 | Sylla |  |
SCENE I.
The Stage is faintly lit by an Antique Lamp, which burns in the Palace.ROSCIUS, METELLUS.
ROSCIUS.
An unexpected summons, which I dare
Not understand, bids me to-night appear
Within the palace; there is no excuse;
And an unconquerable fear enthrals me:—
At such an hour—at such a place too.
METELLUS.
Fear
Need not be thought of, Roscius, by the man
4
The stern Dictator softens down his pride,
Termed by th'audacious vulgar, Cruelty:
Admitted to his counsels, he allows
Your words to charm his soul; he hears, believes you—
You boast alone that happy privilege,
To bid his wrath relent; and I have seen
That proud and gloomy spirit more than once
Bend to thy voice and yield it to thy prayer:
Sylla beholds in you the living painter
Of the noble actions of our ancestors.
ROSCIUS.
Yes, Sylla shews a perfect worshipper
Of our old Romans; he allows their praise
To be resounded in the theatre;
He honours Scævola, admires too Brutus,
Yet he proscribes their virtues in their children.
METELLUS.
Henceforward tyranny's our safeguard;—Rome
Accepts the yoke of this all-powerful genius;
Without him all had perished; no restraint—
5
The laws' high majesty; the senate, forum,
Alike within the city, as without it,
All, all in civil discord wide blazed forth,
What time rash Marius, leading on a mob
Glutted with executions, shared with them
The remnants of the state;—all was restored
By Sylla:—Fortune from the Melas' banks
Leads back the conqueror of Orchomenes:
He fights, o'ercomes, attains the highest honour,
While Marius and his party whelmed in gore,
Expire, and Peace again revives in Rome:
A mortal's arm achieved what the Gods could not.
ROSCIUS.
Oh! could but Nature spare our noble Romans
Those lofty, superhuman, dangerous spirits!
Too much of grief, too many ills attest
The track of those bright stars, sons of the tempest.
Yet I admire that man, Metellus, whom
An unknown merit to all eyes marks out;
His genius is to me as the hot furnace
6
Without a sound that to th'affrighted world
May tell the hidden fury that torments it.
To the supreme ascendant we alike
All yield us, which thus to itself chains down
The people and the senate; and our eyes
Measure with awe the pinnacle's proud height
Where the dictator hero seats himself:
But when we probe the cause that sways our feelings,
The admiration that we have for Sylla
Leaves in our breasts regrets, alas! how bitter!
The arbiter of Rome hath given her chains;
Fair Freedom is no more, sons of Cornelia!
Or only slumbers in the tomb with you.
METELLUS.
And who regrets it, since it only proved
A name, 'neath which the factious hid their treasons?
When an unbridled people, blind with rage,
Betrayed their country at a tribune's mandate,
O'erturned the altars, broke the law's strong yoke,
7
Then let us bless that tutelary arm,
O Roscius, which can to the people's rage
Oppose a barrier: Sylla checks the ills
That spring from discord, and his happiness
Rewards his noble deeds.
ROSCIUS.
The happiness
Of Sylla!—I can better read that soul
His violence racks, his course of life enflames:
This hot, intrepid, and audacious mortal,
This Ajax, fearless of the blaze of Heaven,
While in that Heaven the day-star reigns supreme,
Would brave the ruin of a crashing world,
And view with unpaled cheek th'immense destruction.
But when 'tis night, he starts e'en at the sound
Of his own footsteps, and amid her shades
His fearful soul but slumbers painfully,
So gloomy are his dreams—he, even he,
Who during day governs whole destinies,
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Fearful of solitude, of shade, of silence:
Such is the happy Sylla!
METELLUS.
Hist! they come.
| Sylla | |