Sextus. Come all at once--ay, all! Yet hear me, Brutus; thou art honourable, And my words tend to thee: my father died By many hands; what’s he ’mongst you can challenge The least, ay, smallest honour in his death? If I be killed amongst this hostile throng, The poorest snaky[5.71] soldier well may claim As much renown in royal Sextus’ death As Brutus, thou, or thou, Horatius: I am to die, and more than die I cannot; Rob not yourselves of honour in my death. When the two mightiest spirits of Greece and Troy Tugged for the mastery, Hector and Achilles, Had puissant Hector, by Achilles’ hand, Died in a single monomachy,[5.72] Achilles Had been the worthy; but, being slain by odds, The poorest Myrmidon had as much honour As faint Achilles in the Trojan’s death. Brutus. Hadst thou not done a deed so execrable That gods and men abhor, I’d love thee, Sextus, And hug thee for this challenge breathed so freely. Behold, I stand for Rome as general: Thou of the Tarquins dost alone survive, The head of all these garboils,[5.73] the chief actor Of that black sin, which we chastise by arms.-- Brave Romans, with your bright swords be our lists, And ring us in; none dare to offend the prince By the least touch, lest he incur our wrath: This honour do your consul, that his hand May punish this arch-mischief, that the times Succeeding may of Brutus thus much tell,-- By him pride, lust, and all the Tarquins fell. Sextus. To ravish Lucrece, cuckold Collatine, And spill the chastest blood that ever ran In any matron’s veins, repents me not So much as to have wronged a gentleman So noble as the consul in this strife. Brutus, be bold! thou fight’st with one scorns[5.74] life. Brutus. And thou with one that less than his renown Prizeth his blood, or Rome’s imperial crown. [_Alarum; a fierce fight with sword and target; then a pause_. Brutus. Sextus, stand fair: much honour shall I win To revenge Lucrece, and chastise thy sin. Sextus. I repent nothing, may I live or die; Though my blood fall, my spirit shall mount on high. [_Alarum; they fight with single swords, and, being deadly wounded and panting for breath, they strike at each other with their gauntlets and fall_. Horatius. Both slain! O noble Brutus, this thy fame To after ages shall survive; thy body Shall have a fair and gorgeous sepulchre, For whom the matrons shall in funeral black Mourn twelve sad moons--thou that first governed Rome, And swayed the people by a consul’s name. These bodies of the Tarquins we’ll commit Unto the funeral pile. You, Collatine, Shall succeed Brutus in the consul’s place, Whom with this laurel-wreath we here create. [_Crowning him with laurel_.] Such is the people’s voice; accept it, then. Collatine. We do; and may our power so just appear, Rome may have peace, both with our love and fear. But soft, what march is this?