 | The Banishment of Cicero |  |
SCENE I.
CLODIUS, Enters alone.
Romans, you have your wish; at length you've found
A Tribune; one, who knows your brutal lust
For civil slaughter, and will sate its rage
On the first Spirits of imperial Rome.
I saw you, as you rent your throats for Clodius,
How vulture-like you turn'd aloft in air
Your carrion beaks, and snuft the winds for prey:
And ye shall have it; to the lips in blood,
Patrician blood, I'll steep you; till the days
Of Gracchus shall look white compar'd to mine,
Now Aulus—
Enter A. Gabinius, Consul.
6
Happiness and length of days
Wait on our Tribune, and my noble Friend!
CLODIUS.
Why how now, Consul, these are terms of office,
And savour of the Fasces.
GABINIUS.
Pass on there.
Exeunt Lictors, &c.
CLODIUS.
And now, my Friend, how looks the day abroad?
GABINIUS.
To you clear and propitious; to your foes,
And that old scoffing pedant Cicero,
Louring and mournful, as the garb he wears.
CLODIUS.
Say'st thou the garb?
GABINIUS.
Why, he hath put on black;
Know you not that? Caius, and all the rest;
The whole Tribe mourns; Terentia too—
CLODIUS.
'Tis well;
'Tis as I wisht it.
GABINIUS.
Your new law condemns him,
Which interdicts the elemental uses,
To whomsoever shall have put to death
A Citizen untried.
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'Tis not the law,
But he himself by this unmanly act
That doth himself condemn: Weak, shallow coward!
I would have had his ruin my own work;
But he runs on my toils, as if he meant
To be my rival in his own destruction.
GABINIUS.
Hear thou this, Catiline! and ye that bled
At the proud Consul's bidding!
CLODIUS.
Yes, Gabinius,
In my revenge the dead themselves shall join;
And by the quick'ning powers of vengeance rous'd,
The ashes of your brave friend Catiline
Shall leap and burst their urn.
GABINIUS.
He was my Friend,
My brave, unhappy, much-lamented Friend;
With pride I own it: Oh! were this the day,
When, with my foot on yon proud Pleader's neck,
I might proclaim it in the Senate's face,
Up to the beard of Cato.
CLODIUS.
Soft you now;
I hold the Senate as our Friends, Gabinius.
GABINIUS.
Hang 'em, dull herd, they're each man's friends by turns,
The latest speaker ever has their voices.
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By dealing forth his own applause amongst them,
And his stale cant of Danger to the State,
Had almost wrought his hearers to the pitch
Of driving Publius Clodius forth from Rome,
The Enemy' of his Country.
CLODIUS.
Hah! Where met they?
GABINIUS.
I' the Fane of Concord.
CLODIUS.
Fane of Concord say'st thou?
I tell thee, Aulus, in that very spot,
Which now they call of Concord, but which soon
Shall prove the scene of civil desolation;
I will make fat the dogs of Rome with slaughter,
E're I will move one foot from out these walls
At their audacious bidding.
GABINIUS.
Fear it not;
Their tumult had the life but of a moment;
When strait they fell to prayers and abject tears,
Which I with scorn repuls'd; whereat enrag'd,
Uprose the Tribune Ninnius, and mov'd
That that august Assembly should adopt
The same dark weeds which Marcus Tullius wore,
And dignify his sorrows with their own.
CLODIUS.
The Senate mourn for Cicero? For Cicero
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In each base palm, (O wavering worthless Senate)
For him to reap the harvest of my hopes?
My curses on the name!
GABINIUS.
Why rave you thus?
And what am I? hath not my edict power
To shake the Senate from their feeble votes?
And it hath done it; from the Rostrum's height
I have denounc'd my war upon their heads:
I've silenc'd Lucius Lamia's saucy tongue;
Two hundred miles from Rome the exile wanders:
And what more aweful is there in the name
Of Cicero, than Lamia? O my Publius,
Leave we to prey upon the wretched limbs,
And at the head and vital source of all,
Strike; there direct one bold decisive blow,
And live at large hereafter.
CLODIUS.
Greatly said!
Thy Friendship's warm and animating spirit,
Breath'd on my ripening projects, calls 'em forth
To full-grown life, in the same fruitful period
At once conceiv'd and born; and therefore, Aulus,
Thou shalt receive a fruitful recompence;
Not bare Cilicia; but a richer lot,
Syria, the wealthiest province of the state,
Shall crown thy fortune, shall repair the breach
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That else might fasten on thy naked state,
And pull thee down to shame.—Of this enough,
This saucy Tribune Ninnius.—'Tis well;
'Tis well. O Memory register that deed!
Yet what of that? Contemptuous silence quell'd
The vain light thought, and the rash project fell
With its first mover.
GABINIUS.
Couldst thou think it, friend,
That many of the first esteemed note,
Curio, Hortensius, and the old stoic Cato,
Aided the hateful motion? Weak indeed
His single voice; but, spreading as it roll'd,
It came upon us like the gathering thunder,
And the low murmur swell'd into a storm.
CLODIUS.
Are they so rank? And hath old Cato then
Forgot his rugged nature, and become
Fawning and smooth? To Marcus Tullius smooth?
Oh! I could burst with spleen.
GABINIUS.
No, Clodius, no:
Cato is still severe, is still himself;
Rough and unshaven in his squalid garb,
He told us he had long in anguish mourn'd,
Not in a private but the public cause;
Not for the wrong of one, but wrong of all,
Of Liberty, of Virtue, and of Rome.
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No more, I sleep o'er Cato's drowsy theme:
He is the Senate's drone, and dreams of Liberty,
When Rome's vast Empire is set up to sale,
And portion'd out to each ambitious bidder
In marketable lots.—But now proceed;
Give me more names; these many I have wrote
Deep in the vengeful tablets of my heart.
GABINIUS.
Then in the front and foremost page of all
Print deep in everlasting characters,
The hated name of Milo; his alone,
When every other eye was red with tears,
His only burnt with hot and scalding rage;
He hates thee, Clodius; and when all were loud
For mourning, he with a disdainful air
Throwing his mantle by, in public view
Shew'd them his mailed corselet, bid 'em mark it;
For 'twas a Roman's dress; their sable scarves,
Them, as he said, he left to puling maids
And sedentary widows.
CLODIUS.
O Gabinius,
Let me not hear it; in the world there lives not
One, whom my soul holds in such perfect hate
As that same Milo. How it is I know not,
But by the Gods he awes my very blood;
Therefore no more of him.—What said my Cæsar?
Tell me how look'd the rising Sun of Rome?
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What, know you not that Cæsar's new command
Forbids his entrance into Rome?
CLODIUS.
'Tis true:
But Pompey—
GABINIUS.
Oh! who shall attempt to read
In Pompey's face the movements of his heart?
The same calm artificial look of state,
His half-clos'd eyes in self-attention wrapt
Serve him alike to mask unseemly joy,
Or hide the pangs of envy and revenge.
CLODIUS.
See, yonder your old collegue Piso comes—
But name Hypocrisy and he appears;
How like his Grandsire's monument he looks?
He wears the dress of holy Numa's days,
The brow and beard of Zeno; trace him home,
You'll find his house the school of vice and lust,
The foulest sink of Epicurus' stye
And him the rankest swine of all the herd.
| The Banishment of Cicero | |