The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Foreword
• Introduction
• The Life of Joseph Addison
• Addison the Essayist
• Cato, a Tragedy
• Editors’ Note
• Acknowledgments
• Cato: a Tragedy
• Prologue By Mr. Pope 2
• Dramatis Personae
• Act I —
• Scene I
• Scene Ii
• Scene Iii
• Scene Iv
• Scene V
• Scene Vi
• Act Ii —
• Scene I
• Scene Ii
• Scene Iii
• Scene Iv
• Scene V
• Scene Vi
• Act Iii —
• Scene I
• Scene Ii
• Scene Iii
• Scene Iv
• Scene V
• Scene Vi
• Scene Vii
• Act Iv —
• Scene I
• Scene Ii
• Scene Iii
• Scene Iv —
• Act V —
• Scene I
• Scene Ii
• Scene Iii
• Scene Iv
• Epilogue By Dr. Garth. 1
• Selected Essays
• Tatler, No. 161
• Tatler, No. 162
• Whig Examiner, No. 5
• Spectator, No. 55
• Spectator, No. 125
• Spectator, No. 169
• Spectator, No. 215
• Spectator, No. 219
• Spectator, No. 231
• Spectator, No. 237
• Spectator, No. 243
• Spectator, No. 255
• Spectator, No. 256
• Spectator, No. 257
• Spectator, No. 287
• Spectator, No. 293
• Spectator, No. 349
• Spectator, No. 446
• Spectator, No. 557
• Guardian, No. 99
• Guardian, No. 161
• Freeholder, No. 1
• Freeholder, No. 2
• Freeholder, No. 5
• Freeholder, No. 10
• Freeholder, No. 12
• Freeholder, No. 13 1
• Freeholder, No. 16
• Freeholder, No. 29
• Freeholder, No. 34
• Freeholder, No. 39
• Freeholder, No. 51
• The Life and Character of M. Cato of Utica [ ]

SCENE I

Portius, Marcus.

Portius

• The dawn is overcast, the morning lowers,
• And heavily in clouds brings on the day,
• The great, the important day, big with the fate
• Of Cato and of Rome.—Our father’s death
• Would fill up all the guilt of civil war,5

• And close the scene of blood. Already Caesar6
• Has ravaged more than half the globe, and sees
• Mankind grown thin by his destructive sword:
• Should he go further, numbers would be wanting
• To form new battles, and support his crimes.

• Ye gods, what havoc does ambition make
• Among your works!

Marcus

•     Thy steady temper, Portius,
• Can look on guilt, rebellion, fraud, and Caesar,
• In the calm lights of mild philosophy;7
• I’m tortured ev’n to madness, when I think

• On the proud victor: every time he’s named
• Pharsalia8 rises to my view!—I see
• The insulting tyrant, prancing o’er the field
• Strowed with Rome’s citizens, and drenched in slaughter,
• His horse’s hoofs wet with Patrician9 blood!

• Oh, Portius! is there not some chosen curse,
• Some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven,
• Red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man
• Who owes his greatness to his country’s ruin?

Portius

• Believe me, Marcus, ’tis an impious greatness,

• And mixt with too much horror to be envied.
• How does the lustre of our father’s actions,
• Through the dark cloud of ills that cover him,
• Break out, and burn with more triumphant brightness!
• His sufferings shine, and spread a glory round him;

• Greatly unfortunate, he fights the cause
• Of honour, virtue, liberty, and Rome.
• His sword ne’er fell but on the guilty head;
• Oppression, tyranny, and power usurped,
• Draw all the vengeance of his arm upon ’em.

Marcus

• Who knows not this? but what can Cato do
• Against a world, a base, degenerate world,
• That courts the yoke, and bows the neck to Caesar?
• Pent up in Utica10 he vainly forms
• A poor epitome of Roman greatness,

• And, covered with Numidian11 guards, directs
• A feeble army, and an empty senate,
• Remnants of mighty battles fought in vain.
• By heavens, such virtues, joined with such success,
• Distract my very soul: our father’s fortune

• Would almost tempt us to renounce his precepts.12

Portius

• Remember what our father oft has told us:
• The ways of heaven are dark and intricate,
• Puzzled in mazes, and perplexed with errors:
• Our understanding traces ’em in vain,

• Lost and bewildered in the fruitless search;
• Nor sees with how much art the windings run,
• Nor where the regular confusion ends.

