Catiline His Conspiracy

Edited by Inga-Stina Ewbank

INTRODUCTION

The first performance

Catiline His Conspiracy (as the play’s title-page in the 1616 folio confirms) was first ‘Acted in the year 1611. By the King’s Majesty’s Servants.’ The play was not a success with its first audiences, encountering ‘all vexation of censure’, as Jonson puts it in his address ‘To the Reader in Ordinary’ in the quarto edition of Catiline published later in the same year. It is impossible to know at which of the two playhouses then used by the King’s Men the play was originally staged: at the open-air amphitheatre of the Globe on the south bank of the Thames, or the indoor Blackfriars theatre in central London. Much the same repertory, of new plays and revivals, was played at both houses (Gurr, 1996, 367; Knutson, 1991, 136), and the quite modest demands which Catiline makes on staging could have been met equally well at either theatre. Blackfriars had a larger proportion of better-educated playgoers, and might consequently be regarded as the more likely venue for this learned tragedy, yet the play’s unhappy fate at its first performance might alternatively suggest that it had not gone down well with a more diverse audience at the Globe.

In 1611 London theatres were closed by plague only during the month of February (Barroll, 1991, 173). The performance cannot have been later than August, since William Ecclestone, listed in the folio edition as one of the actors, joined the Lady Elizabeth’s Men on the 29^th of that month. This points to the spring or summer of 1611 as a likely date for the first performance. The intricate work that must have gone into the composition of the text suggests that the writing of Catiline stretches back at least into 1610, perhaps earlier.

Catiline His Conspiracy: then and now

In the Tullianum, the dank underground cell of the Mamertino prison hollowed out of the Capitoline Hill and now to be found beneath the small church of San Giuseppe dei Falegnami (St Joseph of the Carpenters), there is a plaque on which are inscribed the names of ten notable enemies of the state of Rome executed there. In 104 BC the Numidian king Jugurtha was starved to death (morto per fame), while his conqueror Marius led a victory parade through the Forum. In 46 BC Vercingetorix, the Gallic general, was beheaded (decapitato) after Caesar’s triumph. The name of Catiline, who conspired against the Senate and people of Rome, is not there; he died in Tuscany, a ‘brave bad death’, as Jonson’s Cato calls it (Catiline, 5.5.269), in battle against a legitimate Roman army. But there are the names of the chief members of his conspiracy: ‘Lentulus and Cethegus, Roman senators and other accomplices of Catiline’, listed as strangolati in 60 (which should be 63) BC. And the next name but one is that of Sejanus, decapitato in 31 BC, before his body was torn apart by an outraged mob. Both the eponymous villain-heroes of Jonson’s two surviving tragedies are thus commemorated as balefully significant in the history of Rome. They are no less significant – and, some would say, baleful – in the history of Ben Jonson as a playwright.

The Tullianum is hardly one of the chief sights for the British visitor to Rome, and yet each year far more people read the names on that plaque than ever read (let alone see) Jonson’s two Roman tragedies, Sejanus His Fall and Catiline His Conspiracy. Both were failures in the public theatre on first performance, although Jonson made it abundantly clear, when he prepared the texts for the reader, that this was the public’s fault, not his. Jonson’s decision to return to historical tragedy with Catiline might seem, after the débâcle of Sejanus at the Globe in 1603, as perverse as the readiness of the King’s Men – the company of players in which William Shakespeare was still a sharer, actor, and leading playwright – to stage it.

In the years since Sejanus, Shakespeare (who had acted in Jonson’s first Roman play) had written two Roman tragedies, Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus, but by 1611 the new theatrical fashion was for romantic tragicomedy; and in Cymbeline, the Shakespeare play contemporary with Catiline, Rome is treated with anything but historical accuracy. Since Sejanus, Jonson had scored three comic successes with Volpone, Epicene, and The Alchemist, the first and third of these with the King’s Men. The writing of Catiline must also to some extent have overlapped with the writing of at least The Alchemist. The turn from comedy and contemporary London to tragedy and the Rome of the late Republic was deliberate and programmatic.

Jonson proudly asserted in his dedication of the play to the Earl of Pembroke that here, ‘in these jig-given times’, was ‘a legitimate poem’; not only that, but ‘the best’ of his tragedies. Catiline was better than Sejanus, we are to understand, because in the later work he had not made those concessions to popular taste which he had admitted to in the preface ‘To the Readers’ of Sejanus: the lack of ‘a proper chorus’ and of observance of ‘the strict laws of time’. Catiline, though not absolutely ‘strict’ in its observance, telescopes a year and a half of Roman history, from July 64 BC, when Cicero was elected Consul for the year 63 BC, to January 62 BC, when Catiline was killed in battle. It does so by merging Catiline’s two electoral defeats (64 and 63 BC) into one, and so placing the beginning of the conspiracy a year earlier than historians think likely, as well as making it seem that Cicero becomes Consul immediately upon his election instead of the following 1 January, as was the rule. The result is an action which appears to take place over a short time (though hardly just the three days which Herford and Simpson reckon). It does not, however, strictly observe the ‘law’ of unity of time.

The unity of place in Catiline is again more attended to than in Sejanus, even though not ‘strictly’ observed. While the Senate is a key location, there is a great deal of movement between various other locations in Rome, or just outside (the Mulvian Bridge in 4.7), and in Act 5 two scenes are set in Tuscany, at the respective camps of Petreius and Catiline. Still, in the use of a chorus, of a ghost serving, like a Senecan umbra, as a prologue, and of Petreius as a messenger (nuntius) to report offstage violence and death, Catiline follows classical models. The play certainly ‘discharge[s] the other offices of a tragic author’ which Jonson had defined in the Sejanus preface as ‘truth of argument, dignity of persons, gravity and height of elocution, fulness and frequency of sentence’ (i.e. aphorisms). Some of those qualities, and especially the ‘height of elocution’ in Cicero and others – not to mention its length – were presumably what caused the initial theatrical failure of the play where, according to Jonson’s preface ‘To the Reader in Ordinary’, the audiences ‘commend[ed] the first two Acts . . . because they are the worst, and dislike[d] the oration of Cicero’. The fellow playwrights who wrote commendatory verses for the quarto of Catiline tuned in to Jonson’s note of scorn and defiance. Though popular playwrights all, they claimed to find the value of the work precisely in the fact that Jonson (in Beaumont’s words) had not ‘itched after the wild applause / Of common people’, and expected, like Jonson himself, that posterity would come in time to recognize its greatness.

Yet it may not have been the ‘common people’ alone who were impatient with Jonson’s play. The lines adapted from Horace’s Epistles, 2.1.186–8, quoted as a motto on the title-page of the 1611 quarto – his non plebecula gaudet. / verum equitis quoque iam migravit ab aure voluptas / omnis ad incertos oculos et gaudia vana (‘the rabble does not enjoy these. And in truth all the pleasure of the knights, too, has now passed from the ear to the vain delights of the fickle eye’) – hint at a wider constituency of discontented theatre-goers within Jonson’s original audience. So too does Edmund Gayton’s comment, years later, on Jonson’s behaviour after the failure of one of his plays, traditionally thought to have been Catiline:

the only laureate of our stage (having composed a play of excellent worth, but not of equal applause) fell down upon his knees and gave thanks that he had transcended the capacity of the vulgar; yet his protestation against their ignorance was not sufficient to vindicate the misapplication of the argument, for the judicious part of that auditory condemned it equally with those that did not understand it. (Pleasant Notes upon Don Quixote, 1654; Literary Record)

Gayton’s testimony, however, must be regarded with suspicion. He was just three years old when Catiline – if this is indeed the play to which he refers – was first staged in London in 1611, and he was not always known as a reliable reporter of events that had occurred within his adult years.

By the time Gayton recorded these observations, moreover, Catiline had made a remarkable recovery. The title-page of the second quarto, published in 1635, declared that the play was ‘now acted by His Majesty’s Servants with great applause’. Throughout the mid and late seventeenth century it enjoyed a succes d’estime. On the evidence of allusions made to Jonson and Shakespeare in that period, G. E. Bentley was able to draw the astonishing conclusion that Catiline was then ‘the most familiar of all the plays of the two dramatists’ (Bentley, 1945, 111). More recently it has been shown that, as a political lesson that could be used by all sides, the play was very much alive in the polemical culture of the Civil War and Commonwealth period (Wiseman, 1998). In the Restoration a taste for neoclassical tragedy, together with the possibility of reading contemporary political parallels into Catiline, gave it a certain popularity in the theatre (see the play’s Stage History, Electronic Edition). In 1670 Jonson’s Ghost could appear in the epilogue to a revival of Every Man In His Humour to castigate the ancestors of the present audience because ‘they condemned those noble works of mine, / Sejanus and my best-loved Catiline’ (Noyes, 1935, 248).

Yet over a longer span of time, the hopes that Jonson and his admirers placed in the verdict of posterity have not been fulfilled. By 1711, John Dennis declared Catiline, like Sejanus, to contain material ‘utterly incapable of exciting either compassion or terror for the principal characters, which are yet the chief passions that a tragic poet ought to endeavour to excite’; by mid-century Edward Young could regard Catiline as all too dependent on the writings of Sallust, and sadly lacking in the originality he associated with the work of Shakespeare (Noyes, 1935, 312, 314). Subsequent generations have tended to relegate the play to the category of what Anne Barton (1984, 154) has called ‘frigid neo-classical mistakes’. By now it may well be true that Catiline is Jonson’s least popular play: not acted for the last three hundred years, dismissed by critics in phrases of which T. S. Eliot’s ‘that dreary Pyrrhic victory of tragedy’ is one of the kindest (Eliot, 1958, 149). While editions of other Jonson plays have multiplied, since 1916 the only scholarly edition of Catiline, apart from Herford and Simpson’s, has been Bolton and Gardner’s in the Regents Renaissance Drama series (1973). With a reader-friendly text not easy to come by, and with the matter and manner of Catiline becoming ever more alien as Latin disappears from curricula and syllabuses, there seem to be formidable barriers for a reader of this work to overcome. The aim of this edition is to remove the first of those barriers and to lower the second by providing such textual and contextual information as may help the reader to understand and appreciate the extraordinary achievement of the play ‘best-loved’ by Jonson himself – indeed to get that much closer to being what Jonson called a ‘reader extraordinary’.

Catiline as a Roman tragedy

In 1611 there was nothing in itself extraordinary about writing a play on Roman history, nor about aiming at the form of a ‘true’ (i.e. classical, which had come to mean Senecan) tragedy. What was extraordinary was the combination of the two in a work for an adult acting company. Strictly classical form, observing the unities and employing a chorus and a Nuntius to report action, was the preserve of a small group of closet dramatists connected by aesthetic conviction and personal ties to Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, sister of Sir Philip Sidney and mother of William Herbert – the third Earl of Pembroke, to whom Jonson dedicated Catiline with an assured appeal to his ‘great and singular faculty of judgement’. The Countess had begun the fashion of plays never intended for the theatre with her Antonius (1590), a translation of the French neo-Senecan Garnier’s Marc Antoine. Samuel Daniel wrote his Cleopatra (1593) as a pendant to Antonius, and dedicated to it the Countess; and other writers followed this fashion, such as Sir William Alexander with his Monarchic Tragedies (1604) and Julius Caesar (1607). Plays written in and for the two universities could also afford to be ‘true’ tragedies, but playwrights writing for the London stage knew that they had to suppress their classicizing ambitions. To present a play with a ‘sententious Chorus’ and a ‘weighty Nuntius’ in a public theatre would be patently useless since ‘the breath that comes from the uncapable multitude is able to poison it’. This is John Webster’s lament, echoing Jonson’s Sejanus preface, in the epistle ‘To the Reader’ which prefaces The White Devil, acted at the Red Bull in the early months of 1612 (lines 18–22).

On the other hand, the history of Rome as subject-matter attracted Tudor and Stuart playwrights for a number of reasons. As one of the few bodies of consistent, continuous, and completed historical material available, it provided attractive topics for political and moral lessons. Thus the thematic intention of George Chapman’s Caesar and Pompey (written early to mid-1604) is written out on the title page: The Wars of Pompey and Caesar. Out of whose events is evicted this proposition. Only a just man is a free man. ‘Rome’ meant a culture and an ethos – all that is called upon when a ‘Roman thought’ strikes Shakespeare’s Mark Antony (Ant., 1.2.88). The idea is summed up by Petreius in Catiline when he reminds his soldiers what they are fighting for:

For the raised temples of th’immortal gods.

For all your fortunes, altars, and your fires,

For the dear souls of your loved wives and children,

Your parents’ tombs, your rites, laws, liberty.

(5.1.15–18)

To be a ‘noble Roman’ – a phrase recurring, though often ironically, throughout Catiline – should mean commitment to all these institutions, divine, domestic, familial, civic, a commitment to the concept of pietas, which Jonson in Catiline translates as ‘piety’ (see 3.2.39 and 108; 5.5.238). Catiline, in deciding to ‘lose my piety’ (1.1.93), abuses all these and epitomizes ‘impiety’ (impietas; see 1.1.60; 3.1.123). When he fights a Roman army, ‘Piety left the field’ (5.5.238). For all the noble ancestry with which he challenges Cicero (4.2.406–12), Catiline can be seen as representing the opposite of the virtues associated with the Roman Republic, ‘the traditional values of fides, disciplina, pudicitia, libertas (honour and loyalty, self-discipline, chastity, liberty)’ (Hunter, 1977, 114–15).

Secondly, and more importantly to some, Roman history offered great plot material – stories of heroism and of villainy, of power-struggles, bloody battles, murders, and suicides. Though it aims at a political moral, Chapman’s Caesar and Pompey also has all of those ingredients, including a scene where Cato disembowels himself and repels those who try to put his entrails back in order to ‘sew them up, / Being yet unperished’ (5.2.174–5, ed. Parrott, 1910). And, thirdly, Roman history contained events that could be staged with spectacular theatricality, such as suggested by stage directions in Thomas Lodge’s play about the struggle between Marius and Sulla, The Wounds of Civil War (first acted by the Admiral’s Men between 1585 and 1591), ‘Sulla in triumph in his chair triumphant of gold, drawn by four Moors before the chariot’ (3.3) or, as the play ends, ‘The funerals of Sulla in great pomp’ (ed. Houppert, 1969).

To Jonson those last two reasons for turning to Roman history – great plot material and spectacular theatricality – were less important. When he took the conspiracy of Catiline for his subject-matter, he also deliberately chose to dramatize a series of actions which are abortive or frustrated: Catiline’s attempt to be elected Consul (3.1), the attempt to assassinate Cicero (3.5), the attempt to involve the Allobroges which produces the Mulvian Bridge ambush (4.7), the assault on Caesar in the Senate (5.5.161–3), and of course the whole non-event of the Catilinarian conspiracy itself. We hear much of what the conspirators would do, but it is never done; the horrors of rape, bloodshed, and burning are in the language alone. We see some of the conspirators led off to execution, and the battle in which Catiline is killed is reported, but onstage nothing happens, repeatedly; all is said, and said at great length. Leonard Digges, in a poem prefacing the 1640 edition of Shakespeare’s Poems, sums up the differences in audience reaction to Jonson’s play and Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar:

So have I seen, when Caesar would appear,

And on the stage at half-sword parley were

Brutus and Cassius; O, how the audience

Were ravished, with what wonder they went thence,

When some new day they would not brook a line

Of tedious though well-laboured Catiline.

(Literary Record, Electronic Edition)

And yet within those ‘well-laboured’ lines of Catiline a great deal does happen. In the well-attested rivalry between Jonson and Shakespeare, and coming so soon after Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus, Catiline must be seen as a defiant demonstration of how the matter of Rome could (and, by implication, should) be written. If, as readers, we come expecting to engage with the inner lives of characters, as with Brutus in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, or with complex relationships between characters, as in the case of Antony and Cleopatra, we are obviously going to be as disappointed as the audience described in Digges’s poem was, on other grounds. Catiline’s self-explanations are simply those of someone obsessed, like Milton’s Satan, with ‘injur’d merit’; as a ‘character’ he is most interesting, because least single-minded, in the scene where he is recovering from electoral defeat (3.1.149–234). Cicero speaks only as a ‘new man’ who has achieved the highest office, the consulship. Jonson’s characters are not so much individuals with psychological depths as figures illustrating a historical process; and the complexities of their relationships are those of political manoeuvring within the evolving history of Rome. In Sejanus, set in 31 BC, Jonson had focused on the collapse of the idea of the Roman Empire embodying all the virtues of republican Romanitas. With Catiline, set in 63 BC, he turned to explore the erosion of those values in the late Republic, a period of social unrest and political breakdown.

Again there was nothing extraordinary about focusing on that period; so, in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, did most of the plays on Roman history, many of which survive as titles only. The years from the rise of Sulla and his march on Rome in 88 BC – ‘the first armed conquest of Rome by a Roman’ (Griffin, 1986, 460) – to the fall of Caesar, assassinated in 44 BC for his monarchic ambition, offered both academic and popular dramatists subjects which touched some of the most deep-seated fears of their own age: the horrors of civil wars, rebellions, and conspiracies, the fear of tyranny in absolute rulers. There were a number of plays on the subject of Caesar and Pompey apart from Chapman’s, all of them lost except for the Caesar and Pompey performed at Trinity College, Oxford in 1595, the same year as the Admiral’s Men entertained popular London audiences with a two-part play, also now lost, of the same title (Farmer, 1913; Chapman, 1910, 657). The death of Caesar similarly appealed to every kind of audience. Richard Edes’s Latin tragedy, Caesar Interfectus (of which only the epilogue remains), was performed at Christ Church, Oxford in 1582; Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar may have been the first play at the newly erected Globe in 1599 (and was acted at court in 1612–13); and a group of playwrights collaborated on the now-lost Caesar’s Fall for the Admiral’s Men in 1602. To the thoughtful, there was a sense of fearsome continuity and ineluctable repetition about the characters and events of this period. In Chapman’s Caesar and Pompey we hear of the ‘danger of the yet still smoking fire / Of Catiline’s abhorr’d conspiracy’ (1.2.36–7) and his Pompey is compared to the Catilinarians, whose aim was ‘to make / One tyrant over all the state of Rome’ (1.2.46). In Alexander’s Julius Caesar, 2.2, Cicero holds Sulla, Catiline, and Caesar in a lifetime’s experience –

Did I survive th’impetuous Sulla’s rage

And in a torrent of destruction stood,

Whilst tyrants did make Rome a tragic stage

Through a voluptuous appetite of blood?

(635–8)

– remembering how he once ‘From Catiline’s strange reason did preserve / This town (when free from foes) thralled by her own’ (644–5), and how Cato foretold ‘To what all Caesar’s deeds would turn in th’end, / If that his pride were not in time controlled’ (657–8; ed. Kastner and Charlton, 1921). Jonson’s Cicero also speaks of Catiline’s intentions as repeating but far outdoing ‘the barbarous deeds’ of Marius and Sulla (3.2.26–47). What is extraordinary, however, about Jonson’s Catiline is the way in which the entire play is structured to show that the Catilinarian conspiracy was part of a larger process by which the Republic was destroyed. The formal aspects of Senecan tragedy here become uniquely functional. The Ghost of Sulla opens the play by urging Catiline to ‘Make all past, present, future ills thine own’ (1.53); the Chorus recalls the past, agonizes about the present, and fears the future.

Sulla’s Ghost

The Ghost of Sulla serves many purposes in the play. As a Senecan umbra, rising ‘from the Stygian sound’, he produces at once a shock effect and an effective exposition. The scene is set for a lethargic and blind Rome, and a Catiline with a record of past crimes and sins, and potential for infinitely worse. Like the Ghosts of Thyestes and of Tantalus (aided by a Fury) in Seneca’s Agamemnon and Thyestes, Sulla injects into the play a mythological fear of chaos, universal ‘infection’, and unnatural darkness. This will run as a thematic undertow through the play. Jonson makes sure that Sulla’s sense of causality is also historical. Not only ‘furies’ but also Sulla himself, the Gracchi, Cinna, Marius, and Hannibal are to be models for Catiline. And ultimately this Ghost has also a political function. When Jonson chooses for his umbra a Roman politician instead of the ancestor whose crime has somehow fated the protagonist, as in the two Senecan plays mentioned, then he is in line with modern historians who see the late Republic, in many respects, as ‘the legacy of Sulla’ (Griffin, 1986, 460). Jonson is here following his chief source, Sallust, who regards Catiline as a product and symptom of a general ‘corruption of public morals’ (Bellum Catilinae, ‘The War with Catiline’, 5.8) and insists that a turning point, the final breakdown of Roman ethos, had come with Sulla: ‘after Lucius Sulla had gained control of the state by arms, he brought everything that was good to a bad end; all men began to rob and pillage’ (11.4). Jonson was well aware of the paradoxical nature of the historical Sulla, who, he wrote elsewhere, ‘living extremely dissolute himself, enforced frugality by the laws’ (Discoveries, 722–3), and whose dictatorship (from which he resigned voluntarily) was marked not only by the butchery of those on his proscription lists but also by major legislative reforms. But the Ghost who successfully – as the rest of Act 1 shows – instils his ‘spirit’ into Catiline, ‘All that was mine, and bad’, is uncomplicatedly bad, and his spirit has infected all of Rome. At the end of this act the Chorus expands the issue of Rome’s lost ‘virtue’ (574) even as it also connects the loss, as Sallust does, with the return of Sulla’s booty-laden legions from the eastern province known as Asia: ‘So, Asia, art thou cru’lly even / With us for all the blows thee given, / When we, whose virtue conquered thee, / Thus by the vices ruined be’ (587–90).

The Chorus

Jonson clearly thought hard about the Chorus. His copy of the plays of Seneca, now in the library of Clare College, Cambridge, is the edition by Del Rio (Antwerp, 1539) in which the first part contains Del Rio’s discussion of the theory of tragedy, De Tragoedia (Jonson’s Library, Electronic Edition). Like Jonson’s Sallust folio, this volume has vertical pencil markings in the margin. If these were made by Jonson, their clustering in the section on the nature and function of the Chorus would indicate a concern confirmed by his preface to Sejanus. There he wrote of ‘a proper chorus, whose habit and moods are such, and so difficult, as not any whom I have seen since the ancients – no, not they who have most presently affected laws – have yet come in the way of’. With ‘habit’ Jonson seems to have in mind the Latin noun habitus, in the sense of ‘quality, nature, character’. The Chorus in Catiline shows a careful attention to ‘habit and moods’: the collective voice of Rome as it is affected by the events enacted in the play, its moods reflected in the varied lexis and metres chosen for its expression. Where Shakespeare uses ‘real’ workmen with leather aprons or greasy caps to make plebeians part of the action onstage, it is through his Chorus that Jonson offers a sense of Rome as a whole, rather than just the politicians (and their mistresses) whom we see and hear. There is a marked progression from the first to the fourth Chorus which brings it closer to the Aeschylean than the Senecan model. It begins as a body initially concerned mainly with watching, and becomes increasingly participatory. At the end of Acts 1 and 2, the Chorus remains relatively detached, uttering general and generalizing statements – on how luxurious living, loose morals, and political corruption have made Rome into her own enemy, and on the qualities of a good magistrate, so badly needed now by Rome. In the opening scene of Act 3 the Chorus steps briefly into the action to cheer the ‘Most noble Consul’ (3.1.84), and at the end of this act it is becoming more directly concerned, reflecting the rising tension and fear in Rome. The questions the Chorus asks are no longer merely rhetorical; they progress from external to internal chaos, from fear to self-examination and self-castigation. By the end of Act 4, the Chorus is deeply involved, questioning the evidence of ‘our ears’, ‘our eyes’, asking of ‘what strange pieces are we made’, analyzing ‘Our thoughts of things’. In a poem that stands out from the rest of the text in its pellucid simplicity, the Chorus performs a searing self-examination which, though it uses the case of Cicero versus Catiline as a catalyst, leaps across ages to any time, Roman, Jacobean, or modern, when a blame culture replaces individual responsibility, and when ill-informed popular opinion is always ready to overwhelm ‘honest men / Placed at the helm’ with a ‘sea of some foul mouth or pen’ (4.7.56–8).

Choruses as such were not unfamiliar in the popular theatre. Shakespeare’s use of a Chorus which ‘wafts you o’er the seas’ in Henry V had been derided by Jonson in the prologue to the folio version of Every Man In His Humour, leading to speculation that ‘it was Jonson who made Shakespeare promptly drop the practice’ (Gurr, ed., Henry V, 6). Shakespeare, probably collaborating with George Wilkins, resumed the practice, however, and plenty of wafting, with Ancient Gower in Pericles, at a time when – as Suzanne Gossett points out in her edition of the play (2004, 76) – the use of choruses as presenters enjoyed a certain vogue of popularity. In Barnabe Barnes’s The Devil’s Charter, which the King’s Men staged in (probably) 1606 and performed at court in 1607, the author of the source text is such a choric presenter. The play, about Pope Alexander VI, is based on Geoffrey Fenton’s translation of Francesco Guicciardini’s Storia d’Italia; and Giucciardini is used as Chorus, opening and closing the play, and appearing to comment at the end of each act. The equivalent in Catiline would have been for Sallust to have been the Chorus. To contemplate such a possibility is to become all the more aware how Jonson’s Chorus is a body both watching and sharing in the fate of Rome, past, present, and future.

The figure of Catiline

An obvious structural feature of Catiline is that, as the play moves into and beyond Act 3, Cicero becomes more and more the protagonist, and Catiline less and less so – another indication that Jonson was more concerned with the history of the late Republic than with Catiline as such. After Act 1, the play probably did not fulfil contemporary expectations of what a Catiline figure should offer by way of dramatic capital. London audiences may have seen two plays on the subject of Catiline’s conspiracy before Jonson’s, though both are now lost. Stephen Gosson (1841, 30) refers in The School of Abuse to a play of his, ‘a pig of mine own sow’, which he calls Catiline’s Conspiracies. Alfred Harbage speculates that it might have been played by Leicester’s Men at the Theatre, the first purpose-built London playhouse, some time between 1576 and 1579 (Annals, 1940, 164). In August 1598 Henslowe, the theatre entrepreneur, recorded in his accounts for the Admiral’s Men three separate sums paid to Robert Wilson and Henry Chettle in earnest – as advance payment – of a play which, in his inimitable spelling, he variously sets down as ‘cattelyn’, ‘cattelyne’, and ‘cattelanes consperesey’ (Diary, ed. Foakes, 2002, 97). If it was ever completed and acted, Jonson might well have seen it.

What is certain is that, by 1611, Catiline was a very familiar figure. When in that same year the translators of the King James Bible asked in their preface to the first edition ‘Was Catiline an honest man, or a good patriot?’, they could assume that the full irony of the question would be immediately grasped, even if the logic of the underlying argument is more tortuous – that burning Bible translations, as ‘the Romanistes’ do, is like Catiline seeking to burn Rome (see 4.6.17n). Catiline had long since become a type-name for a profligate conspirator. In the possibly partly Shakespearean play Edward III (1595), a description of how ‘England was wont to harbour malcontents, / Bloodthirsty and seditious Catilines’ continues in lines which could well apply to the whole lot of disaffected followers of Jonson’s Catiline: ‘Spendthrifts, and such that gape for nothing else / But changing and alteration of the state’ (3.1.13–16). Rome translated readily into England, and long ago Thomas Paynell had dedicated his translation of Felicius’s Conspiracy of Lucius Catiline (1541) to Henry VIII, explaining that his express purpose in this work was to show ‘all that be unlearned’ that God would not suffer riotous rebels ‘to prevail against a Christian prince, his very image on earth’. Catiline’s conspiracy, he concludes, is a lesson in obedience to rulers and a warning against ‘this cursed monster, this deadly poison in a commonwealth, Rebellion’ (sigs. A2v–A3). Just how easily Catiline came to mind as a name for political evil may be suggested by the octavo (1595) edition of 3 Henry VI (called The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York, generally thought to be a text put together from actors’ report), where a boastful reference by Richard Gloucester which in the 1623 folio text is to the ‘murderous Machiavel’ is directed instead to ‘aspiring Catiline’.

