Cato, a Tragedy

Act II begins at the Roman senate in Utica, as Cato addresses the senators and asks them to give their thoughts on Caesar’s approach. He asks whether they should “fight it to the last” or if their “hearts [are] subdued […] to a submission” (18). Sempronius responds that they must go to war and “attack” Caesar’s troops, while Lucius, another senator, disagrees, as there has already been so much bloodshed. “‘Tis time to sheath the sword, and spare mankind,” he says (19). Cato insists that they should not go to either extreme, saying that “immod’rate valour swells into a fault” and “fear, admitted into public councils, betrays like treason” (19). Cato instead thinks they should prepare for war and “wait […] till Caesar’s near approach / Force us to yield” to “draw [Rome’s] term of freedom out” (19). He says that if he perishes, “A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty, / Is worth a whole eternity in bondage” (20).

At this point Decius, a messenger for Caesar, enters with an offer of friendship for Cato that would spare his life. Cato refuses and talks of Caesar’s tyranny and lack of virtue.