again my heart presages Some sudden good Ex. Tyr. Pomp. Hark hark the noise increases Quint. I and approaches 〈◊〉 too me thinks Apul. 'T is at the dores Enter Tyro and a Messenger A shout Tyro Here 's one my Lord can tell you 〈◊〉 The Consuls worthy Sir have won the day These will inform you better Letters Cicero reads Marc. Brother Quintus A word or two in private Antony Is put to flight but Hirtius 〈◊〉 and Pansa Dangerously wounded for some private reasons Best known unto my selfe I will conceale The Consulls death which I may doe compleatly For here 's a Letter sent from Hirtius Unto the Senate of a former victory This will remove suspect Shout Tyro The Roman people Wait at the dore to bring you to the Capitoll Mar. Thanks to the Gods this day wee 'l dedicate To Jove and Mars the savers of our State Exeunt Laur. Nay Madam stay I feel an extasie Steal through my brest and sire my plyant soul You shall not goe without a Hymn of Victory Pomp. 〈◊〉 Clarinda Gallu quickly come Laureas begin and these shall sing the 〈◊〉 The Song Have you not beard the Cities cry How the people vent their joyes In the welcome welcome noyse Of victory The Capitoll returnes their shout againe As if it selfe would 〈◊〉 their joyfull straine Chorus Let Echo sing with long-spun 〈◊〉 And Philmels 〈◊〉 from their lubrick throats Let Hills rebound And vallies sound Io triumphe The streets are fill'd with cheerfull glee And the common mirth is showne In the pleasant pleasant 〈◊〉 Of Liberty For now our Consuls have delivered Rome And the disturber of her peace o'rcome Chorus Let Echo sing with c Great Jove we blesse thy Palronage By whose high auspice Rome is sav'd The Roman State and kept unslav'd From inbred rage And Mars we praise thee by whose aid have stood The Roman walls so long though built in blood Chorus Let Echo sing with long-spun notes And Philmells caroll from their lubrick throats 〈◊〉 Hills rebound And vallies sound Io triumphe Exeunt Enter Senate A shout Cicer. Honor'd and Conscript Fathers if those days Appear to us with far more welcome raies Wherein we 〈◊〉 preserv'd then those wherein To breath this common Aire we first begin Because our safeties have a sure fruition Of gladnesse but our births a frail condition And that we doe our safeties entertain With pleasure but Nativities with pain How ought we then t' embrace this happy light Which has redeem'd us from that sad 〈◊〉 Rais'd by domestick furies yet we will not Return unto our civill robes till tidings Be brought of Brutus safety for this warre Was undertaken for his 〈◊〉 and succour Against those enemies of the State and is not Compleat but with his freedome first recover'd Servilius Although I am not Cicero of your mind Concerning the retaining of this robe Of war yet I determine publick prayer Be made to all the Gods for twenty dayes In the three Generalls names Cic. Which twenty dayes Publius Servilius I inhance to fifty Since they are granted not to one but Three Pise But M. Tullius my opinion is This day to put our civill garments on And to resume the Sage again to morrow Calenus And 't is my judgment too Cic. Yes 't would be gratefull To the immortall Deities to depart To put the Sage on from their hallowed 〈◊〉 To which we came 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 'T were most enormous and against Religion Calen. Then 〈◊〉 your terms are too too 〈◊〉 You brand them with the name of 〈◊〉 'T is too severe a style We will allow them To be call'd wicked and audacious Citizens But not their Countreys foes and for this cause The Consulls Hirtius Pansa with 〈◊〉 Are not to be entituled Generalls Cic. If the Antonians are not enemies Then 't was a great 〈◊〉 to 〈◊〉 them And if it were impiety to slay them How can we hope our solemn supplication Decreed for their destruction should be pleasing To the immortall Delties But Calenus Know I am not contented with a word Of such a slight conceit if any man Will furnish me with one of deeper 〈◊〉 I 'l burn 't into their names for even by those Which spilt their