Cornelia. "Our friends' misfortune doth increase our own."
Cicero. "But ours of others will not be acknown."[350]
Cornelia. "Yet one man's sorrow will another touch."
Cicero. "Ay, when himself will entertain none such."
Cornelia. "Another's tears draws tears from forth our eyes."
Cicero. "And choice of streams the greatest river dries."
Cornelia. When sand within a whirlpool lies unwet,
My tears shall dry, and I my grief forget.
Cicero. What boot your tears,[351] or what avails your sorrow,
Against th' inevitable dart of death?
Think you to move with lamentable plaints
Persephone or Pluto's ghastly spirits,
To make him live that's locked in his tomb,
And wand'reth in the centre of the earth?
"No, no, Cornelia, Charon takes not pain
To ferry those that must be fetch'd again."
Cornelia. Proserpina indeed neglects my plaints,
And hell itself is deaf to my laments.
Unprofitably should I waste my tears,
If over Pompey I should weep to death,
With hope to have him be reviv'd by them.
Weeping avails not: therefore do I weep.
Great losses greatly are to be deplor'd,
The loss is great, that cannot be restor'd.
Cicero. "Nought is immortal underneath the sun:
All things are subject to death's tyranny.
Both clowns and kings one selfsame course must run,
And whatsoever lives, is sure to die."
Then wherefore mourn you for your husband's death,
Sith, being a man, he was ordain'd to die?
Since Jove's own sons, retaining human shape,
No more than wretched we their death could 'scape.
Brave Scipio, your famous ancestor,
That Rome's high worth to Afric did extend;
And those two Scipios (that in person fought
Before the fearful Carthaginian walls),
Both brothers, and both war's fierce lightning fires,
Are they not dead? Yes, and their death (our dearth)
Hath hid them both embowell'd in the earth.
And those great cities, whose foundations reach'd
From deepest hell, and with their tops touch'd heaven;
Whose lofty towers like thorn-y-pointed spears,
Whose temples, palaces, and walls emboss'd,
In power and force, and fierceness, seem'd to threat
The tired world, that trembled with their weight;
In one day's space (to our eternal moans)
Have we not seen them turn'd to heaps of stones?
Carthage can witness; and thou, Heaven's hand-work,
Fair Ilium, razed by the conquering Greeks;
Whose ancient beauty, worth, and weapons seem'd
Sufficient t' have tam'd the Myrmidons.
"But whatsoe'er hath been begun, must end.
Death (haply that our willingness doth see)
With brandish'd dart doth make the passage free;
And timeless doth our souls to Pluto send."