Hear me, great Jove! and thou, paternal Mars, And spotless Vesta! To the death, I swear, My burning vengeance shall pursue these Tarquins! Ne'er shall my limbs know rest till they are swept From off the earth which groans beneath their infamy! Valerius, Collatine, Lucretius, all, Be partners in my oath." The above apostrophe to the dagger was marvellously delivered. As he held it up with utmost stretch of arm and addressed it, it seemed to become a living thing, an avenging divinity. The next scene was given with a contrast that came like enchantment. A multitude of relatives and friends are celebrating the obsequies of Lucretia. Brutus, with solemn and gentle mien, and a delivery of funereal gloom in which admiring love and pride gild the sorrow, pronounces her eulogy. He paints her with a bright and sweet fondness, and bewails her fate with a closing cadence indescribably plaintive. "Such perfections Might have called back the torpid breast of age To long-forgotten rapture: such a mind Might have abashed the boldest libertine, And turned desire to reverential love And holiest affection. Oh, my countrymen! You all can witness when that she went forth It was a holiday in Rome; old age Forgot its crutch, labor its task,--all ran; And mothers, turning to their daughters, cried, 'There, there's Lucretia!' Now, look ye, where she lies, That beauteous flower by ruthless violence torn! Gone! gone! gone! _All._ Sextus shall die! But what for the king, his father? _Brutus._ Seek you instruction? Ask yon conscious walls, Which saw his poisoned brother, saw the incest Committed there, and they will cry. Revenge! Ask yon deserted street, where Tullia drove O'er her dead father's corse, 'twill cry, Revenge! Ask yonder senate-house, whose stones are purple With human blood, and it will cry, Revenge! Go to the tomb where lies his murdered wife, And the poor queen, who loved him as her son, Their unappeaséd ghosts will shriek, Revenge! The temples of the gods, the all-viewing heavens, The gods themselves, shall justify the cry, And swell the general sound, Revenge! Revenge!" The instant change, in that presence of death, from the subdued, mournful manner to this tremendous burst of blazing eloquence was a consummate marvel of oratoric effect, in which art and nature were at odds which was the greater element. It might be said of Forrest in this scene,--as Corunna in the play itself described to Horatius the action of Brutus,-- "He waved aloft the bloody dagger, And spoke as if he held the souls of men In his own hand and moulded them at pleasure. They looked on him as they would view a god. Who, from a darkness which invested him, Sprang forth, and, knitting his stern brow in frowns, Proclaimed the vengeful will of angry Jove."