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Front Page  Titles (by Subject) SCENE IV - Cato: A Tragedy and Selected Essays
SCENE IV - Joseph Addison, Cato: A Tragedy and Selected Essays [1710]Edition used:Cato: A Tragedy and Selected Essays, ed. by Christine Dunn Henderson and Mark E. Yellin, with a Foreword by Forrest McDonald (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2004).
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- 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 IV
Juba, Syphax.
Juba
- Syphax, I joy to meet thee thus alone.
- I have observed of late thy looks are fallen,
- O’ercast with gloomy cares and discontent;
- Then tell me, Syphax, I conjure thee, tell me,
- What are the thoughts that knit thy brow in frowns,
- And turn thine eye thus coldly on thy prince?
Syphax- ’Tis not my talent to conceal my thoughts,
- Or carry smiles and sunshine in my face,
- When discontent sits heavy at my heart.
- I have not yet so much the Roman in me.
Juba
- Why dost thou cast out such ungenerous terms
- Against the lords and sovereigns of the world?
- Dost thou not see mankind fall down before them,
- And own the force of their superior virtue?
- Is there a nation in the wilds of Afric,
- Amidst our barren rocks and burning sands,
- That does not tremble at the Roman name?
Syphax
- Gods! where’s the worth that sets this people up
- Above your own Numidia’s tawny sons!
- Do they with tougher sinews bend the bow?
- Or flies the javelin swifter to its mark,
- Launched from the vigour of a Roman arm?
- Who like our active African instructs
- The fiery steed, and trains him to his hand?
- Or guides in troops the embattled elephant,
- Loaden with war? these, these are arts, my prince,
- In which your Zama does not stoop to Rome.
Juba
- These all are virtues of a meaner rank,
- Perfections that are placed in bones and nerves.
- A Roman soul is bent on higher views:
- To civilize the rude, unpolished world,
- And lay it under the restraint of laws;
- To make man mild, and sociable to man;
- To cultivate the wild, licentious savage
- With wisdom, discipline, and liberal arts—
- The embellishments of life; virtues like these
- Make human nature shine, reform the soul,
- And break our fierce barbarians into men.
Syphax
- Patience, kind heavens!—excuse an old man’s warmth!
- What are these wondrous civilizing arts,
- This Roman polish, and this smooth behaviour,
- That render man thus tractable and tame?
- Are they not only to disguise our passions,
- To set our looks at variance with our thoughts,
- To check the starts and sallies of the soul,
- And break off all its commerce with the tongue;
- In short, to change us into other creatures,
- Than what our nature and the gods designed us?
Juba
- To strike thee dumb, turn up thy eyes to Cato!
- There may’st thou see to what a godlike height
- The Roman virtues lift up mortal man.
- While good, and just, and anxious for his friends,
- He’s still severely bent against himself;
- Renouncing sleep, and rest, and food, and ease,
- He strives with thirst and hunger, toil and heat;
- And when his fortune sets before him all
- The pomps and pleasures that his soul can wish,
- His rigid virtue will accept of none.
Syphax
- Believe me, prince, there’s not an African
- That traverses our vast Numidian deserts
- In quest of prey, and lives upon his bow,
- But better practises these boasted virtues.
- Coarse are his meals, the fortune of the chase,
- Amidst the running stream he slakes his thirst,
- Toils all the day, and at the approach of night
- On the first friendly bank he throws him down,
- Or rests his head upon a rock till morn:
- Then rises fresh, pursues his wonted game,
- And if the following day he chance to find
- A new repast, or an untasted spring,
- Blesses his stars, and thinks it luxury.
Juba
- Thy prejudices, Syphax, won’t discern
- What virtues grow from ignorance and choice,
- Nor how the hero differs from the brute.
- But grant that others could with equal glory
- Look down on pleasures, and the baits of sense;
- Where shall we find the man that bears affliction,
- Great and majestic in his griefs, like Cato?
- Heavens! with what strength, what steadiness of mind,
- He triumphs in the midst of all his sufferings!