Interchangeable with ‘Machiavel’, Catiline is the kind of stage villain who appears as the prologue to Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta; and the ‘murderous’ aspirations such a figure embodies would surely have been gruesomely developed in Wilson and Chettle’s Catiline (see 1.1.483n.). For the real Machiavelli, the Catiline conspiracy is morally a much less black-and-white affair; in his Discourses, 3.6, Machiavelli uses Sallust’s account, which he assumes ‘everybody has read’, as a stepping-stone into a pragmatic discussion of the complexities of dealing with a conspiracy, anticipating the moves of the conspirators and, when necessary, dissimulating knowledge of them. Bluntly he points out that, once a conspiracy is formed against a prince, he either gets killed or kills – and in the latter case incurs the suspicion of having ulterior motives and having invented the whole thing. This is the dilemma faced by Cicero and repeatedly brought up by him in his orations, as in Jonson’s play, where Caesar and Crassus utter just this suspicion (3.1.94–107), and where, in a soliloquy turned choric by its rhymes, Cicero knows that he heads

such an envious state

That sooner will accuse the magistrate

Than the delinquent, and will rather grieve

That treason is not acted, than believe.

(3.2.252–5)

Yet in the popular imagination, even in those who had not been to grammar school and studied Cicero’s orations against Catiline, the extreme villainy of Catiline came far more simply contrasted with the heroic wisdom of Cicero which defeated it. Stephen Gosson recounts how ‘the whole mark which [he] shot at’ in his play on Catiline was ‘to show the reward of traitors in Catiline, and the necessary government of learned men in the person of Cicero, which foresees every danger that is likely to happen and forestalls it continually ere it take effect’ (1841, 30). The efficacy of Cicero’s oratory is so taken for granted by Sir Philip Sidney that, when he wishes to illustrate the rhetorical figure of repetition, he simply reminds his readers how ‘Tully, when he was to drive out Catiline, as it were with a thunderbolt of eloquence, often used that figure’ (An Apology for Poetry, ed. Shepherd, 1965, 138).

The Gunpowder Plot

Early seventeenth-century England was preoccupied with the dangers of conspiracy and the blessings of deliverance from them and, as Blair Worden points out (1999, 158), contemporaries of Jonson compared Catiline’s conspiracy with Essex’s rising of 1601. Still more recent English history offered an analogy in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, the foiling and unravelling of Guy Fawkes’s conspiracy to blow up parliament. In Jonson’s Romish Plot (1967), B. N. De Luna argues that the play is ‘Jonson’s self-justifying parallelograph on the Powder Plot, wrapped up in the classical trappings of Catiline’ (143) – ‘self-justifying’ because, she also argues, Jonson had been privy to the plot through his Catholic connections and had acted as an informer. According to her, Jonson modifies characters and events in his sources to fit the Gunpowder Plot, and his language is full of covert allusions to it. Like Bolton and Gardner (186–8), and as the notes in my commentary will show, I have found that Jonson follows his classical sources so closely, both in the outline of events and in details of language, that it seems impossible to accept De Luna’s argument as a whole – quite apart from the fact that the picture given of Rome in the play would have been disturbingly unflattering to England. But her book is a salutary reminder of how historical parallels can be seen to comment on current events and persons – as indeed happened with Catiline on the Restoration stage (see below). And no doubt one specific reason why Jonson chose to write on Catiline, whatever his personal connection with the Gunpowder Plot, was the climate of fear, not quickly dispersed, which must have grown from the near-massacre of the whole parliamentary body, with the national chaos it would have brought about. In its own day it must have been the equivalent of a post-9/11 play. Yet Rome as presented in Catiline is far more than ‘classical trappings’ to wrap up a play about England.

Catiline and Roman politics

The play throws us straight into a conspiracy aimed at a wholesale destruction of Rome, a massacre and conflagration that would wipe out the ruling oligarchy in the Senate together with the people and the buildings of the city. By the time Catiline has soliloquized, explained to his wife how he manipulates the conspirators, and addressed the conspirators themselves as ‘noblest Romans’, men ‘true’, ‘honest and valiant’, striving for ‘liberty’, ‘virtue’, and ‘freedom’ (1.333, 354, 365, 344, 421), it is only too clear that these traditional republican values are now mere words to dress up envy, greed, and every other form of moral corruption. Nor, as the play proceeds, can we be sure who is truly ‘Roman’; ‘noble’ is a word used indiscriminately by both sides to refer to anyone, good or bad, whom the speaker wants to please. The women in the play – Fulvia and Sempronia – do not just provide light relief. Act 2 begins as a Roman comedy of manners, but by the end it has turned sinister: ‘By public ruin private spirits must rise’ (see 2.361.2n.). Sempronia’s ‘masculine’ wit, her urge to be a ‘great stateswoman’ (2.38 and 45), and Fulvia’s openly declared avarice are, all, like both women’s appetite for sex, darkly comic symptoms of a breakdown of traditional Roman values which the Chorus at the end of Act 1 has deplored. Avarice, ‘that wild and vast expense / That hath enforced Rome’s virtue thence’, has ruined the morals and undermined the political system which formed the strengths of the Republic: ‘Decrees are bought, and laws are sold, / Honours and offices for gold; / The people’s voices, and the free / Tongues in the Senate, bribèd be’ (1.573–82).

Jonson knows, but does not press on us, the bipartisan politics which underlie the relations between figures of the period. In an essentially oligarchic system, the division between optimates (senatorial aristocrats) and populares (politicians who used the powers of the popular assemblies and the office of tribune to challenge senatorial authority) was in any case not so much a matter of organized political parties as of ideological labels (see notes at 1.21; 3.1.85; 4.2.188; 5.4.38; and cf. Shakespeare’s Coriolanus). Catiline’s transparent allegory of ‘two bodies / One lean, weak, rotten, and that hath a head, / The other strong and healthful, but hath none’ (see 4.2.92–5n.) functions in the play as a piece of insane provocation rather than a party political statement. The Rome Jonson creates achieves, in his own words, ‘truth of argument’ as a world of social unrest and political unease. We sense a growing gap between rich and poor – impoverished veterans of Sulla’s army, repeatedly alluded to in the play, forming a large and dangerous disaffected body, feckless and wasteful scions of the aristocracy another – and a savage, unscrupulous competition for high places. Cicero becomes Consul, despite his municipal equestrian background (see 4.2.421n.), because in a tense situation the aristocracy fears the other candidates – and, he is the first to stress, because of his own merits. In Cato’s words, ‘Our need made thee our Consul, and thy virtue’ (3.2.57). But that ‘virtue’ bends to needs, and Cicero buys off his fellow consul Antonius, a Catiline sympathizer, with the province of Macedonia (3.2.234–46). Lethargy rules Rome; ‘sleep’ is a keyword in the play, from the speech of Sulla’s Ghost onwards, and another is ‘security’ in the sense of a culpable absence of anxiety. Cicero, in a rare soliloquy, both analyzes and laments this state of Rome, ‘when thy head / Is drowned in sleep, and all thy body fev’ry’ (3.2.205–6). The Senate, as we see it, is not a strong body. An emblematic scene, 4.1, has senators ‘quaking and trembling’ in an ominous thunderstorm where only Cicero and Cato ‘stand upright and unfeared’ (4.1.32). When in session it is dominated, but for the occasional asides and a fifth-act stand by Caesar, by the ‘new man’ Cicero, cheered on by Cato.

Cicero’s statesmanship foils the conspiracy, and the play may seem to end on a victory for traditional republican values as represented by him and by Cato. Yet there is much in the play to speak against it as a noble victory. Cicero wins because Fulvia, a high-class whore (who is far less prominent in Sallust’s account) betrays the conspiracy out of greedy self-interest; because her lover agrees to espionage and double-dealing; and because of the stupidity of the conspirators left in Rome when Catiline goes into exile. Paradoxically the only glimpse of pietas at the end is given in Cato’s words on the death of Catiline on the battlefield:

A brave bad death.

Had this been honest now, and for his country

As ’twas against it, who had ere fallen greater?

(5.2.269–71)

where any sense of ancient virtue is sharply modified through oxymoron (‘A brave bad death’) and conditionality (‘Had this been honest now’).

Furthermore, where Sallust clears Caesar of any complicity in the conspiracy, Jonson makes it abundantly clear that Caesar and Crassus know of and encourage the conspiracy until it is no longer safe to do so, and that Cicero wins because, for reasons of power politics, he closes his eyes to Caesar’s involvement: ‘Caesar and Crassus, if they be ill men, / Are mighty ones’, he reminds Cato (4.2.471–2). ‘Caesar be safe’, he tells those who, like Cato, would eliminate Caesar (5.5.163); but in such a precarious political milieu no one is safe, and in a play so alert to the continuities of history the word carries a profound irony. In 1611 everyone – from the ‘reader extraordinary’ thoroughly familiar with Roman history, to the groundling whose knowledge simply came from seeing Shakespeare’s (or someone else’s) play on the subject – knew that Caesar would in the end not be ‘safe’ from the conspirators, led by Brutus and Cassius, who killed him on the Ides of March 44 BC. Many would know, too, that Cato would commit suicide in 46 BC when, as a follower of Pompey, he refused to accept a pardon from Caesar. More would know, from history and from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (4.3.175–80), that Cicero, after an unsafe life of political ups and downs, would die as a victim of the proscriptions which, in 43 BC (and repeating the slaughter of Sulla’s proscriptions which hangs like a shadow over Catiline), inaugurated the triumvirate regime that sprang from the defeat of Caesar’s assassins. From these events Octavius, Caesar’s great-nephew, would in turn emerge, after his defeat of Antony and Cleopatra at Actium and their suicide in 31 BC, as the first Roman emperor, Augustus. So, when at the end of Jonson’s play Cato hails Cicero as ‘Great parent of thy country’ and Cicero claims to want for reward ‘Only the memory / Of this glad day . . . [to] live / Within your thoughts’ (5.5.191 and 278–80), then you do not have to be a professional classicist to find the sense of closure poised against the knowledge that ‘this glad day’ is only a moment within a longer historical process. That process would relentlessly carry the Republic into the Empire. It would go on to carry the Empire – an Augustan monarchy, presenting itself as a restored republic – into the tyranny of Tiberius and his successors: into the world depicted in Jonson’s Sejanus.

Catiline and Jonson’s politics

Critics of Catiline have disagreed on where Jonson’s sympathies in the tragedy ultimately lay. They tend to agree that the answer lies in his manipulation of source material (a matter examined in the following section of this Introduction). Joseph Allen Bryant, Jr (1954) saw the key in Jonson’s un-Sallustian treatment of Caesar: Jonson expects us to notice that he makes ‘Caesar, as Sallust does not, the primary threat to the Roman Republic’ (272), and to see the Republic itself as the tragic protagonist. In this way Jonson reconciles historical ‘truth of argument’ with the demands of a ‘true poem’ (Sejanus, ‘To the Readers’, 13, 4). But, Bryant admits, ‘such an allusive technique in a play intended for the public theatre’ was bound to fail, and Jonson ‘should have known better’ (273). To Michael J. C. Echeruo (1966), elusiveness rather than allusiveness is the cause of the play’s failure: Jonson has written ‘an anatomy of the political conscience’, a play neither about Catiline nor about conspiracy as such, nor even about good or bad people – he disagrees with Bryant’s view of Caesar as the real villain of the piece, and finds weaknesses in Cicero – but a tough, intellectual analysis of how politics works.

While Echeruo’s article seems to be written without any awareness of Jonson’s use of secondary source material, more recently Bruce Boehrer (1997c) has stressed the fact that Sallust’s version of the conspiracy was being questioned during the Renaissance. Humanist scholars had considerably revised the historical material in Catiline. In his Sallust folio, particularly in Felicius’s Historia coniurationis Catilinariae (see above), Jonson met with the anti-Sallustian and pro-Ciceronian bias of humanist revisionists. But, Boehrer argues, Jonson identifies with neither side in the anti-Sallustian controversy; he brings out the faults in Cicero that Felicius is deaf to and treats both sides ‘with a fair amount of cynicism’ (87) – a typically Jonsonian strategy of both absorbing and detaching himself from his sources (100). Blair Worden (1999) maintains that Jonson is reading Sallust ‘by a Tacitean lamp’ (153), creating in the play a world that is more imperial than republican and that, in the snobbery and moral blindness of the nobility, is made to reflect Jonson’s England. The real social struggle is over Cicero as a novus homo, ‘new man’, who prevails over envy and class feeling. This makes Cicero the hero of the play, with not a little affinity with Jonson himself. Katharine Eisaman Maus, in her excellent Ben Jonson and the Roman Frame of Mind (1984), had also concluded that Jonson’s favourite Latin authors, the ones he translates, adapts, and imitates, are ‘men whose careers roughly resemble his own’ (9). Worden counters, one by one, the criticisms which have been made of Cicero in Catiline: that Justice Overdo in Bartholomew Fair, who repeatedly and absurdly echoes his language, reflects back on him; that he is long-winded, cowardly, vainglorious, and both ineffective and unscrupulous. As for vainglory and self-praise, what about Jonson himself? And so far from being ineffective and unscrupulous, Cicero is a master of realpolitik in his dealings with Catiline, Caesar, and Crassus. So Worden argues, drawing support from Lipsius – an author we know Jonson valued – and his discussion of political means and ends in Six Books of Politics.

That serious scholars can draw, point by point, such opposed conclusions from reading Catiline suggests something about the difficulty of a text which doesn’t offer its meanings readily. It also suggests that the difficulty – whether we call it ambivalence or multivalence – is deliberate on Jonson’s part, and that he is prompting the reader to use that ‘singular faculty of judgement’ which he attributes to his dedicatee.

Sources

Jonson does not advertise his sources for Catiline in marginal notes, as he does for Sejanus, but it is clear that here, as in the earlier Roman play, the classical scholar and dramatist worked as one. From the amount of virtually literal translation of Latin texts in the play it is also clear that he wrote with his major source texts beside him. The present edition is indebted throughout to Herford and Simpson, who, incorporating the work of earlier scholars, provided an extensive apparatus of notes identifying sources of individual passages and phrases, and to W. F. Bolton and J. F. Gardner (1973), who give a convenient ‘serial list of sources’. Where, occasionally, I have been able to add an identification, it is mainly thanks to the anonymous early reader who annotated the text in a copy of the 1616 folio, at one time owned by Robert Browning, now in the Huntington Library (call number 499968). The volume also has annotations ascribing certain roles in Volpone, Epicene, and The Alchemist to particular actors; these can be dated fairly accurately to c. 1616–19, since they name Nathan Field, who joined the King’s Men in 1615 or 1616, and Richard Burbage, who died in 1619. The annotations appear to be in the same hand as those identifying classical sources, in which case they were made by someone who had knowledge of Jonson’s comedies, but not Catiline, in the theatre, even as they also demonstrate how familiar the sources behind the text of Catiline were to an educated contemporary reader. He annotated altogether seventy-nine passages with the corresponding lines in the original Latin, recognizing not only Sallust and Cicero but also Petronius, Juvenal, Ovid, Horace, Seneca, Lucan, and Porcius Latro; and in the case of the last four authors, especially Seneca and Lucan, he made a number of identifications which have escaped Herford and Simpson as well as Bolton and Gardner.

Jonson’s chief sources for the action, and often also the language, of the play are Sallust’s Bellum Catilinae, ‘The War with Catiline’ (also known as Bellum Catilinarium, ‘The Catilinarian War’, or Coniuratio Catilinae, ‘Catiline’s Conspiracy’), a monograph by an ex-politician and partisan of Caesar’s who took to writing history after the murder of Caesar (44 BC); and Cicero’s four orations In Catilinam, ‘Against Catiline’, the first and last of which were delivered to the Senate, the second and third to the people of Rome, all with the aim of justifying his actions as Consul vis-à-vis the conspiracy. The first oration supplies, in often almost verbatim translation, the notoriously lengthy speech by Cicero in 4.2. Jonson also occasionally drew on other Cicero orations: De Lege Agaria (‘On the agrarian law’), Pro Sulla (‘For Sulla’), Pro Murena (‘For Murena’), and Pro Caelio (‘For Caelius’), and on Dio Cassius’s Roman History; and he made use of Plutarch’s Life of Cicero and occasionally of the Lives of Sulla and of Cato Minor.

Jonson’s major Latin sources were conveniently available together in his folio copy of Sallust, now in the library of Clare College, Cambridge: C. Crispi Sallutii Latinorum historicum praestantissimi opera . . . (Basel, 1564). This compendium of Renaissance classical scholarship on the conspiracy opens with a Bellum Catilinae where, page by page, the text itself occupies less space than the running commentary on the text by nine scholars (who in turn cite the classical authorities behind their comments); it is followed by Sallust’s only other surviving complete historical work, Bellum Iugurthinum, ‘The War with Jugurtha’. There follows an amount of more or less apocryphal material ascribed to Sallust or otherwise related to the Bellum Catilinae: a speech by Sallust attacking Cicero and one by Cicero attacking him; an invective against Catiline allegedly by Porcius Latro (a first-century-BC rhetorician) against Catiline; and, naturally, Cicero’s orations against Catiline. Last, the volume contains Felicius Durantius’s Historia coniurationis Catilinariae (first published in 1518), an account of the conspiracy which fills in, from Cicero and others, supposed gaps in Sallust’s narrative, which Felicius – a humanist Ciceronian – thinks does less than justice to Cicero’s achievement.

Ellen M. T. Duffy, who was the first to study in some detail Jonson’s use of Felicius and of the Sallust scholia, rightly concluded that his going to sources at second rather than first hand was not just a matter of convenience but a way of ‘making use of the most authoritative material at his disposal and at the same time linking himself with European scholarship’ (1947, 30). It must, however, also be said that, since the Sallust text is so dominated by its commentary, and since Felicius weaves phrases from both Sallust and Cicero into his own narrative, it is sometimes impossible to tell whether Jonson is working at first or second hand (see, e.g., 4.4.40n., or headnote to 5.1; and cf. Lovascio, 2011b). However, there are passages where only Felicius could be the source, as in Cicero’s meeting with the Allobroges in 4.4, and most of Petreius’s speech to his soldiers in 5.1.

In the margins on certain pages of the Sallust folio there are vertical pencil markings which Herford and Simpson accept as Jonson’s and, somewhat over-optimistically, as giving ‘a vivid glimpse of Jonson’s working method’. David McPherson is sceptical about their provenance since, he points out, the volume ‘lacks the marginal hands and flowers most characteristic of Jonson’ (McPherson, 1974, 84). The markings certainly cluster at some points which bear on Jonson’s text: for example, after many unmarked pages they become plentiful where commentators on the Bellum Catilinae expound Catiline’s wicked deeds, such as ravishing his own daughter and murdering his own son (cols. 129–30; cf. 1.30–6); and references to the drinking of wine mixed with blood (1.481ff.) are marked both in the Sallust commentary and in the Felicius text (col. 467). But on the other hand, although the Chorus at the end of Act 4 is clearly indebted to Felicius, col. 503, this passage is not, as Herford and Simpson mistakenly claim, marked (see 4.7.20–71n.). Altogether I find it inadvisable to read too much into the marks in the volume.

Jonson’s familiarity with classical literature enabled him to draw not only on sources dealing directly with the Catilinarian conspiracy but on Lucan’s uncompleted epic on the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, the Bellum civile (also known as Pharsalia), and on the civil-war poem within Petronius’s Satyricon. He echoes other Silver Latin poets – Juvenal frequently, Martial occasionally – mainly when writing of the extravagant life-style and corrupt morals of a period in Roman history which, of course, antedates that of those poets. Of the Augustan poets who had figured bodily in Poetaster, Horace and Ovid provide the sources of a number of phrases. Last but not least, Seneca in the original Latin, rather than the ‘English Seneca read by candlelight’ famously derided by Thomas Nashe as a storehouse for playwrights, provides a formal dramatic model as well as the occasional rhetorical ones.

Throughout the commentary to the text, sources are given in the notes; and the reader will sometimes find that reading a passage or phrase against its source is the most effective way to an understanding of its meaning – and its art.

The early texts and this edition

Without entry in the Stationers’ Register, Catiline His Conspiracy: Written by Ben Jonson was first published in quarto in 1611 by Walter Burre from the work of an unknown printer. Ample press-corrections observable from extant copies of this quarto attest to Jonson’s characteristic interest in ensuring that the printed text represent his dramatic genius as accurately as possible; if the theatre-going public chose to express its disapproval, Jonson could hope to shore up his future reputation as a classicist by giving to his readers the literary text of a play that meant so much to him as an artist.

The folio version of 1616 was ‘printed by William Stansby’ (as the title-page attests) from a revised copy of the quarto incorporating only a few changes of reading; again, Jonson seems to have registered his view that Catiline was his best tragedy and that it was to be read essentially as he originally wrote it. Pressures of censorship or of current events seem not to have impinged upon this process. A few substantive rewordings of short individual passages or single words – noted in the annotations and collations of this edition and analysed more closely in the Textual Essay (Electronic Edition) – do little to alter the overall achievement of the play, being evidently designed to effect minor improvements in terms of clarity and metrical regularity. Yet Jonson did rework Catiline in certain respects. He reordered the punctuation to bring the play into line with the literary and neoclassical intention of the 1616 folio as a whole. He did not need, however, to regularize the opening stage directions of each scene by massing all the names of characters to appear in the subsequent scene, for he had prepared the 1611 quarto along these rigorously neoclassical lines, as though in recognition of the play’s austerely non-popular character. Similarly, both the 1611 quarto and 1616 folio texts of this play are sparse in their indication of exits and other stage movement, despite the folio’s providing of interpretative marginal stage directions in mid-scene that are sometimes literary in flavour (‘She kisses and flatters him along still’, 2.1.351–3), often rendering the action more vividly, but hardly offering a systematic set of instructions to an acting company. The Choruses at the end of every act in both quarto and folio, in the fashion used in the printing of Seneca’s tragedies and of English Renaissance closet plays such as Elizabeth Cary’s The Tragedy of Miriam, are headed by the title ‘Chorus’ without indication of entry or exit; the Chorus is a disembodied voice addressing the reader. In both quarto and folio we find no scene divisions; the play is studiously divided into five classical acts. The folio text prints after the play a list of actors by whom ‘this tragedy was first acted, in the year 1611 by the King’s Majesty’s Servants’; the quarto does not.

The text of the present edition is based upon that of the 1616 folio, as representing the latest considered decisions of the author. (See Textual Essay in the electronic edition for a detailed analysis of the 1611 quarto and 1616 folio texts.) It prints, however, from the 1611 quarto Jonson’s three dedications (to the Earl of Pembroke, ‘To The Reader in Ordinary’, ‘To the Reader Extraordinary’) and the commendatory poems from his fellow playwrights, and records other Q / F variants in the collations. To assist today’s readers and actors, and to restore the play to its place in the theatre, it provides bracketed indications of entrances and exits (except in the problematical case of the Chorus, where directors may wish to make their own pragmatic decisions). It provides other indications of stage movement (‘coming forward’) or persons addressed (‘To the conspirators’). It amplifies the folio’s marginal stage directions with others of a similar nature called for in the text (‘He kisses them’ . . . ‘Kissing her again’). It indicates offstage noises. No new scene markings are needed in the first two acts, but new scenes are marked at 3.2 through to 3.5, where the stage is momentarily bare, and again from 4.2 to 4.7 and 5.2 to 5.5, so that here the line numberings depart from those of Herford and Simpson. Punctuation, spelling, capitalization, etc. are modernized in line with the policies of the Cambridge edition as a whole.

TO THE GREAT EXAMPLE OF HONOUR AND VIRTUE, THE MOST NOBLE WILLIAM, EARL OF PEMBROKE, LORD CHAMBERLAIN, ETC.

My Lord,

In so thick and dark an ignorance as now almost covers the age, I crave leave to

stand near your light, and by that to be read. Posterity may pay your benefit the

honour and thanks when it shall know that you dare, in these jig-given times,

to countenance a legitimate poem. I must call it so, against all noise of opinion, 5

from whose crude and airy reports I appeal to that great and singular faculty of

judgement in your Lordship, able to vindicate truth from error. It is the first of

this race that ever I dedicated to any person, and had I not thought it the best,

it should have been taught a less ambition. Now it approacheth your censure

cheerfully and with the same assurance that innocency would appear before a 10

magistrate.

Your Lordship’s most faithful honourer,

Ben Jonson

To The Reader in Ordinary

The muses forbid that I should restrain your meddling whom I see already busy

with the title and tricking over the leaves: it is your own. I departed with my right

when I let it first abroad. And now, so secure an interpreter I am of my chance that

neither praise nor dispraise from you can affect me. Though you commend the

two first acts, with the people, because they are the worst, and dislike the oration 5

of Cicero, in regard you read some pieces of it at school and understand them not

yet, I shall find the way to forgive you. Be anything you will be, at your own charge.

Would I had deserved but half so well of it in translation as that ought to deserve

of you in judgement, if you have any. I know you will pretend (whosoever you are)

to have that, and more. But all pretences are not just claims. The commendation 10

of good things may fall within a many, their approbation but in a few; for the

most commend out of affection, self-tickling, an easiness, or imitation; but men

judge only out of knowledge. That is the trying faculty. And to those works that

will bear a judge nothing is more dangerous than a foolish praise. You will say I

shall not have yours therefore, but rather the contrary, all vexation of censure. If 15

I were not above such molestations now, I had great cause to think unworthily

of my studies, or they had so of me. But I leave you to your exercise. Begin.

To the Reader Extraordinary

You I would understand to be the better man, though places in court go otherwise.

To you I submit myself and work. Farewell.

Ben Jonson

To My Friend, Master Ben Jonson Upon His Catiline

If thou hadst itched after the wild applause

Of common people, and hadst made thy laws

In writing such as catched at present voice,

I should commend the thing, but not thy choice.

But thou hast squared thy rules by what is good, 5

And art three ages yet from understood.

And (I dare say) in it there lies much wit

Lost, till thy readers can grow up to it.

Which they can ne’er outgrow, to find it ill,

But must fall back again, or like it still. 10

Francis Beaumont

To His Worthy Friend, Master Ben Jonson

He that dares wrong this play, it should appear,

Dares utter more than other men dare hear

That have their wits about ’em; yet such men,

Dear friend, must see your book, and read, and then,

Out of their learnèd ignorance, cry ill, 5

And lay you by, calling for mad Pasquil,

Or Greene’s dear Groatsworth, or Tom Coryate,

The new Lexicon, with the errant pate,

And pick away from all these several ends,

And dirty ones, to make their as wise friends 10

Believe they are translators. Of this, pity,

There is a great plague hanging o’er the city,

Unless she purge her judgment presently.

But O thou happy man that must not die

As these things shall – leaving no more behind 15

But a thin memory, like a passing wind,

That blows and is forgotten ere they are cold –

Thy labours shall outlive thee and, like gold

Stamped for continuance, shall be current where

There is a sun, a people, or a year. 20

John Fletcher

To His Worthy Beloved Friend, Master Ben Jonson

Had the great thoughts of Catiline been good,

The memory of his name, stream of his blood,

His plots passed into acts (which would have turned

His infamy to fame, though Rome had burned)

Had not begot him equal grace with men 5

As this, that he is writ by such a pen

Whose inspirations, if great Rome had had,

Her good things had been bettered, and her bad

Undone, the first for joy, the last for fear

That such a muse should spread them to our ear 10

But woe to us then, for thy laureate brow

If Rome enjoyed had, we had wanted now.

But in this age, where jigs and dances move,

How few there are that this pure work approve!

Yet (better than I rail at) thou canst scorn 15

Censures that die ere they be throughly born.

Each subject thou, still thee each subject raises,

And whosoe’er thy book himself dispraises.

Nat Field

The Persons of the Play

SULLA’S GHOST
CATILINE	CICERO
LENTULUS	ANTONIUS
CETHEGUS	CATO
CURIUS	CATULUS 5
AUTRONIUS	CRASSUS
VARGUNTEIUS	CAESAR
LONGINUS	QUINTUS CICERO
LAECA	SILANUS
FULVIUS	FLACCUS 10
BESTIA	POMTINIUS
GABINIUS	SANGA
STATILIUS	SENATORS
CEPARIUS	ALLOBROGES
CORNELIUS	PETREIUS 15
VOLTURCIUS	SOLDIERS
AURELIA	PORTER
FULVIA	LICTORS
SEMPRONIA	SERVANTS
GALLA	PAGES 20
[GUARDS	EXECUTIONERS]
CHORUS

THE SCENE: ROME

1.1 [Enter] SULLA’S GHOST.

