University of Virginia Library

Actus Quintus.

Enter Salvius and others.
Salv.
Friends, you are welcome, why so sad, I pray?
Those looks be sit not feasts; invest your browes
In the glad livery of smiles; be merry;
Mirth is the only essence of a feast.
But ah, how ill do's this dissembled jollity
Suit with my inside, or the times? I have
Invited you this night unto a supper,
The last, for ought I know, that I shall tast
In your desired companies. Tis true;
The Tribuneship was ever till this day
Esteemed holy, and of sacred power;
But from those men which coyn new offices,
What must the old expect but foul misprision?
Should Jove himself come down from his Olympus,
Not shadowing his Deity with a vaile,
But in's most God-like majesty, I think
For one Lycaon, he might now find three,
And such that would with more unheard of savagenesse
Feast his divinity; not with some poor infant,
But even their Mothers flesh, I mean their countreys,
And 'stead of Nectar give him bloud to drink;
You know how fraught with zeal unto the cause
Of the Republick, I have now cashier'd
And quit that sink of villainous Rebellion
Antonius party, and have stuck to Cicero,
The truest Patriot Rome was ever blest with;
And can I hope to meet with milder stormes
Then those who's only distant apparition
Has made him timely seek another harbour?
Which from my soul I wish he may obtain;
Nay rather if that good man fear'd a shower,
I must expect a tempest; for our nature
Hates more implacably a declined friend
Then a continued foe. Since therefore Antony
And his two fellow plagues are now approaching,
Since there are Centiners arriv'd already,
Their fatall Mercuries, perhaps, t'extinguish
Those carefull eyes, whose restlesse vigilance
Has been imploy'd in service of the State,
(As sure they come to some such bloody end)
Let me enjoy you with the same solemnity
As parting friends take leave of one another.
Yet mingle something of the Thracian mirth
Among your sighs; let's laugh away our sorrow,
We may perhaps with Pluto sup to morrow.

Exeunt.
Enter Centurion, Soldiers.
Centurion.
Come Soldiers, Salvius Otho, as I hear,
Is frolick with his neighbors at a feast,
Wee'l spoil their second course. You know the price
Whereat the heads are rated by the Triumvirs.
Come follow me.

Exeunt.
A Table discovered. Salvius and his friends. To them the Centurion.
Centur.
Nay stir not, Sirs, be still, and keep your places,
Lest your own folly make your selves copartners
In this mans fall, which must be sudden.—Tribune.

Pulls. Salvius o're the Table by the hairs of the head.
A Curtain drawn.
Enter Centurion with Salvius head.
Cent.
Now for Minutius.

Exeunt.
Enter Minutius disguis'd.
Minut.
Nay leave me Serjeants, I am still Minutius
Although disguis'd, and if you longer stay
Those very ensignes of my Prætorship
Will soon betray me, and perhaps the Axe
Which you there carry may strike off my head.

Exit.
Lictores.
Alas, alas, but left our too much piety
Prove our own Lords destruction, let's be gone.

Exeunt.
Enter Centurion, Soldiers.
Cent.
He cannot be escaped far, that's certain.
What should the Lictors else doe here? goe search.
Yet M. Tullius, with whose execution
Exeunt milites.
We were most strictly charged, is escap'd,
With Quintus Cicero. But the Colonell
Popilius Lænas, and Herennius
I hope will overtake them.

Enter Soldiers with Minutius head.
Sold.
Here's the head
Of that tall Poppy.

Centu.
Why, 'tis bravely done.
Come, there are more such Cedars to be lopt.

Exeunt.
Enter Quintus Cicero.
Quint.
They say the golden and the silver age
Was then, when frugall mankind was content
With those displayed riches, which the earth
Invests her self with, and her conceal'd entrails
Were not rent up in quarries deep as hell,
For those pernicious world-disturbing metals;
But sure this is the age of gold and silver.
When those two precious perils, are the poles
And hinges of the world, whereon it moves;
I might perhaps with my beloved brother
Have been secure and safe, whereas being forc'd
For lack of money to return, each step
I take, is ready to surrender me
Into the hands of death.

Enter Quintus jun.
Quint. jun.
O Father, Father,
Your treacherous Servants have betray'd you, come
For heavens sake, come, death, death is at your heels.