Marcus

• These are suggestions of a mind at ease:
• Oh, Portius! didst thou taste but half the griefs

• That wring my soul, thou couldst not talk thus coldly.
• Passion unpitied, and successless love,
• Plant daggers in my heart, and aggravate
• My other griefs. Were but my Lucia kind!—

Portius

• Thou seest not that thy brother is thy rival:

• But I must hide it, for I know thy temper.  [Aside.]
•   Now, Marcus, now, thy virtue’s on the proof:13
• Put forth thy utmost strength, work every nerve,
• And call up all thy father in thy soul:
• To quell the tyrant Love, and guard thy heart

• On this weak side, where most our nature fails,
• Would be a conquest worthy Cato’s son.

Marcus

• Portius, the counsel which I cannot take,
• Instead of healing, but upbraids my weakness.
• Bid me for honour plunge into a war

• Of thickest foes, and rush on certain death,
• Then shalt thou see that Marcus is not slow
• To follow glory, and confess his father.
• Love is not to be reasoned down, or lost
• In high ambition, and a thirst of greatness;

• ’Tis second life, it grows into the soul,
• Warms every vein, and beats in every pulse,
• I feel it here: my resolution melts—

Portius

• Behold young Juba, the Numidian prince!
• With how much care he forms himself to glory,

• And breaks the fierceness of his native temper
• To copy out our father’s bright example.
• He loves our sister Marcia, greatly loves her,
• His eyes, his looks, his actions all betray it:
• But still the smothered fondness burns within him.

• When most it swells, and labours for a vent,
• The sense of honour and desire of fame14
• Drive the big passion back into his heart.
• What! shall an African, shall Juba’s heir,15
• Reproach great Cato’s son, and show the world

• A virtue wanting in a Roman soul?

Marcus

• Portius, no more! your words leave stings behind ’em.
• Whene’er did Juba, or did Portius, show
• A virtue that has cast me at a distance,
• And thrown me out in the pursuits of honour?

Portius

• Marcus, I know thy generous temper well;
• Fling but the appearance of dishonour on it,
• It straight takes fire, and mounts into a blaze.

Marcus

• A brother’s sufferings claim a brother’s pity.

Portius

• Heaven knows I pity thee: behold my eyes

• Ev’n whilst I speak—Do they not swim in tears?
• Were but my heart as naked to thy view,
• Marcus would see it bleed in his behalf.

Marcus

• Why then dost treat me with rebukes, instead
• Of kind, condoling cares, and friendly sorrow?

Portius

• O Marcus! did I know the way to ease
• Thy troubled heart, and mitigate thy pains,
• Marcus, believe me, I could die to do it.

Marcus

• Thou best of brothers, and thou best of friends!
• Pardon a weak, distempered soul, that swells

• With csudden gusts, and sinks as soon in calms,
• The sport of passions:—but Sempronius comes:
• He must not find this softness hanging on me.  [Exit.]

[5. ]The Roman civil war (49–45 b.c.) began with Caesar crossing the Rubicon to invade Italy. Having fled Rome as Caesar advanced, Pompey and the republican forces were defeated at Pharsalus in 48 b.c. Soon after he fled Pharsalus, Pompey was assassinated in Egypt by Ptolemy XII’s men, while Cato and the other republicans scattered and re-massed in Africa. The play’s action takes place just after Caesar’s 46 b.c. victory at Thapsus.

[6. ]Gaius Julius Caesar (100–44 b.c.) was created dictator for life in 44 b.c., the same year in which he was assassinated by supporters of the Roman Republic. Caesar’s opposition to Cato predates the civil war, going back to the Catiline conspiracy of 63 b.c.

[7. ]Stoicism; see note at I.4 (p. 20, n. 31).

[8. ]Small trading city in Thessaly. The 48 b.c. battle of Pharsalus, in which Caesar’s outnumbered forces routed the Pompeians, was the decisive battle of the civil war.

[9. ]Roman privileged class, whose membership was based on birth.

[10. ]Ancient Phoenician settlement along the coast of present-day Tunisia. In the second century b.c., Utica was made the capital of Roman Africa and was accorded the privileged status of free city, which allowed it local autonomy and perhaps tax immunity. Utica’s sympathy toward Caesar’s opponents led to an eventual decline of its influence.

[11. ]Numidia was a Roman province in North Africa, in present-day Algeria.

[12. ]See I.4, p. 20, n. 31.

[13. ]See Spectator 257.

[14. ]See Spectator 255–57.

[15. ]Juba I (85 b.c.–46 b.c.), king of Numidia who sided with Pompey’s forces against Caesar. Juba was victorious against Caesar’s general Curio in 49 b.c., but he was defeated at Thapsus and committed suicide.