sacred blonds for us at Mutine I know they doe deserv't As for the Consulls And young Octavius whom we made our Chiefs Their brave deserts have made them Generalls For now that Prince of out-laws is or thrown The very Sun was happy which before He hid his beams beheld the breathlesse trunks Of those dead Parricides and Antony For very feare with few Associates fly Therefore I thus 〈◊〉 That in the names Of the Three Generalls fifty days together Be supplications made which I will frame In the most ample words I can contrive Then for the Legions we renew the promise Of their rewards which we decreed before Should be performed when the war was 〈◊〉 But as for those which perisht in the battail We will the Pensions were decreed for them Be as 't is just and requisite they should 〈◊〉 Paid to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Brothers Wives and children Some of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to our grief But their own glory fell with Victory O happy death which being Natures due Was for their countreys welfare 〈◊〉 you 〈◊〉 your glorious names from Mars that hee Who for the Nations good did Rome decree Might 〈◊〉 to have ordained you for Romes Fame 〈◊〉 erect you Mausolaean tombes Death caught in flight is backt with 〈◊〉 T is glorious to die with Victory For in the fight Mars to oblige the rest Is wont for pledges to select the best Therefore those impious foes whom you have slain In hell now suffer their deserved pain But you who poured forth your latest spirit In 〈◊〉 Victory shall now 〈◊〉 Those blessed fields where pious souls are sainted What though your lives were short they were untainted And the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of your deaths shall climbe Beyond the 〈◊〉 of all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Therefore most 〈◊〉 while you liv'd but now Most holy Soldiers it goes well with you Your 〈◊〉 Vertues shall not clauded lie In the 〈◊〉 dungeon of 〈◊〉 Not your surviving 〈◊〉 but all Rome Senate and People shall erect your tombe There shall be built 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 With words ingraven whose 〈◊〉 shall present Your deeds unto AEternity that they Which see that 〈◊〉 and read your acts may say These 〈◊〉 the men that lov'd their countreys good And bought her 〈◊〉 with their dearest bloud And 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 of their 〈◊〉 Have 〈◊〉 a crown of Immortality Exeunt omnes A 〈◊〉 Chorus How wildly Fortune sports with 〈◊〉 now She shews a face as black as Night 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 her 〈◊〉 my brow And 〈◊〉 Apollo's light VVee float upon the surface of this Main Now sinking into Scylla's jaws Anon we check our fears again With hope and comforts 〈◊〉 laws The worlds great 〈◊〉 the blind Queen of Chance A fairer pattern never drew Of her own unconstant glance Then our Native Rome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
then living 〈◊〉 Wounded with sight of bloody Tyranny Marc. Now Quintus speakes like his own virtueus self This language melts me into fire and aire I am sublim'd and ready to take flight In extasie from this unwieldy lump Come let 's retire into my garden there Proceed in this divine discourse 't will make My soul disdaine with Earthly mould 〈◊〉 And raise her thoughts to immortality Exeunt Enter Casar Solus How full of fare and horrour is this morning She comes not tripping on the mountains 〈◊〉 But moves with drooping pace and leaden heels Her eye-lids are not rosy nor her brow Gilded with that sweet beauty it was wont What has she changed colours with her 〈◊〉 Or is she sick and so has bound her head In this black vail of clouds Alas alas T is left her eyes behold our blacker deeds My self Antonius and Lepidus Have like the three Saturnian brothers once Amongst us shar'd the Roman would as if It were our own inheritance and now We must complot a Tragedy the 〈◊〉 Must be culled out shall 〈◊〉 then dy Alas how piety struggles in my brest This mouth this tongue which now