Page images
PDF
EPUB

Into our city with thy banners spread :
By decimation, and a tithed death,
(If thy revenges hunger for that food,

Which nature loaths,) take thou the destin'd tenth ;
And by the hazard of the spotted die,

Let die the spotted.

1 Sen. All have not offended;

For those that were, it is not square,4 to take,
On those that are, revenges: crimes, like lands,
Are not inherited. Then, dear countryman,
Bring in thy ranks, but leave without thy rage:
Spare thy Athenian cradle, and those kin,
Which, in the bluster of thy wrath, must fall
With those that have offended: like a shepherd,
Approach the fold, and cull the infected forth,
But kill not all together.

2 Sen. What thou wilt,

Thou rather shalt enforce it with thy smile,
Than hew to't with thy sword.

1 Sen. Set but thy foot

Against our rampir'd gates, and they shall ope;
So thou wilt send thy gentle heart before,
To say, thou❜lt enter friendly.

2 Sen. Throw thy glove,

Or any token of thine honour else,

That thou wilt use the wars as thy redress,
And not as our confusion, all thy powers

Shall make their harbour in our town, till we
Have seal'd thy full desire.

Alcib. Then there's my glove;

Descend, and open your uncharged ports ;5
Those enemies of Timon's, and mine own,
Whom you yourselves shall set out for reproof,
Fall, and no more: and,-to atone your fears
With my more noble meaning,—not a man
Shall pass his quarter, or offend the stream
Of regular justice in your city's bounds,
But shall be remedied, to your public laws
At heaviest answer.

Both. 'Tis most nobly spoken.

Alcib. Descend, and keep your words.

[The Senators descend, and open the gates.

[4] Not regular, not equitable. JOHNS.

[5] Uncharged means unattacked. MASON.

[6] Not a soldier shall quit his station, or be let loose upon you; and,i any commits violence, he shall answer it regularly to the law. JOHNS.

Enter a Soldier.

Sol. My noble general, Timon is dead;
Entomb'd upon the very hem o'the sea :

And, on his grave-stone, this insculpture; which
With wax I brought away, whose soft impression
Interprets for my poor ignorance.

Alcib. [Reads.] Here lies
wretched soul bereft :

a wretched corse, of

Seek not my name: A plague consume you wicked cailiffs left!

Here lie I Timon; who, alive, all living men did hate : Pass by, and curse thy fill; but pass, and stay not here thy gait.7

These well express in thee thy latter spirits:
Though thou abhorr'dst in us our human griefs,
Scorn'dst our brain's flow, and those our droplets which
From niggard nature fall, yet rich conceit

Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for aye
On thy low grave, on faults forgiven.

Is noble Timon; of whose memory

Dead

Hereafter more.-Bring me into your city,

And I will use the olive with my sword:

Make war breed peace; make peace stint war; make each Prescribe to other, as each other's leech. 8

Let our drums strike.

[Exeunt.

[7] This epitaph is in sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch, with the difference of one word only, wretches instead of caitiffs. STEEV.

[blocks in formation]

TITUS ANDRONICUS.

8

VOL. VII.

[merged small][graphic][merged small][merged small]
« PreviousContinue »