SULLA’S GHOST

Dost thou not feel me, Rome? Not yet? Is night

So heavy on thee, and my weight so light?

Can Sulla’s Ghost arise within thy walls,

Less threat’ning than an earthquake the quick falls

Of thee and thine? Shake not the frighted heads 5

Of thy steep towers? Or shrink to their first beds?

Or, as their ruin the large Tiber fills,

Make that swell up and drown thy seven proud hills?

What sleep is this doth seize thee, so like death,

And is not it? Wake, feel her in my breath. 10

Behold, I come, sent from the Stygian sound,

As a dire vapour that had cleft the ground

T’engender with the night and blast the day,

Or like a pestilence that should display

Infection through the world – which, thus, I do. 15

Discovers CATILINE in his study.

Pluto be at thy counsels; and into

Thy darker bosom enter Sulla’s spirit.

All that was mine, and bad, thy breast inherit.

Alas, how weak is that, for Catiline!

Did I but say – vain voice! – all that was mine? 20

All that the Gracchi, Cinna, Marius would;

What now, had I a body again, I could,

Coming from hell; what fiends would wish should be,

And Hannibal could not have wished to see,

Think thou, and practise. Let the long-hid seeds 25

Of treason in thee now shoot forth in deeds

Ranker than horror, and thy former facts

Not fall in mention but to urge new acts.

Conscience of them provoke thee on to more.

Be still thy incests, murders, rapes before 30

Thy sense: thy forcing first a vestal nun;

Thy parricide, late, on thine own only son,

After his mother, to make empty way

For thy last wicked nuptials; worse than they

That blaze, that act of thy incestuous life, 35

Which got thee at once a daughter and a wife.

I leave the slaughters that thou didst for me,

Of senators, for which I hid for thee

Thy murder of thy brother, being so bribed,

And writ him in the list of my proscribed 40

After thy fact, to save thy little shame.

Thy incest with thy sister I not name.

These are too light. Fate will have thee pursue

Deeds after which no mischief can be new:

The ruin of thy country. Thou wert built 45

For such a work, and born for no less guilt.

What though defeated once thou’st been, and known,

Tempt it again. That is thy act, or none.

What all the several ills that visit earth,

Brought forth by night with a sinister birth, 50

Plagues, famine, fire, could not reach unto,

The sword, nor surfeits, let thy fury do.

Make all past, present, future ill thine own,

And conquer all example in thy one.

Nor let thy thought find any vacant time 55

To hate an old, but still a fresher crime

Drown the remembrance. Let not mischief cease

But, while it is in punishing, increase.

Conscience and care die in thee, and be free

Not heaven itself from thy impiety. 60

Let night grow blacker with thy plots, and day,

At showing but thy head forth, start away

From this half-sphere, and leave Rome’s blinded walls

T’embrace lusts, hatreds, slaughters, funerals,

And not recover sight till their own flames 65

Do light them to their ruins. All the names

Of thy confederates, too, be no less great

In hell than here, that when we would repeat

Our strengths in muster, we may name you all,

And furies upon you, for furies, call, 70

Whilst what you do may strike them into fears,

Or make them grieve and wish your mischief theirs. [Exit.]

CATILINE

[Coming forward] It is decreed. Nor shall thy fate, O Rome,

Resist my vow. Though hills were set on hills

And seas met seas to guard thee, I would through; 75

Ay, plough up rocks, steep as the Alps, in dust

And lave the Tyrrhene waters into clouds,

But I would reach thy head, thy head, proud city.

The ills that I have done cannot be safe

But by attempting greater; and I feel 80

A spirit within me chides my sluggish hands

And says they have been innocent too long.

Was I a man bred great as Rome herself?

One formed for all her honours, all her glories,

Equal to all her titles? That could stand 85

Close up with Atlas, and sustain her name

As strong as he doth heaven? And was I,

Of all her brood, marked out for the repulse

By her no voice, when I stood candidate

To be commander in the Pontic War? 90

I will hereafter call her stepdame, ever.

If she can lose her nature, I can lose

My piety, and in her stony entrails

Dig me a seat where I will live again

The labour of her womb, and be a burden 95

Weightier than all the prodigies and monsters

That she hath teemed with since she first knew Mars.

[Enter] AURELIA.

Who’s there?

AURELIA

’Tis I.

CATILINE

Aurelia?

AURELIA

Yes.

CATILINE

Appear,

And break like day, my beauty, to this circle.

Upbraid thy Phoebus that he is so long 100

In mounting to that point which should give thee

Thy proper splendour. Wherefore frowns my sweet?

Have I too long been absent from these lips,

This cheek, these eyes?

He kisseth them.

What is my trespass? Speak.

AURELIA

It seems you know, that can accuse yourself. 105

CATILINE

I will redeem it.

AURELIA

Still you say so. When?

CATILINE

When Orestilla, by her bearing well

These my retirements and stol’n times for thought,

Shall give their effects leave to call her queen

Of all the world, in place of humbled Rome. 110

AURELIA

You court me now.

CATILINE

As I would always, love,

By this ambrosiac kiss, and [Kissing her again. ] this of nectar,

Wouldst thou but hear as gladly as I speak.

Could my Aurelia think I meant her less

When, wooing her, I first removed a wife 115

And then a son, to make my bed and house

Spacious and fit t’embrace her? These were deeds

Not t’have begun with but to end with more

And greater. He that, building, stays at one

Floor, or the second, hath erected none. 120

’Twas how to raise thee I was meditating:

To make some act of mine answer thy love,

That love that, when my state was now quite sunk,

Came with thy wealth and weighed it up again,

And made my emergent fortune once more look 125

Above the main, which now shall hit the stars

And stick my Orestilla there, amongst ’em,

If any tempest can but make the billow,

And any billow can but lift her greatness.

But I must pray my love she will put on 130

Like habits with myself. I have to do

With many men and many natures. Some

That must be blown and soothed, as Lentulus,

Whom I have heaved with magnifying his blood

And a vain dream, out of the Sibyl’s books, 135

That a third man of that great family

Whereof he is descended, the Cornelii,

Should be a king in Rome – which I have hired

The flattering augurs to interpret him,

Cinna and Sulla dead. Then, bold Cethegus, 140

Whose valour I have turned into his poison

And praised so into daring as he would

Go on upon the gods, kiss lightning, wrest

The engine from the Cyclops, and give fire

At face of a full cloud, and stand his ire 145

When I would bid him move. Others there are

Whom envy to the state draws and puts on

For contumelies received; and such are sure ones,

As Curius and the forenamed Lentulus,

Both which have been degraded in the Senate, 150

And must have their disgraces still new-rubbed

To make ’em smart, and labour of revenge.

Others, whom mere ambition fires, and dole

Of provinces abroad which they have feigned

To their crude hopes, and I as amply promised; 155

These: Laeca, Vargunteius, Bestia, Autronius.

Some whom their wants oppress, as th’ idle captains

Of Sulla’s troops; and divers Roman knights,

The profuse wasters of their patrimonies,

So threatened with their debts as they will now 160

Run any desperate fortune for a change.

These for a time we must relieve, Aurelia,

And make our house their safeguard; like, for those

That fear the law, or stand within her gripe,

For any act past or to come. Such will 165

From their own crimes be factious, as from ours.

Some more there be, slight airlings, will be won

With dogs, and horses, or perhaps a whore –

Which must be had. And if they venture lives

For us, Aurelia, we must hazard honours 170

A little. Get thee store and change of women,

As I have boys; and give ’em time and place

And all connivance. Be thyself, too, courtly,

And entertain, and feast, sit up, and revel;

Call all the great, the fair, and spirited dames 175

Of Rome about thee, and begin a fashion

Of freedom and community. Some will thank thee,

Though the sour Senate frown, whose heads must ache

In fear and feeling too. We must not spare

Or cost or modesty. It can but show 180

Like one of Juno’s or of Jove’s disguises

In either thee or me; and will as soon,

When things succeed, be thrown by or let fall

As is a veil put off, a visor changed,

Or the scene shifted in our theatres – 185

(A noise without.)

Who’s that? It is the voice of Lentulus.

AURELIA

Or of Cethegus.

CATILINE

In, my fair Aurelia,

And think upon these arts. They must not see

How far you are trusted with these privacies,

Though on their shoulders, necks, and heads you rise. 190

[Exit Aurelia.]

[Enter] LENTULUS [and] CETHEGUS.

LENTULUS

It is, methinks, a morning full of fate!

It riseth slowly, as her sullen car

Had all the weights of sleep and death hung at it.

She is not rosy-fingered, but swoll’n black.

Her face is like a water turned to blood, 195

And her sick head is bound about with clouds,

As if she threatened night ere noon of day.

It does not look as it would have a ‘hail’

Or ‘health’ wished in it, as on other morns.

CETHEGUS

Why, all the fitter, Lentulus: our coming 200

Is not for salutation; we have business.

CATILINE

Said nobly, brave Cethegus. Where’s Autronius?

CETHEGUS

Is he not come?

CATILINE

Not here.

CETHEGUS

Nor Vargunteius?

CATILINE

Neither.

CETHEGUS

A fire in their beds and bosoms,

That so will serve their sloth rather than virtue! 205

They are no Romans, and at such high need

As now.

LENTULUS

Both they, Longinus, Laeca, Curius,

Fulvius, Gabinius, gave me word last night,

By Lucius Bestia, they would all be here,

And early.

CETHEGUS

Yes? As you, had I not called you. 210

Come, we all sleep and are mere dormice, flies

A little less than dead; more dullness hangs

On us than on the morn. We’re spirit-bound

In ribs of ice; our whole bloods are one stone;

And honour cannot thaw us, nor our wants, 215

Though they burn hot as fevers to our states.

CATILINE

I muse they would be tardy, at an hour

Of so great purpose.

CETHEGUS

If the gods had called

Them to a purpose, they would just have come

With the same tortoise speed, that are thus slow 220

To such an action, which the gods will envy,

As asking no less means than all their powers

Conjoined t’effect. I would have seen Rome burnt

By this time, and her ashes in an urn,

The kingdom of the Senate rent asunder, 225

And the degenerate talking gown run frighted

Out of the air of Italy.

CATILINE

Spirit of men!

Thou heart of our great enterprise! How much

I love these voices in thee!

CETHEGUS

Oh, the days

Of Sulla’s sway, when the free sword took leave 230

To act all that it would!

CATILINE

And was familiar

With entrails as our augurs!

CETHEGUS

Sons killed fathers,

Brothers their brothers.

CATILINE

And had price and praise.

All hate had licence given it, all rage reins.

CETHEGUS

Slaughter bestrid the streets, and stretched himself 235

To seem more huge, whilst to his stainèd thighs

The gore he drew flowed up, and carried down

Whole heaps of limbs and bodies through his arch.

No age was spared, no sex.

CATILINE

Nay, no degree.

CETHEGUS

Not infants in the porch of life were free. 240

The sick, the old, that could but hope a day

Longer by nature’s bounty, not let stay.

Virgins and widows, matrons, pregnant wives,

All died.

CATILINE

’Twas crime enough that they had lives.

To strike but only those that could do hurt 245

Was dull, and poor. Some fell to make the number,

As some the prey.

CETHEGUS

The rugged Charon fainted,

And asked a navy, rather than a boat,

To ferry over the sad world that came.

The maws and dens of beasts could not receive 250

The bodies that those souls were frighted from;

And e’en the graves were filled with men yet living,

Whose flight and fear had mixed them with the dead.

CATILINE

And this shall be again, and more, and more,

Now Lentulus, the third Cornelius, 255

Is to stand up in Rome.

LENTULUS

Nay, urge not that

Is so uncertain.

CATILINE

How?

LENTULUS

I mean, not cleared.

And therefore not to be reflected on.

CATILINE

The Sibyl’s leaves uncertain? Or the comments

Of our grave, deep, divining men not clear? 260

LENTULUS

All prophecies, you know, suffer the torture.

CATILINE

But this already hath confessed without,

And so been weighed, examined, and compared

As ’twere malicious ignorance in him

Would faint in the belief.

LENTULUS

Do you believe it? 265

CATILINE

Do I love Lentulus? Or pray to see it?

LENTULUS

The augurs all are constant I am meant.

CATILINE

They had lost their science else.

LENTULUS

They count from Cinna.

CATILINE

And Sulla next, and so make you the third;

All that can say the sun is ris’n must think it. 270

LENTULUS

Men mark me more of late, as I come forth.

CATILINE

Why, what can they do less? Cinna and Sulla

Are set, and gone; and we must turn our eyes

On him that is, and shines. Noble Cethegus,

But view him with me, here! He looks already 275

As if he shook a sceptre o’er the Senate,

And the awed purple dropped their rods and axes!

The statues melt again; and household gods

In groans confess the travail of the city;

The very walls sweat blood before the change; 280

And stones start out to ruin, ere it comes.

CETHEGUS

But he, and we, and all are idle still.

LENTULUS

I am your creature, Sergius; and whate’er

The great Cornelian name shall win to be,

It is not augury, nor the Sibyl’s books, 285

But Catiline that makes it.

CATILINE

I am shadow

To honoured Lentulus and Cethegus here,

Who are the heirs of Mars.

CETHEGUS

By Mars himself,

Catiline is more my parent, for whose virtue

Earth cannot make a shadow great enough, 290

Though envy should come too.

[Others are heard approaching.]

Oh, there they are.

Now we shall talk more, though we yet do nothing.

[Enter] to them AUTRONIUS, VARGUNTEIUS, LONGINUS, CURIUS, LAECA, BESTIA, FULVIUS, GABINIUS, [and Servants].

AUTRONIUS

Hail, Lucius Catiline.

VARGUNTEIUS

Hail, noble Sergius.

LONGINUS

Hail, Publius Lentulus.

CURIUS

Hail, the third Cornelius.

LAECA

Caius Cethegus, hail.

CETHEGUS

Hail, sloth and words, 295

Instead of men and spirits.

CATILINE

Nay, dear Caius –

CETHEGUS

Are your eyes yet unseeled? Dare they look day

In the dull face?

CATILINE

He’s zealous for the affair;

And blames your tardy coming, gentlemen.

CETHEGUS

Unless we had sold ourselves to sleep and ease, 300

And would be our slaves’ slaves –

CATILINE

Pray you forbear.

CETHEGUS

The north is not so stark and cold –

CATILINE

Cethegus –

BESTIA

We shall redeem all, if your fire will let us.

CATILINE

You are too full of lightning, noble Caius.

[To a Servant] Boy, see all doors be shut, that none approach us 305

On this part of the house. [To another] Go you, and bid

The priest he kill the slave I marked last night,

And bring me of his blood, when I shall call him.

Till then, wait all without. [Exeunt Servants.]

VARGUNTEIUS

How is’t, Autronius?

AUTRONIUS

Longinus?

LONGINUS

Curius?

CURIUS

Laeca?

VARGUNTEIUS

Feel you nothing? 310

LONGINUS

A strange unwonted horror doth invade me;

I know not what it is.

A darkness comes over the place.

LAECA

The day goes back,

Or else my senses.

CURIUS

As at Atreus’ feast!

FULVIUS

Darkness grows more and more!

LENTULUS

The vestal flame,

I think, be out.

A groan of many people is heard under ground.

GABINIUS

What groan was that?

CETHEGUS

Our fant’sies. 315

Strike fire out of ourselves and force a day.

Another [groan].

AUTRONIUS

Again it sounds!

BESTIA

As all the city gave it!

CETHEGUS

We fear what ourselves feign.

A fiery light appears.

VARGUNTEIUS

What light is this?

CURIUS

Look forth!

LENTULUS

It still grows greater.

LAECA

From whence comes it?

LONGINUS

A bloody arm it is, that holds a pine 320

Lighted above the Capitol. And now

It waves unto us!

CATILINE

Brave and ominous!

Our enterprise is sealed.

CETHEGUS

In spite of darkness

That would discountenance it. Look no more;

We lose time, and ourselves. To what we came for 325

Speak, Lucius! We attend you.

CATILINE

Noblest Romans,

If you were less, or that your faith and virtue

Did not hold good that title with your blood,

I should not now unprofitably spend

Myself in words or catch at empty hopes, 330

By airy ways, for solid certainties.

But since in many, and the greatest, dangers

I still have known you no less true than valiant,

And that I taste in you the same affections

To will or nill, to think things good or bad, 335

Alike with me – which argues your firm friendship –

I dare the boldlier with you set on foot,

Or lead, unto this great and goodliest action.

What I have thought of it afore, you all

Have heard apart. I then expressed my zeal 340

Unto the glory. Now the need inflames me,

When I forethink the hard conditions

Our states must undergo, except in time

We do redeem ourselves to liberty

And break the iron yoke forged for our necks. 345

For, what less can we call it, when we see

The commonwealth engrossed so by a few,

The giants of the state, that do by turns

Enjoy her and defile her? All the earth,

Her kings and tetrarchs, are their tributaries; 350

People and nations pay them hourly stipends;

The riches of the world flows to their coffers,

And not to Rome’s. While, but those few, the rest,

However great we are, honest and valiant,

Are herded with the vulgar, and so kept 355

As we were only bred to consume corn,

Or wear out wool, to drink the city’s water,

Ungraced, without authority or mark,

Trembling beneath their rods, to whom, if all

Were well in Rome, we should come forth bright axes. 360

All places, honours, offices are theirs,

Or where they will confer ’em! They leave us

The dangers, the repulses, judgements, wants,

Which how long will you bear, most valiant spirits?

Were we not better to fall, once, with virtue 365

Than draw a wretched and dishonoured breath,

To lose with shame, when these men’s pride will laugh?

I call the faith of gods and men to question:

The power is in our hands, our bodies able,

Our minds as strong; o’th’contrary in them 370

All things grown agèd, with their wealth and years.

There wants but only to begin the business;

The issue is certain.

CETHEGUS LONGINUS

On, let us go on.

CURIUS BESTIA

Go on, brave Sergius.

CATILINE

It doth strike my soul –

And who can scape the stroke, that hath a soul 375

Or but the smallest air of man within him? –

To see them swell with treasure, which they pour

Out i’their riots, eating, drinking, building,

Ay, i’the sea, planing of hills with valleys

And raising valleys above hills, whilst we 380

Have not to give our bodies necessaries.

They ha’ their change of houses, manors, lordships,

We scarce a fire or poor household Lar!

They buy rare Attic statues, Tyrian hangings,

Ephesian pictures, and Corinthian plate, 385

Attalic garments, and now new-found gems,

Since Pompey went for Asia; which they purchase

At price of provinces. The river Phasis

Cannot afford ’em fowl, nor Lucrine lake

Oysters enough; Circei, too, is searched 390

To please the witty gluttony of a meal!

Their ancient habitations they neglect

And set up new; then, if the echo like not

In such a room, they pluck down those, build newer,

Alter them too; and by all frantic ways 395

Vex their wild wealth, as they molest the people

From whom they force it. Yet, they cannot tame

Or overcome their riches: not by making

Baths, orchards, fish-pools, letting in of seas

Here, and then there forcing ’em out again 400

With mountainous heaps, for which the earth hath lost

Most of her ribs as entrails, being now

Wounded no less for marble than for gold.

We all this while, like calm, benumbed spectators,

Sit till our seats do crack, and do not hear 405

The thund’ring ruins, whilst at home our wants,

Abroad our debts, do urge us, our states daily

Bending to bad, our hopes to worse; and what

Is left but to be crushed? Wake, wake, brave friends,

And meet the liberty you oft have wished for! 410

Behold: renown, riches, and glory court you.

Fortune holds out these to you as rewards.

Methinks, though I were dumb, th’affair itself,

The opportunity, your needs, and dangers,

With the brave spoil the war brings, should invite you. 415

Use me your general or soldier: neither

My mind nor body shall be wanting to you.

And, being consul, I not doubt t’effect

All that you wish, if trust not flatter me,

And you’d not rather still be slaves than free. 420

CETHEGUS

Free, free!

LONGINUS

’Tis freedom!

CURIUS

Freedom we all stand for!

CATILINE

Why, these are noble voices! Nothing wants, then,

But that we take a solemn sacrament

To strengthen our design.

CETHEGUS

And so to act it.

Deferring hurts, where powers are so prepared. 425

AUTRONIUS

Yet, ere we enter into open act –

With favour – ’twere no loss, if’t might be enquired

What the condition of these arms would be?

VARGUNTEIUS

Ay, and the means to carry us through?

CATILINE

How, friends!

Think you that I would bid you grasp the wind? 430

Or call you to th’embracing of a cloud?

Put your known valures on so dear a business

And have no other second than the danger,

Nor other garland than the loss? Become

Your own assurances. And, for the means, 435

Consider, first, the stark security

The commonwealth is in now; the whole Senate

Sleepy and dreaming no such violent blow;

Their forces all abroad, of which the greatest,

That might annoy us most, is farthest off, 440

In Asia under Pompey, those nearhand

Commanded by our friends: one army in Spain,

By Gnaeus Piso, th’other in Mauritania,

By Nucerinus, both which I have firm

And fast unto our plot. Myself, then, standing 445

Now to be consul, with my hoped colleague

Caius Antonius, one no less engaged

By his wants than we, and whom I have power to melt

And cast in any mould. Beside, some others

That will not yet be named, both sure and great ones, 450

Who, when the time comes, shall declare themselves

Strong for our party; so that no resistance

In nature can be thought. For our reward, then:

First, all our debts are paid; dangers of law,

Actions, decrees, judgements against us quitted; 455

The rich men, as in Sulla’s times, proscribed,

And publication made of all their goods.

That house is yours; that land is his; those waters,

Orchards, and walks a third’s; he has that honour,

And he that office. Such a province falls 460

To Vargunteius, this to Autronius, that

To bold Cethegus, Rome to Lentulus.

You share the world, her magistracies, priesthoods,

Wealth, and felicity amongst you, friends,

And Catiline your servant. Would you, Curius, 465

Revenge the contumely stuck upon you

In being removèd from the Senate? Now,

Now is your time. Would Publius Lentulus

Strike for the like disgrace? Now is his time.

Would stout Longinus walk the streets of Rome, 470

Facing the Praetor? Now has he a time

To spurn, and tread the fasces into dirt

Made of the usurers’ and the lictors’ brains.

Is there a beauty here in Rome you love?

An enemy you would kill? What head’s not yours? 475

Whose wife, which boy, whose daughter, of what race,

That th’husband or glad parents shall not bring you,

And boasting of the office? Only spare

Yourselves, and you have all the earth beside,

A field to exercise your longings in. 480

I see you raised and read your forward minds

High in your faces. [He calls to Servants. ] Bring the wine and blood

You have prepared there.

[ Enter SERVANTS and PAGES with wine and bowls.]

LONGINUS

How?

CATILINE

I’ve killed a slave,

And of his blood caused to be mixed with wine.

Fill every man his bowl. There cannot be 485

A fitter drink to make this sanction in.

Here I begin the sacrament to all.

O for a clap of thunder now, as loud

As to be heard throughout the universe,

To tell the world the fact and to applaud it. 490

Be firm, my hand, not shed a drop, but pour

Fierceness into me with it, and fell thirst

Of more and more, till Rome be left as bloodless

As ever her fears made her, or the sword.

And, when I leave to wish this to thee, stepdame, 495

Or stop to effect it, with my powers fainting,

So may my blood be drawn, and so drunk up

As is this slave’s.

LONGINUS

And so be mine.

LENTULUS

And mine.

AUTRONIUS

And mine.

VARGUNTEIUS

And mine.

They drink.

CETHEGUS

Swell me my bowl yet fuller.

Here I do drink this as I would do Cato’s, 500

Or the new fellow Cicero’s, with that vow

Which Catiline hath given.

CURIUS

So do I.

LAECA

And I.

BESTIA

And I.

FULVIUS

And I.

GABINIUS

And all of us.

[They drink again.]

CATILINE

Why, now’s the business safe and each man strengthened.

He spies one of his boys not answer.

Sirrah, what ail you?

PAGE

Nothing.

BESTIA

Somewhat modest. 505

[The Page kneels before Catiline.]

CATILINE

Slave, I will strike your soul out with my foot,

Let me but find you again with such a face,

You whelp –

BESTIA

Nay, Lucius.

CATILINE

[To the Page ] Are you coying it,

When I command you to be free and general To all?

BESTIA

[Aside to Catiline ] You’ll be observed.

CATILINE

[To the Page] Arise, and show 510

By any least aversion i’your look

To him that bourds you next, and your throat opens.

[To the conspirators] Noble confederates, thus far is perfect.

Only your suffrages I will expect

At the assembly for the choosing consuls, 515

And all the voices you can make by friends

To my election. Then let me work out

Your fortunes and mine own. Meanwhile, all rest

Sealed up and silent, as when rigid frosts

Have bound up brooks and rivers, forced wild beasts 520

Unto their caves, and birds into the woods,

Clowns to their houses, and the country sleeps;

That, when the sudden thaw comes, we may break

Upon them like a deluge, bearing down

Half Rome before us, and invade the rest 525

With cries and noise able to wake the urns

Of those are dead, and make their ashes fear.

The horrors that do strike the world should come

Loud and unlooked for. Till they strike, be dumb.

CETHEGUS

Oraculous Sergius!

LENTULUS

God-like Catiline! 530[Exeunt all.]

CHORUS

Can nothing great and at the height

Remain so long, but its own weight

Will ruin it? Or is’t blind Chance

That still desires new states t’advance

And quit the old? Else, why must Rome 535

Be by itself now overcome?

Has she not foes enough of those

Whom she hath made such, and enclose

Her round about? Or are they none,

Except she first become her own? 540

O wretchedness of greatest states,

To be obnoxious to these fates,

That cannot keep what they do gain,

And what they raise so ill sustain.

Rome now is mistress of the whole 545

World, sea, and land, to either pole;

And even that fortune will destroy

The power that made it. She doth joy

So much in plenty, wealth, and ease,

As now th’excess is her disease. 550

She builds in gold, and to the stars,

As if she threatened heav’n with wars,

And seeks for hell in quarries deep,

Giving the fiends that there do keep,

A hope of day. Her women wear 555

The spoils of nations, in an ear,

Changed for the treasure of a shell,

And in their loose attires do swell

More light than sails, when all winds play.

Yet are the men more loose than they, 560

More kempt, and bathed, and rubbed, and trimmed,

More sleeked, more soft, and slacker limbed,

As prostitute: so much that kind

May seek itself there and not find.

They eat on beds of silk and gold, 565

At ivory tables or wood sold

Dearer than it, and, leaving plate,

Do drink in stone of higher rate.

They hunt all grounds and draw all seas,

Fowl every brook and bush, to please 570

Their wanton tastes, and in request

Have new and rare things, not the best.

Hence comes that wild and vast expense

That hath enforced Rome’s virtue thence,

Which simple poverty first made. 575

And now ambition doth invade

Her state with eating avarice,

Riot, and every other vice.

Decrees are bought, and laws are sold,

Honours, and offices for gold; 580

The people’s voices, and the free

Tongues in the Senate, bribèd be.

Such ruin of her manners Rome

Doth suffer now as she’s become,

Without the gods it soon gainsay, 585

Both her own spoiler and own prey.

So, Asia, art thou cru’lly even

With us for all the blows thee given,

When we, whose virtue conquered thee,

Thus by thy vices ruined be. 590

2.1 [Enter] FULVIA, GALLA, [and] SERVANT.

FULVIA

Those rooms do smell extremely. Bring my glass

And table hither, Galla.

GALLA

Madam.

[Galla brings forward a table and mirror.]

FULVIA

Look

Within, i’my blue cabinet, for the pearl

I had sent me last, and bring it.

GALLA

That from Clodius?

FULVIA

From Caius Caesar. You’re for Clodius still. 5

Or Curius. [Exit Galla.]

[To Servant] Sirrah, if Quintus Curius come,

I am not in fit mood; I keep my chamber.

Give warning so, without. [Exit Servant.]

[Enter GALLA, with the pearl.]

