Act 1

Scene 1.1

W

Do'st thou not feele me, Rome? Not yet? Is night So heauy on thee, and my weight so light?

Can Sylla's Ghost arise within thy walles, Lesse threatning, then an earth-quake, the quicke falles Of thee, and thine? shake not the frighted heads Of thy steepe towers? or shrinke to their first beds?

Or, as their ruine the large Tyber fils, Make that swell up, and drowne thy seuen proud hils?

What sleape is this doth seize thee, so like death, And is not it? Wake, feele her, in my breath.

Behold, I come, sent from the Stygian Sound, As a dire Vapor, that had cleft the ground, To ingender with the night, and blast the day; Or like a Pestilence, that should display Infection through the world: which, thus, I do.

Pluto be at thy councels; and into Thy darker bosome enter Sylla's spirit: All, that was mine, and bad, thy brest inherit.

Alas, how weake is that, for Catiline!

Did I but say (vaine voice) all that was mine?

All, that the Gracchi, Cinna, Marius would; What now, had I a body againe, I could, Comming from hell; what Fiendes would wish should be; And Hannibal could not have wish'd to see: Think thou, and practise. Let the long-hid seedes Of treason, in thee, now shoote forth in deedes, Ranker then horror; and thy former facts Not all in mention, but to vrge new acts: Conscience of them prouoke thee on to more.

Be still thy Incests, Murders, Rapes before Thy sense; thy forcing first a Vestall Nunne; Thy parricide, late, on thine owne naturall Sonne,

After his Mother, to make empty way For thy last wicked Nuptials; worse, then they, That fame that act of thy incestuous life, Which got thee, at once, a Daughter, and a Wife.

I leaue the slaughters, that thou didst for me, Of Senators; for which, I hid for thee Thy murder of thy Brother, (being so brib'd) And writ him in the list of my proscrib'd After thy fact, to saue thy little shame: Thy incest, with thy Sister, I not name.

These are too light. Fate will have thee pursue Deedes, after which no Mischiefe can be new; The ruine of thy Countrey: Thou wert built For such a worke, and borne for no lesse guilt: What though defeated once thou hast beene, and knowne, Tempt it againe; That is thy act, or none.

What all the seuerall Ills, that visite earth, (Brought forth by night, with a sinister birth) Plagues, Famine, Fire could not reach vnto, The Sword, nor Surfets; let thy fury do: Make all past, present, future ill thine owne; And conquer all example, in thy one.

Nor let thy thought finde any vacant time To hate an old, but still a fresher crime Drowne the remembrance; Let not mischiefe cease, But, while it is in punishing, encrease.

Conscience, and care die in thee; And be free Not Heau'n it selfe from thy impiety: Let Night grow blacker with thy plots; and Day, At shewing but thy head forth, start away From this halfe Spheare: and leaue Romes blinded walls To embrace lusts, hatreds, slaughters, funerals, And not recouer sight, till their owne flames Do light them to their ruines. All the names Of thy Confederates, too, be no less great In hell, then here; That, when we would repeate Our strengths in Muster, we may name you all,

And Furies, upon you, for Furies, call.

Whilst, what you do, doth strike them into feares, Or make them grieue, and with your mischiefe theirs.