SCENE III.

_A Grove near the Walls of Syracuse._

_Enter_ MARULLO _and_ POLIPHRON. _A Table set out with Wine, &c._

_Mar._ 'Twill take, I warrant thee.

_Poliph._ You may do your pleasure; But, in my judgment, better to make use of The present opportunity.

_Mar._ No more.

_Poliph._ I am silenced.

_Mar._ More wine; prithee drink hard, friend, And when we're hot, whatever I propound,

_Enter_ CIMBRIO, GRACCULO, _and other Slaves._

Second with vehemence.--Men of your words, all welcome! Slaves use no ceremony; sit down; here's a health.

_Poliph._ Let it run round; fill every man his glass.

_Grac._ We look for no waiters;--this is wine!

_Mar._ The better, Strong, lusty wine: drink deep; this juice will make us As free as our lords. [_Drinks._

_Grac._ But if they find we taste it, We are condemn'd to the quarry during life, Without hope of redemption.

_Mar._ Pish! for that We'll talk anon: another rouse[112]! we lose time; [_Drinks._ When our low blood's wound up a little higher, I'll offer my design; nay, we are cold yet; These glasses contain nothing:--do me right, [_Takes the bottle._ As e'er you hope for liberty. 'Tis done bravely: How do you feel yourselves now?

_Cimb._ I begin To have strange conundrums in my head.

_Grac._ And I To loathe base water. I would be hang'd in peace now For one month of such holidays.

_Mar._ An age, boys, And yet defy the whip; if you are men, Or dare believe you have souls.

_Cimb._ We are no brokers.

_Mar._ Our lords are no gods--

_Grac._ They are devils to us, I am sure.

_Mar._ But subject to Cold, hunger, and diseases.

_Grac._ In abundance.

_Mar._ Equal Nature fashion'd us All in one mould. The bear serves not the bear, Nor the wolf the wolf; 'twas odds of strength in tyrants That pluck'd the first link from the golden chain With which that THING OF THINGS[113] bound in the world. Why then, since we are taught, by their examples, To love our liberty, if not command, Should the strong serve the weak, the fair, deform'd ones? Or such as know the cause of things pay tribute To ignorant fools? All's but the outward gloss, And politic form, that does distinguish us.-- Cimbrio, thou art a strong man; if, in place Of carrying burthens, thou hadst been train'd up In martial discipline, thou might'st have proved A general, fit to lead and fight for Sicily, As fortunate as Timoleon.

_Cimb._ A little fighting Will serve a general's turn.

_Mar._ Thou, Gracculo, Hast fluency of language, quick conceit; And, I think, cover'd with a senator's robe, Formally set on the bench, thou wouldst appear As brave a senator.

_Grac._ Would I had lands, Or money to buy a place! and if I did not Sleep on the bench with the drowsiest of them, Play with my chain, look on my watch, and wear A state beard, with my barber's help, rank with them In their most choice peculiar gifts, degrade me, And put me to drink water again, which, now I have tasted wine, were poison!

_Mar._ 'Tis spoke nobly, And like a gownman: none of these, I think too, But would prove good burghers.

_Grac._ Hum! the fools are modest; I know their insides: here's an ill-faced fellow, (But that will not be seen in a dark shop;) If he did not in a month learn to outswear, In the selling of his wares, the cunning'st tradesman In Syracuse, I have no skill. Here's another; Observe but what a cozening look he has!-- Hold up thy head, man! If, for drawing gallants Into mortgages for commodities[114], cheating heirs With your new counterfeit gold thread, and gumm'd velvets, He does not transcend all that went before him, Call in his patent.

_Mar._ Is 't not pity, then, Men of such eminent virtues should be slaves?

_Cimb._ Our fortune.

_Mar._ 'Tis your folly: daring men Command and make their fates. Say, at this instant, I mark'd you out a way to liberty; Possess'd you of those blessings our proud lords So long have surfeited in; and, what is sweetest, Arm you with power, by strong hand to revenge Your stripes, your unregarded toil, the pride, The insolence, of such as tread upon Your patient sufferings; fill your famish'd mouths With the fat and plenty of the land; redeem you From the dark vale of servitude, and seat you Upon a hill of happiness; what would you do To purchase this, and more?

_Grac._ Do! any thing: To burn a church or two, and dance by the light on 't, Were but a May-game.

_Poliph._ I have a father living; But if the cutting of his throat could work this, He should excuse me.

_Cimb._ 'Slight! I would cut mine own, Rather than miss it; so I might but have A taste on 't ere I die.

_Mar._ Be resolute men; You shall run no such hazard, nor groan under The burden of such crying sins.

_Poliph._ Do not torment us With expectation.

_Mar._ Thus, then:--Our proud masters, And all the able freemen of the city, Are gone unto the wars----

_Poliph._ Observe but that.

_Mar._ Old men, and such as can make no resistance, Are only left at home----

_Grac._ And the proud young fool, My master--if this take, I'll hamper him.

_Mar._ Their arsenal, their treasure, 's in our power, If we have hearts to seize them. If our lords fall In the present action, the whole country's ours: Say they return victorious, we have means To keep the town against them; at the worst, To make our own conditions. If you dare break up Their iron chests, banquet in their rich halls, And carve yourselves of all delights and pleasures You have been barr'd from, with one voice cry with me, Liberty! liberty!

_All._ Liberty! liberty!

_Mar._ Go, then, and take possession: use all freedom; But shed no blood. [_Exeunt Slaves._]--So, this is well begun; But not to be commended till 't be done. [_Exit._

FOOTNOTES:

[112] _Rouse_,] i. e. _full glass_, _bumper_.

[113] _That_ THING OF THINGS.] A literal translation, as Mr. M. Mason observes, of ENS ENTIUM. I know not where Pisander acquired his revolutionary philosophy: his golden chain, perhaps, he found in Homer.--GIFFORD.

[114] _For commodities_, &c.] i. e. _for wares_, of which the needy borrower made what he could. Our old writers are extremely pleasant on the heterogeneous articles which the usurers of their days forced on the necessity of the thoughtless spendthrift in lieu of the money for which he had rashly signed. Fielding has imitated them in his Miser, without adding much to their humour; and Foote, in The Minor, has servilely followed his example. The spectators of those scenes probably thought that the writers had gone beyond real life, and drawn on imagination for their amusement: but transactions (not altogether proper, perhaps, to be specified here) have actually taken place in our own times, which leave their boldest conceptions at an humble distance; and prove, beyond a doubt, that, in the arts of raising money, the invention of the most fertile poet must yield to that of the meanest scrivener.--GIFFORD.