Bru. Hear me, for I will speak. Must I give way and room to your rash choler? Shall I be frighted when a madman stares? Cas. Must I endure all this! Bru. All this! Ay, more. Fret till your proud heart break: Go, show your slaves how choleric you are, And make your bondmen tremble. Must I budge? Must I observe you? Must I stand and crouch You shall digest the venom of your spleen, Cas. Is it come to this? Bru. You say you are a better soldier; Let it appear so; make your vaunting true, For mine own part, I shall be glad to learn of noble men. Cas. You wrong me every way; you wrong me, Brutus, I said an elder soldier, not a better. Did I say better? Bru. If you did, I care not. Cas. When Cæsar lived, he durst not thus have moved me. Bru. Peace, peace; you durst not so have tempted him. Cas. I durst not! Bru. No. Cas. What? durst not tempt him? Bru. For your life you durst not. Cas. Do not presume too much upon my love. I may do that I shall be sorry for. Bru. You have done that you should be sorry for. There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats; For I am armed so strong in honesty, That they pass by me as the idle wind, For certain sums of gold, which you denied me :- And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring To you for gold to pay my legions; Which you denied me. Was that done like Cassius ? Should I have answered Caius Cassius so? When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous, To lock such rascal counters from his friends, Cas. I denied you not. Bru. You did. Cas. I did not: he was but a fool That brought my answer back. Brutus hath rived my heart. A friend should bear a friend's infirmities; But Brutus makes mine greater than they are. Bru. I do not, till you practise them on me. Bru. I do not like your faults. Cas. A friendly eye could never see such faults. Cas. Come Antony! and young Octavius, come! For Cassius is a-weary of the world Hated by one he loves; braved by his brother; My spirit from my eyes!-There is my dagger, When thou didst hate him worst, thou lovedst him better Be Bru. Sheath your dagger: angry when you will, it shall have scope: Cas. Hath Cassius lived To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus, When grief and blood ill-tempered vexeth him? Cas. Do you confess so much? Give me your hand. Cas. O Brutus ! Bru. What's the matter? Cas. Have you not love enough to bear with me. When that rash humor which my mother gave me, Makes me forgetful? Bru. Yes, Cassius; and henceforth, When you are over-earnest with your Brutus, $ LESSON CCII. Description of the Castle of Indolence, and its inhabitants.- YE gods of quiet, and of sleep profound! And all the widely-silent places round, Forgive me, if my trembling pen displays What never yet was sung in mortal lays. But how shall I attempt such arduous string, and days So that each spacious room was one full-swelling bed. With wines high flavored and rich viands crowned; On the green bosom of this Earth are found, Fair ranged the dishes rose, and thick the glasses played. *Pron. kǎs'sl. + This poem being writ in the manner of Spenser, the obsolete words, and a simplicity of diction in some of the lines, which borders on the ludicrous, were necessary to make the imitation more perfect.-Author. + Ne, nor. Here Freedom reigned without the least alloy; Or of Arcadian or Sicilian vale : Poured forth at large the sweetly tortured heart; Or, sighing tender passion, swelled the gale, And taught charmed Echo to resound their smart, While flocks, woods, streams, around, repose and peace im part. Each sound, too, here, to languishment inclined, Aërial music in the warbling wind, At distance rising oft, by small degrees, Here lulled the pensive melancholy mind; Beyond each mortal touch the most refined, Such sweet, such sad, such solemn airs divine, *Hight, named, called; and sometimes it is used for is called. Now rising love they fann'd; now pleasing dole And hither Morpheus sent his kindest dreams, With fleecy clouds, the pure ethereal space; Where, from gross mortal care and business free, They sit, they loll, turn o'er some idle rhyme, Strait on the couch their limbs again they throw, Where hours on hours they sighing lie reclined, And court the vapory god soft-breathing in the wind. Now must I mark the villany we found; But, ah! too late, as shall eftsoons* be shown. A place here was, deep, dreary, under ground, Where still our inmates, when unpleasing grown, Diseased, and loathsome, privily were thrown. Far from the light of heaven, they languished there, Unpitied, uttering many a bitter groan; For of these wretches taken was no care: Fierce fiends, and hags of hell, their only nurses were. Eftsoons, immediately, often, afterwards. |