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 VI

Lucia, Marcia.

Lucia

•     Marcia, you’re too severe:
• How could you chide the young good-natured prince,
• And drive him from you with so stern an air;
• A prince that loves and dotes on you to death?

Marcia

• ’Tis therefore, Lucia, that I chide him from me.

• His air, his voice, his looks, and honest soul
• Speak all so movingly in his behalf,
• I dare not trust myself to hear him talk.

Lucia

• Why will you fight against so sweet a passion,
• And steel your heart to such a world of charms?

Marcia

• How, Lucia! wouldst thou have me sink away
• In pleasing dreams, and lose myself in love,
• When every moment Cato’s life’s at stake?
• Caesar comes armed with terror and revenge,
• And aims his thunder at my father’s head:

• Should not the sad occasion swallow up
• My other cares, and draw them all into it?

Lucia

• Why have not I this constancy of mind,
• Who have so many griefs to try its force?
• Sure, nature formed me of her softest mould,

• Enfeebled all my soul with tender passions,
• And sunk me ev’n below my own weak sex:
• Pity and love, by turns, oppress my heart.

Marcia

• Lucia, disburthen all thy cares on me,
• And let me share thy most retired34 distress;

• Tell me who raises up this conflict in thee?

Lucia

• I need not blush to name them, when I tell thee
• They’re Marcia’s brothers, and the sons of Cato.

Marcia

• They both behold thee with their sister’s eyes;
• And often have revealed their passion to me.

• But tell me whose address thou favourest most;
• I long to know, and yet I dread to hear it.

Lucia

• Which is it Marcia wishes for?

Marcia

•     For neither—
• And yet for both;—the youths have equal share
• In Marcia’s wishes, and divide their sister:

• But tell me, which of them is Lucia’s choice?

Lucia

• Marcia, they both are high in my esteem,
• But in my love—why wilt thou make me name him?
• Thou know’st it is a blind and foolish passion,
• Pleased and disgusted with it knows not what—

Marcia

• O Lucia, I’m perplexed, oh tell me which
• I must hereafter call my happy brother?

Lucia

• Suppose ’twere Portius, could you blame my choice?
• —O Portius, thou hast stolen away my soul!
• With what a graceful tenderness he loves!

• And breathes the softest, the sincerest vows!
• Complacency, and truth, and manly sweetness
• Dwell ever on his tongue, and smooth his thoughts.
• Marcus is over-warm, his fond complaints
• Have so much earnestness and passion in them,

• I hear him with a secret kind of horror,
• And tremble at his vehemence of temper.

Marcia

• Alas, poor youth! how canst thou throw him from thee?
• Lucia, thou know’st not half the love he bears thee;
• Whene’er he speaks of thee, his heart’s in flames,

• He sends out all his soul in every word,
• And thinks, and talks, and looks like one transported.
• Unhappy youth! how will thy coldness raise
• Tempests and storms in his afflicted bosom!
• I dread the consequence.

Lucia

•     You seem to plead

• Against your brother Portius.

Marcia

•     Heaven forbid!
• Had Portius been the unsuccessful lover,
• The same compassion would have fallen on him.

Lucia

• Was ever virgin love distressed like mine!
• Portius himself oft falls in tears before me,

• As if he mourned his rival’s ill success,
• Then bids me hide the motions of my heart,
• Nor show which way it turns. So much he fears
• The sad effects that it would have on Marcus.

Marcia

• He knows too well how easily he’s fired,

• And would not plunge his brother in despair,
• But waits for happier times, and kinder moments.

Lucia

• Alas! too late I find myself involved
• In endless griefs, and labyrinths of woe,
• Born to afflict my Marcia’s family,

• And sow dissension in the hearts of brothers.
• Tormenting thought! it cuts into my soul.

Marcia

• Let us not, Lucia, aggravate our sorrows,
• But to the gods permit the event of things.
• Our lives, discoloured with our present woes,

• May still grow white, and smile with happier hours.
•   So the pure limpid stream, when foul with stains
• Of rushing torrents and descending rains,
• Works itself clear, and as it runs, refines;
• Till, by degrees, the floating mirror shines,

• Reflects each flower that on the border grows,
• And a new heaven in its fair bosom shows.  [Exeunt.]

ACT II —

[34. ]Inward, inner, hidden.