Cornelia. Let him torture me,
Pull me in pieces, famish, fire me up,
Fling me alive into a lion's den:
There is no death so hard torments me so,
As his extreme triumphing in our woe.
But if he will torment me, let him then
Deprive me wholly of the hope of death;
For I had died before the fall of Rome,
And slept with Pompey in the peaceful deeps,
Save that I live in hope to see, ere long,
That Cæsar's death shall satisfy his wrong.
[Exeunt.
Chorus. Fortune in power imperious
Us'd o'er the world and worldlings thus
To tyrannise:
When she hath heap'd her gifts on us,
Away she flies.
Her feet more swift than is the wind,
Are more inconstant in their kind
Than autumn's blasts:
A woman's shape, a woman's mind,
That seldom lasts.
One while she bends her angry brow,
And of no labour will allow:
Another while
She fleers again, I know not how,
Still to beguile.
Fickle in our adversities,
And fickle when our fortunes rise,
She scoffs at us:
That (blind herself) can blear our eyes,
To trust her thus.
The sun that lends the earth his light,
Beheld her never over-night
Lie calmly down,
But, in the morning following, might
Perceive her frown.
She hath not only power and will
T' abuse the vulgar wanting skill;
But when she list,
To kings and clowns doth equal ill
Without resist.
Mischance, that every man abhors,
And cares for crowned emperors
She doth reserve,
As for the poorest labourers
That work or starve:
The merchant, that for private gain
Doth send his ships to pass the main,
Upon the shore,
In hope he shall his wish obtain,
Doth thee adore.
Upon the sea or on the land,
Where health or wealth, or vines do stand,
Thou canst do much,
And often help'st the helpless band:
Thy power is such.
And many times (disposed to jest)
'Gainst one whose power and cause is best
(Thy power to try):
To him that ne'er put spear in rest
Giv'st victory.
For so the Libyan monarchy,
That with Ausonian blood did dye
Our warlike field,
To one that ne'er got victory
Was urg'd to yield.
So noble Marius, Arpin's friend,
That did the Latin state defend
From Cymbrian rage,
Did prove thy fury in the end,
Which nought could 'suage.
And Pompey, whose days haply led,
So long thou seem'dst t' have favoured
In vain, 'tis said,
When the Pharsalian field he led,
Implor'd thine aid.
Now Cæsar, swoll'n with honour's heat,
Sits signiorising in her seat,
And will not see,
That Fortune can her hopes defeat,
Whate'er they be.
From chance is nothing franchised;
And till the time that they are dead,
Is no man blest;
He only, that no death doth dread,
Doth live at rest. [Exit.
FOOTNOTES:
[353] [Old copies, tyrannous.]
[354] [Getullum, in Tripoli. See Hazlitt's "Classical Gazetteer," in v.]
[355] Similar to this expression is chap-fallen, still used by the vulgar. In Beaumont and Fletcher's "Mad Lover," act ii., Calis says his palate's down, which seems to have the same signification.
It will be seen by the following quotation from Webster's "Appius and Virginia," 4to, 1654, that brawn-fall'n is something different from what Reed has described it—
"Let
Th' enemies stript arm have his crimson'd brawns
Up to the elbowes in your traitorous blood."—Page 9.
[356] Dryden and Lee, in their tragedy of "Oedipus," act iv. sc. 1, have the following beautiful passage, which may be compared with the present—