Exeunt.
Enter Centurion, Soldiers.
Cent.
Bring his son hither, though you find not him.
Exeunt Sold.
Quintus return'd! I wonder where's his brother.

Enter Soldiers with Quintus jun.
Sold.
Himself we cannot find, but here's young Quin.

Cent.
Come yongster, where's your father, quickly tel me.

Quint. jun.
O that I knew, my ever honor'd Sire,
The place of thy abode, alas; or whether
Thou art yet living, or hast now breath'd forth
Thy sacred spirit! for a thousand pains,
My breast all gor'd with darts, hands cut with chains,
Famin, or sword, or all should never move
Me make a rupture in my filiall love.

Cent.
Cease this dissembling language, and reveal him,
Or by the Heavens thou diest.

Quint. jun.
No, villainous Centurion threaten life,
If I knew where my reverend father were,
That would extort it soonest. Tis my wish
I may soon quit this life.

Cent.
With stripes, with wounds,
With torments worse then death; impetuous pains
Shall rend thy secrets from thy stubborn brest.

Qu. jun.
Pish! these are nothing, threat more & heavier,
Expose me to the ravenous Lyons paw;
Fling me into some common Jakes, or Dungeon,
Wind off my flesh with pinsers, doe and cram
Young Vultures with the bits before my eyes;
Yet had I hid my father, as you deem,
I never would betray so dear, so sacred,
So glorious a treasure.

Cent.
Take him thence,
And torture this fond else till he confesse.

Quint. sen.
Above.

Exeunt Soldiers with Quintus jun.
Quint. sen.
O what a virtuous son have I, was ever
Such piety in so few years? he dares
Th'extreamest of their tortures, with a spirit
Constant as Virtue's self. See how they wrack him!
My melting bowells yern within me; oh!
Each stripe they give him cuts my very soul.
See, see, they are even weary of tormenting,
And yet the youth stil firm. O Piety!

Enter Soldiers with young Qu. as from torture.
Cent.
What? where's his father? has he yet confest?

Quint. jun.
Confest Centurion! no I will not, cannot,
I am not Juno's Iris, that my eyes
Should reach from hence to Macedon.

Cent.
To Macedon?
Why his own servants say he is return'd.

Q. ju.
Such slaves as they that would betray their master,
If he were in their clutches; may not they
Cheat thee as well?

Cent.
Tis folly to conceale,
What force shall soon unbosome: speak,
Where is he?

Qu. ju.
What's that to thee? I dare the worst, Centurion,
Thy malice can inflict.

Cen.
Nay, then I see
I must my self chastise you; come ye weesell.

Enter Quint. sen.
Qu. sen.
Nay hold Centurion, here I am before you,
Quintus the father whom you seek for.

Qui. ju.
Ah,
What mean you father, that you thrust your self
Into the jaws of certain fate? I could
Have spit defiance in the face of cruelty.
Though she had harbour'd in her friendlike looks
A thousand deaths.

Quint. sen.
Indeed I doe beleeve it,
And let me kisse thee for thy piety;
But old unfruitfull stocks must be cut down,
When their decaying, and now saplesse heads
Keep off the quickning sun-beans from the young
And hopefull tenderlings which they overtop.
Suppose, my son, I had still liv'd, and thou
Been made a prey to their relentlesse rage,
I should have died too: for my bloudlesse loins
Are dry and barren; but in thee my son
I shall survive my self.

Cent.
Ha, ha, ha!

Qu. sen.
I hope you doe not mock at my calamity.

Cent.
Survive in him? I, so you shall, and both
Be ferryed o're the Stygian lake together.

Qu. sen.
What! must my son then die? what has he done,
Alas?

Cent.
Tis crime enough to have a life.

Qu. sen.
Then kill me first, for sure I shall anticipate
Your bloody hands, if I but see him slain.

Q. jun.
Nay on my knees with suppliant breath I beg
I may die first, it is a boone I shal
Prize even above my life.

Cent.
Wee'l soon decide you controversie, you shall die together.