must speak his death Was wont to call him Father shall I 〈◊〉 Become a Paricide Suppose I doe He that aspires to govern without check Must set his foot upon his fathers neck It is a maxime long since practised By Jove himself upon his father 〈◊〉 But words oblige not to a naturall 〈◊〉 I did but call him Father and if now I yeeld consent unto his death I doe it As he is Marcus Cicero a stranger To Casars blood But Cato thought him 〈◊〉 The honor'd title of his Countreys 〈◊〉 And shall 〈◊〉 ruine so great worth Be still my melting 〈◊〉 He must die And therefore 'cause he is his Countreys parent He that is Caesars friend must be a 〈◊〉 Unto his countreys freedome which he prizes Above his life and for this cause must lose it Shall he then die Ambition sayes he must But piety forbids but Piety Must not be sided with Ambition It must be so Antonius shall have Cicero Antonius then shall give me Lucius Caesar And Lepidus shall yeeld his brother Paulus Ambition thus must thought of pity smother Even toward a Father Vnkle or a Brother Exit Enter Laureas Heavens What a dismall time is this the dogs As if they were transformed into wolves Gather together and doe nought but howle And wolves as if they were changed into dogs Have left the woods and traverse through the streets A Bull was heard send forth a humane voice An infant newly born to speak A showre Of stones descended from the troubled skies And in the aire was heard the cries of men Clashing of armour and a noise of Horses Shrill trumpets sounds the statues of the Gods Swet drops of bloud and some were toucht from heaven Many of th' Temples too are Thunder struck Enter Tyro Tyro were ever known such Tragedies Tyro Never was imminent calamity Threatened to Rome but 't was thus ushered Laureas I might alledge the wretched fall of Crassus When such a purple floud of Roman gore Discoloured Lucans field But the not yet cur'd dire Pharsalian blow Shall speak for all Rome scarce ere knew a prodigie Which was not praevious to that bloudy day The Sun and Moon eclipst 〈◊〉 flames Obliquely darted on th' Italian shore The Vestall fire extinct the Native gods Weeping State-changing comets monstrous births The grones of Ghosts from out their troubled Vrnes With many more Laur. But the Hetruscian Soothsayers Will descant better on these things then we Tyro 'Slight thou saist true and now I think on 't 〈◊〉 Wee 'l try if we can search what they determine Sure they have done by this their immolations 〈…〉 Enter Senate and 〈◊〉 Cicero You the most Reverend of Hetruscian Vates To whom is known the births and deaths of States You who by art unlock the Pole to whom Is made apparent fates 〈◊〉 doom By 〈◊〉 deep 〈◊〉 or by thunder A hairy star or some such boding wonder Inform us what the angry 〈◊〉 Threaten in these 〈◊〉 prodigies But be not 〈◊〉 nor shroud Your Speeches in 〈◊〉 dark mysterious cloud 〈◊〉 did the Sibylls and the 〈◊〉 hick Nun 〈◊〉 your inspired Numbers evenly run With obvious and unfolded sense that so We 〈◊〉 conceive the essence of our 〈◊〉 The Ancientest of the 〈◊〉 Then fathers 〈◊〉 your dismall fate Your freedome shall be lost your state Converted to a Monarchy And all be slaves but only I Sen. What means the Aged Prophet Stops his breath and 〈◊〉 down 〈◊〉 d. Cicer. Fallen down 〈◊〉 it some 〈◊〉 extasie or death Second Soothsayer 〈◊〉 brother from his clay is flowne And 〈◊〉 your destiny with his own 〈◊〉 happy he 〈◊〉 now is blest With a true 〈◊〉 rest And shall not see the tide of 〈◊〉 Which on Survivers heads will 〈◊〉 The third Like our brothers Vitall 〈◊〉 Who now lies before us dead Your twine of 〈◊〉 is broke And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 expect the yoke The fourth What the 〈◊〉 have made A firm decree and he hath said No humane power can disanull T is signed in your speaking bull The fift When Romulus first founded Rome He 〈◊〉 his Crowne by Remus doome And built his Monarchy in bloud Now shall return that antique power Not 〈◊〉 with a shower Of that salt 〈◊〉 but a sloud 〈◊〉 Well what the fates have 〈◊〉 