University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

Enter PHILODAMUS, EPICRATES, PHILIPPUS, and Audience.
Philippus starts on seeing Verres.
Dolabella.
We sit not here to have our ears fatigu'd
With set orations from yourselves; much less
With the stale subterfuges of hir'd advocates,
Who, dodging thro' a thousand circumstances,
Hope, in the course of a long-winded argument,
Obscure, traverse, involv'd, to warp the judgment.
Which way they please, when they've bewilder'd sense.
This matter needs no arguing, and no witnesses,
Unless you chuse the body of Cornelius,
A Roman citizen, slain by your hands,
Beneath your roof, should be produc'd in court.

Philodamus.
We shall not tire your patience. I had thought,
When I appear'd before the Roman prætor,
Without employing any turn of eloquence,
To've laid out a plain story to his hearing,
Th'undue invasion of a house like mine,
Insolence, injury, and violence
Suffer'd, at length repell'd. I own it needless.
Verres, plac'd by you on the seat of judgment,
Cuts it all short—and we expect our sentence.

Dolabella,
[To his Assessors.
I am for death, and you?—

Verres.
For death.

Sestius.
And I.

Epicrates.
Forgive, most noble, if I interfere
With your injunction. I'm no venal advocate,
But am connected with these prisoners
By ev'ry band that friendship and esteem,
Love, duty, obligation, can impose.
My fortunes are extensive, and shall answer
Whatever mulct you please to levy on them,
(Nay take them all: I never can be poor,
While I reflect how well they were employ'd)
So that their lives be spar'd, and you accept
The ruin of us three as equipollent
For one, the scum of Rome by birth and station.

Verres.
Most noble Dolabella, not to sit
Quite useless in this honourable place,
Permit me to observe, this forward pleader
Makes ev'n his intercession aggravate.
The mistress of the world has ever seen
Her meanest citizen as of more dignity
Than any subject conquer'd by those citizens;
And she demands that blood compensate blood.
Retire, and thank the lenity that spares you.

Dolabella.
Verres, you speak our thoughts most accurately.

Philippus.
[To Verres.
Had it been thee, and not thy senseless agent,
Whom, in a sister's cause, I bravely slew,
I would not have repin'd to bear these chains,
Nor what is worse to follow. As it is,
We thank you, that, determin'd to destroy us,
You save us an unprofiting defence.

Philodamus.
Happy condition of your provinces!
We were to learn till now, that we rebel,
If we dispute your sovereign dominion
Over our matrons, and our daughters honour.

Dolabella.
We have indulg'd you farther than we meant,
In large discourse, which you have us'd too freely.
Bear them away to death. Let the axe sever
Their heads and bodies.

Philodamus.
By your leave, one moment.
Heav'n cannot be but just. I do believe
Its gates are open, in another manner,
Than to the general requests of men,
When innocence, subdu'd by hard oppression,
Claims its avenging hand. In thy due hour,
When Verres shall be ripe for punishment,
When the large growth of villany shall bend
His branches to the earth with their own weight,
I trust thou wilt, in adequate reprisal,
Set up thy hour-glass of retaliation.
I think I see thee, not, as I am now,
Going to die; death is no penalty.
But abject, pale, contemn'd, shunn'd, and deserted,
By those who share thy spoils. Banish'd, and wandering
Thro' provinces thy rapine trod before.
I feel an ease that tells me I am heard.

Philippus.
Oh heav'n! if there be yet in Rome one heart,
One soul, that's worthy of thy inspiration,
One tongue that dares to plead the cause of innocence,
(And something says within me, there is one
Who shall retort the doings of this day),
Do thou inform that heart, that soul, that tongue,
With the coercive force of eloquence,
The energy of language; pour from thence
The mighty torrent of convictive truth,
Till conscience strike with dumbness thy defenders,
And guilt and shame anticipate that sentence
Thou dare not stay to hear pronounc'd upon thee.
[To Dolabella.
And thou, distorter of thy country's justice,
Live to revenge our wrongs upon that country,
For trusting justice in no firmer hands.

Dolabella.
Take them away. See execution done.

1st Guard.
Stand by there.

2d Guard.
Clear the way.

3d Guard.
Lead off the prisoners.