Brutus. To make you merry: I shall, nay, I would make you merry, or tickle you till you laugh. The oracle! I’ll go to be resolved of some doubts private to myself: nay, princes, I am so much endeared both to your loves and companies, that you shall not have the power to be rid of me. What limits have we for our journey? Sextus. Five days, no more. Brutus. I shall fit me to your preparations. But one thing more: goes Collatine along? Sextus. Collatine is troubled with the common disease of all new-married men; he’s sick of the wife: his excuse is, forsooth, that Lucrece will not let him go: but you, having neither wife nor wit to hold you, I hope will not disappoint us. Brutus. Had I both, yet should you prevail with me above either. Aruns. We shall expect you. Brutus. Horatius Cocles and Mutius Scevola are not engaged in this expedition? Aruns. No, they attend the king. Farewell. Brutus. Lucretius stays at home too, and Valerius? Sextus. The palace cannot spare them. Brutus. None but we three? Sextus. We three. Brutus. We three; well, five days hence. Sextus. You have the time, farewell. [_Exeunt_ Sextus _and_ Aruns. Brutus. The time I hope cannot be circumscribed Within so short a limit; Rome and I Are not so happy. What’s the reason then, Heaven spares his rod so long? Mercury, tell me. I have’t, the fruit of pride is yet but green, Not mellow; though it grows apace, it comes not To his full height: Jove oft delays his vengeance, That when it haps ’t may prove more terrible. Despair not, Brutus, then, but let thy country And thee take this last comfort after all: Pride, when thy fruit is ripe ’t must rot and fall. But to the oracle. [_Exit_. ACT THE SECOND. SCENE I.--_A Street in Rome_. _Enter_ Horatius Cocles _and_ Mutius Scevola. Horatius. I would I were no Roman. Scevola. Cocles, why? Horatius. I am discontented, and dare not speak my thoughts. Scevola. What, shall I speak them for you? Horatius. Mutius, do. Scevola. Tarquin is proud. Horatius. Thou hast them. Scevola. Tyrannous. Horatius. True. Scevola. Insufferably lofty. Horatius. Thou hast hit me. Scevola. And shall I tell thee what I prophesy Of his succeeding rule? Horatius. No, I’ll do’t for thee: Tarquin’s ability will in the weal Beget a weak unable impotence; His strength make Rome and our dominions weak, His soaring high make us to flag our wings, And fly close by the earth; his golden feathers Are of such vastness, that they spread like sails, And so becalm us that we have not air Able to raise our plumes, to taste the pleasures Of our own elements. Scevola. We are one heart; Our thoughts and our desires are suitable.