Scene VI Outside Rome
Enter Porsenna and Aruns.
Porsenna.
Yet grow our lofty plumes unflagged with blood,
And yet sweet pleasure wantons in the air.
How goes the battle, Aruns?
Aruns.
’Tis even balanced.
I interchanged with Brutus, hand to hand,
A dangerous encounter; both are wounded,
And, had not the rude press divided us,
One had dropped down to earth.
Porsenna.
’Twas bravely fought.
I saw the king your father free his person
From thousand Romans that begirt his state,
Where flying arrows thick as atoms sung
About his ears.
Aruns.
I hope a glorious day.
Come, Tuscan king, let’s on them.
[Alarum.
Enter Horatius and Valerius.
Horatius.
Aruns, stay!
That sword, that late did drink the consul’s blood,
Must with his keen fang tire upon68 my flesh,
Or this on thine.
Aruns.
It spared the consul’s life
To end thy days in a more glorious strife.
Valerius.
I stand against thee, Tuscan!
Porsenna.
I for thee!
Horatius.
Where’er I find a Tarquin, he’s for me.
[Alarum. They fight; Aruns is slain, Porsenna driven off.
Alarum. Enter Tarquin with an arrow in his breast, Tullia with him, pursued by Collatine, Lucretius, Scevola.
Tarquin.
Fair Tullia, leave me; save thy life by flight,
Since mine is desperate; behold, I am wounded
Even to the death. There stays within my tent
A wingèd jennet, mount his back and fly;
Live to revenge my death, since I must die.
Tullia.
Had I the heart to tread upon the bulk69
Of my dead father, and to see him slaughtered,
Only for love of Tarquin and a crown,
And shall I fear death more than loss of both?
No, this is Tullia’s fame,—rather than fly
From Tarquin, ’mongst a thousand swords she’ll die.
Collatine, Lucretius, and Scevola.
Hew them to pieces both.
Tarquin.
My Tullia save,
And o’er my caitiff head those meteors wave!
Collatine.
Let Tullia yield then.
Tullia.
Yield me, cuckold! no;
Mercy I scorn; let me the danger know.
Scevola.
Upon them, then!
Valerius.
Let’s bring them to their fate,
And let them perish in the people’s hate.
Tullia.
Fear not, I’ll back thee, husband.
Tarquin.
But for thee,
Sweet were the hand that this charged soul could free!
Life I despise. Let noble Sextus stand
To avenge our death. Even till these vitals end,
Scorning my own, thy life will I defend.
Tullia.
And I’ll, sweet Tarquin, to my power guard thine.
Come on, ye slaves, and make this earth divine!
[Alarum. Tarquin and Tullia are slain.
Enter Brutus all bloody.
Brutus.
Aruns, this crimson favour, for thy sake,
I’ll wear upon my forehead masked with blood,
Till all the moisture in the Tarquins’ veins
Be spilt upon the earth, and leave thy body
As dry as the parched summer, burnt and scorched
With the canicular stars.
Horatius.
Aruns lies dead
By this bright sword that towered about his head.
Collatine.
And see, great consul, where the pride of Rome
Lies sunk and fallen.
Valerius.
Beside him lies the queen,
Mangled and hewn amongst the Roman soldiers.
Horatius.
Lift up their slaughtered bodies; help to rear them
Against this hill in view of all the camp:
This sight will be a terror to the foe,
And make them yield or fly.
Brutus.
But where’s the ravisher,
Injurious Sextus, that we see not him?
[Short alarum.
Enter Sextus.
Sextus.
Through broken spears, cracked swords, unbowelled steeds,
Flawed armours, mangled limbs, and battered casques,
Knee-deep in blood, I ha’ pierced the Roman host
To be my father’s rescue.
Horatius.
’Tis too late;
His mounting pride’s sunk in the people’s hate.
Sextus.
My father, mother, brother! Fortune, now
I do defy thee; I expose myself
To horrid danger; safety I despise:
I dare the worst of peril; I am bound
On till this pile of flesh be all one wound.
Valerius.
Begirt him, lords; this is the ravisher;
There’s no revenge for Lucrece till he fall.
Lucretius.
Seize Sextus, then—
Sextus.
Sextus defies you all!
Yet will you give me language ere I die?
Brutus.
Say on.
Sextus.