GALLA

Is this it, madam?

FULVIA

Yes, help to hang it in mine ear.

GALLA

Believe me,

It is a rich one, madam.

FULVIA

I hope so. 10

It should not be worn there else. Make an end,

And bind my hair up.

GALLA

As ’twas yesterday?

FULVIA

No, nor the t’other day. When knew you me

Appear two days together in one dressing?

GALLA

Will you ha’t i’the globe or spire?

FULVIA

How thou wilt. 15

Any way, so thou wilt do it, good impertinence.

Thy company, if I slept not very well

A-nights, would make me an errant fool, with questions.

GALLA

Alas, madam –

FULVIA

Nay, gentle half o’the dialogue, cease.

GALLA

I do it, indeed, but for your exercise, 20

As your physician bids me.

FULVIA

How? Does he bid you

To anger me for exercise?

GALLA

Not to anger you,

But stir your blood a little. There’s difference

Between lukewarm and boiling, madam.

FULVIA

Jove!

She means to cook me, I think! Pray you, ha’ done. 25

GALLA

I mean to dress you, madam.

[Galla proceeds to do Fulvia’s hair.]

FULVIA

O my Juno,

Be friend to me! Off’ring at wit, too? Why, Galla,

Where hast thou been?

GALLA

Why, madam?

FULVIA

What hast thou done

With thy poor innocent self?

GALLA

Wherefore, sweet madam?

FULVIA

Thus to come forth, so suddenly, a wit-worm? 30

GALLA

It pleases you to flout one. I did dream

Of lady Sempronia –

FULVIA

Oh, the wonder is out.

That did infect thee? Well, and how?

GALLA

Methought

She did discourse the best –

FULVIA

That ever thou heard’st?

GALLA

Yes.

FULVIA

I’thy sleep? Of what was her discourse? 35

GALLA

O’the Republic, madam, and the state,

And how she was in debt, and where she meant

To raise fresh sums. She’s a great stateswoman.

FULVIA

Thou dream’st all this?

GALLA

No, but you know she is, madam,

And both a mistress of the Latin tongue 40

And of the Greek.

FULVIA

Ay, but I never dreamt it, Galla,

As thou hast done, and therefore you must pardon me.

GALLA

Indeed, you mock me, madam.

FULVIA

Indeed, no.

Forth with your learnèd lady: she has a wit, too?

GALLA

A very masculine one.

FULVIA

A she-critic, Galla? 45

And can compose in verse, and make quick jests,

Modest or otherwise?

GALLA

Yes, madam.

FULVIA

She can sing, too?

And play on instruments?

GALLA

Of all kinds, they say.

FULVIA

And doth dance rarely?

GALLA

Excellent. So well

As a bald senator made a jest and said 50

’Twas better than an honest woman need.

FULVIA

Tut, she may bear that. Few wise women’s honesties

Will do their courtship hurt.

GALLA

She’s liberal, too, madam.

FULVIA

What: of her money or her honour, pray thee?

GALLA

Of both; you know not which she doth spare least. 55

FULVIA

A comely commendation.

GALLA

Troth, ’tis pity

She is in years.

FULVIA

Why, Galla?

GALLA

For it is.

FULVIA

Oh, is that all? I thought thou hadst had a reason.

GALLA

Why, so I have. She has been a fine lady,

And yet she dresses herself – except you, madam – 60

One o’the best in Rome, and paints, and hides

Her decays very well.

FULVIA

They say it is

Rather a visor than a face she wears.

GALLA

They wrong her verily, madam: she does sleek

With crumbs of bread and milk, and lies a’nights 65

In as neat gloves – but she is fain of late

To seek more than she is sought to (the fame is)

And so spends that way.

FULVIA

Thou know’st all. But, Galla,

What say you to Catiline’s lady, Orestilla?

There is the gallant!

GALLA

She does well. She has 70

Very good suits, and very rich; but then

She cannot put ’em on. She knows not how

To wear a garment. You shall have her all

Jewels and gold sometimes, so that her self

Appears the least part of herself. No, in troth, 75

As I live, madam, you put ’em all down

With your mere strength of judgement, and do draw, too,

The world of Rome to follow you. You attire

Yourself so diversely, and with that spirit,

Still to the noblest humours! They could make 80

Love to your dress, although your face were away, they say.

FULVIA

And body, too, and ha’ the better match on’t?

Say they not so, too, Galla?

[Enter SERVANT.]

Now, what news

Travails your count’nance with?

SERVANT

If’t please you, madam,

The lady Sempronia is lighted at the gate – 85

GALLA

Castor, my dream, my dream!

SERVANT

– and comes to see you.

GALLA

For Venus’ sake, good madam, see her. [Exit Servant.]

FULVIA

Peace!

The fool is wild, I think.

GALLA

And hear her talk,

Sweet madam, of state matters and the Senate.

[Enter SEMPRONIA.]

SEMPRONIA

Fulvia, good wench, how dost thou?

FULVIA

Well, Sempronia. 90

Whither are you thus early addressed?

SEMPRONIA

To see

Aurelia Orestilla. She sent for me.

I came to call thee with me; wilt thou go?

FULVIA

I cannot now, in troth; I have some letters

To write and send away.

SEMPRONIA

Alas, I pity thee.

I ha’ been writing all this night – and am

So very weary – unto all the tribes

And centuries for their voices, to help Catiline

In his election. We shall make him consul,

I hope, amongst us. Crassus, I, and Caesar 100

Will carry it for him.

FULVIA

Does he stand for’t?

SEMPRONIA

He’s the chief candidate.

FULVIA

Who stands beside?

[To Galla] Give me some wine, and powder for my teeth.

SEMPRONIA

Here’s a good pearl, in troth.

FULVIA

A pretty one.

SEMPRONIA

A very orient one. There are competitors: 105

Caius Antonius, Publius Galba, Lucius

Cassius Longinus, Quintus Cornificius,

Caius Licinius, and that talker Cicero.

But Catiline and Antonius will be chosen.

For four o’the other, Licinius, Longinus, 110

Galba, and Cornificius, will give way,

And Cicero they will not choose.

FULVIA

No? Why?

SEMPRONIA

It will be crossed by the nobility.

GALLA

(Aside) How she does understand the common business!

SEMPRONIA

Nor were it fit. He is but a new fellow, 115

An inmate here in Rome, as Catiline calls him;

And the Patricians should do very ill

To let the consulship be so defiled

As’t would be, if he obtained it. A mere upstart

That has no pedigree, no house, no coat, 120

No ensigns of a family!

FULVIA

He has virtue.

SEMPRONIA

Hang virtue! Where there is no blood, ’tis vice,

And in him sauciness. Why should he presume

To be more learnèd or more eloquent

Than the nobility? Or boast any quality 125

Worthy a nobleman, himself not noble?

FULVIA

’Twas virtue only, at first, made all men noble.

SEMPRONIA

I yield you it might at first, in Rome’s poor age,

When both her kings and consuls held the plough,

Or gardened well. But now we ha’ no need 130

To dig or lose our sweat for’t. We have wealth,

Fortune, and ease, and then their stock to spend on

Of name for virtue, which will bear us out

’Gainst all newcomers – and can never fail us,

While the succession stays. And we must glorify 135

A mushroom, one of yesterday, a fine speaker,

’Cause he has sucked at Athens? And advance him

To our own loss? No, Fulvia. There are they

Can speak Greek, too, if need were. Caesar and I

Have sat upon him; so hath Crassus, too, 140

And others. We have all decreed his rest

For rising farther.

GALLA

Excellent rare lady!

FULVIA

Sempronia, you are beholden to my woman here.

She does admire you.

SEMPRONIA

O good Galla, how dost thou?

GALLA

The better for your learnèd ladyship. 145

SEMPRONIA

Is this grey powder a good dentifrice?

FULVIA

You see I use it.

SEMPRONIA

I have one is whiter.

FULVIA

It may be so.

SEMPRONIA

Yet this smells well.

GALLA

And cleanses

Very well, madam, and resists the crudities.

SEMPRONIA

Fulvia, I pray thee, who comes to thee now? 150

Which of our great patricians?

FULVIA

Faith, I keep

No catalogue of ’em. Sometimes I have one,

Sometimes another, as the toy takes their bloods.

SEMPRONIA

Thou hast them all. Faith, when was Quintus Curius,

Thy special servant, here?

FULVIA

My special servant? 155

SEMPRONIA

Yes, thy idolater, I call him.

FULVIA

He may be yours,

If you do like him.

SEMPRONIA

How?

FULVIA

He comes not here;

I have forbid him hence.

SEMPRONIA

Venus forbid!

FULVIA

Why?

SEMPRONIA

Your so constant lover.

FULVIA

So much the rather.

I would have change. So would you, too, I am sure. 160

And now you may have him.

SEMPRONIA

He’s fresh yet, Fulvia:

Beware how you do tempt me.

FULVIA

Faith, for me

He is somewhat too fresh, indeed. The salt is gone

That gave him season. His good gifts are done.

He does not yield the crop that he was wont. 165

And, for the act, I can have secret fellows

With backs worth ten of him, and shall please me,

Now that the land is fled, a myriad better.

SEMPRONIA

And those one may command.

FULVIA

’Tis true. These lordings,

Your noble fauns, they are so imperious, saucy, 170

Rude, and as boist’rous as centaurs, leaping

A lady at first sight.

SEMPRONIA

And must be borne

Both with and out, they think.

FULVIA

Tut, I’ll observe

None of ’em all, nor humour ’em a jot

Longer than they come laden in the hand 175

And say: here’s t’one for th’tother.

SEMPRONIA

Does Caesar give well?

FULVIA

They shall all give and pay well that come here,

If they will have it – and that jewels, pearl,

Plate, or round sums to buy these. I am not taken

With a cob-swan, or a high-mounting bull, 180

As foolish Leda and Europa were,

But the bright gold, with Danae. For such price,

I would endure a rough, harsh Jupiter,

Or ten such thund’ring gamesters, and refrain

To laugh at ’em till they are gone, with my much suff’ring. 185

SEMPRONIA

Th’art a most happy wench, that thus canst make

Use of thy youth and freshness in the season,

And hast it to make use of.

FULVIA

(Aside) Which is the happiness.

SEMPRONIA

I am now fain to give to them, and keep

Music and a continual table to invite ’em – 190

FULVIA

(Aside) Yes, and they study your kitchen more than you.

SEMPRONIA

– eat myself out with usury, and my lord, too,

And all my officers and friends beside,

To procure moneys for the needful charge

I must be at, to have ’em; and yet, scarce 195

Can I achieve ’em so.

FULVIA

Why, that’s because

You affect young faces only, and smooth chins,

Sempronia. If you’d love beards and bristles,

One with another, as others do, or wrinkles –

[Knocking within.]

Who’s that? Look, Galla.

GALLA

[Goes to look] ’Tis the party, madam. 200

FULVIA

What party? Has he no name?

GALLA

’Tis Quintus Curius.

FULVIA

Did I not bid ’em say I kept my chamber?

GALLA

Why, so they do.

SEMPRONIA

I’ll leave you, Fulvia.

FULVIA

Nay, good Sempronia, stay.

SEMPRONIA

In faith, I will not.

FULVIA

By Juno, I would not see him.

SEMPRONIA

I’ll not hinder you. 205

GALLA

You know he will not be kept out, madam.

SEMPRONIA

No,

Nor shall not, careful Galla, by my means.

FULVIA

As I do live, Sempronia –

SEMPRONIA

What needs this?

FULVIA

[To Galla] Go, say I am asleep, and ill at ease.

SEMPRONIA

By Castor, no; I’ll tell him you are awake, 210

And very well. Stay, Galla. Farewell, Fulvia;

I know my manners. Why do you labour thus

With action against purpose? [Calls out] Quintus Curius,

She is, i’faith, here, and in disposition. [Exit.]

FULVIA

Spite with your courtesy! How shall I be tortured! 215

[Enter] CURIUS.

CURIUS

Where are you, fair one, that conceal yourself,

And keep your beauty within locks and bars here,

Like a fool’s treasure?

FULVIA

True, she was a fool,

When first she showed it to a thief.

CURIUS

How, pretty sullenness?

So harsh, and short?

FULVIA

The fool’s artillery, sir. 220

CURIUS

Then take my gown off, for th’encounter.

[He begins to take his gown off.]

FULVIA

Stay, sir,

I am not in the mood.

CURIUS

I’ll put you into’t.

FULVIA

Best put yourself i’your case again, and keep

Your furious appetite warm, against you have place for’t.

CURIUS

What! Do you coy it?

FULVIA

No, sir. I am not proud. 225

CURIUS

I would you were. You think this state becomes you?

By Hercules, it does not. [He shows her the mirror.]

Look i’your glass now,

And see how scurvily that countenance shows;

You would be loath to own it.

FULVIA

I shall not change it.

CURIUS

Faith, but you must, and slack this bended brow, 230

And shoot less scorn. There is a Fortune coming

Towards you, dainty, that will take thee thus,

[Trying to embrace her]

And set thee aloft, to tread upon the head

Of her own statue here in Rome.

FULVIA

I wonder

Who let this promiser in! [To Galla] Did you, good diligence? 235

Give him his bribe again. Or if you had none,

Pray you demand him why he is so vent’rous

To press thus to my chamber, being forbidden

Both by myself and servants?

CURIUS

How! This’s handsome!

And somewhat a new strain!

FULVIA

’Tis not strained, sir. 240

’Tis very natural.

CURIUS

I have known it otherwise

Between the parties, though.

FULVIA

For your foreknowledge,

Thank that which made it. It will not be so

Hereafter, I assure you.

CURIUS

No, my mistress?

FULVIA

No, though you bring the same materials.

CURIUS

Hear me, 245

You overact when you should underdo.

A little call yourself again, and think.

If you do this to practise on me, or find

At what forced distance you can hold your servant,

That it be an artificial trick, to inflame 250

And fire me more, fearing my love may need it –

As heretofore you ha’ done – why, proceed.

FULVIA

As I ha’ done heretofore?

CURIUS

Yes, when you’d feign

Your husband’s jealousy, your servants’ watches,

Speak softly, and run often to the door 255

Or to the window, form strange fears that were not;

As if the pleasure were less acceptable

That were secure.

FULVIA

You are an impudent fellow.

CURIUS

And, when you might better have done it at the gate,

To take me in at the casement.

FULVIA

I take you in? 260

CURIUS

Yes, you, my lady. And then, being abed with you,

To have your well-taught waiter here [Pointing to Galla] come running

And cry her lord! and hide me without cause,

Crushed in a chest, or thrust up in a chimney.

When he, tame crow, was winking at his farm; 265

Or, had he been here and present, would have kept

Both eyes and beak sealed up for six sesterces.

FULVIA

You have a slanderous, beastly, unwashed tongue

I’your rude mouth, and savouring yourself,

Unmannered lord.

CURIUS

How now!

FULVIA

It is your title, sir, 270

Who, since you ha’ lost your own good name, and know not

What to lose more, care not whose honour you wound

Or fame you poison with it. You should go

And vent yourself i’the region where you live:

Among the suburb-brothels, bawds, and brokers, 275

Whither your broken fortunes have designed you.

CURIUS

Nay, then I must stop your fury, I see, and pluck

The tragic visor off. Come, lady Cypris,

Know your own virtues, quickly. I’ll not be

Put to the wooing of you thus, afresh 280

At every turn, for all the Venus in you.

Yield and be pliant, or by Pollux –

He offers to force her [with his dagger,] and she draws her knife.

How now?

Will Lais turn a Lucrece?

FULVIA

No, but by Castor,

Hold off your ravisher’s hands! I pierce your heart else.

I’ll not be put to kill myself, as she did,

For you, sweet Tarquin.

[Curius begins to retreat.]

What? Do you fall off?

Nay, it becomes you graciously. Put not up.

You’ll sooner draw your weapon on me, I think it,

Than on the Senate, who have cast you forth

Disgracefully, to be the common tale 290

Of the whole city – base, infamous man!

For, were you other, you would there employ

Your desperate dagger!

CURIUS

[Putting up his dagger] Fulvia, you do know

The strengths you have upon me. Do not use

Your power too like a tyrant; I can bear 295

Almost until you break me.

FULVIA

I do know, sir;

So does the Senate, too, know you can bear.

CURIUS

By all the gods, the Senate will smart deep

For your upbraidings. I should be right sorry

To have the means so to be venged on you – 300

At least the will – as I shall shortly on them.

But, go you on still. Fare you well, dear lady;

You could not still be fair unless you were proud.

You will repent these moods, and ere’t be long, too.

I shall ha’ you come about again.

FULVIA

Do you think so? 305

CURIUS

Yes, and I know so.

FULVIA

By what augury?

CURIUS

By the fair entrails of the matrons’ chests,

Gold, pearl, and jewels here in Rome, which Fulvia

Will then, but late, say that she might have shared,

And, grieving, miss.

FULVIA

Tut, all your promised mountains 310

And seas, I am so stalely acquainted with –

CURIUS

But when you see the universal flood

Run by your coffers; that my lords, the senators,

Are sold for slaves, their wives for bondwomen,

Their houses and fine gardens given away, 315

And all their goods under the spear at outcry,

And you have none of this, but are still Fulvia,

Or perhaps less, while you are thinking of it:

You will advise then, coyness, with your cushion

And look o’your fingers, say how you were wished, 320

And so he left you. [Exit.]

FULVIA

Call him again, Galla. [Exit Galla. ]

This is not usual; something hangs on this

That I must win out of him.

[Enter CURIUS. ]

CURIUS

How now, melt you?

FULVIA

Come, you will laugh now at my easiness?

But ’tis no miracle: doves, they say, will bill 325

After their pecking and their murmuring.

CURIUS

Yes,

And then ’tis kindly. I would have my love

Angry sometimes, to sweeten off the rest

Of her behaviour.

FULVIA

You do see, I study

How I may please you, then. But you think, Curius, 330

’Tis covetise hath wrought me. If you love me,

Change that unkind conceit.

CURIUS

By my loved soul,

I love thee like to it; and ’tis my study,

More than mine own revenge, to make thee happy.

FULVIA

And ’tis that just revenge doth make me happy 335

To hear you prosecute – and which, indeed,

Hath won me to you, more than all the hope

Of what can else be promised. I love valour

Better than any lady loves her face

Or dressing – than myself does. Let me grow 340

Still where I do embrace. But what good means

Ha’ you t’effect it? Shall I know your project?

CURIUS

Thou shalt, if thou’lt be gracious.

FULVIA

As I can be.

CURIUS

And wilt thou kiss me then?

FULVIA

As close as shells

Of cockles meet.

CURIUS

And print ’em deep?

FULVIA

Quite through 345

Our subtle lips.

CURIUS

And often?

FULVIA

I will sow ’em,

Faster than you can reap. What is your plot?

CURIUS

Why, now my Fulvia looks like her bright name,

And is herself!

FULVIA

Nay, answer me: your plot?

I pray thee tell me, Quintus.

CURIUS

Ay, these sounds 350

Become a mistress.

She kisses and flatters him along still.

Here is harmony!

When you are harsh, I see, the way to bend you

Is not with violence, but service. Cruel,

A lady is a fire; gentle, a light.

FULVIA

Will you not tell me what I ask you?

CURIUS

All 355

That I can think, sweet love, or my breast holds,

I’ll pour into thee.

FULVIA

What is your design then?

CURIUS

I’ll tell thee: Catiline shall now be consul.

But you will hear more, shortly.

FULVIA

Nay, dear love –

CURIUS

I’ll speak it in thine arms; let us go in. 360

Rome will be sacked; her wealth will be our prize.

By public ruin private spirits must rise. [Exeunt.]

CHORUS

Great father Mars, and greater Jove,

By whose high auspice Rome hath stood

So long, and first was built in blood 365

Of your great nephew, that then strove

Not with his brother but your rites:

Be present to her now, as then,

And let not proud and factious men

Against your wills oppose their mights. 370

Our consuls now are to be made:

Oh, put it in the public voice

To make a free and worthy choice,

Excluding such as would invade

The commonwealth. Let whom we name 375

Have wisdom, foresight, fortitude,

Be more with faith than face endued,

And study conscience above fame.

Such as not seek to get the start

In state by power, parts, or bribes, 380

Ambition’s bawds, but move the tribes

By virtue, modesty, desert.

Such as to justice will adhere,

Whatever great one it offend,

And from th’embracèd truth not bend 385

For envy, hatred, gifts, or fear.

That by their deeds will make it known

Whose dignity they do sustain,

And life, state, glory, all they gain

Count the Republic’s, not their own. 390

Such the old Bruti, Decii were,

The Cipi, Curtii, who did give

Themselves for Rome and would not live

As men good only for a year.

Such were the great Camilli, too, 395

The Fabii, Scipios, that still thought

No work at price enough was bought

That for their country they could do.

And to her honour so did knit

As all their acts were understood 400

The sinews of the public good,

And they themselves one soul with it.

These men were truly magistrates;

These neither practised force nor forms,

Nor did they leave the helm in storms; 405

And such they are make happy states.

3.1 [Enter] CICERO, CATO, CATULUS, ANTONIUS, CRASSUS, CAESAR, CHORUS, [and] LICTORS.

CICERO

Great honours are great burdens; but on whom

They are cast with envy, he doth bear two loads.

His cares must still be double to his joys

In any dignity where, if he err,

He finds no pardon and, for doing well, 5

A most small praise, and that wrung out by force.

I speak this, Romans, knowing what the weight

Of the high charge you have trusted to me is.

Not that thereby I would with art decline

The good or greatness of your benefit, 10

For I ascribe it to your singular grace

And vow to owe it to no title else,

Except the gods, that Cicero is your consul.

I have no urns, no dusty monuments,

No broken images of ancestors 15

Wanting an ear or nose, no forgèd tables

Of long descents, to boast false honours from

Or be my undertakers to your trust;

But a new man – as I am styled in Rome –

Whom you have dignified and, more, in whom 20

You’ve cut a way, and left it ope for virtue

Hereafter, to that place which our great men

Held shut up, with all ramparts, for themselves.

Nor have but few of them in time been made

Your consuls so; new men, before me, none. 25

At my first suit, in my just year, preferred

To all competitors, and some the noblest –

CRASSUS

[Aside to Caesar] Now the vein swells.

CAESAR

[To Crassus] Up glory!

CICERO

– and to have

Your loud consents from your own uttered voices,

Not silent books, nor from the meaner tribes 30

But, first and last, the universal concourse:

This is my joy, my gladness. But my care,

My industry, and vigilance now must work,

That still your counsels of me be approved

Both by yourselves and those to whom you have 35

With grudge preferred me. Two things I must labour:

That neither they upbraid nor you repent you.

For every lapse of mine will now be called

Your error, if I make such. But my hope is

So to bear through, and out, the consulship 40

As spite shall ne’er wound you, though it may me.

And for myself I have prepared this strength

To do so well as, if there happen ill

Unto me, it shall make the gods to blush,

And be their crime, not mine, that I am envied. 45

CAESAR

[Aside ] O confidence, more new than is the man!

CICERO

I know well in what terms I do receive

The commonwealth, how vexèd, how perplexed,

In which there’s not that mischief or ill fate

That good men fear not, wicked men expect not. 50

I know, beside, some turbulent practices

Already on foot, and rumours of more dangers –

CRASSUS

[Aside ] Or you will make them, if there be none.

CICERO

Last,

I know ’twas this which made the envy and pride

Of the great Roman blood bate and give way 55

To my election.

CATO

Marcus Tullius, true;

Our need made thee our consul, and thy virtue.

CAESAR

[Aside to Cato ] Cato, you will undo him with your praise.

CATO

[Aside to Caesar ] Caesar will hurt himself with his own envy.

CHORUS

The voice of Cato is the voice of Rome. 60

CATO

The voice of Rome is the consent of heaven!

And that hath placed thee, Cicero, at the helm,

Where thou must render now thyself a man

And master of thy art. Each petty hand

Can steer a ship becalmed; but he that will 65

Govern and carry her to her ends must know

His tides, his currents, how to shift his sails,

What she will bear in foul, what in fair weathers,

Where her springs are, her leaks, and how to stop ’em,

What sands, what shelves, what rocks do threaten her, 70

The forces and the natures of all winds,

Gusts, storms, and tempests; when her keel ploughs hell

And deck knocks heaven, then to manage her

Becomes the name and office of a pilot.

CICERO

Which I’ll perform, with all the diligence 75

And fortitude I have, not for my year

But for my life – except my life be less,

And that my year conclude it; if it must,

Your will, loved gods. This heart shall yet employ

A day, an hour is left me so for Rome 80

As it shall spring a life out of my death

To shine for ever glorious in my facts:

The vicious count their years, virtuous their acts.

CHORUS

Most noble Consul! Let us wait him home.

[Exeunt Cato, Cicero, Lictors, and Chorus.]

CAESAR

Most popular consul he is grown, methinks! 85

CRASSUS

How the rout cling to him!

CAESAR

And Cato leads ’em!

CRASSUS

You, his colleague, Antonius, are not looked on.

ANTONIUS

Not I, nor do I care.

CAESAR

He enjoys rest

And ease the while. Let th’other’s spirit toil

And wake it out that was inspired for turmoil. 90

CATULUS

If all reports be true, yet, Caius Caesar,

The time hath need of such a watch and spirit.

CAESAR

Reports? Do you believe ’em, Catulus?

Why, he does make and breed ’em for the people,

T’endear his service to ’em. Do you not taste 95

An art that is so common? Popular men,

They must create strange monsters and then quell ’em,

To make their arts seem something. Would you have

Such an Herculean actor in the scene,

And not his Hydra? They must sweat no less 100

To fit their properties than t’express their parts.

CRASSUS

Treasons and guilty men are made in states

Too oft to dignify the magistrates.

CATULUS

Those states be wretched that are forced to buy

Their rulers’ fame with their own infamy. 105

CRASSUS

We therefore should provide that ours do not.

CAESAR

That will Antonius make his care.

ANTONIUS

I shall.

CAESAR

And watch the watcher.

[Enter, approaching slowly,] CATILINE, LONGINUS, [and] LENTULUS.

CATULUS

Here comes Catiline.

How does he brook his late repulse?

CAESAR

I know not.

But hardly, sure.

CATULUS

Longinus, too, did stand? 110

CAESAR

At first. But he gave way unto his friend.

CATULUS

Who’s that come? Lentulus?

CAESAR

Yes. He is again

Taken into the Senate.

ANTONIUS

And made praetor.

CATULUS

I know’t. He had my suffrage, next the Consuls’.

CAESAR

True, you were there, Prince of the Senate, then. 115

[Catiline, Longinus, and Lentulus join the others.]

CATILINE

Hail, noblest Romans! [To Antonius] The most worthy Consul,

I gratulate your honour.

ANTONIUS

I could wish

It had been happier by your fellowship,

Most noble Sergius, had it pleased the people.

CATILINE

It did not please the gods, who instruct the people, 120

And their unquestioned pleasures must be served.

They know what’s fitter for us than ourselves,

And ’twere impiety to think against them.

CATULUS

You bear it rightly, Lucius; and it glads me

To find your thoughts so even.

CATILINE

I shall still 125

Study to make them such to Rome and heaven.

(Aside to Caesar) I would withdraw with you a little, Julius.

CAESAR

(Aside to Catiline) I’ll come home to you. Crassus would not ha’ you

To speak to him ’fore Quintus Catulus.

CATILINE

(To Caesar) I apprehend you. [To all] No, when they shall judge 130

Honours convenient for me, I shall have ’em

With a full hand, I know it. In meantime,

They are no less part of the commonwealth

That do obey than those that do command.

CATULUS

Oh, let me kiss your forehead, Lucius. 135

How are you wronged!

CATILINE

By whom?

CATULUS

Public report,

That gives you out to stomach your repulse,

And brook it deadly.

CATILINE

Sir, she brooks not me.

Believe me rather, and yourself now of me;

It is a kind of slander to trust rumour. 140

CATULUS

I know it. And I could be angry with it.

CATILINE

So may not I. Where it concerns himself,

Who’s angry at a slander makes it true.

CATULUS

Most noble Sergius! This your temper melts me.

CRASSUS

[To Catulus] Will you do office to the Consul, Quintus? 145

CAESAR

Which Cato and the rout have done the other?

