University of Virginia Library

ACT. II.

SCEN. I.

A Noise of Mutiny.
PERPENNA.
Perp.
Hell, and Confusion! how they rend the Air
With endless clamors! Angry Elements,
When meeting, cannot form a sound, that bears
More horror in't: No voice but cries aloud,
Lead to Sertorius! which the Traytress eccho
From off the Hills reverberates, and makes
No sound but his combat the yielding Air.
Oh, giddy Fortune, and uncertain Chance,
Upon whose slipp'ry path I've trod so long,
Into what Maze you've led me! Must I live
To see my self bereav'd of Fame, to plume
The Minion that I hate?—Ha! who art thou,
That bring'st a terror with thee?

SCEN. II.

Aufidius, Perpenna.
Auf.
A Friend, Perpenna:
Who bids his General fly; or else submit
To lay the Storm, by your consent to march.
All arguments are vain; wounds but inflame
Their burning rage, and turn into despair
What hope could form. Hark how the Tempest roars,
As if they meant to force consent from Jove!
By strenuous voices so impulse the Air,
As make Convulsions in his Starry Orb!

SCEN. III.

A confus'd Noise within.
Grecinus, Perpenna, Aufidius.
Grec.
Cease to consider, if you mean to live.
So breaks the Sea, through the opposing banks,
And with its Torrent headlong rushes Fate:
Your Friends are, to their fury, Sacrific'd;
No argument but Swords, no speech but Blows,
Plead resolution to go on through Fate.

SCEN. IV.

Repeated Noises.
A Centurion to them.
Cent.
Perpenna, so I was commanded call thee,
For the incensed Souldiers swear to chuse,
From out the Legions, Chiefs, and form a Head
That shall to Osca lead their Warlike Bands.
Metellus, and young Pompey, they despise;
And to Sertorius fame are Proselytes:
Say, whether Concord to the Armed croud
Thou send'st in salutation, or Neglect?

Perp.
If that my memory fails not, thou art he,
When all the Cohorts bent to mutiny
In the Apulian fields, killing the Slave
Ambitious to be heard, didst lay the Storm:
How art thou chang'd! how lost from what thou wert!
Those Silver hairs, wain'd in the Roman Camp,
Should be example of her Discipline;
Not head of factious Slaves against their Lord,
Who made 'em what they are.

Cent.
Thus low, I bow
To great Perpenna, as my General.
VVhen the rash Croud mov'd with the Face of Death,
Lest some Officious Slave, inur'd to noise,
Plebeiac sport, wrought up the mischief higher;
I took this shape upon me, and must beg
(Hower'e the boldness they compell'd me to
Relish your sense) you would give way to join
Whom public Fame speaks loud: They all concur,
If you resist, to give you bound and chain'd
Unto the Lusitanian General.
Be speedy, e're the happy hour is fled.

Auf.
Necessity compels; you must obey.

Perp.
Did I not fear (for I'm my self secure)
My Fulvia's harm, th'insulting Slaves should feel
Alcides labors dwelt upon my Sword:
But, since ill Chance sits heavy on my Fate,
Fly hence, my Friends, use all your art and pow'r,
Let Hermes dictate, and the Gods inspire;
Take with you this good man, and tell the Throng,
Perpenna condescends to lead 'em on:
Speak all the taking words that can be thought,
And Reign for ever in Perpenna's brest.

Cent.
Fear not success: this news, like Balm to wounds,
Will lay the anguish, and set free their doubt.

[Exeunt.

SCEN. V.

PERPENNA.
Perp.
VVas there no way to pass the Labyrinth?
No subtil Clue the mystic path to find?
You partial Gods, why Crown'd you with success?
Was it to add to th'Laurels which he wears?
Now, by the juster Pow'rs that war within,
And make a Tempest in my Soul, he dyes.
Not angry Dæmons, to subvert the World
To ancient Chaos, and inlarge their Rule,
Wrapt in the darkest Clouds too strong for light,
The ample Character of Hell's design:
Mine greater, more secure. Hypocrisie,
Thou smoothest Devil that can Gods beguile,
Rule in my brain; and dictate to my sense
Mischiefs, excelling Heav'n or Hell to forge.

