A Camp at a small distance from Rome. | |
| |
Enter AUFIDIUS and his Lieutenant. | |
| Auf. Do they still fly to the Roman? | |
| Lieu. I do not know what witchcraft’s in him, but | 4 |
| Your soldiers use him as the grace ’fore meat, | |
| Their talk at table, and their thanks at end; | |
| And you are darken’d in this action, sir, | |
| Even by your own. | 8 |
| Auf. I cannot help it now, | |
| Unless, by using means, I lame the foot | |
| Of our design. He bears himself more proudlier, | |
| Even to my person, than I thought he would | 12 |
| When first I did embrace him; yet his nature | |
| In that’s no changeling, and I must excuse | |
| What cannot be amended. | |
| Lieu. Yet, I wish, sir,— | 16 |
| I mean for your particular,—you had not | |
| Join’d in commission with him; but either | |
| Had borne the action of yourself, or else | |
| To him had left it solely. | 20 |
| Auf. I understand thee well; and be thou sure, | |
| When he shall come to his account, he knows not | |
| What I can urge against him. Although it seems, | |
| And so he thinks, and is no less apparent | 24 |
| To the vulgar eye, that he bears all things fairly, | |
| And shows good husbandry for the Volscian state, | |
| Fights dragon-like, and does achieve as soon | |
| As draw his sword; yet he hath left undone | 28 |
| That which shall break his neck or hazard mine, | |
| Whene’er we come to our account. | |
| Lieu. Sir, I beseech you, think you he’ll carry Rome? | |
| Auf. All places yield to him ere he sits down; | 32 |
| And the nobility of Rome are his: | |
| The senators and patricians love him too: | |
| The tribunes are no soldiers; and their people | |
| Will be as rash in the repeal as hasty | 36 |
| To expel him thence. I think he’ll be to Rome | |
| As is the osprey to the fish, who takes it | |
| By sovereignty of nature. First he was | |
| A noble servant to them, but he could not | 40 |
| Carry his honours even; whether ’twas pride, | |
| Which out of daily fortune ever taints | |
| The happy man; whether defect of judgment, | |
| To fail in the disposing of those chances | 44 |
| Which he was lord of; or whether nature, | |
| Not to be other than one thing, not moving | |
| From the casque to the cushion, but commanding peace | |
| Even with the same austerity and garb | 48 |
| As he controll’d the war; but one of these, | |
| As he hath spices of them all, not all, | |
| For I dare so far free him, made him fear’d, | |
| So hated, and so banish’d: but he has a merit | 52 |
| To choke it in the utterance. So our virtues | |
| Lie in the interpretation of the time; | |
| And power, unto itself most commendable, | |
| Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair | 56 |
| To extol what it hath done. | |
| One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail; | |
| Rights by rights falter, strengths by strengths do fail. | |
| Come, let’s away. When, Caius, Rome is thine, | 60 |
| Thou art poor’st of all; then shortly art thou mine. [Exeunt. | |