Page:Dramas 1.pdf/443

PORTIA.

That noble mind! and must it then be ruin'd?

O save him, save him, father! Brave Orceres,
Wilt thou not save thy friend, the noble Maro?

ORCERES.

We will, sweet maid, if it be possible.

We'll keep his faith a secret in our breasts,
And he may yet, if not by circumstances
Provok'd to speak, conceal it from the world.

PORTIA.

And you, my father?

SULPICIUS.

I will not betray him.

PORTIA.

Then all may yet be well; for our great gods,

Whom Cæsar and his subject-nations worship,
Will not abandon Rome's best, bravest soldier
To power demoniac. That can never be,
If they indeed regard us.

ORCERES.

Were he in Parthia, our great god, the sun,

Or rather he who in that star resides,
Would not permit his power to be so thwarted,
For all the demonry that e'er exerted
Its baleful influence on wretched men.
Beshrew me! for a thought gleams thro' my brain
It is this God, perhaps, with some new name,
Which these bewilder'd Nazarenes adore.