Yet we afterwards find him faltering in his resolution, and struggling with the extremity of his fate.
‘My heart is harden’d, I cannot repent:
Scarce can I name salvation, faith, or heaven:
Swords, poisons, halters, and envenom’d steel
Are laid before me to dispatch myself;
And long ere this I should have done the deed,
Had not sweet pleasure conquer’d deep despair.
Have I not made blind Homer sing to me
Of Alexander’s love and Œnon’s death?
And hath not he that built the walls of Thebes