University of Virginia Library

Scene V.

At the Eastern Gate. Alarums, Excusions.
Enter Brangonar.
BRANGONAR.
Self-slaughter is no refuge for the great.
Cæsar could not have slain himself: he was
Too large a man. Such willful death he left
To a foiled Brutus, and the like of him.
Death seemed just now to shun me; for he struck,
Close by my side, the old and young; but me
He grazed not even with his fiery shaft.
His aim I neither courted nor avoided.
I have not sought the desperado's end.
Despair I know not, what so be my state.
I 've striven to shape events, nor striven in vain:
If they bend not, no more do I to them.
They may beat 'round me—me, my inmost self,
They cannot shake. The structure I have reared,
This gorgeous Empire, that lies low e'en now,
Razed quickly to the ground, as if there were,—
Shot from the limits of the heaving earth,—
A score tornados, black, concentric, swift,
All seeking one attractive centre,—me.
But me they touch not; nor can coarse oblivion,
With sultry breath, breathe dimness on my name.
Come what come will this day, I am a might
In History, a power, a theme immense,
A towering shaft deep founded in men's thoughts.—

Enter in haste an Aide-de-Camp.
AIDE-DE-CAMP.
Sire, we 're o'erpowered by numbers. All is lost.
Fly, Sire, fly: they'll be on us—here they are.
Fly, Sire, fly.

[Brangonar stands unmoved as the enemy, from the back of the stage, make towards him. A shout is heard from the side behind Brangonar, and, just as the assailants are about to seize him, enter Lovéro with soldiers who drive them back.
BRANGONAR.
Ha! Lovéro! You, Lovéro!
But for your coming I had now been taken.

LOVÉRO.
Your cause and mine are one again to-day.

BRANGONAR.
Give me your hand.—Till now I have not known you.
It had been better had I known you better.

LOVÉRO.
Fly, fly from this: we cannot hold this post.

[The enemy return and make at Brangonar, when Lovéro throws himself before him just in time to save him, and is himself struck down. His men rush to his side as he falls, and drive out the assailants.
BRANGONAR.
Lovéro! Lovéro!

LOVÉRO.
Too late—too late: fly—fly.

[Dies.
[The aide-de-camp seizes Brangonar, and with help of the soldiers, hurries him off, and then returns.
AIDE-DE-CAMP,
to the soldiers.
Take up your Captain's body. Nobler soul
Never took flight to heaven.
[Soldiers take up the body and bear it off.
This is a day!
A day marked in the annals of mankind
With exclamations from all future tongues.

[Exit.