CATULUS

I wait when he will go. [To Catiline] Be still yourself.

He wants no state or honours that hath virtue.

[Exeunt Catulus, Antonius, Caesar, Crassus, and Lictors.]

CATILINE

[Aside] Did I appear so tame as this man thinks me?

Looked I so poor, so dead? So like that nothing 150

Which he calls virtuous? O my breast, break quickly,

And show my friends my in-parts, lest they think

I have betrayed ’em.

LONGINUS

Where’s Gabinius?

LENTULUS

Gone.

LONGINUS

And Vargunteius?

LENTULUS

Slipped away, all shrunk

Now that he missed the consulship.

CATILINE

[To himself] I am 155

The scorn of bondmen, who are next to beasts.

What can I worse pronounce myself that’s fitter?

The owl of Rome whom boys and girls will hoot!

That, were I set up for that wooden god

That keeps our gardens, could not fright the crows 160

Or the least bird from muting on my head.

[Longinus and Lentulus speak privately to each other, not listening to Catiline.]

LONGINUS

’Tis strange how he should miss it.

LENTULUS

Is’t not stranger

The upstart Cicero should carry it so,

By all consents, from men so much his masters?

LONGINUS

’Tis true.

CATILINE

[To himself] To what a shadow am I melted! 165

LONGINUS

Antonius won it but by some few voices.

CATILINE

[To himself] Struck through, like air, and feel it not. My wounds

Close faster than they’re made.

LENTULUS

The whole design

And enterprise is lost by’t. All hands quit it

Upon his fail.

CATILINE

[To himself] I grow mad at my patience. 170

It is a visor that hath poisoned me.

Would it had burnt me up and I died inward,

My heart turned to ashes.

[Enter] CETHEGUS. [He joins Catiline privately.]

LONGINUS

Here’s Cethegus yet.

CATILINE

Repulse upon repulse! An inmate consul!

That I could reach the axle where the pins are 175

Which bolt this frame, that I might pull ’em out

And pluck all into chaos, with myself!

CETHEGUS

What, are we wishing now?

CATILINE

Yes, my Cethegus.

Who would not fall with all the world about him?

CETHEGUS

Not I, that would stand on it when it falls 180

And force new nature out, to make another.

These wishings taste of woman, not of Roman.

Let us seek other arms.

CATILINE

What should we do?

CETHEGUS

Do, and not wish: something that wishes take not,

So sudden as the gods should not prevent 185

Nor scarce have time to fear.

CATILINE

O noble Caius!

CETHEGUS

It likes me better that you are not consul.

I would not go through open doors, but break ’em;

Swim to my ends through blood; or build a bridge

Of carcasses: make on upon the heads 190

Of men struck down like piles, to reach the lives

Of those remain and stand. Then is’t a prey,

When danger stops and ruin makes the way.

CATILINE

How thou dost utter me, brave soul, that may not

At all times show such as I am, but bend 195

Unto occasion.

[Catiline and Cethegus join Lentulus and Longinus.]

Lentulus, this man,

If all our fire were out, would fetch down new

Out of the hand of Jove, and rivet him

To Caucasus, should he but frown, and let

His own gaunt eagle fly at him, to tire. 200

[Enter] CATO.

LENTULUS

Peace, here comes Cato.

CATILINE

Let him come and hear.

I will no more dissemble. Quit us all.

I and my loved Cethegus here alone

Will undertake this giants’ war, and carry it.

LENTULUS

What needs this,

LONGINUS

Lucius? Sergius, be more wary. 205

CATILINE

Now, Marcus Cato, our new Consul’s spy,

What is your sour austerity sent t’explore?

CATO

Nothing in thee, licentious Catiline.

Halters and racks cannot express from thee

More than thy deeds. ’Tis only judgement waits thee. 210

CATILINE

Whose? Cato’s? Shall he judge me?

CATO

No, the gods,

Who ever follow those they go not with;

And Senate, who with fire must purge sick Rome

Of noisome citizens, whereof thou art one.

Be gone, or else let me. ’Tis bane to draw 215

The same air with thee.

CETHEGUS

Strike him!

[He draws his sword.]

LENTULUS

Hold, good Caius!

CETHEGUS

Fear’st thou not, Cato?

CATO

Rash Cethegus, no.

’Twere wrong with Rome, when Catiline and thou

Do threat, if Cato feared.

CATILINE

The fire you speak of:

If any flame of it approach my fortunes, 220

I’ll quench it, not with water but with ruin.

CATO

You hear this, Romans. [Exit.]

CATILINE

[Calling after him] Bear it to the Consul.

CETHEGUS

I would have sent away his soul before him.

You are too heavy, Lentulus, and remiss.

It is for you we labour, and the kingdom 225

Promised you by the Sibyls.

CATILINE

Which his praetorship,

And some small flattery of the Senate more,

Will make him to forget.

LENTULUS

You wrong me, Lucius.

LONGINUS

He will not need these spurs.

CETHEGUS

The action needs ’em.

These things, when they proceed not, they go backward. 230

LENTULUS

Let us consult then.

CETHEGUS

Let us first take arms.

They that deny us just things now, will give

All that we ask, if once they see our swords.

CATILINE

Our objects must be sought with wounds, not words. [Exeunt.]

3.2 [Enter] CICERO [and] FULVIA.

CICERO

Is there a heaven, and gods, and can it be

They should so slowly hear, so slowly see?

Hath Jove no thunder, or is Jove become

Stupid as thou art, O near-wretched Rome,

When both thy Senate and thy gods do sleep 5

And neither thine nor their own states do keep?

What will awake thee, heaven? What can excite

Thine anger, if this practice be too light?

His former drifts partake of former times,

But this last plot was only Catiline’s. 10

Oh, that it were his last! But he before

Hath safely done so much he’ll still dare more.

Ambition, like a torrent, ne’er looks back,

And is a swelling and the last affection

A high mind can put off, being both a rebel 15

Unto the soul and reason; and enforceth

All laws, all conscience, treads upon religion,

And offereth violence to nature’s self.

But here is that transcends it! A black purpose

To confound nature, and to ruin that 20

Which never age nor mankind can repair.

Sit down, good lady. [Fulvia sits.] Cicero is lost

In this your fable: for to think it true

Tempteth my reason. It so far exceeds

All insolent fictions of the tragic scene. 25

The commonwealth, yet panting underneath

The stripes and wounds of a late civil war,

Gasping for life, and scarce restored to hope:

To seek t’oppress her with new cruelty

And utterly extinguish her long name 30

With so prodigious and unheard-of fierceness!

What sink of monsters, wretches of lost minds,

Mad after change and desp’rate in their states,

Wearied and galled with their necessities –

For all this I allow them – durst have thought it? 35

Would not the barbarous deeds have been believed

Of Marius and Sulla by our children,

Without this fact had rise forth greater for them?

All that they did was piety to this.

They yet but murdered kinsfolk, brothers, parents, 40

Ravished the virgins and perhaps some matrons.

They left the city standing, and the temples:

The gods and majesty of Rome were safe yet.

These purpose to fire it, to despoil them –

Beyond the other evils – and lay waste 45

The far-triumphèd world, for, unto whom

Rome is too little, what can be enough?

FULVIA

’Tis true, my lord, I had the same discourse.

CICERO

And then to take a horrid sacrament

In human blood, for execution 50

Of this their dire design, which might be called

The height of wickedness but that that was higher

For which they did it!

FULVIA

I assure your lordship,

The extreme horror of it almost turned me

To air, when first I heard it; I was all 55

A vapour when ’twas told me, and I longed

To vent it anywhere; ’twas such a secret,

I thought it would have burnt me up.

CICERO

Good Fulvia,

Fear not your act, and less repent you of it.

FULVIA

I do not, my good lord. I know to whom 60

I have uttered it.

CICERO

You have discharged it safely.

Should Rome, for whom you have done the happy service,

Turn most ingrate, yet were your virtue paid

In conscience of the fact: so much good deeds

Reward themselves.

FULVIA

My lord, I did it not 65

To any other aim but for itself.

To no ambition.

CICERO

You have learned the difference

Of doing office to the public weal

And private friendship, and have shown it, lady.

Be still yourself. I have sent for Quintus Curius; 70

And, for your virtuous sake, if I can win him

Yet to the commonwealth, he shall be safe, too.

FULVIA

I’ll undertake, my lord, he shall be won.

CICERO

Pray you, join with me then, and help to work him.

[Enter a] LICTOR.

How now? Is he come?

LICTOR

He is here, my lord.

CICERO

Go presently, 75

Pray my colleague Antonius I may speak with him

About some present business of the state.

And, as you go, call on my brother Quintus

And pray him, with the Tribunes, to come to me.

Bid Curius enter. Fulvia, you will aid me? [Exit Lictor.]

FULVIA

It is my duty.

[Enter] CURIUS.

CICERO

O my noble lord!

I have to chide you, i’faith. Give me your hand.

Nay, be not troubled; ’t shall be gently, Curius.

You look upon this lady? What, do you guess

My business yet? Come, if you frown, I thunder; 85

Therefore put on your better looks and thoughts.

There’s naught but fair and good intended to you,

And I would make those your complexion.

Would you, of whom the Senate had that hope,

As on my knowledge it was in their purpose 90

Next sitting to restore you, as they ha’ done

The stupid and ungrateful Lentulus –

Excuse me that I name you thus together,

For yet you are not such – would you, I say,

A person both of blood and honour, stocked 95

In a long race of virtuous ancestors,

Embark yourself for such a hellish action

With parricides and traitors, men turned furies

Out of the waste and ruin of their fortunes –

For ’tis despair that is the mother of madness – 100

Such as want – that which all conspirators,

But they, have first – mere colour for their mischief?

Oh, I must blush with you. Come, you shall not labour

To extenuate your guilt, but quit it clean.

Bad men excuse their faults, good men will leave ’em. 105

He acts the third crime that defends the first.

Here is a lady that hath got the start

In piety of us all, and for whose virtue

I could almost turn lover again, but that

Terentia would be jealous. What an honour 110

Hath she achieved to herself! What voices,

Titles, and loud applauses will pursue her

Through every street; what windows will be filled,

To shoot eyes at her; what envy and grief in matrons,

They are not she; when this her act shall seem 115

Worthier a chariot than if Pompey came

With Asia chained! All this is while she lives.

But dead, her very name will be a statue,

Not wrought for time but rooted in the minds

Of all posterity, when brass and marble, 120

Ay, and the Capitol itself, is dust!

FULVIA

Your Honour thinks too highly of me.

CICERO

No,

I cannot think enough. And I would have

Him emulate you. ’Tis no shame to follow

The better precedent. She shows you, Curius, 125

What claim your country lays to you, and what duty

You owe to it. Be not afraid to break

With murderers and traitors for the saving

A life so near and necessary to you

As is your country’s. Think but on her right: 130

No child can be too natural to his parent.

She is our common mother and doth challenge

The prime part of us; do not stop, but give it:

He that is void of fear may soon be just,

And no religion binds men to be traitors. 135

FULVIA

My lord, he understands it and will follow

Your saving counsel. But his shame yet stays him.

I know that he is coming.

CURIUS

[To Fulvia] Do you know it?

[Curius and Fulvia speak apart.]

FULVIA

Yes, let me speak with you.

CURIUS

Oh, you are –

FULVIA

What am I?

CURIUS

Speak not so loud.

FULVIA

I am what you should be. 140

Come, do you think I’d walk in any plot

Where madam Sempronia should take place of me,

And Fulvia come i’the rear, or o’the by?

That I would be her second in a business,

Though it might vantage me all the sun sees? 145

It was a silly fant’sy of yours. Apply

Yourself to me, and the Consul, and be wise.

Follow the fortune I ha’ put you into:

You may be something this way, and with safety.

CICERO

[Joining them] Nay, I must tolerate no whisperings, lady. 150

FULVIA

Sir, you may hear. I tell him, in the way

Wherein he was, how hazardous his course was.

CICERO

How hazardous? How certain to all ruin.

Did he, or do yet any of them, imagine

The gods would sleep to such a Stygian practice 155

Against the commonwealth which they have founded

With so much labour, and like care have kept

Now near seven hundred years? It is a madness,

Wherewith heaven blinds ’em when it would confound ’em,

That they should think it. Come, my Curius, 160

I see your nature’s right; you shall no more

Be mentioned with them: I will call you mine

And trouble this good shame no farther. Stand

Firm for your country, and become a man

Honoured and loved. It were a noble life 165

To be found dead embracing her. Know you

What thanks, what titles, what rewards the Senate

Will heap upon you, certain, for your service?

Let not a desperate action more engage you

Than safety should, and wicked friendship force 170

What honesty and virtue cannot work.

FULVIA

He tells you right, sweet friend. ’Tis saving counsel.

CURIUS

Most noble Consul, I am yours and hers –

I mean my country’s. You have formed me new,

Inspiring me with what I should be truly. 175

And I entreat my faith may not seem cheaper

For springing out of penitence.

CICERO

Good Curius,

It shall be dearer rather, and because

I’d make it such, hear how I trust you more.

Keep still your former face, and mix again 180

With these lost spirits. Run all their mazes with ’em,

For such are treasons. Find their windings out,

And subtle turnings, watch their snaky ways

Through brakes and hedges, into woods of darkness,

Where they are fain to creep upon their breasts 185

In paths ne’er trod by men, but wolves and panthers.

Learn, beside Catiline, Lentulus, and those

Whose names I have, what new ones they draw in;

Who else are likely; what those great ones are

They do not name; what ways they mean to take; 190

And whither their hopes point: to war or ruin

By some surprise. Explore all their intents,

And what you find may profit the Republic

Acquaint me with it, either by yourself

Or this your virtuous friend, on whom I lay 195

The care of urging you. I’ll see that Rome

Shall prove a thankful and a bounteous mother.

Be secret as the night.

CURIUS

And constant, sir.

CICERO

I do not doubt it, though the time cut off

All vows. The dignity of truth is lost 200

With much protesting. [He calls.] Who is there?

[Enter a servant.]

This way,

Lest you be seen and met. And when you come,

Be this your token, to this fellow.

He whispers with [Curius].

[To Servant] Light ’em.

[Exeunt Servant, Curius, and Fulvia.]

O Rome, in what a sickness art thou fall’n!

How dangerous and deadly, when thy head 205

Is drowned in sleep, and all thy body fev’ry!

No noise, no pulling, no vexation wakes thee,

Thy lethargy is such; or, if by chance

Thou heav’st thy eyelids up, thou dost forget,

Sooner than thou wert told, thy proper danger. 210

I did unreverendly to blame the gods

Who wake for thee, though thou snore to thyself.

Is it not strange thou shouldst be so diseased

And so secure? But, more, that the first symptoms

Of such a malady should not rise out 215

From any worthy member, but a base

And common strumpet, worthless to be named

A hair or part of thee? Think, think hereafter

What thy needs were, when thou must use such means;

And lay it to thy breast how much the gods 220

Upbraid thy foul neglect of them by making

So vile a thing the author of thy safety.

They could have wrought by nobler ways: have struck

Thy foes with forkèd lightning or rammed thunder;

Thrown hills upon ’em in the act; have sent 225

Death, like a damp, to all their families;

Or caused their consciences to burst ’em. But,

When they will show thee what thou art and make

A scornful difference ’twixt their power and thee,

They help thee by such aids as geese and harlots. 230

[Enter] LICTOR.

How now? What answer? Is he come?

LICTOR

Your brother

Will straight be here, and your colleague Antonius

Said, coldly, he would follow me. [Exit.]

CICERO

Ay, that

Troubles me somewhat and is worth my fear.

He is a man ’gainst whom I must provide 235

That, as he’ll do no good, he do no harm.

He, though he be not of the plot, will like it

And wish it should proceed; for unto men

Pressed with their wants all change is ever welcome.

I must with offices and patience win him; 240

Make him by art that which he is not born:

A friend unto the public; and bestow

The province on him which is by the Senate

Decreed to me. That benefit will bind him.

’Tis well if some men will do well for price: 245

So few are virtuous when the reward’s away.

Nor must I be unmindful of my private,

For which I have called my brother and the tribunes,

My kinsfolk, and my clients to be near me.

He that stands up ’gainst traitors and their ends 250

Shall need a double guard of law and friends;

Especially in such an envious state

That sooner will accuse the magistrate

Than the delinquent, and will rather grieve

The treason is not acted, than believe. [Exit.]

3.3 [Enter] CAESAR [and] CATILINE.

CAESAR

The night grows on, and you are for your meeting;

I’ll therefore end in few. Be resolute

And put your enterprise in act. The more

Actions of depth and danger are considered,

The less assuredly they are performed. 5

And thence it happ’neth that the bravest plots,

Not executed straight, have been discovered.

Say you are constant, or another, a third,

Or more, there may be yet one wretched spirit

With whom the fear of punishment shall work 10

’Bove all the thoughts of honour and revenge.

You are not now to think what’s best to do,

As in beginnings, but what must be done,

Being thus entered, and slip no advantage

That may secure you. Let ’em call it mischief; 15

When it is past and prospered, ’twill be virtue.

They’re petty crimes are punished, great rewarded.

Nor must you think of peril, since attempts

Begun with danger still do end with glory.

And when need spurs, despair will be called wisdom. 20

Less ought the care of men or fame to fright you,

For they that win do seldom receive shame

Of victory, howe’er it be achieved,

And vengeance, least. For who, besieged with wants,

Would stop at death, or anything beyond it? 25

Come, there was never any great thing yet

Aspired but by violence, or fraud;

And he that sticks, for folly of a conscience,

To reach it –

CATILINE

Is a good religious fool.

CAESAR

A superstitious slave, and will die beast. 30

Good night. You know what Crassus thinks, and I,

By this: prepare you wings, as large as sails,

To cut through air and leave no print behind you.

A serpent, ere he comes to be a dragon,

Does eat a bat, and so must you a consul 35

That watches. What you do, do quickly, Sergius.

You shall not stir for me. [Going.]

CATILINE

Excuse me.

[Calling to servants without] Lights there!

CAESAR

By no means.

CATILINE

[To servants] Stay then.

[To Caesar] All good thoughts to Caesar!

And like to Crassus.

CAESAR

Mind but your friends’ counsels. [Exit.]

CATILINE

Or I will bear no mind.

[Enter] AURELIA.

How now, Aurelia? 40

Are your confederates come? The ladies?

AURELIA

Yes.

CATILINE

And is Sempronia there?

AURELIA

She is.

CATILINE

That’s well.

She has a sulphurous spirit and will take

Light at a spark. Break with them, gentle love,

About the drawing as many of their husbands 45

Into the plot as can. If not, to rid ’em:

That’ll be the easier practice unto some

Who have been tired with ’em long. Solicit

Their aids for money, and their servants’ help

In firing of the city at the time 50

Shall be designed. Promise ’em states, and empires,

And men for lovers, made of better clay

Than ever the old potter Titan knew.

[Enter] LAECA.

Who’s that? Oh, Porcius Laeca! Are they met?

LAECA

They are all here.

CATILINE

[To Aurelia] Love, you have your instructions. 55

I’ll trust you with the stuff you have to work on.

You’ll form it. [Exit Aurelia.]

[To Laeca] Porcius, fetch the silver eagle

I ga’ you in charge. And pray ’em they will enter. [Exit Laeca.]

[Enter] CETHEGUS, CURIUS, LENTULUS, VARGUNTEIUS, LONGINUS, GABINIUS, CEPARIUS, AUTRONIUS, [and CORNELIUS].

O friends, your faces glad me. This will be

Our last, I hope, of consultation. 60

CETHEGUS

So it had need.

CURIUS

We lose occasion daily.

CATILINE

Ay, and our means, whereof one wounds me most,

That was the fairest. Piso is dead, in Spain.

CETHEGUS

As we are, here.

LONGINUS

And, as it is thought, by envy

Of Pompey’s followers.

LENTULUS

He too’s coming back 65

Now, out of Asia.

CATILINE

Therefore, what we intend

We must be swift in. Take your seats, and hear.

I have already sent Septimius

Into the Picene territories, and Julius

To raise force for us in Apulia; 70

Manlius at Faesulae is by this time up,

With the old needy troops that followed Sulla;

And all do but expect when we will give

The blow at home.

[Enter LAECA with eagle.]

Behold this silver eagle:

’Twas Marius’ standard in the Cimbrian war, 75

Fatal to Rome, and, as our augurs tell me,

Shall still be so; for which one ominous cause

I have kept it safe and done it sacred rites

As to a godhead, in a chapel built

Of purpose to it. Pledge then all your hands 80

To follow it, with vows of death and ruin

Struck silently and home.

[They make their vows, silently.]

So waters speak

When they run deepest. Now’s the time, this year

The twenti’th from the firing of the Capitol,

As fatal, too, to Rome, by all predictions; 85

And in which honoured Lentulus must rise

A king, if he pursue it.

CURIUS

If he do not,

He is not worthy the great destiny.

LENTULUS

It is too great for me, but what the gods

And their great loves decree me I must not 90

Seem careless of.

CATILINE

No, nor we envious.

We have enough beside: all Gallia, Belgia,

Greece, Spain, and Africa.

CURIUS

Ay, and Asia, too,

Now Pompey is returning.

CATILINE

Noblest Romans,

Methinks our looks are not so quick and high 95

As they were wont.

CURIUS

No? Whose is not?

CATILINE

We have

No anger in our eyes, no storm, no lightning;

Our hate is spent and fumed away in vapour,

Before our hands be at work. I can accuse

Not any one but all of slackness.

CETHEGUS

Yes, 100

And be yourself such, while you do it.

CATILINE

Ha?

’Tis sharply answered, Caius.

CETHEGUS

Truly, truly.

LENTULUS

Come, let us each one know his part to do,

And then be accused. Leave these untimely quarrels.

CURIUS

I would there were more Romes than one to ruin. 105

CETHEGUS

More Romes? More worlds.

CURIUS

Nay then, more gods, and natures,

If they took part.

LENTULUS

When shall the time be, first?

CATILINE

I think the Saturnals.

CETHEGUS

’Twill be too long.

CATILINE

They are not far off; ’tis not a month.

CETHEGUS

A week, a day, an hour is too far off; 110

Now were the fittest time.

CATILINE

We ha’ not laid

All things so safe and ready.

CETHEGUS

While we’re laying,

We shall all lie, and grow to earth. Would I

Were nothing in it, if not now. These things,

They should be done ere thought.

CATILINE

Nay, now your reason 115

Forsakes you, Caius. Think but what commodity

That time will minister: the city’s custom

Of being then in mirth and feast.

LENTULUS

Loosed whole

In pleasure and security –

AUTRONIUS

Each house

Resolved in freedom –

CURIUS

Every slave a master – 120

LONGINUS

And they too no mean aids –

CURIUS

Made from their hope

Of liberty –

LENTULUS

Or hate unto their lords.

VARGUNTEIUS

’Tis sure there cannot be a time found out

More apt and natural.

LENTULUS

Nay, good Cethegus,

Why do your passions now disturb our hopes? 125

CETHEGUS

Why do your hopes delude your certainties?

CATILINE

You must lend him his way. Think for the order

And process of it.

LONGINUS

Yes.

LENTULUS

I like not fire:

’Twill too much waste my city.

CATILINE

Were it embers,

There will be wealth enough raked out of them 130

To spring a new. It must be fire, or nothing.

LONGINUS

What else should fright or terrify ’em?

VARGUNTEIUS

True.

In that confusion must be the chief slaughter.

CURIUS

Then we shall kill ’em bravest.

CEPARIUS

And in heaps.

AUTRONIUS

Strew sacrifices.

CURIUS

Make the earth an altar. 135

LONGINUS

And Rome the fire.

LAECA

’Twill be a noble night.

VARGUNTEIUS

And worth all Sulla’s days.

CURIUS

When husbands, wives,

Grandsires and nephews, servants and their lords,

Virgins and priests, the infant and the nurse,

Go all to hell together, in a fleet. 140

CATILINE

I would have you, Longinus and Statilius,

To take the charge o’the firing, which must be

At a sign given with a trumpet, done

In twelve chief places of the city at once.

The flax and sulphur are already laid 145

In at Cethegus’ house. So are the weapons.

Gabinius, you with other force shall stop

The pipes and conduits, and kill those that come

For water.

CURIUS

What shall I do?

CATILINE

All will have

Employment, fear not; ply the execution. 150

CURIUS

For that, trust me and Cethegus.

CATILINE

I will be

At hand, with the army, to meet those that scape.

And, Lentulus, begirt you Pompey’s house,

To seize his sons alive, for they are they

Must make our peace with him. All else cut off, 155

As Tarquin did the poppy heads or mowers

A field of thistles, or else up, as ploughs

Do barren lands; and strike together flints

And clods, th’ungrateful Senate and the people,

Till no rage gone before or coming after 160

May weigh with yours, though Horror leapt herself

Into the scale; but, in your violent acts,

The fall of torrents and the noise of tempests,

The boiling of Charybdis, the sea’s wildness,

The eating force of flames, and wings of winds, 165

Be all outwrought by your transcendent furies.

It had been done ere this, had I been consul;

We had had no stop, no let.

LENTULUS

How find you Antonius?

CATILINE

Th’other has won him: lost. That Cicero

Was born to be my opposition, 170

And stands in all our ways.

CURIUS

Remove him first.

CETHEGUS

May that yet be done sooner?

CATILINE

Would it were done.

CORNELIUS, VARGUNTEIUS

I’ll do’t.

CETHEGUS

It is my province; none usurp it!

LENTULUS

What are your means?

CETHEGUS

Inquire not. He shall die.

‘Shall’ was too slowly said. He’s dying. That 175

Is yet too slow. He’s dead.

CATILINE

Brave, only Roman,

Whose soul might be the world’s soul, were that dying,

Refuse not yet the aids of these your friends.

LENTULUS

Here’s Vargunteius holds good quarter with him.

CATILINE

And under the pretext of clientele 180

And visitation with the morning ‘hail’

Will be admitted.

CETHEGUS

What is that to me?

VARGUNTEIUS

Yes, we may kill him in his bed, and safely.

CETHEGUS

Safe is your way, then; take it. Mine’s mine own. [Exit.]

CATILINE

Follow him, Vargunteius, and persuade 185

The morning is the fittest time.

LONGINUS

The night

Will turn all into tumult.

LENTULUS

And perhaps

Miss of him, too.

CATILINE

Entreat and conjure him

In all our names –

LENTULUS

By all our vows and friendships. [Exit Vargunteius.]

[Enter] SEMPRONIA, AURELIA, [and] FULVIA to them.

SEMPRONIA

What, is our council broke up first?

AURELIA

You say 190

Women are greatest talkers.

[Aurelia whispers with Catiline, while Fulvia takes Curius aside.]

SEMPRONIA

We ha’ done,

And are now fit for action.

LONGINUS

Which is passion.

There’s your best activity, lady.

SEMPRONIA

How

Knows Your wise Fatness that?

LONGINUS

Your mother’s daughter

Did teach me, madam.

CATILINE

Come, Sempronia, leave him; 195

He is a giber. And our present business

Is of more serious consequence. Aurelia

Tells me you’ve done most masculinely within,

And played the orator.

SEMPRONIA

But we must hasten

To our design as well, and execute, 200

Not hang still, in the fever of an accident.

CATILINE

You say well, lady.

SEMPRONIA

I do like our plot

Exceeding well, ’tis sure; and we shall leave

Little to fortune in it.

CATILINE

Your banquet stays.

Aurelia, take her in. [Looking around] Where’s Fulvia? 205

SEMPRONIA

[Seeing Fulvia with Curius]

Oh, the two lovers are coupling.

CURIUS

In good faith,

She’s very ill, with sitting up.

SEMPRONIA

You’d have her

Laugh and lie down.

FULVIA

No, faith, Sempronia,

I am not well. I’ll take my leave; it draws

Toward the morning. Curius shall stay with you. 210

[To Aurelia] Madam, I pray you pardon me; my health

I must respect.

AURELIA

Farewell, good Fulvia.

CURIUS

(Whispers to Fulvia) Make haste and bid him get his guards about him.