SCEN. VI.

Fulvia, Perpenna.
Ful.
VVhy all this Tempest, Cneius? Look o're Fate;
And, from the Brasen Volumes, rase the hour
That threatens ruin. Are you mute at this?
Could you, like Hercules, perform anew
His Hydra-labour, it were certain hope;
But gainst the VVinds and Seas usurping rage,
Like Mariners within the giddy Bark,
Mix words with Air, and execrate in vain,
To great men is ignoble: Ebs and Flows
Of Earthly bliss, should to the noble prove
Like the fixt Rocks i'th' VVatry Element.

Perp.
So fir'd Prometheus Image with the Flame
Stoln from Apollo's Car, as at this sound
Those wave'ring thoughts which mutiny'd within
Vapor to Air, as Mysts before the Sun:
Thou chid'st my Fair; but with the famed art
That Orpheus drew Eurydice from Hell;
Thy words, like Charms, make me adore thy form,
And pay thee, Mortal, worship that's Divine.
Say, thou, my life, and be as Oracle;
VVhile thy Perpenna, substitute to thee,
Grows with the sound.

Ful.
Must I then Counsel give,
And form the thought that must evade ill Chance?
Since Heav'n and thee concurring will it so,
Unite Sertorius pow'r, and dissipate
Those clouds of Fury which usurp thy Face:
Ill Angels hover o're despairing men
And breed a mutiny within the Soul;
VVhile the good Spirits act in will alone,
Sigh out their woes and lose their words in Air,
Imperfect sound. None but the wretched feed
On abject hope: for God-like men create,
From the extreams of ruine, certain bliss.
So the skill'd Sea-man, at vast distance knows
When the Salt Surges war the Element:
Incluse within the noble Vessel, braves
The angry Seas, tho ruffled to a storm.

Perp.
Oh Fulvia, 'tis the torture of the damn'd
To rack with thought of Paradise that's lost;
But thou, as when the spangled lights are hid,
And all the Heav'ns in darkness are array'd,
Mortals distract with fear of endless night,
Till the bright Sun does usher in the day:
Half dead, twixt doubt and fear, thou giv'st new life,
And call'st from exile all my Reason back.
There's something thunders in my Ears, revenge,
Pierces like Lightning; but has left its fire
Fixt in my brest, which like to Ætna burns.

Ful.
Let it burn on; it is a noble fire;
And, in the blaze, let the great Hero fall:
Make Lusitania the Funeral Pile,
Her Cities, Sructures Temples, perish all,
And from the fire let greatness take its birth.

Perp.
Let me embrace thee, O thou Excellence!
Whose words have rais'd a fury in my brest
Prompt to revenge; but yet so form'd, so wrought,
That Gods may wonder, and not Fate prevent.
Yes, we will meet Sertorius; to his bane;
And in a dubious language wrought with guile,
Merit belief: till, most secure, he falls.
So when Serenity of air by heat
Becoms perspicuous, and the azure skye
The jarring Element of Fire reflects;
Through subtlest wounds the Soul her passage takes
And leaves the Body sensless of her flight:
So shall Sertorius fall, such is his Fate,
No Thunder shall fore-run the deadly flash.

Ful.
Now thou art worthy of my love, and court'st
In Treasure that surmounts a Danae's showr:
My soul's transplanted in thy brest, and forms
A God-like thought, apt to a Pow'r supream:
Seated by thee, I view the lower VVorld,
The brood of Chance, like giddy Atoms reel;
VVhile, like the Gods, we scatter, or collect,

[Exeunt.

SCEN. VII.