humane power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 to cancell if I dye As sure my 〈◊〉 must help to make the 〈◊〉 I will dye willingly 〈◊〉 a noble death Not to survive ones countreys liberty If Gods might 〈◊〉 of death then would they die The Soothsayers over the dead corpes sing this Song 1 Brother 2 Brother 3 Brother 4 Brother 1. Art thou dead 2. Art thou fled 3. Art thou gone 4. All alone 1. To the shades below 2. To the desert cells 3. Where glooing darknesse 〈◊〉 4. And cloudy woe 1. Where ne'r was knowne 2. A cheerfull tone 3. Where wretched Souls 4. Like Stygian owles Together Have no joy of one another 1 Brother 2 Brother 3 Brother 4 Brother 1. Thou art dead 2. Thou art fled 3. Thou art gone 4. All alone 1. To the groves below 2. Where sacred Quires 3. Inspir'd with holy fires 4. In triumph goe 1. Where songs of mirth 2. Are caroll'd forth 3. Where blessed Souls 4. In Nectar bowles Together Drink and solace one another Exeunt with the 〈◊〉 Enter Cicero reading O Vitam vere vitalem sed beatam etiam mortem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be atissimam vitam aditum 〈◊〉 Most true for did we like savage beasts Returning to a former 〈◊〉 being No one part of us free from dissolution Death were a plague and did not harbour in it The sweetnesse which they talk of for I think To be is better though in restlesse troubles Then not to be at all t were senselesse impious To say the power that 's 〈◊〉 of Nature Infus'd into us such a
the wishes of the people And wan•t of the Republick has not yet Liv'd half of half his time but if we cast A backward eye upon his glorious actions Has liv'd a goodly age and cannot now Die immaturely Look upon the state Of present things the downfall of our liberty And heaven knows what calamities will follow I think you cannot be so much his foe As not to say he has now liv'd too long Apul. Ah! but the publick good 's to be preferr'd Before respects of private consequence Quint. But Publius the State is now so wounded That there 's no hope of cure and therefore may Our old Physitians safely give it o're Were he an AEsculapius that could put New life into a State as once that son Of Paean did to Virbius I should then Blaspheme Great Jove himself should he but aim His triforke flames against him but for one Now sinking of himself into his grave And such a one as Cicero in these times When such mens ages are but vain what sepulcher Can be more fit more glorious then the same Wherein his countreys freedome lies enclos'd If he now die hee shall be buried With the renowned Pompeys son and father With Catulus Petreius and Afranius Yea with Antonius that brave man unworthy His noble stock should bear so foul a branch But if he live with whom I pray wilt be But Capho's Saxa's and Ventidii Therefore good brother I confesse my eyes Doe swim with tears yet shall my words proceed From a couragious mind be still thy selfe To the huge volume of Antonius faults Adde one crime more even Cicero's death 't will stick Upon his name with a more lasting blot Then the most hainous of his other 〈◊〉 For should his future deeds pronounce him 〈◊〉 To the great Alexander or 〈◊〉 son From whom he 〈◊〉 his vain pedigree Should after ages wonder at his Acts And say why this and this and this he did Built such a City conquer'd such a Countrey Thus and thus many times 〈◊〉 with Kings And Queens to follow his victorious chariot Yet for a period to each glorious sentence Some honest stander by will sighing say But he kill'd Cicero 〈◊〉 shall still Much like 〈◊〉 Vulture rend and 〈◊〉 The very heart and liver of his name Let Antony proscribe thee let him Marcus Why he can do 't but once and that 's some comfort But thou shalt proscribe him unto eternity It is not thy proscription he 〈◊〉 But closely 〈◊〉 a pardon for his own Beleeve me 〈◊〉 't is the 〈◊〉 part Which can be given or taken from thee that That 's the true Cicero which Antonius knows Cannot be proscrib'd 〈◊〉 by Cicero If Antony deceive and break his faith As faith is 〈◊〉 me found in