For high Jove, that guideth all,
When he lets his just wrath fall,
To revenge proud diadems,
With huge cares did cross kings' lives,
Raising treasons in their realms
By their children, friends, or wives.
Therefore he, whom all men fear,
Feareth all men everywhere.
Fear, that doth engender hate
(Hate enforcing them thereto),
Maketh many undertake
Many things they would not do.
O, how many mighty kings
Live in fear of petty things!
For when kings have sought by wars
Stranger towns to have o'erthrown,
They have caught deserved scars,
Seeking that was not their own.
For no tyrant commonly,
Living ill, can kindly die;
But either traitorously surpris'd
Doth coward poison quail[365] their breath,
Or their people have devis'd,
On their guard, to seek their death.
He only lives most happily
That, free and far from majesty,
Can live content, although unknown;
He fearing none, none fearing him:
Meddling with nothing but his own,
While gazing eyes at crowns grow dim.
[Exit.
Enter Cæsar and Mark Antony.
Cæsar. O Rome, that with thy pride dost overpeer
The worthiest cities of the conquer'd world;
Whose honour, got by famous victories,
Hath filled heaven's fiery vaults with frightful horror!
O lofty towers! O stately battlements!
O glorious temples! O proud palaces!
And you brave walls, bright heaven's masonry,
Grac'd with a thousand kingly diadems!
Are ye not stirred with a strange delight,
To see your Cæsar's matchless victories?
And how your empire and your praise begins
Through fame, which he of stranger nations wins?
O beauteous Tiber, with thine easy streams,
That glide as smoothly as a Parthian shaft!
Turn not thy crispy[366] tides like silver curl,
Back to thy grass-green banks to welcome us;
And with a gentle murmur haste to tell
The foaming seas the honour of our fight?
Trudge not thy streams to Triton's mariners,
To bruit the praises of our conquest past?
And make their vaunts to old Oceanus,
That henceforth Tiber shall salute the seas,
More fam'd than Tiger or fair Euphrates?
Now all the world (well-nigh) doth stoop to Rome:
The sea, the earth, and all is almost ours.
Be't, where the bright sun with his neighbour beams
Doth early light the pearled Indians,
Or where his chariot stays to stop the day,
Till heaven unlock the darkness of the night.
Be't, where the sea is wrapt in crystal ice,
Or where the summer doth but warm the earth.
Or here, or there, where is not Rome renown'd?
There lives no king (how great soe'er he be)
But trembleth if he once but hear of me.
Cæsar is now earth's fame and Fortune's terror,
And Cæsar's worth hath stain'd old soldiers' praises.
Rome, speak no more of either Scipio,
Nor of the Fabii, or Fabricians;
Here let the Decii and their glory die.
Cæsar hath tam'd more nations, ta'en more towns,
And fought more battles than the best of them.
Cæsar doth triumph over all the world,
And all they scarcely conquered a nook.
The Gauls, that came to Tiber to carouse,
Did live to see my soldiers drink at Loire;
And those brave Germans, true-born martialists,
Beheld the swift Rhine under-run mine ensigns.
The Britons (lock'd within a wat'ry realm,
And wall'd by Neptune) stoop'd to me at last.
The faithless Moor, the fierce Numidian,
Th' earth that the Euxine sea makes sometimes marsh,
The stony-hearted people that inhabit,
Where sevenfold Nilus doth disgorge itself,
Have all been urg'd to yield to my command;
Yea, even this city, that hath almost made
An universal conquest of the world;
And that brave warrior, my brother-in-law,
That (ill-advis'd) repined at my glory:
Pompey, that second Mars, whose haught'[367] renown
And noble deeds were greater than his fortunes,
Prov'd to his loss, but even in one assault
My hand, my hap, my heart exceeded his,
When the Thessalian fields were purpled o'er
With either army's murder'd soldiers' gore;
When he, to conquering accustomed,
Did conquered fly, his troops discomfited.
Now Scipio, that long'd to show himself
Descent of African (so fam'd for arms),
He durst affront me and my warlike bands
Upon the coasts of Libya, till he lost
His scatter'd army, and to shun the scorn
Of being taken captive, kill'd himself.
Now therefore let us triumph, Antony;
And, rend'ring thanks to Heaven as we go,
For bridling those that did malign our glory,
Let's to the Capitol.
Antony. Come on, brave Cæsar,
And crown thy head and mount thy chariot.
Th' impatient people run along the streets,
And in a rout against thy gates they rush,
To see their Cæsar after danger's past,
Made conqueror and emperor at last.
Cæsar. I call to witness heaven's great Thunderer,
That 'gainst my will I have maintain'd this war.
Nor thirsted I for conquests bought with blood.
I joy not in the death of citizens;
But, through my self-will'd enemies' despite
And Romans' wrong, was I constrain'd to fight.