hee in life and death together.

YOUNG MARIUS. Words full of worth, beseeming noble minds:
The very balsamum to mend my woes.
O countrymen! you see Campania spoil'd;
A tyrant threat'ning mutinies in Rome;
A world despoil'd of virtue, faith, and trust.
If then, no peace, no liberty, no faith,
Conclude with me, and let it be no life!
Live not to see your tender infants slain;
These stately towers made level with the land;
This body mangled by our enemy's sword:
But full resolv'd to do as Marius doth,
Unsheathe your poniards, and let every friend
Bethink him of a soldier-like farewell.
Sirrah, display my standard on the walls,
And I will answer yond Lucretius:
Who loveth Marius, now must die with Marius!

LUCRETIUS. What answer will your lordship then return us?

YOUNG MARIUS. Lucretius, we that know what Sylla is--
How dissolute, how trothless and corrupt,
In brief conclude to die, before we yield:
But so to die--Lucretius, mark me well--
As loth to see the fury of our swords
Should murther friends and Roman citizens.
Fie, countrymen! what fury doth infect
Your warlike bosoms, that were wont to fight
With foreign foes, not with Campanian friends.
Now unadvised youth must counsel eld;
For governance is banish'd out of Rome.
Woe to that bough, from whence these blooms are sprung!
Woe to that Aetna, vomiting this fire!
Woe to that brand, consuming country's weal!
Woe to that Sylla, careless and secure,
That gapes with murder for a monarchy!
Go, second Brutus, with a Roman mind,
And kill that tyrant. And for Marius' sake,
Pity the guiltless wives of these your friends.
Preserve their weeping infants from the sword,
Whose fathers seal their honours with their bloods.
Farewell, Lucretius: first I press in place [_Stab_.
To let thee see a constant Roman die.
Praenestians, lo, a wound, a fatal wound!
The pain but small, the glory passing great!
Praenestians, see a second stroke! why so; [_Again_.
I feel the dreeping dimness of the night,
Closing the coverts of my careful eyes.
Follow me, friends; for Marius now must die
With fame, in spite of Sylla's tyranny.[158]
[_Moritur_.

1ST CITIZEN. We follow thee our chieftain even in death.
Our town is thine, Lucretius; but we pray
For mercy for our children and our wives.
[_Moritur_.

2D CITIZEN. O, save my son, Lucretius; let him live.
[_Morit