Whate'er it now be); and Rome's earliest cement
Was brother's blood; and if its native blood

Be spilt till the choked Tiber be as red
As e'er 'twas yellow, it will never wear
The deep hue of the Ocean and the Earth,
Which the great robber sons of fratricide
Have made their never-ceasing scene of slaughter,
For ages.

Arn. But what have these done, their far
Remote descendants, who have lived in peace,
The peace of Heaven, and in her sunshine of
Piety?

Cas. And what had they done, whom the old Romans o'erswept ?-Hark!

Arn.

They are soldiers singing

A reckless roundelay, upon the eve

Of many deaths, it may be of their own.

90

Cas. And why should they not sing as well as swans? They are black ones, to be sure.

Arn.

I see, too?

So, you are learned,

Cas. In my grammar, certes. I
Was educated for a monk of all times,
And once I was well versed in the forgotten
Etruscan letters, and-were I so minded-
Could make their hieroglyphics plainer than
Your alphabet.

Arn.

And wherefore do you not?

Cæs. It answers better to resolve the alphabet
Back into hieroglyphics. Like your statesman,
And prophet, pontiff, doctor, alchymist,

Philosopher, and what not, they have built
More Babels, without new dispersion, than

100

The stammering young ones of the flood's dull ooze, 110

Who failed and fled each other. Why? why, marry,
Because no man could understand his neighbour.

They are wiser now, and will not separate
For nonsense. Nay, it is their brotherhood,
Their Shibboleth-their Koran-Talmud-their
Cabala-their best brick-work, wherewithal
They build more-

Arn. (interrupting him). Oh, thou everlasting sneerer! Be silent! How the soldier's rough strain seems Softened by distance to a hymn-like cadence! Listen!

Cas. Yes. I have heard the angels sing.

Arn. And demons howl.

Cæs.

I love all music.

120

1. [Francis the First was taken prisoner at the Battle of Pavia, February 24, 1525.]

2. [Compare The Siege of Corinth, line 752, Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 483. There is a note of tragic irony in the soldiers' vain-glorious prophecy.]

Cæs.

Up! up with the Lily!

And down with the Keys !
In old Rome, the seven-hilly,
We'll revel at ease.
Her streets shall be gory,

Her Tiber all red,
And her temples so hoary

Shall clang with our tread.

Oh, the Bourbon! the Bourbon !1
The Bourbon for aye!

Of our song bear the burden!
And fire, fire away!

With Spain for the vanguard,
Our varied host comes;
And next to the Spaniard
Beat Germany's drums;
And Italy's lances

Are couched at their mother;
But our leader from France is,
Who warred with his brother.

Oh, the Bourbon! the Bourbon !
Sans country or home,

We'll follow the Bourbon,

To plunder old Rome.

An indifferent song

For those within the walls, methinks, to hear.

150

160

170

Arn. Yes, if they keep to their chorus. But here comes The general with his chiefs and men of trust.".

A goodly rebel.

Enter the Constable BOURBON cum suis," etc., etc.

Phil.

How now, noble Prince,

Why should I be so?

You are not cheerful?

Bourb.

Phil. Upon the eve of conquest, such as ours, Most men would be so.

i. The General with his men of confidence.—[MS.]

"Calla calla

1. [Brantôme (Memoires, etc., 1722, i. 215) quotes a "chanson" of "Les soldats Espagnols" as they marched Romewards. Julio Cesar, Hannibal, y Scipion! Viva la fama de Bourbon."]

Bourb.

Were the walls of

If I were secure! Phil. Doubt not our soldiers.

adamant,

They'd crack them. Hunger is a sharp artillery.
Bourb. That they will falter is my least of fears.
That they will be repulsed, with Bourbon for
Their chief, and all their kindled appetites
To marshal them on-were those hoary walls
Mountains, and those who guard them like the gods
Of the old fables, I would trust my Titans ;-

But now

Phil.

180

They are but men who war with mortals. Bourb. True: but those walls have girded in great

ages,

i.

And sent forth mighty spirits. The past earth
And present phantom of imperious Rome
Is peopled with those warriors; and methinks
They flit along the eternal City's rampart,
And stretch their glorious, gory, shadowy hands,
And beckon me away!

Phil.

So let them! Wilt thou

Turn back from shadowy menaces of shadows?

190

Bourb. They do not menace me. I could have

faced,

Methinks, a Sylla's menace; but they clasp,

And raise, and wring their dim and deathlike hands,
And with their thin aspen faces and fixed eyes

Fascinate mine. Look there!

A guard in sight; they wisely keep below,
Sheltered by the grey parapet from some
Stray bullet of our lansquenets, who might
Practise in the cool twilight.

Bourb.

You are blind.

Phil. If seeing nothing more than may be seen
Be so.
Bourb. A thousand years have manned the walls

i. And present phantom of that deathless world.-[MS,]

With all their heroes,-the last Cato 1 stands
And tears his bowels, rather than survive
The liberty of that I would enslave.
And the first Cæsar with his triumphs flits
From battlement to battlement.

Phil.

Then conquer

The walls for which he conquered and be greater!
Bourb. True: so I will, or perish.

Phil.

You can not.

In such an enterprise to die is rather
The dawn of an eternal day, than death.

210

[Count ARNOLD and CÆSAR advance,

Cas. And the mere men-do they, too, sweat beneath The noon of this same ever-scorching glory?

Bourb.

Ah!

Welcome the bitter Hunchback! and his master,
The beauty of our host, and brave as beauteous,
And generous as lovely. We shall find
Work for you both ere morning.

Cas.

You will find,

So please your Highness, no less for yourself.
Bourb. And if I do, there will not be a labourer
More forward, Hunchback!

Cæs.

You may well say so,

For you have seen that back-as general,

Placed in the rear in action-but your foes

Have never seen it.

That's a fair retort,

Bourb.
For I provoked it :-but the Bourbon's breast
Has been, and ever shall be, far advanced
In danger's face as yours, were you the devil.
Cas. And if I were, I might have saved myself
The toil of coming here.

Phil.
Cæs.

Why so?

One half

220

230

1. [When the Uticans decided not to stand a siege, but to send deputies to Cæsar, Cato determined to put an end to his life rather than fall into the hands of the conqueror. Accordingly, after he had retired to rest he stabbed himself under the breast, and when the physician sewed up the wound, he thrust him away, and plucked out his own bowels. Plutarch's Lives, Langhorne's Translation, 1838, P. 553.]