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To know from you, without a hand or head,
Such as to us hath been our Dionysius,
What now were our most likely fate?
Damon. The fate

Of freemen in the full; free exercise
Of all the noble rights that freemen love!
Free in our streets to walk; free in our councils

To speak and act.

Phil. I do entreat you, senators,

Protect me from this scolding demagogue,

And let us win your

Damon. Demagogue, Philistius!

Who was the demagogue, when at my challenge
He was denounced and silenced by the senate,
And your scant oratory spent itself

In fume and vapor?

Dam.

Silence, Damon, silence!

And let the council use its privilege.

Damon. Who bids me silence?

Damocles, the soft

And pliant willow, Damocles !-But come,

What do you dare propose? Come, I'll be silent.-
Go on.

Phil. Resolve you then, is Dionysius

This head indeed to us? Acting for us-
Yea, governing, that long have proved we cannot,
Although we feign it, govern for ourselves?
Dam. Then who so fit, in such extremity,
To be the single pillar, on whose strength
All power should rest?

Phil. Ay, and what needs the state
Our crowded and contentious councils here?
And therefore, senators,-countrymen, rather,

That we may be wiser, and better ruled

Than by ourselves we are; that the state's danger
May be confronted boldly, and that he

May have but his just meed, I do submit

That forthwith we dissolve ourselves, and choose
A king in Dionysius.

Damon. King! a king?

First Sen. I do approve it.

Second Sen. Ay, and I.
Dam. And all!

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A nation's right betrayed,

And all content! O slaves! O parricides !
O, by the brightest hope a just man has,

I blush to look around and call you men!
What! with your own free willing hands yield up
The ancient fabric of your constitution,

To be a garrison, a common barrack,

A common guard house, and for common cut throats!
What will ye all combine to tie a stone
Each to each other's necks, and drown like dogs
Within the tide of time, and never float

To after ages, or at best, but float

A buoyant pestilence? Can ye but dig

Your own dark graves, creep into them, and die!

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Damon. O! thanks for these few voices! but alas!
How lonely do they sound! Do you not all
Start up at once, and cry out liberty?

Are you so bound in fetters of the mind,
That there you sit as if you were yourselves
Incorporate with the marble? Syracusans!-
But, no! I will not rail, nor chide, nor curse ye!
I will implore you, fellow countrymen ;

With blinded eyes, and weak and broken speech,
I will implore you.-O! I am weak in words,
But I could bring such advocates before you ;-
Your fathers' sacred images; old men

That have been grandsires; women with their children,
Caught up in fear and hurry, in their arms-

And those old men should lift their shivering voices,
And palsied hands-and those affrighted mothers
Should hold their innocent infants forth, and ask,

Could you make slaves of them?

Phil. I dissolve the senate

At its own vote and instance.

Dam. And all hail!

(Leaves his seat.)

Hail, Dionysius, king of Syracuse !

Dion. Is this the vote?

Damon. There is no vote!

Philistius,

Hold you your seat; keep in your places, senators.

Dion. I ask, is this the vote?

Phil. It is the vote,

My gracious liege and sovereign!

Damon. I say nay!

You have not voted, Naxillus, nor Petus-
Nor you, nor you, nor you.

Phil. In my capacity

As head and organ of the city council,
I do asseverate it is the vote!

(They all kneel to Dionysius, except Damon.)

Dion. I thank you, friends and countrymen, I thank ye!
Damon. O, all the gods, my country, O, my country!
Dion. And that we may have leisure to put on
With fitting dignity our garb of power,

We do now, first assuming our own right,
Command from this, that was the senate house,
Those rash, tumultuous men, who still would tempt
The city's peace with wild vociferation,

And vain contentious rivalry. Begone!
Damon. I stand

A senator within the senate house.

