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SCENE VI - 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).

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


SCENE VI

Sempronius and the leaders of the mutiny.

1st Leader

  • Sempronius, you have acted like yourself,
  • One would have thought you had been half in earnest.

Sempronius

  • Villain, stand off! base, grovelling, worthless wretches,
  • Mongrels in faction, poor faint-hearted traitors!

2nd Leader

  • Nay, now you carry it too far, Sempronius;
  • Throw off the mask, there are none here but friends.

Sempronius

  • Know, villains, when such paltry slaves presume
  • To mix in treason, if the plot succeeds,
  • They’re thrown neglected by: but if it fails,
  • They’re sure to die like dogs, as you shall do.
  • Here, take these factious monsters, drag ’em forth
  • To sudden death.

Sempronius

  • Despatch ’em quick, but first pluck out their tongues,
  • Lest with their dying breath they sow sedition.