Page images
PDF
EPUB

The number, strength, and posture of our foes, Who now encamp within a short hour's march; On the high point of yon bright western tower, We ken them from afar; the setting sun

Plays on their shining arms and burnished helmets,

And covers all the field with gleams of fire.

Lucius. Marcia, 'tis time we should awake thy father;

Cæsar is still disposed to give us terms,
And waits at distance till he hears from Cato.

Enter PORTIUS.

Portius, thy looks speak somewhat of importance. What tidings dost thou bring? Methinks I see Unusual gladness sparkling in thy eyes.

Por. As I was hasting to the port, where now
My father's friends, impatient for a passage,
Accuse the lingering winds, a sail arrived
From Pompey's son, who through the realms of
Spain

Calls out for vengeance on his father's death,
And rouses the whole nation up to arms.
Were Cato at their head, once more might Rome
Assert her rights, and claim her liberty.

But, hark! what means that groan! Oh, give me way,

And let me fly into my father's presence. [Exit. Lucius. Cato, amidst his slumbers, thinks on Rome,

And in the wild disorder of his soul

Mourns o'er his country. Ha! a second groanHeaven guard us all!

Mar. Alas! 'tis not the voice

Of one who sleeps; 'tis agonizing pain, 'Tis death is in that sound.

[blocks in formation]

Obsequious to his order, bear him hither.
Mar. Oh, Heaven! assist me in this dreadful
hour,

To pay the last sad duties to my father!
Juba. These are thy triumphs, thy exploits, O
Cæsar!

Lucius. Now is Rome fallen indeed!

CATO brought in on a chair.

Cato. Here set me downPortius, come near me-Are my friends embarked?

Can any thing be thought of for their service?
Whilst I yet live, let me not live in vain,
Oh, Lucius, art thou here? Thou art too good-
Let this our friendship live between our chil-
dren;

Make Port us happy in thy daughter Lucia.
Alas! poor man, he weeps! Marcia, my daugh-

[blocks in formation]

But Cæsar's arms have thrown down all distinction;
Whoe'er is brave and virtuous is a Roman-
I'm sick to death-Oh, when shall I get loose
From this vain world, the abode of guilt and sor-
row!

And yet, methinks, a beam of light breaks in
On my departing soul. Alas, I fear
I've been too hasty. Oh, ye powers, that search
The heart of man, and weigh his inmost thoughts,
If I have done amiss, impute it not!

The best may err, but you are good, and-Oh! [Dies,

Lucius. There fled the greatest soul that ever warmed

A Roman breast; oh, Cato! oh, my friend!
Thy will shall be religiously observed.
But let us bear this awful corse to Cæsar,
And lay it in his sight, that it
may stand
A fence betwixt us and the victor's wrath;
Cato, though dead, shall still protect his friends.
From hence, let fierce contending nations know
What dire effects from civil discord flow:
'Tis this that shakes our country with alarms,
And gives up Rome a prey to Roman arms,
Produces fraud, and cruelty, and strife,
And robs the guilty world of Cato's life.
[Exeunt omnes.

[ocr errors][ocr errors]

EPILOGUE.

WRITTEN BY DR. GARTH.

WHAT odd fantastic things we women do, Who would not listen when young lovers woo, But die a maid, yet have the choice of two! Ladies are often cruel to their cost,

To give you pain, themselves they punish most.

Vows of virginity should well be weigh'd; Too oft they're cancell'd, though in convents made.

Would you revenge such rash resolves-you may Be spiteful-and believe the things we say,

We hate you when you're easily said nay.
How needless, if you knew us, were your fears!
Let love have eyes, and beauty will have ears.
Our hearts are form'd, as you yourselves would
choose,

Too proud to ask, too humble to refuse:
We give to merit, and to wealth we sell,
He sighs with most success that settles well.
The woes of wedlock with the joys we mix:
'Tis best repenting in a coach and six.

Blame not our conduct, since we but pursue
These lively lessons we have learnt from you.
Your breasts no more the fire of beauty warms,
But wicked wealth usurps the pow'r of charms.
What pains to get the gaudy things you hate,
To swell in shew, and be a wretch in state!
At plays you ogle, at the ring you bow;

E'en churches are no sanctuaries now:
There golden idols all your vows receive,
She is no goddess that has nought to give.
Oh, may once more the happy age appear,
When words were artless, and the thoughts sin-

cere:

When gold and grandeur were unenvy'd things,
And courts less coveted than groves and springs!
Love then shall only mourn when truth com-
plains,

And constancy feel transport in its chains:
Sighs with success their own soft anguish tell
And eyes shall utter what the lips conceal:
Virtue again to its bright station climb,
And Beauty fear no enemy but time;
The fair shall listen to desert alone,
And ev'ry Lucia find a Cato's son.

1

THE

DISTREST MOTHER.

BY

PHILIPS.

PROLOGUE.

WRITTEN BY MR STEELE.

