Cato, a Tragedy

Act III begins with Marcus and Portius talking in a chamber. Portius insists on their friendship having “severest virtue for its basis,” and Marcus asks him to “indulge me but in love,” bringing up his anguish over his love for Lucia (33). Marcus begs Portius to tell Lucia of his love for her, but Portius refuses and feels conflicted because of his own feelings. “If I disclose my passion, / Our friendship’s at an end: if I conceal it, / The world will call me false to a friend and brother,” he says in an aside (34). Lucia enters after Marcus leaves, and she and Portius talk of Marcus’s love. Lucia explains that she and Portius cannot be together because she sees “thy sister’s tears, / Thy father’s anguish, and thy brother’s death, / In the pursuit of our ill-fated love” (35). Lucia bids Portius goodbye, and though he fights back in an attempt to still have her, he admits he “must approve the sentence that destroys me” (36).

After Lucia leaves, Marcus enters, and Portius tells him that Lucia “compassionates your pains, and pities you,” rather than loves him (37). Marcus lashes out at Portius in anger, though he quickly apologizes for his temper. The two hear a shout “big with the sounds of war” (38). They get ready for battle, with Marcus hoping for “some glorious cause to fall in battle” and escape his broken heart (38). Portius is also excited, saying that his heart “leaps at the trumpet’s voice, and burns for glory” (38).

In Scene 2, Sempronius enters the senate hall with other leaders of the mutiny he’s leading, promising that they will be safe. As Cato enters, a leader tells the men that they must “bear up boldly to him” with a plan to “beat him down, and bind him fast” (39). When Cato arrives, though, the men instead “stand astonish’d” (39). Cato realizes that the men have conspired against him and lashes out at them, and Sempronius realizes that “all is lost” (40). Cato asks the men to “give up yon leaders” and orders that they be put to death (40). Sempronius volunteers to oversee it himself. Though the men initially still see Sempronius as an ally, Sempronius’s intention to punish the men is genuine, and he orders that the guards take them away and “drag them forth to sudden death” (41). He says that when “paltry slaves” decide to be treasonous, if it fails, “they’re sure to die like dogs, as you shall do” (41).

Syphax then enters and declares that though their first plan has “proved abortive,” “still there remains an after-game to play” (41). He vows to gather his troops and attack a gate where Marcus keeps his army, “hew[ing] down all that would oppose our passage” on their way to Caesar’s camp (42). Sempronius laments that he will be leaving Marcia behind and cannot enter her chambers, because admission is only given to Juba, Marcus, and Portius. Syphax suggests that Sempronius disguise himself as Juba and “hurry [Marcia] away by manly force” (42). Sempronius looks forward to making Marcia “my own” and watching her “struggling in my arms” with “fear and anger” (42).