E'en at the base of Pompey's statue, (Which all the while ran blood,) great Cesar fell. 11. Good friends! Sweet friends! Let me not stir you up To such a sudden flood of mutiny! They that have done this deed are honorable! What private griefs they have, alas, I know not, That made them do it! They are wise and honorable, 12. I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts! I am no orator, as Brutus is; But, as you know me all, a plain, blunt man, That love my friend-and that they knew full well, 13. I only speak right on, I tell you that which you yourselves do know- Show you sweet Cesar's wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths, And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony LESSON CLI. Othello's Apology for his Marriage.-TRAGEDY OF OTHELLO 1. MOST potent, grave and reverend seigniors: My very noble and approv'd good masters: 2. Of my whole course of love; what drugs what charms, (For such proceedings I am charg'd withal) won his daughter with. 3. Her father lov'd me; oft invited me; Still question'd me the story of my life From year to year: the battles, sieges, fortunes, I ran it through, e'en from my boyish days Of hair breadths 'scapes in the imminent deadly brcach: Of being taken by the insolent foe, And sold to slavery; of my redemption thence, And with it all my travel's history. Would Desdemona seriously incline; But still the house affairs would draw her thence; 5. I did consent; And often did beguile her of her tears, When I did speak of some distressful stroke That my youth suffer'd. My story being done, She swore in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange; "Twas pitiful; 'twas wond'rous pitiful ; She wish'd she had not heard it; yet she wish'd 6. LESSON CLII. Soliloquy of Hamlet* on Death.-TRAGEDY OF Hamlet. Devoutly to be wish'd.—To die—to sleep To sleep, perchance to dream-ay, there's the rub- Must give us pause. 3. There's the respect, For, who would bear the whips and scorns of time, 4. Who would fardels‡ bear, But that the dread of something after death, *A Prince of Denmark, + Quietus, rest, repose. + Fardel, a bundle, or little pack. And makes us rather bear those ills we have, 5. Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; LESSON CLIII. Cato's* Soliloquy on the Immortality of the Soul.-TRAGEDY OF CATO. 1. It must be so- Else, whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, This longing after immortality? Or, whence this secret dread, and inward horror, Of falling into nought? Why shrinks the soul Back- on herself, and startles at destruction? 'Tis the divinity that stirs within us: "Tis heaven itself that points out an hereafter, And intimates Eternity to man. 2. Eternity!-thou pleasing, dreadful thought! Through what variety of untried being, Through what new scenes and changes must we pass ? But shadows, clouds and darkness rest upon it. Through all her works,) he must delight in virtue; But when? Or where? This world was made for Cesar. Marcus Portius Cato, an eminent Roman, born 94 years B. C. He was a lover of Philosophy, and a brave general; a man of great integrity, and strong attachment to his country. He boldly opposed the conspiracy of Catiline, and the ambition of Julius Cesar. After the battle of Pharsalia, Cato fled to Utica, in Africa, and being pursued by Cesar, he advised his friends to flee, and his son to trust to Cesar's clemency. He then retired to his apartment, and read Plato on the IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL, twice over; and then stabbed himself with his sword, and died, aged 48-B. C 46 years. A Grecian Philosopher. 3. Thus I am doubly arm'd. My death* and life,† - The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds. LESSON CLIV. Speech of Catiline‡ before the Roman Senate, on hearing his sentence of banishment.-CROLY'S CATILINE. 1. "BANISHED from Rome!"-what's banished, but set free From daily contact of the things I loathe ? "Tried and convicted traitor!"-Who says this? I held some slack allegiance till this hour— But now my sword's my own. Smile on, my lords; I have within my heart's hot cells shut up, 2. But here I stand and scoff you :-here I fling Hatred and full defiance in your face. Your Consul's merciful. For this all thanks. "Traitor!" I go-but I return. This-trial! To stir a fever in the blood of age, wrongs, Or make the infant's sinew strong as steel. 3. This day's the birth of sorrows!-This hour's work Will breed proscriptions.-Look to your hearths, my lords, For there henceforth shall sit, for household gods, Shapes hot from Tartarus !—all shames and crimes ; The sword. † A book written by Plato. + A Roman Senator accused of a conspiracy against the government, and banished. Marcus Tullius Cicero. |