SINCE fancy by itself is loose and vain,
The wise, by rules, that airy power restrain :
They think those writers mad, who, at their ease,
Convey this house and audience where they please;
Who Nature's stated distances confound,
And make this spot all soils the sun goes round:
'Tis nothing, when a fancy'd scene we view,
To skip from Covent-Garden to Peru.

But Shakespeare's self transgressed; and shall each elf,

Each pigmy genius, quote great Shakespeare's self!

What critic dare prescribe what's just and fit,
Or mark out limits for such boundless wit!
Shakespeare could travel through earth, sea, and

air,

And paint out all the powers and wonders there.
In barren deserts he makes Nature smile,
And gives us feasts in his enchanted isle.
Our author does his feeble force confess,
Nor dares pretend such merit to transgress;
Does not such shining gifts of genius share,
And therefore makes propriety his care.

Your treat with studied decency he serves ;
Not only rules of time and place preserves,
But strives to keep his character entire,
With French correctness, and with British fire.

This piece, presented in a foreign tongue, When France was glorious, and her monarch young,

An hundred times a crowded audience drew,
An hundred times repeated, still 'twas new.

Pyrrhus, provoked, to no wild rants betrayed,
Resents his gen'rous love, so ill repaid;
Does like a man resent, a prince upbraid.
His sentiments disclose a royal mind;
Nor is he known a king from guards behind.
Injured Hermione demands relief;
But not from heavy narratives of grief;
In conscious majesty her pride is shewn ;
Born to avenge her wrongs, but not bemoan.
Andromache-If in our author's lines,
As in the great original she shines,
Nothing but from barbarity she fears;
Attend with silence, you'll applaud with tears.

[blocks in formation]

SCENE, A great hall in the court of Pyrrhus at Buthrotos, the capital city of Epirus.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-The Palace of PYRRHUS. Enter ORESTES, PYLADES, and Attendants. Orest. O PYLADES! what's life without a friend?

At sight of thee my gloomy soul cheers up;
My hopes revive, and gladness dawns within me.
After an absence of six tedious moons,
How could I hope to find my Pylades,
My joy, my comfort, on this fatal shore?
Even in the court of Pyrrhus! in these realms,
These hated realms, so cross to all my wishes.
Oh, my brave friend! may no blind stroke of fate
Divide us more, and tear me from myself.
Pyl. O prince! O my Orestes! O my friend!—
Thus let me speak the welcome of my heart.
[Embracing.
Since I have gained this unexpected meeting,
Blest be the powers who barred my way to Creece,
And kept me here, e'er since the unhappy day,
When warring winds (Epirus full in view)
Sundered our barks on the loud, stormy main.
Orest. It was, indeed, a morning full of horror!
Pyl. A thousand boding cares have racked my

soul

In your behalf. Often, with tears, I mourned
The fatal ills, in which your life's involved,
And grudged you dangers which I could not
share.

I feared to what extremes the black despair, That preyed upon your mind, might have betrayed you,

And lest the gods, in pity to your woes,
Should hear your prayers, and take the life you
loathed.

But now with joy I see you! The retinue,
And numerous followers, that surround you here,
Speak better fortunes, and a mind disposed
To relish life.

Orest. Alas! my friend, who knows
The destiny to which I stand reserved!
I come in search of an inhuman fair,
And live or die, as she decrees my fate.

Pyi. You much surprise me, prince!-I thought you cured

Of your unpitied, unsuccessful passion.
Why, in Epirus, should you hope to find
Hermione less cruel, than at Sparta?

I thought her pride, and the disdainful manner
In which she treated all your constant sufferings,
Had broke your fetters, and assured your free-
dom:

Ashamed of your repulse, and slighted vows,
You hated her; you talked of her no more:
Prince, you deceived me.

Oresi. I deceived myself.

Do not upbraid the unhappy man, that loves

thee.

Thou know'st I never hid my passion from thee; Thou saw'st it in its birth and in its progress;

And when at last the hoary king, her father,
Great Menelaus, gave away his daughter,
His lovely daughter, to the happy Pyrrhus,
The avenger of his wrongs, thou saw'st my grief,
My torture, my despair; and how I dragged,
From sea to sea, a heavy chain of woes.
O Pylades! my heart has bled within me,
To see thee, prest with sorrows not thy own,
Still wandering with me like a banished man;
Watchful, and anxious for thy wretched friend,
To temper the wild transports of my mind,
And save me from myself.

Pyl. Why thus unkind?

Why will you envy me the pleasing task
Of generous love, and sympathizing friendship!
Örest. Thou miracle of truth-but hear me on
When in the midst of my disastrous fate,
I thought how the divine Hermione,
Deaf to my vows, regardless of my plaints,
Gave up herself, in all her charms, to Pyrrhus;
Thou may'st remember, I abhorred her name,
Strove to forget her, and repay her scorn.
I made my friends, and even myself, believe
My soul was freed. Alas! I did not see,
That all the malice of my heart was love.
Triumphing thus, and yet a captive still,
In Greece I landed: and in Greece I found
The assembled princes all alarmed with fears,
In which their common safety seemed concerned.
I joined them: for I hoped that war and glory
Might fill my mind, and take up all my thoughts:
And, that my shattered soul, impaired with grief,
Once more would reassume its wonted vigour,
And every idle passion quit my breast.

