CÆS. Enough. I'll once more cross the seas: For your good more than mine; that happier sky May bless your towns with peace, your fields with plenty; Perpetual spring, in gay perfum'd attire, Sirname your isle the garden of the west. MAN. Thanks, gracious Cæsar, for this kind acceptance, My knee doth kiss the ground, my lip your knee. Pardon, ye gods, if any haunt our land, Ye nymphs and lares, fawns and sylvans wild, That thus I bring a stranger on our coasts, Whose foreign shape and language may affright Our lazy clowns, and on my country's back Once tread victorious steps. Be pleas'd to view Wrongs now redress'd, neglected first by you. CÆS. Now, Volusene, Our glorious state, like the noon-pointed sun, When he bestrides the lion's flaming fleece, Doth north-west roll his burning brand, whose fire The ocean's blue lake cannot stop, but flies With brighter blaze to thaw the frozen isles. But how proceeds our preparation? VOL. Many strong ships are built, five legions arm'd Ready to launch. CÆS. Blow gently, Africus: Play on our poops. When Hyperion's son Shall couch in west his foam-bedappl'd jades, We'll rise to run our course. SCENE II. EUL. Though Orpheus' harp, Arion's lute, the chimes Whose silver sound did Theban towers raise: Though sweet Urania with her ten-string'd lyre, Unto whose stroke the daily-rolling spheres Dance their just measures, should with tune and tone Tickle my air-bred ear; yet can their notes Those fabulous stones more enter, than my soul. Lead, poppy, slumber, stupefy my heart; But Bedlam grief acts gambols in my brain. The Centaur's wheel, Prometheus' hawk, the vulture Of Tityus, Sisyphus' never-mossy stone, The tale of Danaids' tub and Tantalus' gaping, Are but flea-bitings to my smart. I've slain A kinsman--more, a friend I dearly lov'd: Nay more, no cause provoking, but in rash And hellish choler. I thought my love had cannon-proof been 'gainst A world of injuries; when see, all is split By a small wind. Cursed be thou, my sword, The instrument of fury! cursed hand, Which mad'st the thrust! but most accursed part, Whose ruddy flesh triangular boil'd in flame, Like an Ætnean or Vesuvian salamander! That breast I so could hug, that faithful breast, That snowy white, I with dark sanguine stain'd; And from the wound's red lips his panting heart Did seem to say, Is this a friendly deed? O no, Hirildas: bears can harmless play, Lions can dally, and sheathe up their claws; I only, worst of brutes, kill friends in jest. Why does Androgeus, kindly-cruel, keep Me from their sentence? say, law bids me die; If law should not, I'll make that law myself. Shall ensigns be display'd, and nations rage About so vile a wretch? shall foreign hoofs