’Tis not for mercy, for I scorn that life
That’s given by any; and, the more to add
To your immense unmeasurable hate,
I was the spur unto my father’s pride;
’Twas I that awed the princes of the land;
That made thee, Brutus, mad, these discontent:
I ravished the chaste Lucrece; Sextus, I,—
Thy daughter,—and thy wife,—Brutus, thy cousin,—
Allied, indeed, to all; ’twas for my rape
Her constant70 hand ripped up her innocent breast:
’Twas Sextus did all this.
Collatine.
Which I’ll revenge.
Horatius.
Leave that to me.
Lucretius.
Old as I am, I’ll do’t.
Scevola.
I have one hand left yet, of strength enough
To kill a ravisher.
Sextus.
Come all at once—ay, all!
Yet hear me, Brutus; thou art honourable,
And my words tend to thee: my father died
By many hands; what’s he ’mongst you can challenge
The least, ay, smallest honour in his death?
If I be killed amongst this hostile throng,
The poorest snaky71 soldier well may claim
As much renown in royal Sextus’ death
As Brutus, thou, or thou, Horatius:
I am to die, and more than die I cannot;
Rob not yourselves of honour in my death.
When the two mightiest spirits of Greece and Troy
Tugged for the mastery, Hector and Achilles,
Had puissant Hector, by Achilles’ hand,
Died in a single monomachy,72 Achilles
Had been the worthy; but, being slain by odds,
The poorest Myrmidon had as much honour
As faint Achilles in the Trojan’s death.
Brutus.
Hadst thou not done a deed so execrable
That gods and men abhor, I’d love thee, Sextus,
And hug thee for this challenge breathed so freely.
Behold, I stand for Rome as general:
Thou of the Tarquins dost alone survive,
The head of all these garboils,73 the chief actor
Of that black sin, which we chastise by arms.—
Brave Romans, with your bright swords be our lists,
And ring us in; none dare to offend the prince
By the least touch, lest he incur our wrath:
This honour do your consul, that his hand
May punish this arch-mischief, that the times
Succeeding may of Brutus thus much tell,—
By him pride, lust, and all the Tarquins fell.
Sextus.
To ravish Lucrece, cuckold Collatine,
And spill the chastest blood that ever ran
In any matron’s veins, repents me not
So much as to have wronged a gentleman
So noble as the consul in this strife.
Brutus, be bold! thou fight’st with one scorns74 life.
Brutus.
And thou with one that less than his renown
Prizeth his blood, or Rome’s imperial crown.
[Alarum; a fierce fight with sword and target; then a pause.
Brutus.
Sextus, stand fair: much honour shall I win
To revenge Lucrece, and chastise thy sin.
Sextus.
I repent nothing, may I live or die;
Though my blood fall, my spirit shall mount on high.
[Alarum; they fight with single swords, and, being deadly wounded and panting for breath, they strike at each other with their gauntlets and fall.
Horatius.
Both slain! O noble Brutus, this thy fame
To after ages shall survive; thy body
Shall have a fair and gorgeous sepulchre,
For whom the matrons shall in funeral black
Mourn twelve sad moons—thou that first governed Rome,
And swayed the people by a consul’s name.
These bodies of the Tarquins we’ll commit
Unto the funeral pile. You, Collatine,
Shall succeed Brutus in the consul’s place,
Whom with this laurel-wreath we here create.
[Crowning him with laurel.]
Such is the people’s voice; accept it, then.
Collatine.
We do; and may our power so just appear,
Rome may have peace, both with our love and fear.
But soft, what march is this?
Flourish. Enter Porsenna, Collatine, and Soldiers.
Porsenna.
The Tuscan King, seeing the Tarquins slain,
Thus armed and battled, offers peace to Rome,
To confirm which, we’ll give you present hostage;
If you deny, we’ll stand upon our guard,
And by the force of arms maintain our own.
Valerius.
After so much effusion and large waste
Of Roman blood, the name of peace is welcome:
Since of the Tarquins none remain in Rome,
And Lucrece’ rape is now revenged at full,
’Twere good to entertain Porsenna’s league.
Collatine.
Porsenna we embrace, whose royal presence
Shall grace the consul to the funeral pile.
March on to Rome. Jove be our guard and guide,
That hath in us ’venged rape, and punished pride!
[Exeunt.