DRAMATIC SCENES. 213 



CONSUL. Lictors, drive the traitor from the temple ! 

 CAT. *' Traitor!' I go but I return. This trial! 

 Here I devote your Senate ! I've had wrongs, 

 To stir a fever in the blood of age, 

 Or make the infant's sinew strong as steel. 

 This day's the birth of sorrows ! This hour's work 



Will breed proscriptions Look to your hearths, my 



For there henceforth shall sit, for household gods, [lords 1 

 Shapes hot from Tartarus ! all shames and crimes ; 

 Wan Treachery with his thirsty dagger drawn ; 

 Suspicion poisoning the brother's cup; 

 Naked Rebellion with the torch and axe, 

 Making his wild sport of your blazing thrones ; 

 Till anarchy comes down on you like night, 

 And massacre seals Rome's eternal grave ! 



[The SENATORS rise and cry out, 

 Go, enemy and parricide, from Rome ! 



CAT. fit shall be so ! (Going. He suddenly 



returns.) When Catiline comes again, 

 Your grandeur shall be base, and clowns shall sit 

 In scorn upon those chairs ; Your palaces 

 Shall see the soldier's revels, and your wealth 

 Shall go to deck his harlot and his horse. 



Then Cicero, and his tools, shall pay me blood 



Vengeance for every drop of my boy's veins ; 

 And such of you as cannot find the grace 

 To die with swords in your right hands, shall feel 

 The life, life worse than death, of trampled slaves ! 



{The SENATORS cry out, 

 Go, enemy and parricide, from Rome ! 



Cic. Expel him, lictors ! Clear the senate house ! 



[The Lictors approach /iiro.] 

 CAT. I go, but not to leap the gulf alone : 

 I go ; but when I come 'twill be the burst 

 Of ocean in the earthquake rolling back 

 In swift and mountainous ruin. Fare you well ! 

 You build my funeral pile ; but your best blood 

 Shall quench its flame. Back, slaves ! [Yo the Lictors.'] 

 I will return ! [He rushes out.~] CROLY. 



* Catiline here becomes perfectly furiaus, and continues so through- 

 out; the tone of voice is hurried, while the eye sparkles with rage. 

 | With the greatest indignation. 



