University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

A Banquet in Catiline's Palace. Couches along the sides. Statues of Jove, Juno, and Minerva, on Thrones at the extremity of the Hall. Singers and Slaves in the distance. The Guests, crowned with Chaplets of Roses and Myrtle, lying on the Couches. The Singers advance and chaunt.
CHORUS.

Catiline suddenly enters the Hall; the Guests shout, “The Consul!” He advances hastily and moodily to the front: they come from the Couches, and surround him; he flings himself into a Chair.
CATILINE.
Are there not times, Patricians! when great states
Rush to their ruin? Rome is no more like Rome,
Than a foul dungeon's like the glorious sky.
What is she now? Degenerate, gross, defiled;
The tainted haunt, the gorged receptacle
Of every slave and vagabond of earth:
A mighty grave, that luxury has dug,
To rid the other realms of pestilence;
And, of the mountain of corruption there,
Which once was human beings, procreate
A buzzing, fluttering swarm; or venom tooth'd,
A viper brood: insects and reptiles only!

[The group draw back in surprise.
CETHEGUS.
We wait to hail you Consul.

LENTULUS
(aside.)
He's undone!

CATILINE.
Consul! Look on me—on this brow—these hands;
Look on this bosom, black with early wounds:
Have I not served the state from boyhood up,
Scatter'd my blood for her, labour'd for, loved her?
I had no chance; wherefore should I be Consul?

LENTULUS.
So: Cicero still is master of the crowd?

CATILINE.
Why not? He's made for them, and they for him:
They want a sycophant, and he wants slaves.
Well, let him have them;—think no more on't, friends.
The wine there! (calls).
—If our tree is stript in Rome,
May it not branch elsewhere? Give me a cup:—
Here's to old Teucer's memory!

CETHEGUS
(starting forward with a cup)
Here, I pledge
Coriolanus!

CATILINE.
No! my hasty friend!
Old Teucer!—He, that, when his country's fields
Could find no room for him, let loose his sail
To the first wind; pitch'd his enfranchised tent
On the first desert shore, and drank his cup
As cheerfully upon the pebbled sand,
As in the sculptured halls of Telamon!
Has not the hymn begun? To supper, friends! [With sudden emotion.

Patricians! they have push'd me to the gulf;
I have worn down my heart, wasted my means,
Humbled my birth, barter'd my ancient name,
For the rank favour of the senseless mass
That frets and festers in your commonwealth:
Ay, stalk'd with bended head and out-stretch'd hand,
Smiling on this slave, and embracing that,
Doing the candidate's whole drudgery.

LENTULUS.
Proud Catiline! (aside).
—'Tis but the way with all.

CATILINE
(turning on him).
What is 't to me, if all have stoop'd in turn?
Does fellowship in chains make bondage proud?
Does the plague lose its venom, if it taint
My brother with myself? Is 't victory,
If I but find, stretch'd by my bleeding side,
All who came with me in the golden morn,
And shouted as my banner met the sun?
I cannot think on't.—There's no faith in earth!
The very men with whom I walk'd through life,
Nay, till within this hour, in all the bonds
Of courtesy and high companionship,
They all deserted me; Metellus, Scipio,
Emilius, Cato, even my kinsman Cæsar,—
All the chief names and senators of Rome,
This day, as if the Heavens had stamp'd me black,
Turn'd on their heel, just at the point of fate,
Left me a mockery, in the rabble's midst,
And followed their plebeian consul, Cicero!

CETHEGUS.
Nay, Catiline, you take this chance defeat
Too heavily; you'll have 't another year.

CATILINE.
No! I have run my course. Another year!
Why taunt me, sir? No—if their curule chair,
Sceptre, and robe, and all their mummery,
Their whole embodied consulate, were flung,
Here, at my feet,—and all assembled Rome
Knelt to me, but to stretch my finger out,
And pluck them from the dust,—I'd scorn them all.—
This was the day to which I look'd through life;
And it has fail'd me—vanish'd from my grasp,
Like air.
I must not throw the honourable stake,
That, won, is worth the world,—is glory, life;
But, like a beaten slave, must stand aloof,
While others sweep the board!

CETHEGUS.
A year is nothing.

CATILINE.
'Tis fix'd!—Past talking now!—By Tartarus!
From this curst day I seek and sue no more:
If there be suing, it shall be by those
Who have awoke the fever in my veins.
No matter!—Nobles, when we deign to kneel,
We should be trampled on. Sinews and swords,—
They're the true canvassers:—The time may come!—
Never for me!—My name 's extinguished—dead—
Roman no more,—the rabble of the streets
Have seen me humbled,—slaves may gibe at me.

LENTULUS.
Then Cicero's victor.

CETHEGUS
(repelling him).
Let him rest.—Away!

CATILINE
(musing).
Crime may be clear'd, and sorrow's eyes be dried;
The lowliest poverty be gilded yet;
The neck of airless, pale imprisonment
Be lighten'd of its chains! For all the ills
That chance or nature lays upon our heads,
In chance or nature there is found a cure:
But self-abasement is beyond all cure!
The brand is there, burn'd in the living flesh,
That bears its mark to the grave:—That dagger's plunged
Into the central pulses of the heart;
The act is the mind's suicide, for which
There is no after-health—no hope—no pardon!—
My day is done. What stops the feast?—Come on.

[Exeunt.