(Both slain.)
Cent.
Take hence the bodies and unhead them quickly.
Exeunt.
Enter Popilius Lænas with Marcus Tullius Cicero's head and hands.
A princely gift, by Jove; Popilius Lænas,
Thou hast now play'd the royal butcher, on;
And let Antonius blesse his longing eyes
With sight of such a welcome present. Ha!
Is this that Cicero's head that thunder'd so
In our Tribunalls? Ha! is this that mouth
Was wont to spit such lightning? or are those,
Those hands which whilome thumpt our Rostra so?
I, even the self same head, and mouth, and hands.
Then Antony triumph, thy foe is dead,
The trophies of his fall, these hands, this head.

Exit.
Enter Pomponia, Laureas, Tyro.
Laur.
Dire, horrid, bitter fates! did Rome ere see
A cruelty of such a high degree?
Whose griefs shall I first publish? thine,
Unhappy Widow? or the States? or mine?
Thine that hast lost so excellent a brother?
The States, that cannot now produce another,
So reverend a Patriot? or mine own,
That have now lost so good a Lord? I grone
Under the burden of my losse, nor can
Summon the smallest character of Man
Into my wounded brest.

Pomp.
Come, Laureas, come,
Expound the series of his death; my heart
Is turned adamant, I cannot weep,
Stupidity has seiz'd me, and me thinks
I feel a kind of pleasure in the story
Of woes compleat and perfect, I am even
Transformed to a statue: Smal griefs mourn,
But great ones, such as mine, much like the head
Of the deformed Gorgon, turn to stone,
And make us our own sepulchres.

Laur.
Good Tyro,
Tell thou the Tragick story, for my voice
Is strangled by a throng of strugling sighs,
Crouding from out my wounded brest.

Tyro.
Then thus.
Departing hence we went to Tusculum,
Where hearing of these Outlawries and proscriptions,
They suddenly determin'd for Astyra.
So we convey'd them both into two Litters
Weak as they were alas; but on the way
Your husband calling to his sad remembrance
That at his fatall setting forth he took
But little money with him, and his brother
My Lord had scarce sufficient for himself;
He thought it best in such an urgent straight,
His brother should hold on, while he himself
Returned home to furnish him with necessaries,
And so to hast and overtake him; this
They both agreed upon, and so embracing
Tears trickling down their cheeks, they took their leaves
Of one another.

Laur.
Thus departing soules
Doe bid adue unto their fading mansions,
For never nature strove so much, as when
This honor'd pair sigh't forth their last farewells.
Twas a sad Omen that they ne'r should meet.

Tyro.
My Lord being come at length unto Astyra,
Found a ship ready and imbarqu'd immediatly,
And with a fair and prosp'rous gale of wind
Sailed along the coast unto Mount Circe,
And there he landed; but on other thoughts
He went aboard again, for 'twas his mind
To be convey'd by sea unto his farm
Which is by Capua; but before we landed,
Rowing securely by the pleasant shore,
Our linnens swelling with th'Etesian gales,
Which in the Summer season fan that tract,
A shole of Crowes came waving through the aire,
As we conjectur'd from a little Temple
Standing upon the shore, and dedicated
To God Apollo; these most strangely crying
Lighted upon our Saleyards, with their bills
Pulling the cords, which made our heavy hearts
Presage some sinister and dismall luck
Then imminent, yet being come a land,
We brought him to his house, where he repos'd
Himself a while, to see if he could sleep.

Laur.
Unhappy sleep! for straight this drouzy brother,
Was seconded by his pale sister Death.

Tyro.
But loe, the former shole with louder crye,
Came hither also, beating 'gainst the windows,
Till some of them got in, and never ceas'd.
Till with their bills they had pluckt off at length
The cloathes wherewith his face was covered.
We, seeing this, were angry with our selves
As too too negligent of our Masters safety,
Saying we were more vile then savage creatures,
Should we still tarry in that fatall place,
And see perhaps our Lord, before our eyes
Cruelly butcher'd, wherefore with all speed
Partly by force, and partly by intreaty,
We cary him again unto his Litter,
And so in hast departed toward the sea;
But being come into a shady wood
Which the Sun never pierces with his beams
To glad the widowed earth.

