CORNELIA. Alas, my sorrow would be so much less, If he had died, his falchion in his fist: Had he amidst huge troops of armed men Been wounded by another any way, It would have calmed many of my sighs. For why t' have seen his noble Roman blood, Mix'd with his enemies', had done him good. But he is dead (O heavens!), not dead in fight, With pike in hand upon a fort besieg'd, Defending of a breach: but basely slain; Slain traitorously, without assault in war. Yea, slain he is, and bitter chance decreed To have me there, to see this bloody deed. I saw him; I was there; and in mine arms He almost felt the poniard when he fell. Whereat my blood stopp'd in my straggling veins; Mine hair grew bristled like a thorny grove; My voice lay hid half-dead within my throat; My frightful heart (stunn'd in my stone-cold breast) Faintly redoubled ev'ry feeble stroke; My spirit, chained with impatient rage, Did raving strive to break the prison ope; Enlarg'd, to drown the pain it did abide In solitary Lethe's sleepy tide. Thrice (to absent me from this hated light) I would have plung'd my body in the sea; And thrice detain'd with doleful shrieks and cries (With arms to heaven uprear'd) I 'gan exclaim And bellow forth against the gods themselves A bead-roll[349] of outrageous blasphemies; Till (grief to hear, and hell for me to speak), My woes wax'd stronger, and myself grew weak. Thus day and night I toil in discontent, And sleeping wake, when sleep itself, that rides Upon the mists, scarce moisteneth mine eyes. Sorrow consumes me, and, instead of rest, With folded arms I sadly sit and weep. And, if I wink, it is for fear to see The fearful dreams'-effects that trouble me. O heavens! what shall I do? alas, must I, Must I myself be murderer of myself? Must I myself be forc'd to ope the way, Whereat my soul in wounds may sally forth? CICERO. Madam, you must not thus transpose yourself; We see your sorrow, but who sorrows not? The grief is common; and (I muse), besides The servitude that causeth all our cares, Besides the baseness wherein we are yok'd, Besides the loss of good men dead and gone, What one he is that in this broil hath been, And mourneth not for some man of his kin? CORNELIA. If all the world were in the like distress, My sorrow yet would never seem the less. CICERO. "O, but men bear misfortunes with more ease, The more indifferently that they fall; And nothing more (in uproars) men can please, Than when they see their woes not worst of all." CORNELIA. "Our friends' misfortune doth increase our own." CICERO. "But ours of others will not be acknown."[350] CORNELIA. "Yet one man's sorrow will another touch." CICERO. "Ay, when himself will entertain none such."