University of Virginia Library

What would you have, my Lucius? Here our wits,
Which you in Rome keep ever sharp and bright
By constant use, are blunted, and the sword
Clings to the scabbard, only to be drawn
Too late. Oh, thus and thus I should have spoken
And thus I should have done. How cleverly
We manage, when we sit down by the fire,
And, having all the dialogue to ourselves,
We find the answer pat, which does not come
I' th' strain of acting! But you do not know
This people—Would I were like you in that!
“Are they dull-brained, these Jews, then? Are there none
To whet your wits upon, and keep them keen?
No crafty priest to fence with—demagogue
To trip up in his talk—no politic
Schemer to countermine — or wily lawyer
To follow through his trick and artifice
Of rhetoric, and exercise the brain
We used to think a good one?” Plenty of them,
Priests, plotters, demagogues as thick as flies
In Egypt, and like flies they settle on
Your eyes to sting and blind them. But they are not
Like other men. You cannot count upon
Their motives, or their methods, or their aims.
What they may love, and what they may abhor,
The oaths that bind them, or the gods they fear,
All are most strange and baffling. 'Tis as if
You dealt with beings of another world
Whose passions are not ours, whose ways of thinking
Are alien to our modes. The strangest people!
So pious and so wicked! methodical
In lying, with a reason always ready,
Yet full of contradictions, as the way
Of lying is apt to be even in adepts;
And they are deep practitioners. Then, too, Cæsar
Distrusts me, and when I have served him best,
Lo, comes a deputation of these Jews,
Whose women throng the backstairs of the palace,
Backed by their money-lending Trastiveres,
And every one a traitor at his heart,
Impeaching me of rapine and of blood,
And thereon comes a rescript. What can I,
But let them plot, looking as if I saw
Mere loyal service, till the plot be ripe,
Then crush them with my legions? Only force
Can rule this beastly Plebs, and their worse leaders;
And Cæsar, if he knew them as I do,
Would leave the Gauls and Britons, and let loose
The sword upon these Hebrews. Oh to be—
But for my hungry creditors—once more
I' the Campus Martius on unruliest steed,
Or scouring the Campania, rather than
Managing these cursèd Jews! I've lost my nerve
Among them—yet their daughters are most fair.