CASSIUS.
Cass.
VVhat strange Infection rules within my brest,
And Riots in my blood? Not liquid fire,
By its first cause fomented, burns more fierce
In the Earths Center, than I flame within.
'Twere better, Cassius, to unsheath thy Sword,
And open all the fluces of thy life;
That, in a deluge to the other world,
Thy blood may still the Furies, and thy Soul
VVander an Exile in Elizium shades.
'Sdeath, how was it begotten? so impure,
I dare not give it name. You Fates unkind,
VVhy doom'd you love in so sinister way?
Now, my ill Dæmon whispers in my Soul
I must love on, and live. Ha! see, she coms!

SCEN. VIII.

Terentia, Cassius.
Ter.
Are you not well, my Lord, that you retire
From the society of Friends? we're now
Beyond the barbarous extents of Rome;
Forget the base Proscribing City, and
W' inhabit, and enjoy a Paradise.
What sullen thought can then usurp your brest?
If in Sertorius pow'r, or mine, it lyes,
Your merit pleads, and Friendship bids command.

Cass.
Nor you, nor he must grant; the gift's so great,
And my ambition swell'd to such a height,
None but the only Jewel of his Crown
Will calm the rage of warring passions here.
(What have I said? what Devil did inspire
With words so killing to my Fame? I'm lost;
Hurry'd to ruin, by resistless Charms.)

[Aside.
Ter.
Ransack his Tresury, and call it yours;
Did it contain more wealth than India knows:
No gift can equal such a Friend as you.

Cass.
Ah, Madam, you're so excellently good,
Plac'd in a Sphere remote, beyond the World;
But wretched I, wander in endless night,
And hate the Day, which brought my misery.
In vain I hope redress; in vain complain
Unto the Air; large floods of brinish tears
With sighs, commix:—(Heav'n, strike me dumb for ever,)
Or I shall tell the Cause of all my griefs;
And, with it, bring inevitable Fate!

[Aside.
Ter.
'Tis wondrous strange! But; Cassius, I must know
From what hid Spring these mighty Torrents rise.
I always thought you worthy, and would strive,
Knew I but how, to ease these fits of grief:
You said, a Jewel; can a Toy, like that,
Render confus'd the nobleness of mind?
Cassius is wiser; and, I fear, has felt
The change of quiet, by his Country's change:
Met some obdurate Fair, inur'd to scorn,
Stranger unto your worth. Is't not from thence?
Tell me; and, by our Friendship, were she Flint,
Harder than Adamant, I'd melt her brest;
Infuse into her Soul the pangs of Love,
And make her proud to merit such a choice.

Cass.
(Something I fain would say; but when my words
Do croud for utt'rance, they're confus'd and lost.
I will—yet I will not—Death here shall rule,
E're I the fatal Secret do reveal.)
[Aside.
Your pity, Madam's ill bestow'd on me,
Who labor under the extreams of Fate,
Foresee the Goal which I shall ne're arrive,
And languish in the sight of Heav'n I wish:
Yet, there is somthing, in your words, creates
A kind of quiet here, and rest unknown,
Allays the mutiny of warring thoughts,
And breaks, like light, thorough my Chaos sense.

Ter.
Give me your hand; consider as we go;
If I am worthy of the secret Cause,
Fear not success; I'll be your Advocate:
Or, if a Kingdom's loss can buy your peace,
Sertorius, to regain a Friend like you,
With hands profuse would slight the gaudy Rule,
And, in th'extreams of Friendship, prove a Friend.

Cass.
Upon the utmost rim of Earth I stand;
And, the least motion, down the Precipice
Headlong I fall, giddy with doubts and fears:
I see my Fate, but cannot Fate prevent.

[Exeunt.

SCEN. IX.

Drums and Trumpets.
On the one side, Bebricius, with Lusitanians: On the other, Aufidius, with Romans, Crown'd with Garlands, and Olive-Branches in their hands.
Auf.
Health to Sertorius, Perpenna sends,
Union, and Concord, Palms, and Olive-Crowns,
Trophies and Spoils, ta'ne from the tawny Gauls:
The pledg of Friendship, bonds of Unity.

