No More Learning

What
Your object?

_I. Ber_. Freedom!

_Ben_. You are brief, sir.

_I. Ber_. So my life grows: I
Was bred a soldier, not a senator.

_Ben_. Perhaps you think by this blunt brevity
To brave your judges to postpone the sentence?

_I. Ber_. Do you be brief as I am, and believe me,
I shall prefer that mercy to your pardon. 40

_Ben_.
Is this your sole reply to the Tribunal?

_I. Ber_. Go, ask your racks what they have wrung from us,
Or place us there again; we have still some blood left,
And some slight sense of pain in these wrenched limbs:
But this ye dare not do; for if we die there--
And you have left us little life to spend
Upon your engines, gorged with pangs already--
Ye lose the public spectacle, with which
You would appal your slaves to further slavery!
Groans are not words, nor agony assent, 50
Nor affirmation Truth, if Nature's sense
Should overcome the soul into a lie,
For a short respite--must we bear or die?

_Ben_. Say, who were your accomplices?

_I. Ber_. The Senate.

_Ben_. What do you mean?

_I. Ber_. Ask of the suffering people,
Whom your patrician crimes have driven to crime.

_Ben_.