Boadicia :: :: University of Virginia Library

That louring brow, and hear a suppliant sister!
So prone to errour is our mortal frame,
Time could not step without a trace of horrour,
If wary nature on the human heart
Amid its wild variety of passions
Had not impress'd a soft and yielding sense,
That when offences give resentment birth,
The kindly dews of penitence may raise
The seeds of mutual mercy and forgiveness.

Boadicia.
Weak wretch, and yet whose impotence aspires
To mix in warlike councils, and determine
The fate of captives, won in fields of death,
Thou wouldst do better to reserve thy tears;
Thou shall't have cause for penitential torrents.

Venusia.
They will not wait a second birth of woe;
At thy severity they burst already.
Why turns on me that formidable aspect,
Wont with commanding sternness to behold
Its foes abash'd, and victory its vassal?
Yet how much brighter is the wreath of glory,
When interwove with clemency and justice.
Thou go'st to battle, there obtain renown;
But learn compassion from my tears, nor think,
Benignity enfeebles, or dishonours
The most exalted valour.

Boadicia.
Shall the tears
Of abject importunity detain me,
While vengeance, striding from his grizly den,
With fell impatience grinds his iron teeth,
And waits my nod to satisfy his hunger.
Hence to th'employment of thy feeble distaff.

Venusia.
Not skill'd, like thee, in war's ennobling toils,
Inferiour praise, and humbler tasks I court,
And own my safety in thy loftier virtues;

Yet not like thee, with unforgiving wrath
Could I resign a sister to her grief
At this tremendous hour, so near deciding
The fate of both. One gentle word bestow,
And I will leave thee with obedient haste;
Nay I will seek the altars, and request,
That in the future triumphs of this day
Heav'n may refuse to Dumnorix a share,
And give thee all.

Boadicia.
Does Dumnorix consent
To sacrifice the Romans? art thou mute?
Still does he brave me? but your favour'd captives
Shall not escape. They soon shall join the victims,
Which this unconquer'd jav'lin shall reserve
To solemnize the fall of Rome's dominion.
Then to my glory Dumnorix shall bend.
In sight of Britain shall his baffled pride
The pomp of public sacrifice behold,
Behold and pine. You take a band of soldiers;
[To an Icenian.
Watch well around the Trinobantian tents,
And guard these Romans, as your lives. I tell thee,
[To Venus.
Their gore shall yet besmear Andate's altar.

Venusia.
In silent awe I heard thy first resentment,
Yet hop'd the well known accents of affection,
In kindness whisper'd to thy secret ear,
Might to thy breast recal its exil'd pity,
That gentle inmate of a woman's heart.

Boadicia.
Durst thou, presumptuous, entertain a thought
To give this bosom, nerv'd with manly strength,
The weak sensations of a female spirit?

Venusia.
When I remind thy elevated soul,

That we by mutual interests are but one,
And by th'indissoluble ties of birth,
Are those sensations weak, which nature prompts?
With justice strenthen'd, can her pow'rful voice
Find no persuasion.—

Boadicia.
None. Provoke no more
With plaintive murmurs my indignant ear.
Thou, and thy husband, authors of my shame
Before th'assembled chiefs, may rest assur'd,
No prayers shall soften, no attonement bribe,
And no submission shall appease the wrong.
May desolation trample on my dwelling
A second time, rapacious force again,
And insult revel through my inmost chambers,
If I forgive you. Thou hast food for anguish;
Go, and indulge its appetite at leisure.

Venusia.
Yes, I will hasten to the holy shrine,
There wring my hands, and melt in copious sorrow
Not for my injur'd self, but thee remorseless,
To mourn thy faded honours, which, deform'd
By harsh injustice to thy blameless friends,
Ne'er will revive in beauty. Not success,
Not trophies rising round thee; not the throng
Of circling captives, and their conquer'd standards,
Nor glorious dust of victory can hide
From just reproach thy unrelenting scorn,
While none deplore thee, but the wrong'd Venusia.