Laur.
A place decreed
By fate, I think, for such a villany;
For should the Sun have seen so foul an act,
Ile would have turned retrograde, and hid
His visage from such cruelty.

Tyro.
Well here,
In this same gloomy canopy of horror,
Popilius Lænas overtook the Litter.

Pomp.
Who, he whose cause my brother Marcus once
Pleaded before the Judges, when he was
Accused for his fathers death?

Tyro.
The same.
We stood prepar'd to spend our dearest bloud,
Before we would have seen our Master slain;
But ah! my Lord commands us not to stir,
And to speak truth, it was in vain, for Lænas
Had armed Soldiers with him, and was followed
By other Centiners. Then, O then my Lord
Thrust out his aged head from forth the Litter,
And taking, as his manner was, his beard
In his left hand, and looking manfully
His Headsman in the face, he stoutly said,
Come Soldier, come, strike off this head of mine.

Laur.
We stood like statues with our trembling hands
Before our wretched eyes, for 'twould have struck
A Tyger with remorse to have beheld him.

Tyro.
Then Lænas with a thrice repeated stroke
Hackt off his head; there was scarce bloud enough
Fell from those aged veins to stain the sword,
And prove it conscious of so foul a murder.

Laur.

Tyro.
But Cicero's reverend head was not enough;
The hands that wrote those glorious Philippicks
Must be cut off too.

Laur.
Those illustrious hands
Which once held up this tottering Common-wealth,
And see her on her feet, when she was falling
From her proud or be into a gulph of Fire.

Tyro.
That head, those hands, are both divorc't, & sever'd
From his now moldred carkasse, and no doubt
Are by this time Antonius game and sport;
For Lænas posted with them to the City.

Pomp.
Why, here's a story at whose sad relation,
Democritus might change his laughing humour
And fide with Heraclitus. As for me
I cannot weep; but Laureas, prethy tell me
How came Popilius to find you out?
Me thinks he could not, without information,
So shrewdly light upon the self same way
Which you had took before him; was it fate?

Laur.
Twas fate, that's certain Madam, 'twas, but ah
There was an engine which the Destinies
Did make their agent.

Pomp.
Whom?

Tyro.
Philologus.

Pomp.
Philologus?

Laur.
I, he betray'd your brother.
The Oracle from which he learn'd the mysteries
Of pure Philosophy. He, he it was
Who, being left behind us at the house,
Reveal'd the way we took unto the Colonell.

Pomp.
And where's the villain?

Laur.
Brought by Lænas hither
To be rewarded of Antonius
As for a service of egregious merit.

Pomp.
I, so he shall, I'l see his wages paid.
Exit Pomp.

Laur.
Come Tyro, since our day is set for ever,
Wee'l live like owles, those Citizens of Night.
Like Owles indeed, but like Athenian owles;
Thou shalt sublime thy pen, and write the life
Of our deceased Lord, that spotlesse life,
Which Vertue's self might mahe her meditation.
Tyro thou shalt, and I poor Laureas, I
Will sit and sigh forth mourning Elegies
Upon his death, he while he liv'd good man,
Delighted in my Muse, and now my quill
Shall consecrate his name toth'Muses hill.

Exeunt.
Enter Antonius, Fulvia. Popilius Lænas crowned, Cicero's head in one hand, and his hands in the other.
Ant.
Lænas, 'twas nobly done, and thou hast well
Deserv'd that crown which circles in thy Temples.
The head of Marcus Tullius Cicero!
Takes it of Popilius.
Why 'tis a Kingly present, Ha, ha, ha!

Derides and misuses it.
Fulv.
To mee.

Ant.
Rub and a good cast. Ha, ha, ha!

Fulv.
Bravely bowl'd, i'faith.
Come up here.
Takes it up, and sitting down places it upon her knees.
Now I'l be revenged
For your tart nipping jeers—yes Reverend Sir,
Fulvia's indebted to the State:—too long.

Ex. 2.
Phil.
The no whit covetous wife of Antony,
Whom you describe without all contumely,
Owes the third pension to the Roman people.
Indeed! but does shee? yes, nor will I wrong
The people of their due, the debt's thy tongue.
Cuts out his tongue.
Here tak't. I warrant him for barking now.
Twill make a better foot-ball then a bowle.

