 | Brutus Ultor |  |
41
Scene V.
—A desolate part of the Campagna.Enter Sextus and Nobles.
Sextus.
I scarcely hear your voices in the blast;
Nearer, good friends, or I must fulminate
To this unpeopled plain my deep design.
My father is undone; as outcasts, we
Endure the weather, and the infamy
Of vanquished arms. Attend me!—go to Rome,
And with slack knee and pliant countenance,
Entreat permission to remove the goods
And treasure of the king. There'll be delay:
Use it to rouse the loyal; steal within
The homes where licence flaunted 'neath our rule;
Then Rome is ours. Oh, vengeance! Swift, to horse!
Nobles.
'Twere well we built a fire and dried our robes,
Ere hurling to the city.
Sextus.
Ride to-night,
Ride fresh in your discomfiture; recall
How for my ends I went to Gabii,
The traitor city, with blood-dripping back,
And glory so impaired; my enemies,
Indignant at my father's cruelty,
Which thus, I swore, deformed me, took me in
As guest, then leader: easy as the lash
Of a light wand that, lifted carelessly,
Sunders the spurting poppy-heads, I clove
Their nobles' skulls.
Nobles.
No more: we're on our way,
And shall prepare your entry.
[Exeunt, riding swiftly.
Sextus.
Foul disgrace!
She whom I forced hath done it; I'm o'erthrown
By her who lay subjected to my will;
I'm ravished of my honour and my kingdom,
Defamed in Roman annals for all time.
She even rules my vision, for at night
She sits beside my bed, and guides a wheel—
Methinks it is my destiny she spins
Before my giddy eyes—and as she works
42
In a dark valley. When the dawn awakes,
Pale, weak, and shuddering as if by night
Insulted, then she gives one fearful cry,
And, pointing to the red scar on her breast,
Leaves me more abject, weary, desperate,
Than she herself, when I stole out from her
That hour. I thought my knife so moved her fear
She'd never tamper with a biting blade.
But I will lay her spectre by the press
Of action; rouse the neighbouring tribes to pour
Converging, irrepressible, on Rome.
Will the wrecked creature haunt me when I house
Once more upon the Capitol, above
The palpitating city? All my sports
Shall be blood-dashed; these crowned republicans
Shall draw my chariot, and be as slaves
Imbruted for my pleasure. In the art
Of degradation I will plant my fame,
Till the pale spirit quivering retire,
And I sleep dreamless, or revolve new schemes
Of rapine, unfatigued. Discrowning night
Of lustful triumph, how I curse thy shade!
[Exit.
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