[681] TO THE GREAT EXAMPLE OF HONOR, AND
VERTVE, THE MOST NOBLE
EARLE OF PEMBROKE, LORD CHAMBERLAINE,
In so thick, and darke an ignorance, as now almost couers the age, I craue leaue to stand neare your light: and, by that, to bee read. Posteritie may pay your benefit the honor, & thanks: when it shall know, that you dare, in these lig-giuen times, to countenance a legitimate Poeme. I must call it so, against all noise 5 of opinion from whose crude, and ayrie reports, I appeale, to that great and singular faculty of iudgement in your Lordship, able to vindicate truth from error. It is the first (of this race) that euer I dedicated to any person, and had I not thought it the best, it should haue 10 beene taught a lesse ambition. Now, it approcheth your censure cheerefully, and with the same assurance, that innocency would appeare before a magistrate. Your Lo. most faithfull
Dedication om. Q2.
7 that] the G.
The Persons of the Play] The Names of the Actors Q1, Q2.
Ost 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 walls,
Lesse threatning, then an earth-quake, the quick falls
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 fills,
Make that swell vp, and drowne thy seuen proud hills?
What sleepe 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,
T'ingender with the night and blast the day;
Or like a pestilence, that should display
Infection through the world: which, thus, I doe.
PLVTO be at thy councells; 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, MARIVS would;
What now, had I a body againe, I could,
ACT I. SCENE I. A Room in Catiline's House.
The Ghost of Sylla rises. S. D.-G.
16 [The curtain draws, and Catiline is discovered in his study.] S. N.-G.
Discouers Catiline in his study.
[684] Comming from hell; what Fiends would wish should be; And HANNIBAL could not haue wish'd to see:
25 Thinke thou, and practice. Let the long-hid seeds
Of treason, in thee, now shoot forth in deeds,
Ranker then horror; and thy former facts
Not fall in mention, but to vrge new acts:
Conscience of them prouoke thee on to more.
30 Be still thy incests, murders, rapes before
Thy sense; thy forcing first a Vestall nunne;
Thy parricide, late, on thine owne onely sonne,
After his mother; to make emptie way
For thy last wicked nuptialls; worse, then they,
35 That blaze 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)
4° 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 haue 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 th'hast beene, and knowne,
Tempt it againe: That is thy act, or none.
What all the seuerall ills, that visite earth,
5o (Brought forth by night, with a sinister birth)
Plagues, famine, fire could not reach vnto,
The sword, nor surfets; let thy furie doe:
Make all past, present, future ill thine owne;
32 thine owne onely sonne] thy own only son 1640, 1692, 1716.
W; thine owne naturall son Q1, Q2.
47 though] thou Q2.
And conquer all example, in thy one.
Nor let thy thought find 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 impietie:
Let night grow blacker with thy plots; and day,
At showing but thy head forth, start away
From this halfe-spheare and leaue Romes blinded walls
T'embrace lusts, hatreds, slaughters, funeralls,
And not recouer sight, till their owne flames
Doe light them to their ruines. All the names
Of thy confederates, too, be no lesse great
In hell, then here: that, when we would repeat
Our strengths in muster, we may name you all,
And Furies, vpon you, for Furies call.
Whilst, what you doe, may strike them into feares,
Or make them grieue, and wish your mischiefe theirs.
T is decree'd. Nor shall thy Fate, Ô Rome,
Resist my vow. Though hills were set on hills,
And seas met seas, to guard thee; I would through: 75
I, plough vp rocks, steepe as the Alpes, in dust;
And laue the Tyrrhene waters, into clouds;
But I would reach thy head, thy head, proud citie.
The ills, that I haue done, cannot be safe
But by attempting greater; and I feele
A spirit, within me, chides my sluggish hands,
And sayes, they haue beene innocent too long.
71 may] doth Q1, Q2. LINE rises, and comes forward. I'd 1716, W.
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