[345] Æmonia, where Pharsalia was.--_S. P._ ACT II. CORNELIA, CICERO. CORNELIA. And will ye needs bedew my dead-grown joys, And nourish sorrow with eternal tears? O eyes, and will ye ('cause I cannot dry Your ceaseless springs) not suffer me to die? Then make the blood from forth my branch-like veins, Like weeping rivers, trickle by your vaults; And sponge my body's heat of moisture so, As my displeased soul may shun my heart. Heavens, let me die, and let the Destinies Admit me passage to th' infernal lake; That my poor ghost may rest where powerful fate In death's sad kingdom hath my husband lodg'd. Fain would I die, but darksome ugly death Withholds his dart, and in disdain doth fly me, Maliciously knowing, that hell's horror Is milder than mine endless discontent; And that, if death upon my life should seize, The pain supposed would procure mine ease. But, ye sad Powers, that rule the silent deeps Of dead-sad night, where sins do mask unseen: You that amongst the darksome mansions Of pining ghosts 'twixt sighs, and sobs, and tears, Do exercise your mirthless empery:[347] Ye gods (at whose arbitrement all stand), Dislodge my soul, and keep it with yourselves, For I am more than half your prisoner. My noble husbands (more than noble souls) Already wander under your commands. O, then shall wretched I, that am but one, (Yet once both theirs) survive, now they are gone? Alas! thou should'st, thou should'st, Cornelia, Have broke the sacred thread that tied thee here, When as thy husband Crassus (in his flower) Did first bear arms, and bare away my love. And not (as thou hast done) go break the bands, By calling Hymen once more back again. Less hapless, and more worthily thou might'st Have made thine ancestors and thee renown'd: If (like a royal dame), with faith fast kept, Thou with thy former husband's death had'st slept. But partial Fortune and the powerful Fates, That at their pleasures wield our purposes, Bewitch'd my life, and did beguile my love. Pompey, the fame that ran of thy frail honours, Made me thy wife, thy love, and (like a thief) From my first husband stole my faithless grief. But if (as some believe) in heaven or hell Be heavenly powers or infernal spirits, That care to be aveng'd of lovers' oaths-- Oaths made in marriage, and after broke; Those powers, those spirits (mov'd with my light faith), Are now displeas'd with Pompey and myself, And do with civil discord (furthering it) Untie the bands that sacred Hymen knit: Else only I am cause of both their wraths, And of the sin that sealeth up thine eyes; Thine eyes (O deplorable Pompey!)--I am she, I am that plague, that sacks thy house and thee. For 'tis not heaven, nor Crassus ('cause he sees