seek my murdering love,
And let their double loss, that held me dear,
Bid you beware, for fear you be beguil'd.
Ye may be rich, and great in Fortune's grace,
And all your hopes with hap may be effected;
But if ye once be wedded to my love,
Clouds of adversity will cover you.
So pestilently fraught with change of plagues
Is mine infected bosom from my youth.
Like poison that (once lighting on the body)
No sooner toucheth than it taints the blood;
One while the heart, another while the liver
(According to th' encountering passages),
Nor spareth it what purely feeds the heart,
More than the most infected filthiest part,
Pompey, what holp it thee (say, dearest life),
Tell me what holp thy warlike valiant mind
T' encounter with the least of my mishaps?
What holp it thee, that under thy command
Thou saw'st the trembling earth with horror maz'd?
Or where the sun forsakes th' ocean sea,
Or watereth his coursers in the west,
T' have made thy name be far more fam'd and fear'd,
Than summer's thunder to the silly herd?
What holp it, that thou saw'st, when thou wert young,
Thy helmer deck'd with coronets of bays?
So many enemies, in battle rang'd,
Beat back like flies before a storm of hail?
T' have look'd askance, and see so many kings
To lay their crowns and sceptres at thy feet?
T' embrace thy knees, and, humbled by their fate,
T' attend thy mercy in this mournful state?
Alas, and herewithal what holp it thee,
That even in all the corners of the earth
Thy wand'ring glory was so greatly known,
And that Rome saw thee, while thou triumph'dst thrice
O'er three parts of the world that thou had'st yok'd;
That Neptune, welt'ring on the windy plains,
Escap'd not free from thy victorious hands;
Since thy hard hap, since thy fierce destiny,
(Envious of all thine honours) gave thee me,
By whom the former course of thy fair deeds
Might (with a biting bridle) be restrain'd:
By whom the glory of thy conquests got
Might die disgrac'd with mine unhappiness.
O hapless wife! thus ominous to all,
Worse than Megæra, worse than any plague;
What foul infernal, or what stranger hell
Henceforth wilt thou inhabit, where thy hap
None other's hopes with mischief may entrap?
Cicero. What end, O race of Scipio, will the Fates
Afford your tears? Will that day never come,
That your disastrous griefs shall turn to joy,
And we have time to bury our annoy?
Cornelia. Ne'er shall I see that day; for heaven and time
Have fail'd in power to calm my passion.
Nor can they (should they pity my complaints)
Once ease my life, but with the pangs of death.
Cicero. "The wide world's accidents are apt to change,
And tickle[348] Fortune stays not in a place;
But (like the clouds) continually doth range,
Or like the sun that hath the night in chase.
Then as the heavens (by whom our hopes are guided)
Do coast the earth with an eternal course,
We must not think a misery betided
Will never cease, but still grow worse and worse.
When icy winter's pass'd, then comes the spring,
Whom summer's pride with sultry heat pursues;
To whom mild autumn does earth's treasure bring—
The sweetest season that the wise can choose.
Heaven's influence was ne'er so constant yet,
In good or bad as to continue it."
When I was young, I saw against poor Sylla,
Proud Cinna, Marius, and Carbo flesh'd
So long, till they 'gan tyrannise the town,
And spill'd such store of blood in every street,
As there were none but dead men to be seen.
Within a while, I saw how Fortune play'd,
And wound those tyrants underneath her wheel,
Who lost their lives and power at once by one,
That (to revenge himself) did with his blade
Commit more murder than Rome ever made.
Yet Sylla, shaking tyranny aside,
Return'd due honours to our commonwealth,
Which peaceably retain'd her ancient state,
Grown great without the strife of citizens;
Till this ambitious tyrant's time, that toil'd
To stoop the world and Rome to his desires.
But flatt'ring chance, that train'd his first designs,
May change her looks, and give the tyrant over,
Leaving our city, where so long ago
Heavens did their favours lavishly bestow.
Cornelia. 'Tis true, the heavens (at leastwise if they please)
May give poor Rome her former liberty.
But though they would, I know they cannot give
A second life to Pompey that is slain.
Cicero. Mourn not for Pompey; Pompey could not die
A better death than for his country's weal.
For oft he search'd amongst the fierce alarms,
But (wishing) could not find so fair an end;
Till, fraught with years and honour both at once,
He gave his body (as a barricade)
For Rome's defence, by tyrants overlaid.
Bravely he died and (haply) takes it ill,
That (envious) we repine at Heaven's will.
Cornelia. Alas, my sorrow would be so much less,
If he had died, his falchion in his fist:
Had he amidst huge troops of armed men
Been wounded by another any way,
It would have calmed many of my sighs.
For why t' have seen his noble Roman blood,
Mix'd with his enemies', had done him good.
But he is dead (O heavens!), not dead in fight,
With pike in hand upon a fort besieg'd,
Defending of a breach: but basely slain;
Slain traitorously, without assault in war.
Yea, slain he is, and bitter chance decreed
To have me there, to see this bloody deed.
I saw him; I was there; and in mine arms
He almost felt the poniard when he fell.
Whereat my blood stopp'd in my straggling veins;
Mine hair grew bristled like a thorny grove;
My voice lay hid half-dead within my throat;
My frightful heart (stunn'd in my stone-cold breast)
Faintly redoubled ev'ry feeble stroke;
My spirit, chained with impatient rage,
Did raving strive to break the prison ope;
Enlarg'd, to drown the pain it did abide
In solitary Lethe's sleepy tide.
Thrice (to absent me from this hated light)
I would have plung'd my body in the sea;
And thrice detain'd with doleful shrieks and cries
(With arms to heaven uprear'd) I 'gan exclaim
And bellow forth against the gods themselves
A bead-roll[349] of outrageous blasphemies;
Till (grief to hear, and hell for me to speak),
My woes wax'd stronger, and myself grew weak.
Thus day and night I toil in discontent,
And sleeping wake, when sleep itself, that rides
Upon the mists, scarce moisteneth mine eyes.
Sorrow consumes me, and, instead of rest,
With folded arms I sadly sit and weep.
And, if I wink, it is for fear to see
The fearful dreams'-effects that trouble me.
O heavens! what shall I do? alas, must I,
Must I myself be murderer of myself?
Must I myself be forc'd to ope the way,
Whereat my soul in wounds may sally forth?
Cicero. Madam, you must not thus transpose yourself;
We see your sorrow, but who sorrows not?
The grief is common; and (I muse), besides
The servitude that causeth all our cares,
Besides the baseness wherein we are yok'd,
Besides the loss of good men dead and gone,
What one he is that in this broil hath been,
And mourneth not for some man of his kin?
Cornelia. If all the world were in the like distress,
My sorrow yet would never seem the less.
Cicero. "O, but men bear misfortunes with more ease,
The more indifferently that they fall;
And nothing more (in uproars) men can please,
Than when they see their woes not worst of all."