 | The Tragedy of Sertorius |  |
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
23
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.
| The Tragedy of Sertorius | |