University of Virginia Library

SCENE III.

SENATORS, BRUTUS, VALERIUS, PROCULUS.
BRUTUS.
Say, Valerius,
The traitors doubtless thou hast apprehended,
At least they all are known? Hah! whence that cloud
Darkening thy brow! That melancholy aspect
Which seems as if portending greater ills,
Calamities more dreadfully severe?
These tremors whence?

VALERIUS.
Remember thou art Brutus.

BRUTUS.
What dost thou mean?—

VALERIUS.
I shudder at the thought,
Its aid my tongue refuses.
[Gives him the Tablets.
In this list,
Read, know the guilty.

BRUTUS.
Do my eyes deceive me?
O day most hateful! O most wretched father!
The name of Tiberinus! Of my son!—
Forgive this weakness.—Is the traitor seized?

VALERIUS.
With two of the conspirators he dared
Oppose the course of justice; and resolved,
Rather, than yield, on death, beside them fell
Cover'd with wounds. But, Oh! A tale more dire
Remains for thee, for all the sons of Rome;
To me more exquisitely painful.

BRUTUS.
Hah!
What am I to expect!

VALERIUS.
Again behold
That fatal catalogue, which from Messala
By Proculus was wrested.

BRUTUS.
Give it me—
Let me behold it.—Why these fears? This horror?
Eternal guardians! Titus!

[He sinks into the Arms of Proculus.
VALERIUS.
Near this place
I found him wand'ring, in despair, unarm'd,
He seem'd as panic-struck, and full of terror;
Haply reflecting on th'attempt which now
Shocks every sense, an enterprize abhorr'd

BRUTUS.
Go, conscript fathers, to your sacred dome
Return; no station in th'assembled senate
Dare I again assume. Go, extirpate
My guilty race; punish the sire himself;
Nor by false mercy sway'd refrain to pierce
This heart, the source of their polluted blood.
I shall not follow you; lest in my presence,
Rome should suspend her judgment, or pull back
The hand of vengeance.