Dion. Traitor! and dost thou dare me to my face?
Damon. Traitor! to whom? to thee?-O, Syracuse,
Is this thy registered doom? To have no meaning
For the proud names of liberty and virtue,

But as some regal braggart sets it down

In his vocabulary? And the sense,

The broad, bright sense that nature hath assigned them
In her infallible volume, interdicted

For ever from thy knowledge; or if seen,

And known, and put in use, denounced as treasonable,
And treated thus ?-No, Dionysius, no!

I am no traitor! But in mine allegiance
To my lost country, I proclaim thee one!
Dion. My guards there! Ho!

Damon. What! hast thou then invoked

Thy satellites already? (Enter Procles and soldiers.)
Dion. Seize him!

(Damon rushes on Dionysius, and attempts to stab him.) Damon. First,

Receive a freeman's legacy!-(He is intercepted by Procles.) Dionysius,

Thy genius is triumphant, and old Syracuse

Bows her to the dust at last!-'Tis done; 'tis over,
And we are slaves forever!

Dion. We reserve

This proud assassinating demagogue,
Who whets his dagger on philosophy,

For an example to his cut throat school!—
The axe, and not the sword.

Out of his blood

We'll mix a cement to our monarchy.—

Here do we doom him to a public death!

Damon. Death's the best gift to one who never yet Wished to survive his country. Here are men

Fit for the life a tyrant can bestow!

Let such as these live on.

Dion. Hold thou there!

Lest having stirred our vengeance into wrath,
It reach unto those dearer than thyself.

Ha! have I touched thee, Damon? Is there a way
To level thee unto the feebleness

Of universal nature? What, no word?
Come, use thy time, my brave philosopher!
Soon will thy tongue cleave, an unmoving lump
Of thickest silence and oblivion,

And that same wide and sweeping hand of thine,
Used to the orator's high attitude,

Lie at thy side in inutility.

Thou hast few moments left!

Damon. I know thee well

Thou art wont to use thy tortures on the heart,
Watching its agonizing throbs, and making
A science of that fell anatomy!

These are thy bloody metaphysics-this

Thy barbarous philosophy.-I own

Thou hast struck thy venomed sting into my soul.

But while I am wounded, I despise thee still!

My wife! my child!-O, Dionysius,

Thou shouldst have spared me that!-Procles, lead on.

XX.-FROM ALASCO.-Shee.

ALASCO-CONRAD-MALINSKI-RIENSKI.

Rienski. Conrad, you are warm, and misconceive Malinski.

Engaged, as we are, in a noble cause,

Contention now were fatal to our hopes.

Conrad. Then let our conduct, like our cause, be noble. I do not seek contention, gentlemen!

Nor will I turn me from an honest course,
To shun it.

Malinski. Conrad, I perceive your aim;

'Tis to thwart me, that you would shield this Walsingham : He is no friend of yours.

Con. No. If he were,

And

you had marked him on your bloody scroll,

By heaven! my sword had soon effaced the record.
Rien. Why, then, are you so forward to defend him?
Con. Because I hate hypocrisy, and scorn

The artifice that covers base revenge.
Walsingham's a brave old soldier, and deserves
A better fate, than thus to be dispatched
By malice, in a muster roll of knaves.

Mal. Malice!

Con.

Yes, malice. I do not wear a mask,

Nor play the patriot for my private ends.

Dare you insinuate

Mal.

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Con. Yes, to be a knave is promotion for a fool,

And you should thank me for the title.

Mal. Gods!

Shall I bear this insolence! (Draws-the rest interfere to pre

vent him.)

Con. Nay, let him rage—

I have a specific here for his complaint, (Draws.)

That never failed me.

Rien. Gentlemen, for shame!

And Conrad, you—the soul of all our councils!
What discontents you, that in anger thus,

You flash upon your friends?

Con. Then, to be plain,

I do not like this process we are engaged in.

I am a soldier; and in way of trade,

Have seldom been thought squeamish with my foes,

When dealing face to face, and hand to hand ;

But in this cold blood game of policy,

To play with lives like counters, and to sit

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