This page has been validated.
12
CATO.
Syph.Gods! where's the worth that sets this people up
Above your own Numidia's tawny sons?
Do they with tougher sinews bend the bow?
Or flies the jav'lin swifter to its mark,
Launch'd from the vigour of a Roman arm?
Who like our active African instructs
The fiery steed, and trains him to his hand?
Or guides in troops th' embattled elephant,
Loaden with war? these, these are arts, my Prince,
In which your Zama does not stoop to Rome.
Jub.These all are virtues of a meaner rank,
Perfections that are plac'd in bones and nerves.
A Roman soul is bent on higher views:
To civilize the rude unpolish'd world,
And lay it under the restraint of laws;
To make man mild, and sociable to man;
To cultivate the wild licentious savage
With wisdom, discipline, and lib'ral arts;
Th' embellishments of life: virtues like these,
Make human nature shine, reform the soul,
And break our fierce barbarians into men.
Syph.Patience, kind heav'ns!—Excuse an old man's warmth.
What are these wondrous civilizing arts,
This Roman polish, and this smooth behaviour,
That render man thus tractable and tame?
Are they not only to disguise our passions,
To set our looks at variance with our thoughts,
To check the starts and sallies of the soul,
And break off all its commerce with the tongue;
In short, to change us into other creatures,
Than what our nature and the gods design'd us?
Jub.To strike thee dumb: turn up thy eyes to Cato!
There may'st thou see to what a godlike height
The Roman virtues lift up mortal man.
While good, and just, and anxious for his friends,
He's still severely bent against himself;
Renouncing sleep, and rest, and food, and ease,
He strives with thirst and hunger, toil and heat;
And when his fortune sets before him all
The pomps and pleasures that his soul can wish,
His rigid virtue will accept of none.
Above your own Numidia's tawny sons?
Do they with tougher sinews bend the bow?
Or flies the jav'lin swifter to its mark,
Launch'd from the vigour of a Roman arm?
Who like our active African instructs
The fiery steed, and trains him to his hand?
Or guides in troops th' embattled elephant,
Loaden with war? these, these are arts, my Prince,
In which your Zama does not stoop to Rome.
Jub.These all are virtues of a meaner rank,
Perfections that are plac'd in bones and nerves.
A Roman soul is bent on higher views:
To civilize the rude unpolish'd world,
And lay it under the restraint of laws;
To make man mild, and sociable to man;
To cultivate the wild licentious savage
With wisdom, discipline, and lib'ral arts;
Th' embellishments of life: virtues like these,
Make human nature shine, reform the soul,
And break our fierce barbarians into men.
Syph.Patience, kind heav'ns!—Excuse an old man's warmth.
What are these wondrous civilizing arts,
This Roman polish, and this smooth behaviour,
That render man thus tractable and tame?
Are they not only to disguise our passions,
To set our looks at variance with our thoughts,
To check the starts and sallies of the soul,
And break off all its commerce with the tongue;
In short, to change us into other creatures,
Than what our nature and the gods design'd us?
Jub.To strike thee dumb: turn up thy eyes to Cato!
There may'st thou see to what a godlike height
The Roman virtues lift up mortal man.
While good, and just, and anxious for his friends,
He's still severely bent against himself;
Renouncing sleep, and rest, and food, and ease,
He strives with thirst and hunger, toil and heat;
And when his fortune sets before him all
The pomps and pleasures that his soul can wish,
His rigid virtue will accept of none.
Syph.
