University of Virginia Library

SCENE I.

Verres's Palace.
RUBRIUS, APRONIUS, SESTIUS.
Rubrius.
Ha! our old harbinger! How is't, Apronius?

Apronius.
Glad you're arriv'd: How fare you, Rubrius?
Sestius, I'm yours; welcome to Lampsacus.

Sestius.
Thank you, Apronius: You arriv'd before us?

Apronius.
Ay, these ten days, to order your reception.
But where's the Legate, that I see him not?

Rubrius.
Reposing after the fatigue of journey.

Apronius.
Fatigue! why, his sedan steps with that smoothness,
So stuff'd with cushions, that he rather seems
To float upon the air, than move on earth.

Sestius.
You know his delicacy, to what height
He has improv'd that science, whose perfection
Consists in picking cause of discontent,
Fatigue, and disappointment, where we gross ones,
Thanks to our want of taste, meet satisfaction.

Rubrius.
Why, he was sour'd but at the last relay,
Because the country round about could furnish
Only some two poor bushels of fresh roses,
Hardly enough to arm his queasy sense
Against eight sturdy. Cappadocian slaves,
Who melted as they bore along his litter.

Apronius.
Well, are your purses cramm'd? You have not serv'd
Under so great a master in the art
Of plund'ring, to return with empty hands?

Sestius.
Ask Rubrius there, he is an able workman;
I'm but a 'prentice, and can only pilfer.

Rubrius.
Nothing to boast of, yet not much amiss.
The legate kept t'himself king Nicomedes,
As a right royal dish, and only serv'd
To his own mess, where we were not to feed:
And he has pick'd him to the bone, nay suck'd
His very marrow. Irus might be richer
Than Asia's monarch now.

Apronius.
At least in vermin.
I like your prudence; while you fleec'd the court,
But spar'd the people, you ensur'd their love.

Rubrius.
Ensur'd their love! say you? ensur'd their love!
If plague, war, famine, shipwreck may be lov'd,
Then we may have our share on't, and not else.

Sestius.
How stand your lists for pillage, and for women?
For let me tell you, he's sharp set on both.
You need not doubt but he'll inquire for them
Soon as he sees you.

Rubrius.
But, Apronius,
What is the present state of vice and villany
In Lampsacus?

Apronius.
In little, as at Rome,
The great are vicious openly, 'bove fear
Of the law's rod, which humbly bows before them,
As your mine-searchers say their hazle twig
Stoops to the latent gold beneath. Again,
The middle rank is vicious out of pride,
Copying the larger manners of their betters,
Ev'n till they swell their narrowness to bursting.
The trading sort are honest, their indentures
Invest them with the privilege to cozen us.

Sestius.
What no more honesty alive than this?

Apronius.
Alive! she died a beggar unreliev'd.

Rubrius.
So! we may fancy then ourselves at home,
Since vice stalks unreprov'd here.

Apronius.
Your philosophers
Subsist by daily holding forth against it,
And, in mere gratitude, at night indulge in it.

Sestius.
Apronius, you say nothing to the women.

Apronius.
Pooh! they are here, as in all other places.
Why, there's no variation in the sex
But what dress makes: their bodies stripp'd of that,
(And could one see their souls stripp'd of their bodies)
One could not know an empress from an housemaid.

Rubrius.
Now, you're severe—

Sestius.
Hush! here the legate comes.