Bebr.
A Roman constancy and Faith, commends
The great Sertorius; proud of such Ally.
Open the Phalanx; sound the voice of War:
And fill the Heav'ns with Battel-harmony.

SCEN. X.

Loud shouts: a Flourish.
Lictors, bearing Fasces; Roman Officers; then Sertorius; attended by Cassius, Norbanus, Crassus, Ligurius. Is met in like manner by Perpenna, attended by Manlius, Grecinus, &c. They view each other.
Perp.
Fame, which to mighty deeds extends her wings,
Has, from the Confines of wide-spreading Gaul,
To view a Man famous as ancient Gods,
Drawn me Perpenna, to admire thy Fate.
Nor find I less than what I sought; a Man,
Great as the Founder of Imperial Rome:
Who, like a God, does with his presence awe.
Give here our Standard, now no more our own;
Lictors, your Fasces prostrate at his feet;
And all you Chiefs, which own'd me for your head,
Pay here Allegiance: for Perpenna vows,
By the blest light which guilds the Day, he lives
Wholly devoted to Sertorius will.

Sert.
You make me blush through all my honour'd Scars,
Naming my deeds, which are by your's eclips'd;
The Starry Light, to Cynthia's Orb compar'd:
Believe me, noble Roman, I'm more proud
Of this Days honour, by so fam'd a man;
That all the glories of my life fall short,
When this is nam'd. Bear high the Fasces still,
and let the lofty Eagle raise her Crest;
For, by the loves and lives of all my Friends,
Sertorius bows to so much Fortitude.

Perp.
Now, by the God which bears the name of War,
His mighty Soul's transplanted in thy brest:
The Shields of Rome, are forg'd, Metallic dross;
Thou only Patriot, exil'd in a Storm
Of Brutal rage: Fabius, Camillus, all
The noblest Spirits inhabit in thy mind;
And, while I praise thy Virtue, thoughts Divine
Possess my Brain, and elevate my Soul.

Sert.
We're Men, Perpenna; Men, by Fate chose out
To lanch through all the Terrors of the World;
Frail, mortal Men, subject to every Chance:
And while we praise our selves, we rob the Gods,
Let it suffice I am thy Virtue's Creature:
For, by the Gods, I covet to be thine.
Bebricius, Cassius, noblest Friends, come on,
And, with the Gordian-knot of Friendship, tye
[Shouts, and Trumpets, &c. They all embrace.
This mighty Union—Now, let Pompey come,
Metellus, or the source of Civil War,
Sylla, attended with his dire effects;
Like angry Gods, we'l hurl destruction down;
Blast all their hopes, and scatter all their pow'r:
For Heav'n in this secures the worst of Fate,
And marks it out the raising of our Swords.

Perp.
Where e're Sertorius leads, so winds break loose;
Both Air and Earth suffer Convulsive fits:
Not angry Parcæ, mounted on a Plague,
In greater numbers kill, than where thy Sword
Points out the fatal compass, and makes way;
Like loudest Bolts forg'd by the Cyclops hands,
The mighty weapons of an angry Jove.
Proud to obey the Legions stand; their Chiefs
Glow Ætna like, and courage fills the Nerves,
While the hot-Will only the Signal waits.

Sert.
When brave Perpenna leads the coldest Soul
With Emulative Virtue Flames, and courts
The dismal'st objects, and the sharpest fights;
And when the noble Bird of Jove soars high,
The Pyes, and flocks of chatt'ring Jayes disperse,
Beat on the wing, and court the Mountains womb,
And Rocky Cliffs, for Shelter. Give command
The Salij enter, to perform those Rites
Apt to the will of Heav'n, and lives of Men.

SCEN. XI.

