_Eup._ Ha! what means The tyrant?--I obey. [_Exit CALIPPUS._] And, oh! ye pow'rs, Ye ministers of Heaven, defend my father; Support his drooping age; and when anon Avenging justice shakes her crimson steel, Oh! be the grave at least a place of rest; That from his covert, in the hour of peace, Forth he may come to bless a willing people, And be your own just image here on earth. [_Exit._ ACT THE FOURTH. SCENE I. _Enter DIONYSIUS, CALIPPUS, &c._ _Dio._ Away each vain alarm; the sun goes down: Nor yet Timoleon issues from his fleet. There let him linger on the wave-worn beach; Here the vain Greek shall find another Troy, A more than Hector here. Though Carthage fly, Ourself, still Dionysius, here remains. And means the Greek to treat of terms of peace? By Heav'n, this panting bosom hop'd to meet His boasted phalanx on the embattled plain. And doth he now, on peaceful councils bent, Despatch his herald?--Let the slave approach. _Enter the HERALD._ Now speak thy purpose; what doth Greece impart? _Her._ Timoleon, sir, whose great renown in arms Is equall'd only by the softer virtues Of mild humanity, that sway his heart, Sends me his delegate to offer terms, On which ev'n foes may well accord; on which The fiercest nature, though it spurns at justice, May sympathize with his. _Dio._ Unfold thy mystery; Thou shalt be heard. _Her._ The gen'rous leader sees, With pity sees, the wild destructive havoc Of ruthless war; he hath survey'd around The heaps of slain that cover yonder field, And, touch'd with gen'rous sense of human woe, Weeps o'er his victories. _Dio._ Your leader weeps! Then let the author of those ills thou speak'st of, Let the ambitious factor of destruction, Timely retreat, and close the scene of blood. Why doth affrighted peace behold his standard Uprear'd in Sicily? and wherefore here The iron ranks of war, from which the shepherd Retires appall'd, and leaves the blasted hopes Of half the year, while closer to her breast The mother clasps her infant? _Her._ 'Tis not mine To plead Timoleon's cause; not mine the office To justify the strong, the righteous motives That urge him to the war: the only scope My deputation aims at, is to fix An interval of peace, a pause of horror, That they, whose bodies, on the naked shore, Lie weltering in their blood, from either host May meet the last sad rites to nature due, And decent lie in honourable graves. _Dio._ Go tell your leader, his pretexts are vain. Let him, with those that live, embark for Greece, And leave our peaceful plains; the mangled limbs Of those he murder'd, from my tender care Shall meet due obsequies.