For Vargunteius and Cornelius

Have underta’en it, should Cethegus miss; 215

Their reason: that they think his open rashness

Will suffer easier discovery

Than their attempt, so veiled under friendship.

[Aloud] I’ll bring you to your coach. [Whispering] Tell him beside

Of Caesar’s coming forth here.

CATILINE

My sweet madam, 220

Will you be gone?

FULVIA

I am, my lord, in truth,

In some indisposition.

CATILINE

I do wish

You had all your health, sweet lady. Lentulus,

You’ll do her service.

LENTULUS

To her coach, and duty.

[Exeunt all but Catiline.]

CATILINE

What ministers men must for practice use! 225

The rash, th’ambitious, needy, desperate,

Foolish, and wretched, ev’n the dregs of mankind,

To whores and women! Still, it must be so.

Each have their proper place, and in their rooms

They are the best. Grooms fittest kindle fires, 230

Slaves carry burdens, butchers are for slaughters,

Apothecaries, butlers, cooks for poisons,

As these for me: dull, stupid Lentulus,

My stale with whom I stalk; the rash Cethegus,

My executioner; and fat Longinus, 235

Statilius, Curius, Ceparius, Cimber,

My labourers, pioneers, and incendiaries;

With these, domestic traitors, bosom thieves

Whom custom hath called wives, the readiest helps

To betray heady husbands, rob the easy, 240

And lend the moneys on returns of lust.

Shall Catiline not do now, with these aids,

So sought, so sorted, something shall be called

Their labour but his profit? And make Caesar

Repent his vent’ring counsels to a spirit 245

So much his lord in mischief? When all these

Shall, like the brethren sprung of dragons’ teeth,

Ruin each other, and he fall amongst ’em

With Crassus, Pompey, or who else appears

But like or near a great one? May my brain 250

Resolve to water and my blood turn phlegm,

My hands drop off, unworthy of my sword,

And that b’inspired of itself to rip

My breast for my lost entrails, when I leave

A soul that will not serve. And who will are 255

The same with slaves; such clay I dare not fear.

The cruelty I mean to act I wish

Should be called mine and tarry in my name,

Whilst after-ages do toil out themselves

In thinking for the like but do it less. 260

And were the power of all the fiends let loose,

With Fate to boot, it should be still example:

When what the Gaul or Moor could not effect,

Nor emulous Carthage with their length of spite,

Shall be the work of one, and that my, night. [Exit.]

3.4 [Enter] CICERO, FULVIA [and SERVANT].

CICERO

I thank your vigilance. [To Servant] Where’s my brother, Quintus?

Call all my servants up. [Exit Servant.]

Tell noble Curius

And say it to yourself: you are my savers;

But that’s too little for you: you are Rome’s.

What could I then hope less?

[Enter] QUINTUS.

O brother, now 5

The engineers I told you of are working;

The machine ’gins to move. Where are your weapons?

Arm all my household presently. And charge

The porter he let no man in till day.

QUINTUS

Not clients and your friends?

CICERO

They wear those names 10

That come to murder me. Yet send for Cato

And Quintus Catulus, those I dare trust,

And Flaccus and Pomtinius, the praetors,

By the back way.

QUINTUS

Take care, good brother Marcus,

Your fears be not formed greater than they should, 15

And make your friends grieve, while your enemies laugh.

CICERO

’Tis brother’s counsel, and worth thanks. But do

As I entreat you. I provide, not fear. [Exit Quintus.]

Was Caesar there, say you?

FULVIA

Curius says he met him

Coming from thence.

CICERO

Oh, so. And had you a council 20

Of ladies, too? Who was your speaker, madam?

FULVIA

She that would be, had there been forty more:

Sempronia, who had both her Greek and figures,

And ever and anon would ask us if

The witty Consul could have mended that, 25

Or orator Cicero could have said it better?

CICERO

She’s my gentle enemy. Would Cethegus

Had no more danger in him! But my guards

Are you, great powers, and th’unbated strengths

Of a firm conscience, which shall arm each step 30

Ta’en for the state and teach me slack no pace

For fear of malice.

[Enter QUINTUS.]

How now, brother?

QUINTUS

Cato

And Quintus Catulus were coming to you,

And Crassus with ’em. I have let ’em in

By th’garden.

CICERO

What would Crassus have?

QUINTUS

I hear 35

Some whispering ’bout the gate and making doubt

Whether it be not yet too early, or no.

But I do think they are your friends and clients,

Are fearful to disturb you.

CICERO

You will change

To another thought anon. Ha’ you giv’n the porter 40

The charge I willed you?

QUINTUS

Yes.

CICERO

Withdraw and hearken. [Exeunt.]

3.5 [ Enter] VARGUNTEIUS, CORNELIUS, [and some armed men].

VARGUNTEIUS

The door’s not open yet.

CORNELIUS

You were best to knock.

VARGUNTEIUS

Let them stand close then and, when we are in,

Rush after us.

CORNELIUS

But where’s Cethegus?

VARGUNTEIUS

Has left it, since he might not do’t his way.

[Vargenteius knocks.]

PORTER

[Within] Who’s there?

VARGUNTEIUS

A friend, or more.

PORTER

I may not let 5

Any man in till day.

VARGUNTEIUS

No? Why?

CORNELIUS

Thy reason?

PORTER

I am commanded so.

VARGUNTEIUS

By whom?

CORNELIUS

[To the conspirators] I hope

We are not discovered.

VARGUNTEIUS

Yes, by revelation. –

Pray thee, good slave, who has commanded thee?

PORTER

He that may best, the Consul.

[Enter above] CICERO, CATO, CATULUS, CRASSUS, [and QUINTUS].

VARGUNTEIUS

We are his friends. 10

PORTER

All’s one.

CORNELIUS

Best give your name.

VARGUNTEIUS

Dost thou hear, fellow,

I have some instant business with the Consul.

My name is Vargunteius.

Cicero speaks to them from above.

CICERO

True, he knows it,

And for what friendly office you are sent.

Cornelius, too, is there?

VARGUNTEIUS

[To Cornelius ] We are betrayed! 15

CICERO

And desperate Cethegus, is he not?

VARGUNTEIUS

[To Cornelius] Speak you; he knows my voice.

CICERO

What say you to’t?

CORNELIUS

You are deceived, sir.

CICERO

No, ’tis you are so,

Poor, misled men. Your states are yet worth pity,

If you would hear, and change your savage minds. 20

Leave to be mad, forsake your purposes

Of treason, rapine, murder, fire, and horror.

The commonwealth hath eyes that wake as sharply

Over her life as yours do for her ruin.

Be not deceived to think her lenity 25

Will be perpetual or, if men be wanting

The gods will be, to such a calling cause.

Consider your attempts and, while there’s time,

Repent you of ’em. It doth make me tremble

There should those spirits yet breathe that, when they cannot 30

Live honestly, would rather perish basely.

CATO

You talk too much to ’em, Marcus. They are lost.

Go forth and apprehend ’em.

CATULUS

If you prove

This practice, what should let the commonwealth

To take due vengeance?

VARGUNTEIUS

[To the conspirators] Let us shift away. 35

The darkness hath concealed us yet; we’ll say

Some have abused our names.

CORNELIUS

Deny it all.

[Exeunt Vargunteius, Cornelius, and their men.]

CATO

Quintus, what guards ha’ you? Call the Tribunes’ aid,

And raise the city. Consul, you are too mild:

The foulness of some facts takes thence all mercy. 40

Report it to the Senate.

It thunders and lightens violently on the sudden.

Hear: the gods

Grow angry with your patience. ’Tis their care,

And must be yours, that guilty men escape not.

As crimes do grow, justice should rouse itself. [Exeunt.]

CHORUS

What is it, Heavens, you prepare 45

With so much swiftness and so sudden rising?

There are no sons of earth that dare

Again rebellion, or the gods surprising?

The world doth shake and nature fears,

Yet is the tumult and the horror greater 50

Within our minds than in our ears,

So much Rome’s faults, now grown her fate, do threat her.

The priests and people run about,

Each order, age, and sex amazed at other,

And at the ports all thronging out, 55

As if their safety were to quit their mother;

Yet find they the same dangers there

From which they make such haste to be preserved.

For guilty states do ever bear

The plagues about them which they have deserved. 60

And till those plagues do get above

The mountain of our faults and there do sit,

We see ’em not. Thus still we love

Th’evil we do until we suffer it.

But, most, ambition, that near vice 65

To virtue, hath the fate of Rome provoked,

And made that now Rome’s self’s no price

To free her from the death wherewith she’s yoked,

That restless ill that still doth build

Upon success and ends not in aspiring 70

But there begins. And ne’er is filled

While ought remains that seems but worth desiring,

Wherein the thought, unlike the eye,

To which things far seem smaller than they are,

Deems all contentment placed on high, 75

And thinks there’s nothing great but what is far.

Oh, that in time Rome did not cast

Her errors up, this fortune to prevent,

T’have seen her crimes ere they were past,

And felt her faults before her punishment. 80

4.1 [Enter Ambassadors of the] ALLOBROGES.

[Thunder and lightning.] Divers SENATORS pass by, quaking and trembling.

FIRST ALLOBROX

Can these men fear, who are not only ours

But the world’s masters? Then I see the gods

Upbraid our suff’rings, or would humble them,

By sending these affrights while we are here,

That we might laugh at their ridiculous fear 5

Whose names we trembled at beyond the Alps.

Of all that pass I do not see a face

Worthy a man that dares look up and stand

One thunder out; but downward all, like beasts,

Running away from every flash is made. 10

The falling world could not deserve such baseness.

Are we employed here by our miseries,

Like superstitious fools, or rather slaves,

To plain our griefs, wrongs, and oppressions

To a mere clothèd Senate whom our folly 15

Hath made, and still intends to keep, our tyrants?

It is our base petitionary breath

That blows ’em to this greatness, which this prick

[Drawing his sword]

Would soon let out, if we were bold and wretched.

When they have taken all we have, our goods, 20

Crop, lands, and houses, they will leave us this:

A weapon and an arm will still be found,

Though naked left, and lower than the ground.

[Enter] CATO, CATULUS, [and] CICERO.

CATO

Do, urge thine anger still, good heaven and just!

Tell guilty men what powers are above them! 25

In such a confidence of wickedness

’Twas time they should know something fit to fear.

CATULUS

I never saw a morn more full of horror.

CATO

To Catiline, and his. But to just men,

Though heaven should speak with all his wrath at once, 30

That with his breath the hinges of the world

Did crack, we should stand upright and unfeared.

CICERO

Why, so we do, good Cato. Who be these?

CATULUS

Ambassadors from the Allobroges,

I take ’em, by their habits.

FIRST ALLOBROX

Ay, these men 35

Seem of another race. Let’s sue to these;

There’s hope of justice, with their fortitude.

[The Allobroges approach the Senators.]

CICERO

Friends of the Senate and of Rome, today

We pray you to forbear us. On the morrow

What suit you have, let us by Fabius Sanga, 40

Whose patronage your state doth use, but know it

And, on the Consul’s word, you shall receive

Dispatch or else an answer worth your patience.

FIRST ALLOBROX

We could not hope for more, most worthy Consul.

[Exeunt Cato, Catulus, and Cicero.]

This magistrate hath struck an awe into me 45

And by his sweetness won a more regard

Unto his place than all the boist’rous moods

That ignorant greatness practiseth to fill

The large, unfit authority it wears.

How easy is a noble spirit discerned 50

From harsh and sulphurous matter that flies out

In contumelies, makes a noise, and stinks!

May we find good and great men that know how

To stoop to wants and meet necessities,

And will not turn from any equal suits. 55

Such men, they do not succour more the cause

They undertake with favour and success

Than, by it, their own judgements they do raise

In turning just men’s needs into their praise. [Exeunt.]

4.2 THE SENATE

[Enter LICTORS, a PRAETOR, CICERO, ANTONIUS, CATO, CATULUS,
CAESAR, CRASSUS, and other SENATORS.]

PRAETOR

Room for the consuls! Fathers, take your places.

Here, in the house of Jupiter the Stayer,

By edict from the Consul, Marcus Tullius,

You are met, a frequent Senate. Hear him speak.

CICERO

What may be happy and auspicious still 5

To Rome and hers. Honoured and conscript fathers,

If I were silent, and that all the dangers

Threatening the state and you were yet so hid

In night or darkness, thicker in their breasts

That are the black contrivers, so that no 10

Beam of light could pierce ’em, yet the voice

Of heav’n this morning hath spoke loud enough

T’ instruct you with a feeling of the horror,

And wake you from a sleep as stark as death.

I have of late spoke often in this Senate 15

Touching this argument, but still have wanted

Either your ears or faith: so incredible

Their plots have seemed, or I so vain to make

These things for mine own glory and false greatness,

As hath been given out. But be it so. 20

When they break forth, and shall declare themselves

By their too foul effects, then, then the envy

Of my just cares will find another name.

For me, I am but one; and this poor life,

So lately aimed at, not an hour yet since, 25

They cannot with more eagerness pursue

Than I with gladness would lay down and lose

To buy Rome’s peace, if that would purchase it.

But when I see they’d make it but the step

To more and greater, unto yours, Rome’s, all, 30

I would with those preserve it, or then fall.

[Caesar and Crassus talk apart.]

CAESAR

Ay, ay, let you alone, cunning artificer!

See how his gorget peers above his gown,

To tell the people in what danger he was.

It was absurdly done of Vargunteius 35

To name himself before he was got in.

CRASSUS

It matters not, so they deny it all

And can but carry the lie constantly.

Will Catiline be here?

CAESAR

I’ve sent for him.

CRASSUS

And ha’ you bid him to be confident? 40

CAESAR

To that his own necessity will prompt him.

CRASSUS

Seem to believe nothing at all that Cicero

Relates us.

CAESAR

It will mad him.

CRASSUS

Oh, and help

The other party.

[Enter QUINTUS CICERO, and confers with Cicero.]

Who is that? His brother?

What new intelligence has he brought him now? 45

CAESAR

Some cautions from his wife how to behave him.

CICERO

[To Quintus]Place some of them without, and some bring in.

Thank their kind loves. [To the Senate] It is a comfort yet [Exit Quintus.]

That all depart not from their country’s cause.

[Enter QUINTUS, who] brings in the TRIBUNES and GUARDS.

CAESAR

[Aside to Antonius] How now, what means this muster, Consul Antonius? 50

ANTONIUS

I do not know; ask my colleague, he’ll tell you.

There is some reason in state that I must yield to,

And I have promised him – indeed he has bought it,

With giving me the province.

CICERO

I profess

It grieves me, fathers, that I am compelled 55

To draw these arms and aids for your defence,

And, more, against a citizen of Rome,

Born here amongst you, a patrician,

A man, I must confess, of no mean house

Nor no small virtue, if he had employed 60

Those excellent gifts of fortune and of nature

Unto the good, not ruin, of the state.

But being bred in’s father’s needy fortunes,

Brought up in’s sister’s prostitution,

Confirmed in civil slaughter, ent’ring first 65

The commonwealth with murder of the gentry,

Since, both by study and custom, conversant

With all licentiousness: what could be hoped

In such a field of riot, but a course

Extreme pernicious? Though, I must protest, 70

I found his mischiefs sooner with mine eyes

Than with my thought, and with these hands of mine

Before they touched at my suspicion.

CAESAR

What are his mischiefs, Consul? You declaim

Against his manners and corrupt your own. 75

No wise man should for hate of guilty men

Lose his own innocence.

CICERO

The noble Caesar

Speaks godlike truth. But when he hears I can

Convince him by his manners of his mischiefs,

He might be silent, and not cast away 80

His sentences in vain where they scarce look

Toward his subject.

[Enter CATILINE.]

CATO

Here he comes himself.

Catiline sits down, and Cato rises from him.

If he be worthy any good man’s voice,

That good man sit down by him; Cato will not.

CATULUS

[Rising] If Cato leave him, I’ll not keep aside. 85

[Other Senators also move away from Catiline.]

CATILINE

What face is this the Senate here puts on

Against me, fathers? Give my modesty

Leave to demand the cause of so much strangeness.

CAESAR

It is reported here you are the head

To a strange faction, Lucius.

CICERO

Ay, and will 90

Be proved against him.

CATILINE

[Rising from his seat] Let it be. Why, Consul,

If in the commonwealth there be two bodies,

One lean, weak, rotten, and that hath a head,

The other strong and healthful, but hath none,

If I do give it one, do I offend? 95

Restore yourselves unto your temper, fathers,

And without perturbation hear me speak.

Remember who I am, and of what place,

What petty fellow this is that opposes:

One that hath exercised his eloquence 100

Still to the bane of the nobility,

A boasting, insolent tongue-man.

CATO

Peace, lewd traitor,

Or wash thy mouth. He is an honest man

And loves his country: would thou didst so, too.

CATILINE

Cato, you are too zealous for him.

CATO

No, 105

Thou art too impudent.

CATULUS

Catiline, be silent.

CATILINE

Nay, then I easily fear my just defence

Will come too late, to so much prejudice.

CAESAR

(Aside) Will he sit down?

CATILINE

Yet, let the world forsake me,

My innocence must not.

CATO

Thou innocent? 110

So are the furies.

CICERO

Yes, and Ate, too.

Dost thou not blush, pernicious Catiline?

Or hath the paleness of thy guilt drunk up

Thy blood and drawn thy veins as dry of that

As is thy heart of truth, thy breast of virtue? 115

Whither at length wilt thou abuse our patience?

Still shall thy fury mock us? To what licence

Dares thy unbridled boldness run itself?

Do all the nightly guards kept on the palace,

The city’s watches, with the people’s fears, 120

The concourse of all good men, this so strong

And fortified seat, here, of the Senate,

The present looks upon thee, strike thee nothing?

Dost thou not feel thy counsels all laid open,

And see thy wild conspiracy bound in 125

With each man’s knowledge? Which of all this order

Canst thou think ignorant – if they’ll but utter

Their conscience to the right – of what thou didst

Last night, what on the former, where thou wert,

Whom thou didst call together, what your plots were? 130

O age and manners! This the Consul sees,

The Senate understands, yet this man lives!

Lives, ay, and comes here into council with us,

Partakes the public cares, and with his eye

Marks and points out each man of us to slaughter. 135

And we good men do satisfy the state,

If we can shun but this man’s sword and madness.

There was that virtue once in Rome when good men

Would with more sharp coercion have restrained

A wicked citizen than the deadliest foe. 140

We have that law still, Catiline, for thee:

An act as grave as sharp. The state’s not wanting,

Nor the authority of this Senate; we,

We that are consuls, only fail ourselves.

This twenty days the edge of that decree 145

We have let dull and rust, kept it shut up,

As in a sheath, which drawn should take thy head.

Yet still thou liv’st, and liv’st not to lay by

Thy wicked confidence, but to confirm it.

I could desire, fathers, to be found 150

Still merciful, to seem, in these main perils

Grasping the state, a man remiss and slack;

But then I should condemn myself of sloth

And treachery. Their camp’s in Italy,

Pitched in the jaws here of Etruria, 155

Their numbers daily increasing and their general

Within our walls, nay in our council, plotting

Hourly some fatal mischief to the public.

If, Catiline, I should command thee now

Here to be taken, killed, I make just doubt 160

Whether all good men would not think it done

Rather too late than any man too cruel.

CATO

Except he were of the same meal and batch.

CICERO

But that which ought to have been done long since

I will, and for good reason, yet forbear. 165

Then will I take thee, when no man is found

So lost, so wicked, nay so like thyself,

But shall profess ’tis done of need, and right.

While there is one that dares defend thee, live;

Thou shalt have leave, but so as now thou liv’st: 170

Watched at a hand, besiegèd, and oppressed

From working least commotion to the state.

I have those eyes and ears shall still keep guard

And spial on thee, as they have ever done,

And thou not feel it. What then canst thou hope? 175

If neither night can with her darkness hide

Thy wicked meetings, nor a private house

Can in her walls contain the guilty whispers

Of thy conspiracy; if all break out,

All be discovered, change thy mind at last, 180

And lose thy thoughts of ruin, flame, and slaughter.

Remember how I told here to the Senate

That such a day thy lictor, Caius Manlius,

Would be in arms. Was I deceivèd, Catiline,

Or in the fact, or in the time, the hour? 185

I told, too, in this Senate that thy purpose

Was on the fifth, the Kalends of November,

T’have slaughtered this whole order, which my caution

Made many leave the city. Canst thou here

Deny but this thy black design was hindered 190

That very day by me, thyself closed in

Within my strengths, so that thou couldst not move

Against a public rede? When thou wert heard

To say, upon the parting of the rest,

Thou wouldst content thee with the murder of us 195

That did remain? Hadst thou not hope, beside,

By a surprise by night to take Praeneste?

Where, when thou cam’st, didst thou not find the place

Made good against thee with my aids, my watches?

My garrisons fortified it. Thou dost nothing, Sergius, 200

Thou canst endeavour nothing, nay, not think,

But I both see and hear it, and am with thee,

By, and before, about, and in thee, too.

Call but to mind thy last night’s business. Come,

I’ll use no circumstance: at Laeca’s house, 205

The shop and mint of your conspiracy,

Among your sword-men, where so many associates

Both of thy mischief and thy madness met.

Dar’st thou deny this? Wherefore art thou silent?

Speak, and this shall convince thee: here they are, 210

I see ’em, in this Senate, that were with thee.

O you immortal gods, in what clime are we?

What region do we live in? In what air?

What commonwealth or state is this we have?

Here, here, amongst us, our own number, fathers, 215

In this most holy council of the world,

They are that seek the spoil of me, of you,

Of ours, of all. What I can name’s too narrow:

Follow the sun, and find not their ambition.

These I behold, being consul; nay, I ask 220

Their counsels of the state, as from good patriots.

Whom it were fit the axe should hew in pieces

I not so much as wound yet with my voice.

Thou wast last night with Laeca, Catiline.

Your shares of Italy you there divided, 225

Appointed who and whither each should go;

What men should stay behind in Rome were chosen,

Your offices set down, the parts marked out,

And places of the city, for the fire;

Thyself, thou affirmed’st, wast ready to depart, 230

Only a little let there was that stayed thee:

That I yet lived. Upon the word stepped forth

Three of thy crew to rid thee of that care;

Two undertook this morning, before day,

To kill me in my bed. All this I knew, 235

Your convent scarce dismissed; armed all my servants,

Called both my brother and friends, shut out your clients

You sent to visit me, whose names I told

To some there, of good place, before they came.

CATO

Yes, I and Quintus Catulus can affirm it. 240

CAESAR

[Aside] He’s lost and gone. His spirits have forsook him.

CICERO

If this be so, why, Catiline, dost thou stay?

Go where thou mean’st. The ports are open. Forth!

The camp abroad wants thee, their chief, too long.

Lead with thee all thy troops out. Purge the city. 245

Draw dry that noisome and pernicious sink

Which, left behind thee, would infect the world.

Thou wilt free me of all my fears at once,

To see a wall between us. Dost thou stop

To do that now, commanded, which before 250

Of thine own choice thou’rt prone to? Go! The Consul

Bids thee, an enemy, to depart the city.

‘Whither?’, thou’lt ask, ‘to exile?’ I not bid

Thee that. But ask my counsel: I persuade it.

What is there here in Rome that can delight thee, 255

Where not a soul without thine own foul knot

But fears and hates thee? What domestic note

Of private filthiness but is burnt in

Into thy life? What close and secret shame

But is grown one with thy known infamy? 260

What lust was ever absent from thine eyes?

What lewd fact from thy hands? What wickedness

From thy whole body? Where’s that youth, drawn in

Within thy nets or catched up with thy baits,

Before whose rage thou hast not borne a sword, 265

And to whose lusts thou hast not held a torch?

Thy latter nuptials I let pass in silence,

Where sins incredible on sins were heaped,

Which I not name, lest in a civil state

So monstrous facts should either appear to be 270

Or not to be revenged. Thy fortunes, too,

I glance not at, which hang but till next Ides.

I come to that which is more known, more public:

The life and safety of us all, by thee

Threatened and sought. Stood’st thou not in the field 275

When Lepidus and Tullus were our consuls,

Upon the day of choice, armed and with forces

To take their lives, and our chief citizens’,

When not thy fear nor conscience changed thy mind,

But the mere fortune of the commonwealth 280

Withstood thy active malice? Speak but right.

How often hast thou made attempt on me?

How many of thy assaults have I declined

With shifting but my body, as we’d say,

Wrested thy dagger from thy hand, how oft? 285

How often hath it fall’n or slipped by chance?

Yet can thy side not want it, which how vowed,

Or with what rites ’tis sacred of thee, I know not,

That still thou mak’st it a necessity

To fix it in the body of a consul. 290

But let me lose this way and speak to thee

Not as one moved with hatred, which I ought,

But pity, of which none is owing thee.

CATO

No more than unto Tantalus or Tityus.

CICERO

Thou cam’st erewhile into this Senate. Who 295

Of such a frequency, so many friends

And kindred thou hast here, saluted thee?

Were not the seats made bare upon thy entrance?

Riss not the consular men and left their places,

So soon as thou sat’st down, and fled thy side 300

Like to a plague or ruin, knowing how oft

They had been by thee marked out for the shambles?

How dost thou bear this? Surely, if my slaves

At home feared me with half th’affright and horror

That here thy fellow citizens do thee, 305

I should soon quit my house and think it need, too.

Yet thou dar’st tarry here? Go forth at last,

Condemn thyself to flight and solitude.

Discharge the commonwealth of her deep fear.

Go: into banishment, if thou wait’st the word. 310

Why do’st thou look? They all consent unto it.

Dost thou expect th’authority of their voices,

Whose silent wills condemn thee? While they sit,

They approve it; while they suffer it, they decree it;

And while they are silent to it, they proclaim it. 315

Prove thou there honest, I’ll endure the envy.

But there’s no thought thou should’st be ever he

Whom either shame should call from filthiness,

Terror from danger, or discourse from fury.

Go, I entreat thee – yet why do I so, 320

When I already know they are sent afore

That tarry for thee in arms and do expect thee

On th’Aurelian Way? I know the day

Set down ’twixt thee and Manlius, unto whom

The silver eagle, too, is sent before, 325

Which I do hope shall prove to thee as baneful

As thou conceiv’st it to the commonwealth.

But may this wise and sacred Senate say:

‘What mean’st thou, Marcus Tullius? If thou know’st

That Catiline be looked for to be chief 330

Of an intestine war; that he’s the author

Of such a wickedness, the caller-out

Of men of mark in mischief to an action

Of so much horror, prince of such a treason;

Why dost thou send him forth? Why let him scape? 335

This is to give him liberty and power.

Rather thou shouldst lay hold upon him, send him

To deserved death and a just punishment.’

To these so holy voices, thus I answer:

If I did think it timely, conscript fathers, 340

To punish him with death, I would not give

The fencer use of one short hour to breathe.

But when there are in this grave order some

Who with soft censures still do nurse his hopes,

Some that, with not believing, have confirmed 345

His designs more, and whose authority

The weaker, as the worst men too, have followed,

I would now send him where they all should see,

Clear as the light, his heart shine; where no man

Could be so wickedly or fondly stupid, 350

But should cry out he saw, touched, felt, and grasped it.

Then, when he hath run out himself, led forth

His desp’rate party with him, blown together

Aids of all kinds, both shipwrecked minds and fortunes,

Not only the grown evil that now is sprung 355

And sprouted forth would be plucked up and weeded,

But the stock, root, and seed of all the mischiefs

Choking the commonwealth. Where, should we take

Of such a swarm of traitors only him,

Our cares and fears might seem a while relieved, 360

But the main peril would bide still enclosed

Deep in the veins and bowels of the state.

As human bodies labouring with fevers,

While they are tossed with heat, if they do take

Cold water, seem for that short space much eased, 365

But afterward are ten times more afflicted.

Wherefore, I say, let all this wicked crew

Depart, divide themselves from good men, gather

Their forces to one head. As I said oft,

Let ’em be severed from us with a wall; 370

Let ’em leave off attempts upon the Consul

In his own house, to circle in the Praetor,

To girt the court with weapons, to prepare

Fire and balls, swords, torches, sulphur, brands.