An Altar discover'd. Enter the Flamen of Mars, attended by the Salij. While Sertorius and Perpenna stand on each side the Altar, is Sung this SONG.
Here the Incense is lighted on the Altar; Sertorius and Perpenna shake hands over the smoke: the Salij Dancing a Warlike dance, to the honor of Mars.
Sert.
Bebricius, hast to Osca; Summon all
The Roman Orders, to the Sacred place
Of Jupiter Feretrius: There assembled,
In a full Senate, tell the Conscript Fathers,
Sertorius leads their Pow'r to Sucron Fields;
And Heav'n indulgent, with a mighty force
Whom fam'd Perpenna to their Army joyns,
Eager for fight, as famish'd men for food,
Hasts to revenge on the Tyrannic Fo.
Then, to Terentia thy self address;
Say, that Sertorius invocates the hours
Swiftly to move the Orb which rules the Day,
And fleetest Time counts tardy in his flight,
Till the long'd minute ushers my return.

Bebr.
None more can covet to obey, than I;
Tho the great Goddess I adore comes on,
Fiercest Bellona, whom in bloud I court:
But, such the Magic is which Friendship holds,
I'll fly to Osca and neglect the Day.

Perp.
to Auf.
Yet hold thy hasty steps, till Cneius speaks.
Bring Fulvia hither, thou my best of Friends,
In Battel often try'd, as Gold by fire,
But far out-stripping Plutus Mines of Ore.
[Ex. Auf.
Let me intreat the mighty man of War,
[To Sert.
When he the weakness of Perpenna knows,
That he'd forget the frailty of that man
Whose silent hours (if such the Great can know)
Are fetter'd with the Charms of pow'rful Love:
Our Patron Mars oft, from his Seat of War,
To Revel with the beauteous Queen of Love,
Forgets his best-lov'd sound for soft embrace.
But see, she coms! now let her beauty plead.

SCEN. XII.

Fulvia, to them.
Sert.
By Venus self, there's more than mortal in her!
Perpenna cannot err; for joyes he reaps,
The Amorous Gods would slight their gaudy Sky,
And covet to enjoy her Heav'n of Love.

Perp.
So Mortals to the Sacred Fane resort,
Latona's Son Invoking for success;
With greater heat, when Battel calls, go on,
As in thy presence: such the pow'rful sway
Of Beauty's Empire. Doubtful of my Fate,
And from thy Tongue, as from an Oracle,
Expect my Doom: Pompey, Metellus, brave
The noblest Roman; to whose Fate's ally'd
All the remains Perpenna can command.

Ful.
Absence, my Cneius, is the Lover's curse;
The Rack of Torture: yet, when Honor calls,
Thy Fulvia's Rival, sense of Fame grows high,
Pleads in thy cause, and for a space keeps down
A floud of tears, which take their source from Love.
The fate of Lovers should inseperate be;
But thou, the killing Terrors to our Sex
Mak'st thy Companions; and, in Arms, forget'st
Thy sorrowing Fulvia: who, like Niobe,
Could weep away the Being that I have.

Perp.
Give not a birth to thoughts like these, my life;
For, when the Trumpet hastens to the Charge,
Death broods upon my Sword, till from the Field
Spred o're with slain, with Laurel Crown'd I hast
To pay the glories at my Fulvia's feet.
Thou, as the Tresure of my life, my Soul,
Must hence to Osca: this brave Stranger here
And stout Grecinus wait thee way.

Cass.
aside.
The envious Gods, which plesure in our pain,
Have given the happy minute from my hope.
Oh, my Terentia! bloud nor death can lay
The mighty anguish that thy eyes have made.

Ful.
One look, before I go, and that's the last:
The tast of parting joys so much increase,
That I could gaze my very Soul away.

Perp.
Such pow'r, the God pointed within that Ray,
Has chang'd the thought of Battel to desire,
And a few minutes would transform me quite

Sert.
Sound Drums, and Trumpets; Rise, you noble Souls,
Fir'd with the harmony of sounds so sweet:
Let corage dictate, and your Swords out-do
The angry Fates. To Arms, my Friends; to Arms:
Oh, may the Fortune of the Day lay wast
The many mischiefs which attend on War,
While the kind Gods auspiciously afford
A blooming Peace, to Crown the Victor's Sword.

[Exeunt.