_Cas._ Nothing; a trifling sum of misery, New-added to the foot of thy account: Thy wife is seized by force, and borne away.-- Farewell; I dare not trust thy vengeance further. [_Exit._ [_Running to the Door, he is stopt by Guards with drawn Swords._ _Cleom._ Cleora!--There stands death, but no Cleora; I would find both together. _Enter_ CRATESICLEA, CLEONIDAS, _and_ PANTHEUS _with Blood on his Hands_. _Crat._ Oh king of Sparta! _Cleom._ Peace, mother, peace; I have had news from hell before you,-- Cleora's gone to death. Is there a door, A casement, or a rift within these walls, That can let loose my body to her rescue? _Panth._ All closed; nothing but heaven above is open. _Cleom._ Nay, that's closed too; the gods are deaf to prayers! Hush then; the irrevocable doom's gone forth, And prayers lag after, but can ne'er o'ertake.-- Let us talk forward of our woes to come. _Crat._ Cleanthes! (Oh, could you suspect his faith?) 'Twas he, that headed those, who forced her hence. _Cleom._ Pantheus bleeds! _Panth._ A scratch, a feeble dart, At distance thrown by an Egyptian hand. _Crat._ You heard me not; Cleanthes is---- _Cleom._ He was----no more, good mother; He tore a piece of me away, and still The void place aches within me.--O, my boy, I have bad news to tell thee. _Cleon._ None so bad, As that I am a boy. Cleanthes scorned me; And, when I drove a thrust, home as I could, To reach his traitor heart, he put it by, And cried, as in derision,--Spare the stripling. Oh that insulting word! I would have swopped Youth for old age, and all my life behind, To have been then a momentary man. _Cleom._ Alas! thy manhood, like a forward spring, Before it comes to bear the promised fruit, Is blighted in the bud. Never, my boy, Canst thou fetch manhood up, with thy short steps, While, with long strides, the giant stalks before thee. _Cleon._ Am I to die before I am a man? _Cleom._ Yes, thou must die with me, and I with her, Who gave me life; and our poor infant too, within, Must die before it knows what dying means. Three different dates of nature, one would think; But fate has crammed us all into one lease, And that even now expiring. _Panth._ Yet we live. _Cleom._ No, even now we die; death is within us, And keeps our life; for nourishment is life, And we have fed our last; hunger feeds death. _Crat._ A lingering doom, but four days hence the same; And we can shorten those, turn days to hours, And hours to moments; death is in our call. _Panth._ The sooner, then, the better. _Cleon._ So say I. _Panth._ While we have spirits left to meet him boldly.