In short, let it be writ in each man’s forehead 375

What thoughts he bears the public. I here promise,

Fathers conscript, to you and to myself

That diligence in us consuls, for my honoured

Colleague abroad and for myself at home;

So great authority in you, so much 380

Virtue in these, the gentlemen of Rome,

Whom I could scarce restrain today in zeal

From seeking out the parricide to slaughter;

So much consent in all good men and minds

As, on the going out of this one Catiline, 385

All shall be clear, made plain, oppressed, revenged.

And with this omen, go, pernicious plague,

Out of the city, to the wished destruction

Of thee and those that, to the ruin of her,

Have ta’en that bloody and black sacrament. 390

Thou Jupiter, whom we do call the Stayer

Both of this city and this empire, wilt,

With the same auspice thou didst raise it first,

Drive from thy altars and all other temples

And buildings of this city, from our walls, 395

Lives, states, and fortunes of our citizens

This fiend, this fury, with his complices.

And all th’offence of good men – these known traitors

Unto their country, thieves of Italy,

Joined in so damned a league of mischief – thou 400

Wilt with perpetual plagues, alive and dead,

Punish for Rome and save her innocent head.

CATILINE

If an oration or high language, fathers,

Could make me guilty, here is one hath done it.

He’s strove to emulate this morning’s thunder 405

With his prodigious rhetoric. But I hope

This Senate is more grave than to give credit

Rashly to all he vomits ’gainst a man

Of your own order, a patrician,

And one whose ancestors have more deserved 410

Of Rome than this man’s eloquence could utter,

Turned the best way, as still it is the worst.

CATO

His eloquence hath more deserved today,

Speaking thy ill, than all thy ancestors

Did in their good. And that the state will find 415

Which he has saved.

CATILINE

How, he? Were I that enemy

That he would make me, I’d not wish the state

More wretched than to need his preservation.

What do you make him, Cato, such a Hercules?

An Atlas? A poor petty inmate!

CATO

Traitor! 420

CATILINE

He save the state? A burgess’ son of Arpinum?

The gods would rather twenty Romes should perish

Than have that contumely stuck upon ’em

That he should share with them in the preserving

A shed, or sign-post.

CATO

Peace, thou prodigy! 425

CATILINE

They would be forced themselves again, and lost

In the first rude and indigested heap,

Ere such a wretched name as Cicero

Should sound with theirs.

CATULUS

Away, thou impudent head!

CATILINE

Do you all back him? Are you silent, too? 430

Well, I will leave you, fathers; I will go.

But –

(He turns suddenly on Cicero.)

my fine dainty speaker–

CICERO

What now, fury?

Wilt thou assault me here?

CHORUS

Help, aid the Consul!

CATILINE

See, fathers, laugh you not? Who threatened him?

In vain thou dost conceive, ambitious orator, 435

Hope of so brave a death as by this hand.

CATO

Out of the court with the pernicious traitor!

CATILINE

[To Cicero] There is no title that this flattering Senate,

Nor honour the base multitude can give thee,

Shall make thee worthy Catiline’s anger.

CATO

Stop, 440

Stop that portentous mouth!

CATILINE

Or when it shall,

I’ll look thee dead.

CATO

Will none restrain the monster?

CATULUS

Parricide!

QUINTUS

Butcher, traitor, leave the Senate!

CATILINE

I am gone to banishment, to please you, fathers.

Thrust headlong forth.

CATO

Still dost thou murmur, monster? 445

CATILINE

Since I am thus put out, and made a –

CICERO

What?

CATULUS

Not guiltier than thou art.

CATILINE

I will not burn

Without my funeral pile.

CATO

What says the fiend?

CATILINE

I will have matter, timber.

CATO

Sing out, screech-owl.

CATILINE

It shall be in –

CATULUS

Speak thy imperfect thoughts. 450

CATILINE

– the common fire, rather than mine own.

For fall I will with all, ere fall alone. [Exit.]

CRASSUS

[Aside to Caesar] He’s lost, there’s no hope of him.

CAESAR

Unless

He presently take arms, and give a blow

Before the Consul’s forces can be levied. 455

CICERO

What is your pleasure, fathers, shall be done?

CATULUS

See that the commonwealth receive no loss.

CATO

Commit the care thereof unto the consuls.

CRASSUS

’Tis time.

CAESAR

And need.

CICERO

Thanks to this frequent Senate.

But what decree they unto Curius 460

And Fulvia?

CATULUS

What the Consul shall think meet.

CICERO

They must receive reward, though’t be not known,

Lest when a state needs ministers, they ha’ none.

[ The Senators start to leave; Cato and Cicero stay behind, talking privately.]

CATO

Yet, Marcus Tullius, do not I believe

But Crassus and this Caesar here ring hollow. 465

CICERO

And would appear so, if that we durst prove ’em.

CATO

Why dare we not? What honest act is that

The Roman Senate should not dare, and do?

CICERO

Not an unprofitable, dangerous act,

To stir too many serpents up at once. 470

Caesar and Crassus, if they be ill men,

Are mighty ones; and we must so provide

That, while we take one head from this foul Hydra,

There spring not twenty more.

CATO

I ’prove your counsel.

CICERO

They shall be watched and looked to. Till they do 475

Declare themselves, I will not put’em out

By any question. There they stand. I’ll make

Myself no enemies, nor the state no traitors. [Exeunt.]

4.3 [Enter] CATILINE, LENTULUS, CETHEGUS, CURIUS, GABINIUS, LONGINUS, [and] STATILIUS.

CATILINE

False to ourselves? All our designs discovered

To this state-cat?

CETHEGUS

Ay, had I had my way,

He had mewed in flames at home, not I’the Senate.

I had singed his furs by this time.

CATILINE

Well, there’s now

No time of calling back, or standing still. 5

Friends, be yourselves; keep the same Roman hearts

And ready minds you had yesternight. Prepare

To execute what we resolved. And let not

Labour or danger or discovery fright you.

I’ll to the army; you, the while, mature 10

Things here at home. Draw to you any aids

That you think fit, of men of all conditions

Or any fortunes that may help a war.

I’ll bleed a life or win an empire for you.

Within these few days look to see my ensigns 15

Here at the walls; be you but firm within.

Meantime, to draw an envy on the Consul

And give a less suspicion of our course,

Let it be given out here in the city

That I am gone, an innocent man, to exile 20

Into Massilia, willing to give way

To fortune and the times, being unable

To stand so great a faction without troubling

The commonwealth, whose peace I rather seek

Than all the glory of contention 25

Or the support of mine own innocence.

Farewell, the noble Lentulus, Longinus,

Curius, the rest – and thou, my better genius,

The brave Cethegus. When we meet again,

We’ll sacrifice to liberty.

CETHEGUS

And revenge. 30

That we may praise our hands once.

LENTULUS

O you Fates,

Give Fortune now her eyes, to see with whom

She goes along, that she may ne’er forsake him!

CURIUS

He needs not her, nor them. Go but on, Sergius.

A valiant man is his own fate and fortune. 35

LONGINUS

The fate and fortune of us all go with him!

GABINIUS STATILIUS

And ever guard him!

CATILINE

I am all your creature. [Exit.]

LENTULUS

Now, friends, ’tis left with us. I have already

Dealt, by Umbrenus, with the Allobroges

Here resiant in Rome, whose state I hear 40

Is discontent with the great usuries

They are oppressed with, and have made complaints

Diverse unto the Senate, but all vain.

These men I have thought – both for their own oppressions

As also that, by nature, they are a people 45

Warlike and fierce, still watching after change

And now in present hatred with our state –

The fittest and the easiest to be drawn

To our society, and to aid the war.

The rather for their seat – being next bord’rers 50

On Italy – and that they abound with horse,

Of which one want our camp doth only labour.

And I have found ’em coming. They will meet

Soon at Sempronia’s house, where I would pray you

All to be present, to confirm ’em more. 55

The sight of such spirits hurt not, nor the store.

GABINIUS

I will not fail.

STATILIUS

Nor I.

CURIUS

Nor I.

CETHEGUS

Would I

Had somewhat by myself, apart, to do.

I ha’ no genius to these many councils.

Let me kill all the Senate for my share: 60

I’ll do it at next sitting.

LENTULUS

Worthy Caius,

Your presence will add much.

CETHEGUS

I shall mar more. [Exeunt.]

4.4 [Enter] CICERO [and] SANGA.

CICERO

The state’s beholden to you, Fabius Sanga,

For this great care. And those Allobroges

Are more than wretched, if they lend a list’ning

To such persuasion.

SANGA

They, most worthy Consul,

As men employed here from a grievèd state, 5

Groaning beneath a multitude of wrongs,

And being told there was small hope of ease

To be expected to their evils from hence,

Were willing at the first to give an ear

To anything that sounded liberty. 10

But since, on better thoughts and my urged reasons,

They are come about and won to the true side.

The Fortune of the commonwealth hath conquered.

CICERO

What is that same Umbrenus, was the agent?

SANGA

One that hath had negotiation 15

In Gallia oft, and known unto their state.

CICERO

Are th’ambassadors come with you?

SANGA

Yes.

CICERO

Well, bring ’em in; if they be firm and honest,

Never had men the means so to deserve

Of Rome as they. [Exit Sanga.]

A happy, wished occasion, 20

And thrust into my hands, for the discovery

And manifest conviction of these traitors.

Be thanked, O Jupiter!

[Enter SANGA with the ambassadors of the] ALLOBROGES.

My worthy lords,

Confederates of the Senate, you are welcome.

I understand by Quintus Fabius Sanga, 25

Your careful patron here, you have been lately

Solicited against the commonwealth

By one Umbrenus – take a seat, I pray you –

[They sit.]

From Publius Lentulus, to be associates

In their intended war. I could advise 30

That men whose fortunes are yet flourishing,

And are Rome’s friends, would not without a cause

Become her enemies and mix themselves

And their estates with the lost hopes of Catiline

Or Lentulus, whose mere despair doth arm ’em. 35

That were to hazard certainties for air,

And undergo all danger for a voice.

Believe me, friends: loud tumults are not laid

With half the easiness that they are raised.

All may begin a war, but few can end it. 40

The Senate have decreed that my colleague

Shall lead their army against Catiline,

And have declared both him and Manlius traitors.

Metellus Celer hath already given

Part of their troops defeat. Honours are promised 45

To all will quit ’em, and rewards proposed

Even to slaves that can detect their courses.

Here in the city I have, by the praetors

And tribunes, placed my guards and watches so

That not a foot can tread, a breath can whisper, 50

But I have knowledge. And be sure the Senate

And people of Rome, of their accustomed greatness,

Will sharply and severely vindicate

Not only any fact but any practice

Or purpose ’gainst the state. Therefore, my lords, 55

Consult of your own ways, and think which hand

Is best to take. You, now, are present suitors

For some redress of wrongs: I’ll undertake

Not only that shall be assured you, but

What grace or privilege else Senate or people 60

Can cast upon you, worthy such a service

As you have now the way and means to do ’em,

If but your wills consent with my designs.

FIRST ALLOBROX

We covet nothing more, most worthy Consul.

And howsoe’er we have been tempted lately 65

To a defection, that not makes us guilty.

We are not yet so wretched in our fortunes,

Nor in our wills so lost, as to abandon

A friendship, prodigally, of that price

As is the Senate and the people of Rome’s, 70

For hopes that do precipitate themselves.

CICERO

You then are wise, and honest. Do but this then:

When shall you speak with Lentulus and the rest?

FIRST ALLOBROX

We are to meet anon, at Brutus’ house.

CICERO

Who? Decius Brutus? He is not in Rome. 75

SANGA

Oh, but his wife Sempronia –

CICERO

You instruct me;

She is a chief. Well, fail you not to meet ’em,

And to express the best affection

You can put on to all that they intend.

Like it, applaud it, give the commonwealth 80

And Senate lost to ’em. Promise any aids

By arms or counsel. What they can desire

I would have you prevent. Only, say this:

You’ve had dispatch, in private, by the Consul

Of your affairs; and, for the many fears 85

The state’s now in, you are willed by him this evening

To depart Rome, which you by all sought means

Will do, of reason to decline suspicion.

Now, for the more authority of the business

They’ve trusted to you, and to give it credit 90

With your own state at home, you would desire

Their letters to your Senate and your people,

Which shown you durst engage both life and honour,

The rest should every way answer their hopes.

Those had, pretend sudden departure, you, 95

And as you give me notice at what port

You will go out, I’ll ha’ you intercepted

And all the letters taken with you, so

As you shall be redeemed in all opinions,

And they convicted of their manifest treason. 100

Ill deeds are well turned back upon their authors;

And ’gainst an injurer the revenge is just.

This must be done now.

FIRST ALLOBROX

Cheerfully and firmly.

We’re they would rather haste to undertake it

Than stay to say so.

CICERO

With that confidence, go; 105

Make yourselves happy while you make Rome so.

By Sanga let me have notice from you.

FIRST ALLOBROX

Yes. [Exeunt.]

4.5 [ Enter] SEMPRONIA [and] LENTULUS.

SEMPRONIA

When come these creatures, the ambassadors?

I would fain see ’em. Are they any scholars?

LENTULUS

I think not, madam.

SEMPRONIA

Ha’ they no Greek?

LENTULUS

No, surely.

SEMPRONIA

Fie, what do I here, waiting on ’em then,

If they be nothing but mere statesmen?

LENTULUS

Yes, 5

Your Ladyship shall observe their gravity

And their reservedness, their many cautions,

Fitting their persons.

SEMPRONIA

I do wonder much

That states and commonwealths employ not women

To be ambassadors sometimes! We should 10

Do as good public service and could make

As honourable spies – for so Thucydides

Calls all ambassadors.

[Enter] CETHEGUS.

Are they come, Cethegus?

CETHEGUS

Do you ask me? Am I your scout, or bawd?

LENTULUS

Oh, Caius, it is no such business.

CETHEGUS

No? 15

What does a woman at it, then?

SEMPRONIA

Good sir,

There are of us can be as exquisite traitors

As e’er a male-conspirator of you all.

CETHEGUS

Ay, at smock-treason, matron, I believe you,

And if I were your husband. But when I 20

Trust to your cobweb-bosoms any other,

Let me there die a fly and feast you, spider.

LENTULUS

You are too sour and harsh, Cethegus.

CETHEGUS

You

Are kind and courtly. I’d be torn in pieces

With wild Hippolytus, nay prove the death 25

Every limb over, ere I’d trust a woman

With wind, could I retain it.

SEMPRONIA

Sir, they’ll be trusted

With as good secrets yet as you have any,

And carry ’em, too, as close and as concealed

As you shall, for your heart.

CETHEGUS

I’ll not contend with you 30

Either in tongue or carriage, good Calypso.

[Enter] LONGINUS.

LONGINUS

Th’ambassadors are come.

CETHEGUS

Thanks to thee, Mercury,

That so hast rescued me.

[Enter] GABINIUS, STATILIUS, VOLTURCIUS, [and the] ALLOBROGES.

LENTULUS

How now, Volturcius?

VOLTURCIUS

They do desire some speech with you, in private.

LENTULUS

Oh, ’tis about the prophecy, belike, 35

And promise of the Sibyl’s.

GABINIUS

It may be.

[Lentulus talks apart with the Allobroges.]

SEMPRONIA

Shun they to treat with me, too?

GABINIUS

No, good lady,

You may partake; I have told ’em who you are.

SEMPRONIA

I should be loath to be left out, and here too.

CETHEGUS

Can these or such be any aids to us? 40

Look they as they were built to shake the world,

Or be a moment to our enterprise?

A thousand such as they are could not make

One atom of our souls. They should be men

Worth heaven’s fear, that looking up but thus 45

Would make Jove stand upon his guard and draw

Himself within his thunder which, amazed,

He should discharge in vain, and they unhurt.

Or, if they were, like Capaneus at Thebes

They should hang dead upon the highest spires, 50

And ask the second bolt to be thrown down.

Why, Lentulus, talk you so long? This time

Had been enough t’have scattered all the stars,

T’have quenched the sun and moon and made the world

Despair of day or any light but ours. 55

LENTULUS

[To the Allobroges ] How do you like this spirit? In such men

Mankind doth live. They are such souls as these

That move the world.

SEMPRONIA

Ay, though he bear me hard,

I yet must do him right. He is a spirit

Of the right Martian breed.

FIRST ALLOBROX

He is a Mars! 60

Would we had time to live here and admire him.

LENTULUS

Well, I do see you would prevent the Consul.

And I commend your care: it was but reason

To ask our letters, and we had prepared them.

Go in, and we will take an oath and seal ’em. 65

You shall have letters, too, to Catiline,

To visit him i’the way, and to confirm

The association. This our friend, Volturcius,

Shall go along with you. Tell our great general

That we are ready here; that Lucius Bestia, 70

The tribune, is provided of a speech

To lay the envy of the war on Cicero;

That all but long for his approach and person.

And then you are made freemen, as ourselves. [Exeunt.]

4.6 [Enter] CICERO, FLACCUS, [and] POMTINIUS.

CICERO

I cannot fear the war but to succeed well,

Both for the honour of the cause and worth

Of him that doth command. For my colleague,

Being so ill affected with the gout,

Will not be able to be there in person; 5

And then Petreius, his lieutenant, must

Of need take charge o’the army – who is much

The better soldier, having been a tribune,

Prefect, lieutenant, praetor in the war

These thirty years, so conversant i’the army 10

As he knows all the soldiers by their names.

FLACCUS

They’ll fight, then, bravely with him.

POMTINIUS

Ay, and he

Will lead ’em on as bravely.

CICERO

They have a foe

Will ask their braveries, whose necessities

Will arm him like a fury. But however, 15

I’ll trust it to the manage and the fortune

Of good Petreius, who’s a worthy patriot.

Metellus Celer with three legions, too,

Will stop their course for Gallia.

[Enter] SANGA.

How now, Fabius?

SANGA

The train hath taken. You must instantly 20

Dispose your guards upon the Mulvian Bridge;

For by that way they mean to come.

CICERO

Then thither,

Pomtinius and Flaccus, I must pray you

To lead that force you have, and seize them all.

Let not a person scape. Th’ambassadors 25

Will yield themselves. If there be any tumult,

I’ll send you aid. [Exeunt Flaccus and Pomtinius.]

I in meantime will call

Lentulus to me, Gabinius, and Cethegus,

Statilius, Ceparius, and all these

By several messengers, who no doubt will come 30

Without sense or suspicion. Prodigal men

Feel not their own stock wasting. When I have ’em,

I’ll place those guards upon ’em that they start not.

SANGA

But what’ll you do with Sempronia?

CICERO

A state’s anger

Should not take knowledge either of fools or women. 35

I do not know whether my joy or care

Ought to be greater: that I have discovered

So foul a treason, or must undergo

The envy of so many great men’s fate.

But happen what there can, I will be just. 40

My fortune may forsake me, not my virtue:

That shall go with me, and before me, still,

And glad me, doing well, though I hear ill. [Exeunt.]

4.7 [ Enter FLACCUS, POMTINIUS, and GUARDS, meeting the ] ALLOBROGES, [and] VOLTURCIUS.

FLACCUS

Stand! Who goes there?

FIRST ALLOBROX

We are th’Allobroges,

And friends of Rome.

POMTINIUS

If you be so, then yield

Yourselves unto the Praetors who, in name

Of the whole Senate and the people of Rome,

Yet till you clear yourselves, charge you of practice 5

Against the state.

VOLTURCIUS

Die, friends, and be not taken!

[He fights with the Guards.]

FLACCUS

What voice is that? Down with ’em all!

ALLOBROGES

We yield.

POMTINIUS

What’s he stands out? Kill him there!

VOLTURCIUS

Hold, hold, hold!

I yield upon conditions.

FLACCUS

We give none

To traitors. Strike him down!

VOLTURCIUS

My name is Volturcius; 10

I know Pomtinius.

POMTINIUS

But he knows not you,

While you stand out upon these traitorous terms.

VOLTURCIUS

I’ll yield upon the safety of my life.

POMTINIUS

If it be forfeited, we cannot save it.

VOLTURCIUS

Promise to do your best. I’m not so guilty 15

As many others I can name – and will,

If you will grant me favour.

POMTINIUS

All we can

Is to deliver you to the Consul. [To Guards] Take him,

And thank the gods that thus have savèd Rome. [Exeunt.]

CHORUS

Now do our ears, before our eyes, 20

Like men in mists,

Discover who’d the state surprise,

And who resists?

And, as these clouds do yield to light,

Now do we see 25

Our thoughts of things, how they did fight

Which seemed t’agree?

Of what strange pieces are we made

Who nothing know

But, as new airs our ears invade, 30

Still censure so?

That now do hope and now do fear

And now envy,

And then do hate and then love dear,

But know not why; 35

Or if we do, it is so late

As our best mood,

Though true, is then thought out of date

And empty of good.

How have we changed and come about 40

In every doom,

Since wicked Catiline went out

And quitted Rome?

One while we thought him innocent,

And then w’accused 45

The Consul for his malice spent

And power abused.

Since that we hear he is in arms

We think not so,

Yet charge the Consul with our harms 50

That let him go.

So in our censure of the state

We still do wander,

And make the careful magistrate

The mark of slander. 55

What age is this, where honest men

Placed at the helm

A sea of some foul mouth or pen

Shall overwhelm,

And call their diligence deceit, 60

Their virtue, vice,

Their watchfulness, but lying in wait,

And blood the price?

Oh, let us pluck this evil seed

Out of our spirits, 65

And give to every noble deed

The name it merits,

Lest we seem fall’n, if this endures,

Into those times

To love disease and brook the cures 70

Worse than the crimes.

5.1 [Enter] PETREIUS [and Soldiers].

PETREIUS

It is my fortune and my glory, soldiers,

This day to lead you on, the worthy Consul

Kept from the honour of it by disease.

And I am proud to have so brave a cause

To exercise your arms in. We not now 5

Fight for how long, how broad, how great, and large

Th’extent and bounds o’th’people of Rome shall be,

But to retain what our great ancestors,

With all their labours, counsels, arts, and actions,

For us were purchasing so many years. 10

The quarrel is not now of fame, of tribute,

Or of wrongs done unto confederates,

For which the army of the people of Rome

Was wont to move, but for your own republic,

For the raised temples of th’immortal gods, 15

For all your fortunes, altars, and your fires,

For the dear souls of your loved wives and children,

Your parents’ tombs, your rites, laws, liberty,

And, briefly, for the safety of the world

Against such men as only by their crimes 20

Are known, thrust out by riot, want, or rashness.

One sort, Sulla’s old troops, left here in Faesulae,

Who, suddenly made rich in those dire times,

Are since, by their unbounded vast expense,

Grown needy and poor and have but left t’expect 25

From Catiline new bills and new proscriptions.

These men, they say, are valiant; yet I think ’em

Not worth your pause. For either their old virtue

Is in their sloth and pleasures lost or, if

It tarry with ’em, so ill match to yours 30

As they are short in number or in cause.

The second sort are of those – city-beasts

Rather than citizens – who, whilst they reach

After our fortunes, have let fly their own.

These, whelmed in wine, swelled up with meats, and weakened 35

With hourly whoredoms, never left the side

Of Catiline in Rome, nor here are loosed

From his embraces: such as, trust me, never

In riding or in using well their arms,

Watching, or other military labour 40

Did exercise their youth, but learned to love,

Drink, dance, and sing, make feasts, and be fine gamesters.

And these will wish more hurt to you than they bring you.

The rest are a mixed kind, all sorts of furies,

Adulterers, dicers, fencers, outlaws, thieves, 45

The murderers of their parents, all the sink

And plague of Italy met in one torrent

To take today from us the punishment

Due to their mischiefs for so many years.

And who, in such a cause and ’gainst such fiends, 50

Would not now wish himself all arm and weapon

To cut such poisons from the earth and let

Their blood out, to be drawn away in clouds

And poured on some inhabitable place,

Where the hot sun and slime breeds naught but monsters? 55

Chiefly, when this sure joy shall crown our side:

That the least man that falls upon our party

This day – as some must give their happy names

To fate and that eternal memory

Of the best death writ with it for their country – 60

Shall walk at pleasure in the tents of rest

And see far off, beneath him, all their host

Tormented after life, and Catiline there

Walking, a wretched and less ghost than he.

I’ll urge no more; move forward with your eagles, 65

And trust the Senate’s and Rome’s cause to heaven.

SOLDIERS

To thee, great father Mars, and greater Jove! [Exeunt. ]

5.2 [ Enter] CAESAR [and] CRASSUS.

CAESAR

I ever looked for this of Lentulus,

When Catiline was gone.

CRASSUS

I gave ’em lost

Many days since.

CAESAR

But wherefore did you bear

Their letter to the Consul that they sent you

To warn you from the city?

CRASSUS

Did I know 5

Whether he made it? It might come from him

For aught I could assure me; if they meant

I should be safe, among so many, they might

Have come, as well as writ.

CAESAR

There is no loss

In being secure. I have of late, too, plied him 10

Thick with intelligences, but they’ve been

Of things he knew before.

CRASSUS

A little serves

To keep a man upright on these state-bridges,

Although the passage were more dangerous.

Let us now take the standing part.

CAESAR

We must, 15

And be as zealous for’t as Cato. Yet

I would fain help these wretched men.

CRASSUS

You cannot.

Who would save them that have betrayed themselves? [Exeunt.]

5.3 [ Enter] CICERO [holding letters], QUINTUS [cicero], [and ] CATO.

CICERO

I will not be wrought to it, brother Quintus.

There’s no man’s private enmity shall make

Me violate the dignity of another.

If there were proof ’gainst Caesar, or whoever,

To speak him guilty, I would so declare him. 5

But Quintus Catulus and Piso both

Shall know the Consul will not for their grudge

Have any man accused, or namèd falsely.

QUINTUS

Not falsely, but if any circumstance

By the Allobroges, or from Volturcius, 10

Would carry it.

CICERO

That shall not be sought by me.

If it reveal itself, I would not spare

You, brother, if it pointed at you, trust me.

CATO

Good Marcus Tullius – which is more than great –

Thou hadst thy education with the gods. 15

CICERO

Send Lentulus forth, and bring away the rest.

[To Cato] This office I am sorry, sir, to do you.

[Enter CAESAR, CRASSUS, SILANUS, and other members of] THE SENATE.

What may be happy still and fortunate

To Rome and to this Senate:

[Showing the letters he is holding]

please you, fathers,

To break these letters and to view them round. 20

[He gives the letters to the Senators, who read and pass them around.]

If that be not found in them which I fear,

I yet entreat, at such a time as this,

My diligence be not contemned.

[Enter FLACCUS and POMTINIUS. ]

Ha’ you brought

The weapons hither from Cethegus’ house?

FLACCUS

They are without.

CICERO

Be ready with Volturcius, 25

To bring him when the Senate calls, and see

None of the rest confer together. [Exeunt Flaccus and Pomtinius. ]

Fathers,

What do you read? Is it yet worth your care,

If not your fear, what you find practised there?

CAESAR

It hath a face of horror!

CRASSUS

I am amazed! 30

CATO

[Pointing to a letter] Look there.

SILANUS

Gods! Can such men draw common air?

CICERO

Although the greatness of the mischief, fathers,

Hath often made my faith small in this Senate,

Yet since my casting Catiline out – for now

I do not fear the envy of the word, 35

Unless the deed be rather to be feared

That he went hence alive, when those I meant

Should follow him, did not – I have spent both days

And nights in watching what their fury and rage

Was bent on that so stayed against my thought; 40

And that I might but take ’em in that light

Where, when you met their treason with your eyes,

Your minds at length would think for your own safety.

And now ’tis done. There are their hands and seals.

Their persons, too, are safe, thanks to the gods. 45

Bring in Volturcius and the Allobroges.

[Enter FLACCUS and POMTINIUS, with VOLTURCIUS and the ALLOBROGES.]

CICERO

[Indicating the Allobroges] These be the men were trusted with their letters.

VOLTURCIUS

Fathers, believe me, I knew nothing; I

Was travelling for Gallia, and am sorry –

CICERO

Quake not, Volturcius, speak the truth and hope 50

Well of this Senate, on the Consul’s word.

VOLTURCIUS

Then, I knew all. But truly I was drawn in

But t’other day.

CAESAR

Say what thou know’st, and fear not.

