PHILIP. "Due punishment Succeeds not always after an offence: For oftentimes 'tis for our chastisement, That Heaven doth with wicked men dispense, That, when they list, they may with usury For all misdeeds pay home the penalty." CORNELIA. This is the hope that feeds my hapless days, Else had my life been long ago expired. I trust the gods, that see our hourly wrongs, Will fire his shameful body with their flames; Except some man (resolved) shall conclude With Cæsar's death to end our servitude. Else (God to-fore) myself may live to see His tired corse lie toiling in his blood: Gor'd with a thousand stabs, and round about The wronged people leap for inward joy. And then come, Murder: then come, ugly Death: Then, Lethe, open thine infernal lake! I'll down with joy: because, before I died, Mine eyes have seen what I in heart desir'd. Pompey may not revive, and (Pompey dead) Let me but see the murd'rer murdered. PHILIP. Cæsar bewail'd his death. CORNELIA. His death he mourned, Whom while he liv'd, to live like him he scorn'd. PHILIP. He punished his murd'rers. CORNELIA. Who murder'd him, But he that followed Pompey with the sword? He murder'd Pompey that pursued his death, And cast the plot to catch him in the trap. He that of his departure took the spoil, Whose fell ambition (founded first in blood) By nought but Pompey's life could be withstood. PHILIP. Photin and false Achillas he beheaded. CORNELIA. That was because that, Pompey being their friend, They had determined once of Cæsar's end. PHILIP. What got he by his death? CORNELIA. Supremacy. PHILIP. Yet Cæsar speaks of Pompey honourably. CORNELIA. Words are but wind, nor meant he what he spoke. PHILIP. He will not let his statues[363] to be broke. CORNELIA. By which disguise (whate'er he doth pretend) His own from being broke he doth defend: And by the trains, wherewith he us allures, His own estate more firmly he assures. PHILIP. He took no pleasure in his death, you see. CORNELIA. Because himself of life did not bereave him. PHILIP. Nay, he was mov'd with former amity. CORNELIA. He never trusted him but to deceive him. But, had he lov'd him with a love unfeign'd, Yet had it been a vain and trustless league: "For there is nothing in the soul of man So firmly grounded, as can qualify Th' inextinguishable thirst of signiory. Not Heaven's fear, nor country's sacred love, Not ancient laws, nor nuptial chaste desire: Respect of blood, or (that which most should move) The inward zeal that nature doth require: All these, nor anything we can devise, Can stop the heart resolv'd to tyrannise." PHILIP. I fear your griefs increase with this discourse. CORNELIA. My griefs are such, as hardly can be worse.