 | Caius Gracchus |  |
SCENE II.
—Mount Aventine.Enter groups of armed Citizens, Caius Gracchus, Fulvius Flaccus, and Licinius.
Caius.
You see—you see! Their very trumpets shake
Your ranks. How will they stand the blows of those
Whose only breath can stagger?
Lic.
What! No truce?
Fla.
Twice have we offer'd terms of peace, which they
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Our herald, my own son; and not content
With this, they have proclaim'd reward to him
Who brings your brother's head, its weight in gold!
Caius.
Then shall they have it at a dearer price—
The safety of my friends!
Enter Pomponius.
Pom.
Why stand you here?
Advance! A rumour spreads among our ranks,
That pardon is proclaim'd to those who quit us;
And many friends fall off.
Caius.
It shall be so!
Call back the runaways, and let them save
The honour of their manhood! Husbands! drive out
Your sad foreboding thoughts; your wives shall hear
Your feet to-night upon the threshold. Sons!
Check not your pious tears, but let them flow
For joy; your mothers have not lost their props!
Cowards! relax not your strain'd sinews yet,
But live redoubted! Brave hearts! rein your courage,
To give it course upon a fairer field:
Caius alone shall bleed!
Vet.
What mean you, Caius?
Caius.
To yield myself into the consul's hands,
And save these veins their stores!
Vet.
No, by the gods,
You shall not do it!
Caius.
Not! Why should I live
At such a price as half these lives, which I
Can, singly dying, spare? I cannot live
To give my country freedom: let me die
To save her blood!
Enter Vettius.
Lic.
What are your swords about?
Sheathe them or use them.
Caius.
Friends, draw off our force;
I'll meet them singly!
Lic.
Never!
We'll live or die together! Or, take your course,—
Yield yourself to the tyrant, if you will!
My sword is out, and shall not quit my grasp,
So long as it can strike a link away
From the vile chains that gall us! Leave us, Caius,—
Desert us—fly us—carry with thee half
Our strength! With the remaining half we'll struggle,
Nor vilely live the thralls of tyranny!
Caius.
Oh, Rome, my country!—Oh, my mother Rome!
Is it to shed thy blood I use my sword?
To fill thy matrons' and thy daughters' eyes
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Should I not rather turn it 'gainst myself,
And, by the timely sacrifice of one,
Preserve the many? They will not let me do it;
They take from me the rule of mine own acts,
And make me Freedom's slave! What! is it so?
Come, then, the only virtue that is left me,—
The fatal virtue of necessity.
Upon them!
Give them stout hearts, ye gods! to enable them
To stand the flashing of their tyrants' swords!
Deaf to the din of battle let them be!
Senseless to wounds, and without eyes for blood;
That, for this once, they may belie themselves;
Make tyranny to cower, and, from her yoke,
Lift prostrate Liberty, to fall no more.
[They go out.
| Caius Gracchus | |