Pyl. The thought was worthy Agamemnon's

[blocks in formation]

Too long delayed. I heard his loud complaints
With secret pleasure; and was glad to find
The ungrateful maid neglected in her turn,
And all my wrongs avenged in her disgrace.
Pyl. Oh, may you keep your just resentments

warm

Orest. Resentments! Oh, my friend, too soon
I found

They grew not out of hatred! I'm betrayed:
I practise on myself; and fondly plot
My own undoing. Goaded on by love,
I canvassed all the suffrages of Greece;
And here I come their sworn ambassador,
To speak their jealousies, and claim this boy.
Pyl. Pyrrhus will treat your embassy with

scorn.

Full of Achilles, his redoubted sire,
Pyrrhus is proud, impetuous, headstrong, fierce;
Made up of passions: Will he then be swayed,
And give to death the son of her he loves?

Orest. Oh, would he render up Hermione,
And keep Astyanax, I should be blest!
He must; he shall. Hermione is my life,
My soul, my rapture !-I'll no longer curb
The strong desire that hurries me to madness:
I'll give a loose to love; I'll bear her hence;
I'll tear her from his arms; I'll-O, ye gods!
Give me Hermione, or let me die !-

But tell me, Pylades; how stand my hopes?
Is Pyrrhus still enamoured with her charms?
Or dost thou think he'll yield me up the prize,
The dear, dear prize, which he has ravished from
me?

[ocr errors]

Pyl. I dare not flatter your fond hopes so far; The king, indeed, cold to the Spartan princess, Turns all his passion to Andromache, Hector's afflicted widow. But in vain, With interwoven love and rage, he sues The charming captive, obstinately cruel. Oft he alarms her for her child confined Apart; and when her tears begin to flow, As soon he stops them, and recalls his threats. Hermione a thousand times has seen His ill-requited vows return to her; And takes his indignation all for love. What can be gathered from a man so various? He may, in the disorder of his soul, Wed her he hates, and punish her he loves.

Orest. But tell me how the wronged Hermione | Brooks her slow nuptials, and dishonoured charms? Pyl. Hermione would fain be thought to scorn Her wavering lover, and disdain his falsehood; But, spite of all her pride and conscious beauty, She mourns in secret her neglected charms, And oft has made me privy to her tears: Still threatens to be gone; yet still she stays; And sometimes sighs, and wishes for Orestes. Orest. Ah, were those wishes from her heart, my friend!

I'd fly in transport

[Flourish within.

Pyl. Hear! the king approaches To give you audience. Speak your embassy Without reserve: urge the demands of Greece; And, in the name of all the kings, require, That Hector's son be given into your hands.

Pyrrhus, instead of granting what they ask,
To speed his love and win the Trojan dame,
Will make it merit to preserve her son.
But, see; he comes.

Óresi. Meanwhile, my Pylades,
Go, and dispose Hermione to see
Her lover, who is come thus far, to throw
Himself, in all his sorrows, at her feet.

Enter PYRRHUS, PHOENIX, and Attendants. Before I speak the message of the Greeks, Permit me, sir, to glory in the title Of their ambassador; since I behold Troy's vanquisher, and great Achilles' son. Nor does the son rise short of such a father; If Hector fell by him, Troy fell by you. But what your father never would have done, You do. You cherish the remains of Troy; And by an ill-timed pity keep alive The dying embers of a ten years war. Have you so soon forgot the mighty Hector? The Greeks remember his high brandished sword, That filled their states with widows and with of

[blocks in formation]

Than I desire. I thought your kings were met
On more important counsel. When I heard
The name of their ambassador, I hoped
Some glorious enterprise was taking birth.
Is Agamemnon's son dispatched for this?
And do the Grecian chiefs, renowned in war,
A race of heroes, join in close debate,
To plot an infant's death! What right has Greece
To ask his life? Must I, must I alone,
Of all the scepter'd warriors, be denied
To treat my captive as I please? Know, prince,
When Troy lay smoking on the ground, and each
Proud victor shared the harvest of the war,
Andromache and this her son were mine;
Were mine by lot; and who shall wrest them
from me?

Ulysses bore away old Priam's queen;
Cassandra was your own great father's prize;.
Did I concern myself in what they won?
Did I send embassies to claim their captives?
Orest. But, sir, we fear for you, and for our-
selves.

Troy may again revive, and a new Hector
Rise in Astyanax. Then think betimes—

Pyr. Let dastard souls be timorously wise: But tell them, Pyrrhus knows not how to form Far-fancied ills, and dangers out of sight.

Orest. Sir, call to mind the unrivalled strength

of Troy;

Her walls, her bulwarks, and her gates of brass; Her kings, her heroes, and embattled armies?

« PreviousContinue »