Banish me! Banish your dotage; banish usury, That makes the senate ugly.
Banish me?! Banish your foolishness; banish greed, That makes the senate disgusting.
Alcibiades · Act 3, Scene 5
Alcibiades has just been banished by the Senators for defending a friend in court, and now he turns their own language back on them. The line cuts because it refuses the victim's role and names the real corruption—not Alcibiades' crime, but the Senate's greed and senility. It tells us that in this world, those in power punish justice itself when it threatens their interests.
Most true; the law shall bruise him.
Absolutely right; the law will punish him.
Second Senator · Act 3, Scene 5
A Senator agrees with another that the law will punish a friend of Alcibiades who committed a crime, and nothing will stop that justice. The words carry weight because they assert the absolute power of law over friendship and mercy. They reveal that the Senators believe the law is a force that moves independently, crushing whoever stands in its way, and they take comfort in that certainty.
We are for law: he dies; urge it no more, On height of our displeasure: friend or brother, He forfeits his own blood that spills another.
We follow the law: he dies; don’t press it further, At the height of our anger: friend or brother, He loses his own life who takes another’s.
First Senator · Act 3, Scene 5
The First Senator declares that Athens stands for law above all else, and therefore the condemned man must die, and he forbids Alcibiades to press the matter further. The declaration is significant because it treats law as something beyond choice or mercy—a thing that moves on its own and drags everyone along. It tells us that in Athens, the machinery of state is more important than the lives of individual men, and once it begins to move, nothing can stop it.