Kicks it away.
Ant.
Have at it.
(Coytes the hands to the head.)
Take them good Popilius,
And place them on the Rostra, where he vomited
His Philippicks against me. Let his head
Be set betwixt his hands, 'twill be a brave
And goodly spectacle.

Popil.
I will my Lord.

Exit.
Ant.
Doe Fulvia stab it; give't as many wounds
As Julius Cæsar had, whose horrid murder,
That worme extoll'd as an heroick deed.
Well I must leave you for a while to meet
My Colleagues, Lepidus and Octavius Cæsar.

Exit.
Fulv.
That such a paultry thing as this should make
So great a bustling in a Commonwealth?
I heard my husband once compare his lungs
To Vulcans bellows, and his head to Ætna,
His words to flame, and this his tongue to fire.
But now I think 'tis quencht, it burns not now;
Nay, 'tis as cold as stone, no thunder in't,
No lightning flies from't. Sure this is not that
Herculean tongue that lately was so weighty,
That it could crush such Gyants of the State
As it hath done to Nothing. Yes the same.
Then Fulvia march along, and banish fear,
Thou hast that tongue upon thy silver spear.

Exit.
Enter Pomponia.
Pomp.
Anger will give me strength, Bloudy Antonius
Thou shalt not thus evade; as once the stout
And stern Amazon foil'd the Græcian rout,
Or as th'enraged Mænas arm'd with thyrse,
With pace directed by inspired force,
Affrights the woods, and quite distract makes gush,
The bloud which she perceives not; wil I rush
Upon these Roman Canniballs; if I die
I shall enjoy my Quintus company.
Alas, alas! what foolish rage is this?
We must appeal to heaven when we are wrong'd,
And not be our own carvers. Such State-gyants
Must have a Jove to curb them. Yet Philologus,
That traitrous villain, that ungratefull wretch,
Whom not my husbands Manumission,
Nor the divinest precepts of my brother,
Could keep within the bounds of faith and piety,
He, he shall rue it if I live, base Caitiffe!

Flourish.
Enter Antonius, Lepidus, Octavius, Piso, and others.
Pomponia.
Cruell Triumvir, though thou hast unliv'd
My honour'd husband, my beloved son,
Though thou hast slain my brother, and with him
Rent up the very groundwork of our Capitoll.
And shown more cruelty to those sacred reliques
Of his dissolved corps, then Victory
Did perpetrate on the Æmathian Perseus
On the triumphed Jugurth, and King Syphax,
Or Hannibal himself, not one of whom
Was sent defective to the lower shades
With members violated, yet I come not,
Like the poor widow'd Hecuba, to raile
And tell thee to what depth thou hast transgrest
The laws of goodnesse, and religious Nature,
Making thy self the hate of men and Gods,
Nor doe I come to beg thy infamous sword
To rip that wombe whose fruit thou hast destroy'd,
Though I would hug my destiny. No Antony,
But only to put up a fair Petition,
Whose grant will somewhat wipe away the rust
Which sullies thy bad name, and make posterity
Say thou didst something worthy of a Roman,
And thy renowned stock; and this it is,
By all that's dear unto thee, I beseech thee
Shelter not treason, but deliver me
The villain that betray'd my brother Marcus.

Ant.
Philologus?

Pomp.
I, hee Sir.

Ant.
Bring him forth.
Though such a treason was expedient,
Yet such a Traitor must not live.

Cæs.
My Lord,
You are most just in't.

Lep.
So says Lepidus.

Piso.
Tis god-like equity.

Enter with Phil.
Ant.
Pomponia take him, he's at your disposing.

Pomp.
You heard that, Varlet, now you're mine again;
I'le make you prey to a more hellish vulture
Then that of Tityus, thou thy self shalt slice
Thy own foul flesh by morsells off, and make
Thy own gaunt entrailes thy own sepulcher;
Nay 'tis in vain.

Phil.
For heavens sake, good my Lord.

She drags him out.
Enter Popilius Lænas.
Popil.
My Lord, the Tribune Publius Apuleius
Is with his wife escap'd away by flight.

Ant.
No matter, my long wisht for aim is wonne,
And Cicero slain, the whole prescription's done.