defence. _Scene 2._--Ferrex's misguided precautions having been
maliciously represented to Porrex as directed against his power, that
prince resolves upon an immediate invasion of his brother's realm.

_Act III._--The news of these counter-moves and of the imminent
probability of bloodshed is reported to the king. To restore the courage
of the despairing Gorboduc is now the labour of his counsellors, but the
later announcement of the death of Ferrex casts him lower than before.
At this point the Chorus, recalling the murder of a cousin in an earlier
generation of the royal race, points, in true Aeschylean fashion, to the
hatred of an unsated revenge behind this latest blow:

Thus fatal plagues pursue the guilty race,
Whose murderous hand, imbru'd with guiltless blood,
Asks vengeance still before the heaven's face,
With endless mischiefs on the cursed brood.

_Act IV, Scene 1._--Videna alone, in words of passionate vehemence,
laments that she has lived so long to see the death of Ferrex, renounces
his brother as no child of hers, and concludes with a threat of
vengeance. _Scene 2._--Bowed down with remorse, Porrex makes his defence
before the king, pleading the latter's own act, in dividing the kingdom,
as the initial cause of the ensuing disaster. Before he has been long
gone from his father's presence, Marcella, a lady-in-waiting, rushes
into the room, in wild disorder and grief, to report his murder at his
mother's hand. In anguished words she tells how, stabbed by Videna in
his sleep, he started up and, spying the queen by his side, called to
her for help, not crediting that she, his mother, could be his
murderess. Again, in tones of solemn warning, the Chorus reminds the
audience that