Thou hast the Senate’s faith and Consul’s word

To fortify thee.

VOLTURCIUS

(He answers with fear and interruptions.)

I was sent with letters – 55

And had a message too – from Lentulus –

To Catiline – that he should use all aids –

Servants or others – and come with his army

As soon unto the city as he could –

For they were ready and but stayed for him – 60

To intercept those that should flee the fire –

These men, the Allobroges, did hear it too.

FIRST ALLOBROX

Yes, fathers, and they took an oath to us,

Besides their letters, that we should be free,

And urged us for some present aid of horse. 65

CICERO

Nay, here be other testimonies, fathers:

Cethegus’ armoury.

The weapons and arms are brought forth.

CRASSUS

What, not all these?

CICERO

Here’s not the hundred part. Call in the fencer,

That we may know the arms to all these weapons.

[Enter CETHEGUS, guarded.]

Come, my brave sword-player, to what active use 70

Was all this steel provided?

CETHEGUS

Had you asked

In Sulla’s days, it had been to cut throats.

But now it was to look on only. I loved

To see good blades and feel their edge and points,

To put a helm upon a block and cleave it, 75

And now and then to stab an armour through.

CICERO

[Hands him a letter] Know you that paper? That will stab you through.

Is it your hand?

[Cethegus tears the letter.]

Hold, save the pieces! Traitor,

Hath thy guilt waked thy fury?

CETHEGUS

I did write

I know not what, nor care not. That fool Lentulus 80

Did dictate and I, t’other fool, did sign it.

CICERO

[To the Guard] Bring in Statilius: does he know his hand, too?

And Lentulus.

[Enter STATILIUS and LENTULUS, guarded.]

Reach him that letter.

STATILIUS

Confess it all.

CICERO

[To Lentulus] Know you that seal yet, Publius?

LENTULUS

Yes, it is mine.

CICERO

Whose image is that on it? 85

LENTULUS

My grandfather’s.

CICERO

What, that renowned good man,

That did so only embrace his country, and loved

His fellow citizens! Was not his picture,

Though mute, of power to call thee from a fact

So foul –

LENTULUS

As what, impetuous Cicero? 90

CICERO

As thou art, for I do not know what’s fouler.

Look upon these [Pointing to the Allobroges]. Do not these faces argue

Thy guilt and impudence?

LENTULUS

What are these to me?

I know ’em not.

FIRST ALLOBROX

No, Publius? We were with you

At Brutus’ house.

VOLTURCIUS

Last night.

LENTULUS

What did you there? 95

Who sent for you?

FIRST ALLOBROX

Yourself did. We had letters

From you, Cethegus, this Statilius here,

Gabinius Cimber, all but from Longinus,

Who would not write because he was to come

Shortly in person after us, he said, 100

To take the charge o’the horse which we should levy.

CICERO

And he is fled to Catiline, I hear.

LENTULUS

Spies? Spies?

ALLOBROGES

You told us, too, o’the Sibyl’s books,

And how you were to be a king this year,

The twentieth from the burning of the Capitol; 105

That three Cornelii were to reign in Rome,

Of which you were the last; and praised Cethegus

And the great spirits were with you in the action.

CETHEGUS

[To Lentulus] These are your honourable ambassadors,

My sovereign lord.

CATO

Peace, that too bold Cethegus! 110

FIRST ALLOBROX

Besides Gabinius, your agent named

Autronius, Servius Sulla, Vargunteius,

And diverse others.

VOLTURCIUS

I had letters from you

To Catiline, and a message which I’ve told

Unto the Senate, truly, word for word; 115

For which I hope they will be gracious to me.

I was drawn in by that same wicked Cimber,

And thought no hurt at all.

CICERO

Volturcius, peace.

Where is thy visor or thy voice now, Lentulus?

Art thou confounded? Wherefore speak’st thou not? 120

Is all so clear, so plain, so manifest

That both thy eloquence and impudence,

And thy ill nature, too, have left thee at once?

[To Guards] Take him aside. There’s yet one more: Gabinius,

The engineer of all.

[Enter GABINIUS, guarded.]

Show him that paper, 125

If he do know it?

GABINIUS

I know nothing.

CICERO

No?

GABINIUS

No. Neither will I know.

CATO

Impudent head!

Stick it into his throat. Were I the Consul,

I’d make thee eat the mischief thou hast vented.

GABINIUS

Is there a law for’t, Cato?

CATO

Dost thou ask 130

After a law, that wouldst have broke all laws

Of nature, manhood, conscience, and religion?

GABINIUS

Yes, I may ask for’t.

CATO

No, pernicious Cimber.

Th’inquiring after good does not belong

Unto a wicked person.

GABINIUS

Ay, but Cato 135

Does nothing but by law.

CRASSUS

[To Guards] Take him aside.

There’s proof enough, though he confess not.

GABINIUS

Stay,

I will confess. All’s true your spies have told you.

Make much of ’em.

CETHEGUS

Yes, and reward ’em well,

For fear you get no more such. See they do not 140

Die in a ditch and stink, now you ha’ done with ’em,

Or beg o’the bridges here in Rome, whose arches

Their active industry hath saved.

CICERO

See, fathers,

What minds and spirits these are that, being convicted

Of such a treason and by such a cloud 145

Of witnesses, dare yet retain their boldness.

What would their rage have done if they had conquered?

I thought, when I had thrust out Catiline,

Neither the state nor I should need t’have feared

Lentulus’ sleep here, or Longinus’ fat, 150

Or this Cethegus’ rashness. It was he

I only watched while he was in our walls,

As one that had the brain, the hand, the heart.

But now we find the contrary! Where was there

A people grieved, or a state discontent, 155

Able to make or help a war ’gainst Rome,

But these, th’Allobroges? And those they found.

Whom, had not the just gods been pleased to make

More friends unto our safety than their own,

As it then seemed, neglecting these men’s offers, 160

Where had we been, or where the commonwealth,

When their great chief had been called home?

[Pointing to Lentulus] This man,

Their absolute king – whose noble grandfather,

Armed in pursuit of the seditious Gracchus,

Took a brave wound for dear defence of that 165

Which he would spoil – had gathered all his aids

Of ruffians, slaves, and other slaughtermen,

Given us up for murder to Cethegus,

Th’other rank of citizens to Gabinius,

The city to be fired by Cassius, 170

And Italy, nay the world, to be laid waste

By cursèd Catiline and his complices.

Lay but the thought of it before you, fathers,

Think but with me you saw this glorious city,

The light of all the earth, tower of all nations, 175

Suddenly falling in one flame. Imagine

You viewed your country buried with the heaps

Of slaughtered citizens that had no grave;

This Lentulus here reigning, as he dreamt,

And those his purple Senate; Catiline come 180

With his fierce army; and the cries of matrons,

The flight of children, and the rape of virgins,

Shrieks of the living, with the dying groans

On every side t’invade your sense; until

The blood of Rome were mixèd with her ashes! 185

This was the spectacle these fiends intended

To please their malice.

CETHEGUS

Ay, and it would

Have been a brave one, Consul. But your part

Had not then been so long as now it is.

I should have quite defeated your oration, 190

And slit that fine rhetorical pipe of yours

I’the first scene.

CATO

Insolent monster!

CICERO

Fathers,

Is it your pleasures they shall be committed

Unto some safe but a free custody,

Until the Senate can determine farther? 195

SENATORS

It pleaseth well.

CICERO

Then, Marcus Crassus,

Take you charge of Gabinius; send him home

Unto your house. You, Caesar, of Statilius.

Cethegus shall be sent to Cornificius,

And Lentulus to Publius Lentulus Spinther, 200

Who now is aedile.

CATO

It were best the praetors

Carried ’em to their houses and delivered ’em.

CICERO

Let it be so. [To Praetors] Take ’em from hence.

CAESAR

But first

Let Lentulus put off his praetorship.

LENTULUS

I do resign it here unto the Senate. 205

[He removes his robe.]

CAESAR

So, now there’s no offence done to religion.

CATO

Caesar, ’twas piously and timely urged.

[Exeunt Flaccus, Pomtinius and Guards with Lentulus, Cethegus, Statilius, and Gabinius.]

CICERO

What do you decree to th’Allobroges

That were the lights to this discovery?

CRASSUS

A free grant from the state of all their suits. 210

CAESAR

And a reward out of the public treasure.

CATO

Ay, and the title of honest men to crown ’em.

CICERO

What of Volturcius?

CAESAR

Life and favour’s well.

VOLTURCIUS

I ask no more.

CATO

Yes, yes, some money. Thou need’st it.

’Twill keep thee honest: want made thee a knave. 215

SILANUS

Let Flaccus and Pomtinius, the praetors,

Have public thanks, and Quintus Fabius Sanga,

For their good service.

CRASSUS

They deserve it all.

CATO

But what do we decree unto the Consul,

Whose virtue, counsel, watchfulness, and wisdom 220

Hath freed the commonwealth and, without tumult,

Slaughter or blood, or scarce raising a force,

Rescued us all out of the jaws of fate?

CRASSUS

We owe our lives unto him, and our fortunes.

CAESAR

Our wives, our children, parents, and our gods. 225

SILANUS

We all are savèd by his fortitude.

CATO

The commonwealth owes him a civic garland.

He is the only father of his country.

CAESAR

Let there be public prayer to all the gods

Made in that name for him.

CRASSUS

And in these words: 230

‘For that he hath by his vigilance preserved

Rome from the flame, the Senate from the sword,

And all her citizens from massacre.’

CICERO

How are my labours more than paid, grave fathers,

In these great titles and decreèd honours! 235

Such as to me first of the civil robe

Of any man since Rome was Rome have happened,

And from this frequent Senate, which more glads me

That I now see you’ve sense of your own safety.

If those good days come no less grateful to us 240

Wherein we are preserved from some great danger

Than those wherein we’re born and brought to light –

Because the gladness of our safety is certain,

But the condition of our birth not so,

And that we are saved with pleasure, but are born 245

Without the sense of joy – why should not then

This day, to us and all posterity

Of ours, be had in equal fame and honour

With that when Romulus first reared these walls,

When so much more is savèd than he built? 250

CAESAR

It ought.

CRASSUS

Let it be added to our fasti.

[Loud voices without.]

CICERO

What tumult’s that?

[Enter FLACCUS.]

FLACCUS

Here’s one Tarquinius taken,

Going to Catiline, and says he was sent

By Marcus Crassus, whom he names to be

Guilty of the conspiracy.

CICERO

Some lying varlet. 255

Take him away to prison.

CRASSUS

Bring him in

And let me see him.

CICERO

He is not worth it, Crassus.

Keep him up close, and hungry, till he tell

By whose pernicious counsel he durst slander

So great and good a citizen.

CRASSUS

(Aside) By yours, 260

I fear ’twill prove.

SILANUS

Some o’the traitors, sure,

To give their action the more credit, bid him

Name you, or any man.

CICERO

I know myself,

By all the tracts and courses of this business,

Crassus is noble, just, and loves his country. 265

FLACCUS

Here is a libel, too, accusing Caesar,

From Lucius Vectius and confirmed by Curius.

CICERO

Away with all; throw it out o’the court.

CAESAR

A trick on me, too?

CICERO

It is some men’s malice.

I said to Curius I did not believe him. 270

CAESAR

Was not that Curius your spy that had

Reward decreed unto him the last Senate,

With Fulvia, upon your private motion?

CICERO

Yes.

CAESAR

But he has not that reward yet?

CICERO

No.

Let not this trouble you, Caesar; none believes it. 275

CAESAR

It shall not, if that he have no reward.

But if he have, sure I shall think myself

Very untimely and unsafely honest

Where such as he is may have pay t’accuse me.

CICERO

You shall have no wrong done you, noble Caesar, 280

But all contentment.

CAESAR

Consul, I am silent. [Exeunt.]

5.4 [Enter] CATILINE [and SOLDIERS].

CATILINE

I never yet knew, soldiers, that in fight

Words added virtue unto valiant men,

Or that a general’s oration made

An army fall or stand; but how much prowess,

Habitual or natural, each man’s breast 5

Was owner of, so much in act it showed.

Whom neither glory or danger can excite

’Tis vain t’attempt with speech; for the mind’s fear

Keeps all brave sounds from ent’ring at that ear.

I yet would warn you some few things, my friends, 10

And give you reason of my present counsels.

You know no less than I what state, what point,

Our affairs stand in. And you all have heard

What a calamitous misery the sloth

And sleepiness of Lentulus hath plucked 15

Both on himself and us: how, whilst our aids

There in the city looked for are defeated,

Our entrance into Gallia, too, is stopped.

Two armies wait us: one from Rome, the other

From the Gaul provinces. And where we are, 20

Although I most desire it, the great want

Of corn and victual forbids longer stay.

So that of need we must remove, but whither

The sword must both direct and cut the passage.

I only therefore wish you, when you strike, 25

To have your valours and your souls about you,

And think you carry in your labouring hands

The things you seek, glory and liberty,

Your country which you want now, with the fates

That are to be instructed by our swords. 30

If we can give the blow, all will be safe to us;

We shall not want provision, nor supplies;

The colonies and free towns will lie open.

Where, if we yield to fear, expect no place

Nor friend to shelter those whom their own fortune 35

And ill-used arms have left without protection.

You might have lived in servitude, or exile,

Or safe at Rome, depending on the great ones,

But that you thought those things unfit for men.

And in that thought you then were valiant. 40

For no man ever yet changed peace for war

But he that meant to conquer. Hold that purpose.

There’s more necessity you should be such

In fighting for yourselves than they for others.

He’s base that trusts his feet whose hands are armed. 45

Methinks I see Death and the Furies waiting

What we will do, and all the heaven at leisure

For the great spectacle. Draw then your swords,

And if our destiny envy our virtue

The honour of the day, yet let us care 50

To sell ourselves at such a price as may

Undo the world to buy us, and make Fate,

While she tempts ours, fear her own estate. [Exeunt.]

5.5 [Enter Lictors, POMTINIUS, CICERO, SILANUS, CATO, CAESAR, CRASSUS, and other members of] THE SENATE.

FIRST SENATOR

What means this hasty calling of the Senate?

SECOND SENATOR

We shall know straight. Wait till the Consul speaks.

POMTINIUS

Fathers conscript, bethink you of your safeties

And what to do with these conspirators.

Some of their clients, their freedmen and slaves 5

’Gin to make head. There is one of Lentulus’ bawds

Runs up and down the shops, through every street,

With money to corrupt the poor artificers

And needy tradesmen to their aid. Cethegus

Hath sent, too, to his servants, who are many, 10

Chosen and exercised in bold attemptings,

That forthwith they should arm themselves and prove

His rescue. All will be in instant uproar,

If you prevent it not with present counsels.

We have done what we can to meet the fury, 15

And will do more. Be you good to yourselves.

CICERO

What is your pleasure, fathers, shall be done?

Silanus, you are consul next designed:

Your sentence of these men?

SILANUS

’Tis short, and this:

Since they have sought to blot the name of Rome 20

Out of the world, and raze this glorious empire

With her own hands and arms turned on herself,

I think it fit they die. And could my breath

Now execute ’em, they should not enjoy

An article of time or eye of light 25

Longer, to poison this our common air.

FIRST SENATOR

I think so, too.

SECOND SENATOR

And I.

THIRD SENATOR

And I.

FOURTH SENATOR

And I.

CICERO

Your sentence, Caius Caesar?

CAESAR

Conscript fathers,

In great affairs, and doubtful, it behooves

Men that are asked their sentence to be free 30

From either hate or love, anger or pity;

For where the least of these do hinder, there

The mind not easily discerns the truth.

I speak this to you in the name of Rome,

For whom you stand, and to the present cause: 35

That this foul fact of Lentulus and the rest

Weigh not more with you than your dignity,

And you be more indulgent to your passion

Than to your honour. If there could be found

A pain or punishment equal to their crimes, 40

I would devise and help. But if the greatness

Of what they ha’ done exceed all man’s invention,

I think it fit to stay where our laws do.

Poor petty states may alter upon humour

Where, if they offend with anger, few do know it, 45

Because they are obscure; their fame and fortune

Is equal and the same. But they that are

Head of the world and live in that seen height,

All mankind knows their actions. So we see

The greater fortune hath the lesser licence. 50

They must nor favour, hate, and least be angry,

For what with others is called anger, there

Is cruelty and pride. I know Silanus,

Who spoke before me, a just, valiant man,

A lover of the state, and one that would not 55

In such a business use or grace or hatred.

I know, too, well his manners and his modesty.

Nor do I think his sentence cruel – for

’Gainst such delinquents, what can be too bloody? –

But that it is abhorring from our state, 60

Since to a citizen of Rome offending

Our laws give exile, and not death. Why then

Decrees he that? ’Twere vain to think for fear,

When, by the diligence of so worthy a consul,

All is made safe and certain. Is’t for punishment? 65

Why, death’s the end of evils, and a rest

Rather than torment. It dissolves all griefs,

And beyond that is neither care nor joy.

You hear my sentence would not have ’em die.

How then? Set free and increase Catiline’s army? 70

So will they, being but banished. No, grave fathers,

I judge them, first, to have their states confiscate,

Then, that their persons remain prisoners

I’the free towns, far off from Rome and severed,

Where they might neither have relation 75

Hereafter to the Senate or the people.

Or if they had, those towns then to be mulcted,

As enemies to the state, that had their guard.

FIRST SENATOR

’Tis good and honourable, Caesar hath uttered.

CICERO

Fathers, I see your faces and your eyes 80

All bent on me, to note of these two censures

Which I incline to. Either of them are grave

And answering the dignity of the speakers,

The greatness of th’affair, and both severe.

One urgeth death; and he may well remember 85

This state hath punished wicked citizens so.

The other bonds, and those perpetual, which

He thinks found out for the more singular plague.

Decree which you shall please. You have a consul

Not readier to obey than to defend 90

Whatever you shall act for the republic,

And meet with willing shoulders any burden,

Or any fortune with an even face,

Though it were death, which to a valiant man

Can never happen foul, nor to a consul 95

Be immature, or to a wise man wretched.

SILANUS

Fathers, I spake but as I thought the needs

O’th’commonwealth required.

CATO

Excuse it not.

CICERO

Cato, speak your sentence.

CATO

This it is.

You here dispute on kinds of punishment 100

And stand consulting what you should decree

’Gainst those of whom you rather should beware.

This mischief is not like those common facts

Which, when they are done, the laws may prosecute.

But this, if you provide not ere it happen, 105

When it is happened will not wait your judgement.

Good Caius Caesar here hath very well

And subtilly discoursed of life and death,

As if he thought those things a pretty fable

That are delivered us of hell and furies, 110

Or of the diverse way that ill men go

From good to filthy, dark, and ugly places.

And therefore he would have these live, and long, too,

But far from Rome and in the small free towns,

Lest here they might have rescue – as if men 115

Fit for such acts were only in the city,

And not throughout all Italy! Or that boldness

Could not do more where it found least resistance!

’Tis a vain counsel, if he think them dangerous.

Which, if he do not, but that he alone 120

In so great fear of all men stand unfrighted,

He gives me cause, and you, more to fear him.

I am plain, fathers. Here you look about,

One at another, doubting what to do,

With faces as you trusted to the gods 125

That still have saved you – and they can do’t. But

They are not wishings or base womanish prayers

Can draw their aids, but vigilance, counsel, action,

Which they will be ashamèd to forsake.

’Tis sloth they hate, and cowardice. Here you have 130

The traitors in your houses, yet you stand

Fearing what to do with ’em. Let ’em loose,

And send ’em hence with arms, too, that your mercy

May turn your misery as soon as’t can.

Oh, but they are great men, and have offended 135

But through ambition. We would spare their honour:

Ay, if themselves had spared it, or their fame,

Or modesty, or either god or man,

Then I would spare ’em. But, as things now stand,

Fathers, to spare these men were to commit 140

A greater wickedness than you would revenge.

If there had been but time and place for you

To have repaired this fault, you should have made it;

It should have been your punishment t’have felt

Your tardy error. But necessity 145

Now bids me say: let ’em not live an hour,

If you mean Rome should live a day. I have done.

FIRST SENATOR

Cato hath spoken like an oracle.

CRASSUS

Let it be so decreed.

SECOND SENATOR

We are all fearful.

SILANUS

And had been base, had not his virtue raised us. 150

THIRD SENATOR

Go forth, most worthy Consul, we’ll assist you.

CAESAR

I’m not yet changed in my sentence, fathers.

CATO

No matter.

[Enter SERVANT with letters.]

What be those?

SERVANT

Letters for Caesar.

[He hands the letters to Caesar, and exits.]

CATO

From whom? Let ’em be read in open Senate.

Fathers, they come from the conspirators. 155

I crave to have ’em read, for the republic.

CAESAR

Cato, read you it.

[He hands a letter to Cato and speaks aside to him.]

’Tis a love letter

From your dear sister to me. Though you hate me,

Do not discover it.

CATO

[Returning the letter] Hold thee, drunkard.

[To Cicero] Consul,

Go forth, and confidently.

CAESAR

You’ll repent 160

This rashness, Cicero.

POMTINIUS

Caesar shall repent it. [He draws his sword.]

CICERO

Hold, friends!

POMTINIUS

He’s scarce a friend unto the public.

CICERO

No violence! Caesar be safe. [To Lictors] Lead on.

Where are the public executioners?

[To Pomtinius] Bid ’em wait on us. [Exit Pomtinius.]

[To Lictors] On to Spinther’s house. 165

Bring Lentulus forth.

[Enter POMTINIUS with EXECUTIONERS.

Enter LENTULUS, guarded.]

[To Executioners] Here, you, the sad revengers

Of capital crimes against the public, take

This man unto your justice. Strangle him.

LENTULUS

Thou dost well, Consul. ’Twas a cast at dice

In Fortune’s hand, not long since, that thyself 170

Shouldst have heard these or other words as fatal.

[Exeunt Executioners with Lentulus.]

CICERO

Lead on to Quintus Cornificius’ house.

Bring forth Cethegus.

[Enter CETHEGUS, guarded, then enter EXECUTIONERS.]

[To Executioners] Take him to the due

Death that he hath deserved, and let it be

Said: ‘He was once.’

CETHEGUS

– a beast or, what is worse, 175

A slave, Cethegus. Let that be the name

For all that’s base hereafter: that would let

This worm pronounce on him, and not have trampled

His body into – Ha! Art thou not moved?

CICERO

Justice is never angry. [To Executioners] Take him hence. 180

CETHEGUS

Oh, the whore Fortune and her bawds, the Fates,

That put these tricks on men which knew the way

To death by a sword! Strangle me, I may sleep;

I shall grow angry with the gods else.

[Exeunt Executioners with Cethegus.]

CICERO

Lead

To Caius Caesar’s, for Statilius. 185

Bring him and rude Gabinius out.

[Enter GABINIUS and STATILIUS, guarded, then enter EXECUTIONERS.]

[To Executioners] Here, take ’em

To your cold hands and let ’em feel death from you.

GABINIUS

I thank you, you do me a pleasure.

STATILIUS

And me, too.

[Exeunt Executioners with Gabinius and Statilius]

CATO

So, Marcus Tullius, thou mayst now stand up

And call it happy Rome, thou being consul. 190

Great parent of thy country, go and let

The old men of the city, ere they die,

Kiss thee, the matrons dwell about thy neck,

The youths and maids lay up ’gainst they are old

What kind of man thou wert, to tell their nephews 195

When, such a year, they read within our fasti

Thy consulship.

[Enter PETREIUS.]

Who’s this? Petreius?

CICERO

Welcome,

Welcome, renownèd soldier. What’s the news?

This face can bring no ill with’t unto Rome.

How does the worthy Consul, my colleague? 200

PETREIUS

As well as victory can make him, sir.

He greets the fathers, and to me hath trusted

The sad relation of the civil strife,

For in such war the conquest still is black.

CICERO

Shall we withdraw into the House of Concord? 205

CATO

No, happy Consul, here; let all ears take

The benefit of this tale. If he had voice

To spread unto the poles and strike it through

The centre to the antipodes, it would ask it.

PETREIUS

The straits and needs of Catiline being such 210

As he must fight with one of the two armies

That then had near enclosed him, it pleased Fate

To make us th’object of his desperate choice,

Wherein the danger almost peised the honour.

And as he riss, the day grew black with him, 215

And Fate descended nearer to the earth,

As if she meant to hide the name of things

Under her wings and make the world her quarry.

At this we roused, lest one small minute’s stay

Had left it to be inquired what Rome was. 220

And, as we ought, armed in confidence

Of our great cause, in form of battle stood.

Whilst Catiline came on, not with the face

Of any man, but of a public ruin:

His count’nance was a civil war itself. 225

And all his host had standing in their looks

The paleness of the death that was to come.

Yet cried they out like vultures and urged on,

As if they would precipitate our fates.

Nor stayed we longer for ’em. But himself 230

Struck the first stroke; and with it fled a life.

Which cut, it seemed a narrow neck of land

Had broke between two mighty seas, and either

Flowed into other, for so did the slaughter,

And whirled about, as when two violent tides 235

Meet and not yield. The Furies stood on hills

Circling the place, and trembled to see men

Do more than they; whilst Piety left the field,

Grieved for that side that in so bad a cause

They knew not what a crime their valour was. 240

The sun stood still and was, behind the cloud

The battle made, seen sweating to drive up

His frighted horse whom still the noise drove backward.

And now had fierce Enyo, like a flame,

Consumed all it could reach, and then itself, 245

Had not the fortune of the commonwealth

Come Pallas-like to every Roman thought.

Which Catiline seeing, and that now his troops

Covered that earth they’d fought on with their trunks,

Ambitious of great fame, to crown his ill, 250

Collected all his fury and ran in,

Armed with a glory high as his despair,

Into our battle, like a Libyan lion

Upon his hunters, scornful of our weapons,

Careless of wounds, plucking down lives about him, 255

Till he had circled in himself with death;

Then fell he, too, t’embrace it where it lay.

And as in that rebellion ’gainst the gods,

Minerva holding forth Medusa’s head,

One of the giant brethren felt himself 260

Grow marble at the killing sight and, now

Almost made stone, began t’inquire what flint,

What rock it was that crept through all his limbs,

And, ere he could think more, was that he feared,

So Catiline, at the sight of Rome in us, 265

Became his tomb; yet did his look retain

Some of his fierceness, and his hands still moved,

As if he laboured yet to grasp the state

With those rebellious parts.

CATO

A brave bad death.

Had this been honest, now, and for his country 270

As ’twas against it, who had ere fallen greater?

CICERO

Honoured Petreius, Rome, not I, must thank you.

How modestly has he spoken of himself!

CATO

He did the more.

CICERO

Thanks to the immortal gods,

Romans, I now am paid for all my labours, 275

My watchings, and my dangers. Here conclude

Your praises, triumphs, honours, and rewards

Decreed to me. Only the memory

Of this glad day, if I may know it live

Within your thoughts, shall much affect my conscience, 280

Which I must always study before fame.

Though both be good, the latter yet is worst,

And ever is ill got without the first. [Exeunt.]

THE END

This tragedy was first acted in the year 1611 285

by the King’s Majesty’s Servants.

The principal tragedians were:

Richard Burbage John Heminges

Alexander Cooke Henry Condell

John Lowin John Underwood 290

William Ostler Nicholas Tooley

Richard Robinson William Ecclestone

With the allowance of the Master of Revels.

The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson

Catiline His Conspiracy (1611)

Edited by Inga-Stina Ewbank

INTRODUCTION

The first performance

Catiline His Conspiracy: then and now

Catiline as a Roman tragedy

Sulla’s Ghost

The Chorus

The figure of Catiline

The Gunpowder Plot

Catiline and Roman politics

Catiline and Jonson’s politics

Sources

The early texts and this edition

TO THE GREAT EXAMPLE OF HONOUR AND VIRTUE, THE MOST NOBLE WILLIAM, EARL OF PEMBROKE, LORD CHAMBERLAIN, ETC.

To The Reader in Ordinary

To the Reader Extraordinary

To My Friend, Master Ben Jonson Upon His Catiline

To His Worthy Friend, Master Ben Jonson

To His Worthy Beloved Friend, Master Ben Jonson

The Persons of the Play

CATILINE HIS CONSPIRACY