CICERO. Vouchsafe, immortals, and (above the rest) Great Jupiter, our city's sole protector, That if (provok'd against us by our evils) You needs will plague us with your ceaseless wrath, At least to choose those forth that are in fault, And save the rest in these tempestuous broils: Else let the mischief that should them befall, Be pour'd on me, that one may die for all. Oft hath such sacrifice appeas'd your ires, And oft ye have your heavy hands withheld From this poor people, when (with one man's loss) Your pity hath preserv'd the rest untouch'd: But we, disloyal to our own defence, Faint-hearted do those liberties enthral, Which to preserve (unto our after-good) Our fathers hazarded their dearest blood. Yet Brutus Manlius, hardy Scoevola, And stout Camillus, are returned from Styx, Desiring arms to aid our Capitol. Yea, come they are, and fiery as before; Under a tyrant see our bastard hearts Lie idly sighing; while our shameful souls Endure a million of base controls. Poison'd ambition (rooted in high minds), 'Tis thou that train'st us into all these errors: Thy mortal covetise[340] perverts our laws, And tears our freedom from our franchis'd hearts. Our fathers found thee at their former walls; And humbled to their offspring left thee dying. Yet thou, reviving, soil'dst[341] our infant town With guiltless blood by brother's hands out-launch'd; And hong'st (O hell) upon a fort half-finish'd Thy monstrous murder for a thing to mark. "But faith continues not where men command. Equals are ever bandying for the best: A state divided cannot firmly stand. Two kings within one realm could never rest." This day, we see, the father and the son Have fought like foes Pharsalia's miseries; And with their blood made marsh the parched plains, While th' earth, that groan'd to bear their carcases, Bewail'd th' insatiate humours of them both; That as much blood in wilful folly spent, As were to tame the world sufficient. Now, Parthia, fear no more, for Crassus' death That he[342] will come thy borders to besiege: Nor fear the darts of our courageous troops; For those brave soldiers, that were sometime wont To terrify thee with their names, are dead; And civil fury, fiercer than thine hosts, Hath in a manner this great town o'erturn'd, That whilom was the terror of the world, Of whom so many nations stood in fear, To whom so many nations prostrate stoop'd, O'er whom (save Heaven) nought could signiorise, And whom (save Heaven) nothing could affright; Impregnable, immortal, and whose power Could never have been curb'd, but by itself. For neither could the flaxen-hair'd High-Dutch (A martial people, madding after arms), Nor yet the fierce and fiery-humour'd French: The Moor that travels to the Libyan sands,