such as hee Then thou must die Suppose he 〈◊〉 perform 〈◊〉 Then must you live a vassall to his 〈◊〉 Now which is to be 〈◊〉 death or fervitude I leave it to your self and your own judgment Yet my beloved Brother by our Loves By thy now well-spent three and sixty years By thy renowned 〈◊〉 the sacred And if thou 〈◊〉 the everlasting memory Of thy admired Eloquence by these And all that 's dear unto thee I adjure thee Die not confessing that thou wouldst not die Mar. Friends I am bound unto your 〈◊〉 thank you That not affection only which were fond But the Republicks good has been the 〈◊〉 Of your perswasions Well I promise you I will doe nothing unbeseeming Cicero Frame your hopes complement by this I shall Dispatch the messenger my self Salv. Good Cicero Remember us and Rome Apul. We were not born T is your own saying for our selves alone Our Countrey claims a 〈◊〉 Cic. Farewell farewell Farewell my Friends but 〈◊〉 let me have Your company Quint. You shal Apul. Nay then I fear Exeunt Mar. Come Brother Quintus 〈◊〉 hast bravely argu'd Why weep'st 〈◊〉 Quint. Doe you then approve my 〈◊〉 I will unsay it Mar. Nay thou shalt not canst not Come come let 's in thy self shall only hear How I will send defiance to 〈◊〉 Exeunt Enter Laurcas and 〈◊〉 Laur. What 〈◊〉 thou Tyro that my Lord admits None but his brother Quintus to th' delivery Of his reply Tyr. I cannot guesse the reason Laur. Me thinks he should not bar their longing ears The hearing if he does intend acceptance Of the Triumvirs proffer But I fear He does not prize his life at such a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 life is precious Laur. But honor more And what is life Tyro T is Natures gift 〈◊〉 A poore And worthlesse jewell fastned by a hair To th' ear of vanity Tyro It is the fair And sprightly shine of this compendious world Laur. And from what 〈◊〉 is that lustre hurld Tyro The soul La. A short liv'd day a twi-light sun Whose fading beauties cease when scarce begun But honor is a day that knows no night And ever triumphs in immortall light I think Antonius might have done more wisely And might have sooner compast his 〈◊〉 If he had only sent him life without The intimation of those harsh conditions For so he could not in my slender judgment 〈◊〉 such applausive terms have contradicted The proffer'd benefit of his life and then I am perswaded fully that my Lord Would ne'r have let posterity have known His hate to Antony from whom he should Have daign'd th' acceptance of a slavish breath Tyro Come prethy leave I shall despair 〈◊〉 Exeunt Enter M. Cicero solus Now I have seal'd my fate I must expect The second message for my head I must What may not man unlock this Cabinet And free the heavenly jewell of his soul A wise man stays not Natures period but If things occurre which trouble his 〈◊〉 Emits himself departing out of life As from a stage or Theatre nor passes Whether he take or make his dissolution Whether he doe 't in sicknesse or in health T is base to live but brave to die by stealth This is the daring Stoicks glorious language I was 〈◊〉 self too of the opinion once But now I find it impious and unmanly For as some pictures drawn with slender lines Deceiving almost our 〈◊〉 eyes Affect us much and with their subtilties Wooe us to gaze upon them but are found By skilfull and judicious eyes to 〈◊〉 In symmetry of parts and due proportion Even so the Stoicks 〈◊〉 are carved With seeming curiousnesse almost forcing judgment And carry with them an applausive shew Of undenial 〈◊〉 verity 〈◊〉 well scann'd They are more like the dreams of idle braines Then the grave dictates of Philosophers The wise 〈◊〉 was opinion'd 〈◊〉 For most divinely he forbids us leave The corps due guard without our Captains license And to speak true we are but Vsufructuaries The God that governs in us is 〈◊〉 A Prisoner breaking from his 〈◊〉 or hold If he be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his 〈◊〉 If innocent 〈◊〉 even that innocence Which might perhaps have brought him cleerly 〈◊〉 T is so with us our