- How does he rise against a load of woes,
- And thank the gods that throw the weight upon him!
Syphax
- ’Tis pride, rank pride, and haughtiness of soul:
- I think the Romans call it stoicism.
- Had not your royal father thought so highly
- Of Roman virtue, and of Cato’s cause,
- He had not fallen by a slave’s hand, inglorious:
- Nor would his slaughtered army now have lain
- On Afric’s sands, disfigured with their wounds,
- To gorge the wolves and vultures of Numidia.
Juba- Why dost thou call my sorrows up afresh?
- My father’s name brings tears into my eyes.
Syphax- Oh! that you’d profit by your father’s ills!
Juba- What wouldst thou have me do?
Syphax
Juba
- Syphax, I should be more than twice an orphan
Syphax- Ay, there’s the tie that binds you!
- You long to call him father. Marcia’s charms
- Work in your heart unseen, and plead for Cato.
- No wonder you are deaf to all I say.
Juba
- Syphax, your zeal becomes importunate;
- I’ve hitherto permitted it to rave,
- And talk at large; but learn to keep it in,
- Lest it should take more freedom than I’ll give it.
Syphax
- Sir, your great father never used me thus.
- Alas! he’s dead! but can you e’er forget
- The tender sorrows, and the pangs of nature,
- The fond embraces, and repeated blessings,
- Which you drew from him in your last farewell?
- Still must I cherish the dear, sad remembrance,
- At once to torture and to please my soul.
- The good old king at parting wrung my hand,
- (His eyes brimful of tears,) then sighing cried,
- Prithee, be careful of my son!—his grief
- Swelled up so high, he could not utter more.
Juba
- Alas! thy story melts away my soul.
- That best of fathers! how shall I discharge
- The gratitude and duty which I owe him!
Syphax- By laying up his counsels in your heart.
Juba
- His counsels bade me yield to thy directions:
- Then, Syphax, chide me in severest terms,
- Vent all thy passion, and I’ll stand its shock,
- Calm and unruffled as a summer sea,
- When not a breath of wind flies o’er its surface.
Syphax- Alas! my prince, I’d guide you to your safety.
Juba- I do believe thou wouldst: but tell me how?
Syphax- Fly from the fate that follows Caesar’s foes.
Juba- My father scorned to do it.
Syphax
Juba- Better to die ten thousand thousand deaths,
- Than wound my honour.
Syphax
Juba
- Syphax, I’ve promised to preserve my temper.
- Why wilt thou urge me to confess a flame
- I long have stifled, and would fain conceal?
Syphax
- Believe me, prince, though hard to conquer love,
- ’Tis easy to divert and break its force:
- Absence might cure it, or a second mistress
- Light up another flame, and put out this.
- The glowing dames of Zama’s royal court
- Have faces flusht with more exalted charms;
- The sun, that rolls his chariot o’er their heads,
- Works up more fire and colour in their cheeks:
- Were you with these, my prince, you’d soon forget
- The pale, unripened beauties of the north.
Juba
- ’Tis not a set of features, or complexion,
- The tincture of a skin, that I admire.
- Beauty soon grows familiar to the lover,
- Fades in his eye, and palls upon the sense.
- The virtuous Marcia towers above her sex:
- True, she is fair, (oh how divinely fair!)
- But still the lovely maid improves her charms
- With inward greatness, unaffected wisdom,
- And sanctity of manners. Cato’s soul
- Shines out in everything she acts or speaks,
- While winning mildness and attractive smiles
- Dwell in her looks, and with becoming grace
- Soften the rigour of her father’s virtues.
Syphax- How does your tongue grow wanton in her praise!
- But on my knees I beg you would consider—
- [Enter Marcia and Lucia.]
Juba- Hah! Syphax, is’t not she?—she moves this way:
- And with her Lucia, Lucius’s fair daughter.
- My heart beats thick—I prithee, Syphax, leave me.
Syphax- Ten thousand curses fasten on ’em both!
- Now will this woman, with a single glance,
- Undo what I’ve been labouring all this while. [Exit.]
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