Cato, a Tragedy

Cato, a Tragedy takes place in Utica, Tunisia, in the African kingdom of Numidia, during Julius Caesar’s reign over the Roman Republic. Two brothers, Portius and Marcus, enter and say that it is an “important day, big with the fate / Of Cato [their father] and Rome” (5). The two men lament Caesar’s tyrannical reign, saying he has “ravaged more than half the globe” (5), and ask what their father Cato, who fled to Utica and now there directs a “feeble army, and an empty senate,” can do to stop him (6). Marcus, however, is also thinking of his other griefs, telling Portius of his “successless love” with a woman named Lucia (6). In an aside, Portius reveals that he is in love with Lucia as well, saying, “Thou see’st not that thy brother is thy rival; / But I must hide it for I know thy temper” (6).

Marcus is asking Portius why he does not feel more badly for his blight when the senator Sempronius enters. Sempronius immediately reveals in an aside that he does not like Portius and must lie about his intentions: “I like not that cold youth. I must […] speak a language foreign to my heart” (7). Portius tells Sempronius that Cato has called the senate to determine if he can oppose Caesar, and Sempronius praises Cato, calling him a “wond’rous man” (8). Sempronius also tells Portius that he is in love with Portius’s sister Marcia, which Portius dismisses, telling him it is not the time to “talk of love” when Cato’s life is threatened by Caesar (8). Sempronius says that “the world has all its eyes” on Portius as Cato’s son, and Portius leaves to “animate the soldiers” and inspire them to go to war against Caesar (8).

After Portius leaves, Sempronius immediately criticizes him and his family, saying in a soliloquy that Cato has “used me ill” by refusing to let him marry Marcia, and that he intends to ally himself with Caesar, whose favor “will raise me / To Rome’s first honours” (9). “If I give up Cato, / I claim, in my reward, his captive daughter,” Sempronius says (9).

Syphax, a Numidian Sempronius described as “well disposed to mischief,” then enters, and the two scheme against Cato, against whom Syphax has been rallying soldiers (9). Sempronius asks if Syphax has been able to convince the young African prince Juba to ally with them over Cato, because “Juba’s surrender […] would give up [Africa] into Caesar’s hands,” but Syphax says the prince is still devoted to Cato (10). The two discuss the upcoming senate meeting, and Sempronius says he will “conceal / My thoughts in passion” and pretend to be on Cato’s side, while Syphax says he will attempt to persuade Juba again (10).

Juba enters at this point and talks with Syphax, revealing that he, like Sempronius, also is in love with Marcia. Referencing the death of Juba’s father, Syphax tells Juba to “abandon Cato” (12) to save himself by “fly[ing] from the fate that follows Caesar’s foes” (13). Syphax also tries to convince Juba to get over Marcia, but he refuses, and when Marcia and Lucia enter, Syphax laments that Marcia “with a single glance, / [Will] undo what I’ve been lab’ring all this while” (14).

As Juba and Marcia talk, he declares his love for her, but she criticizes him, saying, “My father never, at a time like this, / Would lay out his great soul in words, and waste such precious moments” (15). Juba goes to battle, promising that he will be thinking of her. Lucia criticizes Marcia for being “too severe,” and Marcia says she must be, as she must “swallow up her other cares” when her father’s life is at stake (16). Lucia confesses to Marcia that she also has “conflict” in her love life because of Marcia’s brothers, Marcus and Portius (16). Lucia is in love with Portius but worries about Marcus’s “vehemence of temper,” and says that Portius “falls in tears before me” because he is so afraid of how Marcus will respond to their love (17). Marcia tells Lucia that the two women must not “aggravate our sorrows” and should “to the gods submit the event of things” and hope for happier times (17).