Horace, a French tragedy of Monsieur Corneille Englished by Charles Cotton, esq.

SONG.

(1.)

TO Arms! to Arms! the Heroes cry, A glorious Death, or Victory. Beauty and Love, although combin'd, And each so powerful alone, Cannot prevail against a mind Bound up in resolution. Tears their weak influence vainly prove, Nothing the daring breast can move Honour is blind, and deaf, ev'n deaf to love.

(2.)

The Field! the Field! where Valour bleeds, Spurn'd into dust by barbed steeds, Instead of wanton Beds of Down Is now the Scene where they must try, To overthrow, or be o'rethrown; Bravely to overcome, or dye. Honour in her interest sits above What Beauty, Prayers, or tears can move: Were there no Honour, there would be no Love.

CHORVS.

HOw prone are people tir'd with Peace, To nauseate their happiness? And headlong into mischief run, To feed their foul ambition!

Leasure and Luxury, when met In populous Cities, do beget That Monster War, which at the first, In little private discords nurst, Grows higher by degrees, until Having got power to his will, He brake into a general flame, Beyond what Politie can tame. No int'rest then escapeth feer From insolence, and cruelty; And facts that flow from brutish lust▪ The titles wear of great and just. Nay when Wars ensigns are display'd, It is Religion to invade, No matter whom, nor what the cause; Nor is there room for other Laws, Than what the Victor will on those His riots have subdu'd, impose. Yet there have still pretences been The vilest practices to skreen. There never wanted a pretence To violate suff'ring innocence; Though whatsoever men pretend, Wealth, and Dominion are their end. Imperious Rome! must Alba feel The edge of thy invading Steel? Alba thy Mother, from whose womb, Thy Founder Romulus did come? Or if thou tak'st an impious pride To be esteem'd a Parricide, Can nothing satiate thy will, Vnless that Brothers, Brothers kill? Deluded Heroes! how they fly To meet a cruel Destiny, And sacrifice themselves to Fame, A nothing, a meer airy name, When in th' unnatural contests Who conquer'd falls is happiest!

'Tis Tyrant Honour unto thee We owe this bloody Tragedy, Whom, but the vertuous none obey, And being so, become thy prey. They see in thy deluding glass Trophies and Triumphs, when, alas! 'Tis their own blood they haste to shed, And live, but to lament the Dead. Deaf unto Piety, and Love, The Combatants are gone to prove Themselves true Patriots, when they are The instruments of Civil War, And hazard in a Combat more, Than in a Battel heretofore. Fate holds the balance whilst they fight, And finds both scales of equal weight; Valour with Valour even weighs Honour with Honour, Praise with Praise; But when she lays upon the beam Her partial hand, and varies them, Then one scale gets it, whilst on high, The other kicks and knocks the Sky.