University of Virginia Library

SCÆNA 2.

Ino.
Your servant Captains. Sir, pray a word with you.

Pl.
Prethee be short, Inophilus, thou knowst my business:

Ino.
Sir, I am mad to see your tameness:
A man bound up by Magick is not so still as you,
Nothing was ever precipitated thus,
And yet refus'd to see its ruine.

Pl.
Thou art tedious, I shal not tarry.

Ino.
You are made General.

Pl.
I know it:

Ino.
Against the Argives.

Pl.
So.

Ino.
With 13000 men, no more Sir.

Pl.
I am glad on't, the honour is the greater:

Ino.
The danger is the greater; You will be kill'd sir,
And lose your Army.

Pl.
Is this all, I care not.

Ino.
But so do I, and so do all your friends.
I smell a Rat sir, there's jugling in this business,
I am as confident of it as I am alive.
The King might within this twenty four hours
Have had peace on fair conditions.

Pl.
(But dishonourable

In.
And would not. On a sudden useth the Ambassadors scurvily
And provokes the Argives, yet himself in no posture
Of defence.

Pl.
But—

Ino.
Pray give me leave sir,
After this you are on a sudden created General,
And packt away with a crowd of unhewn fellows,
Whose courage hangs as loose about them
As a sluts petticoats. Sir, he had other spirits
In the Court created for such perils;
Excuse me, I know you fear not to meet destruction,
But where men are sure to perish,
'Twere well the persons were of less concernment.
He might have let you stay'd till you had gather'd
An Army fit for your Command, and sent
Some petty things upon this expedition,
Whose loss would have been nothing, and of whom
It might have been recorded in our story
As an honour, that they dyed Monuments
Of the Kings folly. But let that pass;
You'l say perhaps, you only have a spirit
Fit for such undertakings—I wish you had not,
Your want then would not be half so grievous.
But heres the prodigy, you must fight them presently.
Come, 'tis a project put into the Kings head
By some who have a plot on you and him.

Pl.
It may be so, Inophilus, and I beleeve
All this is true you tell me, and it might startle
A man were less resolvd then I.
But danger and I have been too long acquainted
To shun a meeting now; I am engag'd,
And cannot any wayes come off with reputation.
Hadst told me this before, perhaps I might have thought on't:
And yet I should not neither.
If the King thinks I am grown dangerous,
'Tis all one to me which way he takes me from his fears,
He could not do it handsomer then thus;
It makes less noise now.—
But come, I must not fear such things, Inophilus:
The King hath more vertue and honour then
To do these actions, fit only for guilty souls;
Nor must I fear when my Inophilus fights by me.

Ino.
Troth Sir, for all your complement,
If you have no valour but what ows it self to my company,
Your'e like to make cold breakfast of your enemies:
I have other business then to throw away
My life, when there is so much odds against it:
Ile stay at home, and pray for you, that's all Sir.

Pl.
How! wilt not go then, Inophilus?

Ino.
The time hath been
I thought it better sport
To bustle through a bristly grove of Pikes.
When I have courted rugged danger with
Hotter desires then handsome faces,
And thought no women half so beautiful
As bloody gaping wounds:
But sir, to go and cast away my self now,
Would not be gallant, nor an action worth my envy:
'Tis weakness to make those that seek
My ruine, laugh at my folly with jaws stretcht wider
Then the Gulph that swallows us.
I know when honour calls me, and when treason
Counterfeits her voice.

Pl.
Well, stay at home and freeze,
And lose all sense of glory in a Mistress arms.
Go perish tamely, drunk with sin and peace,
And mayst thou, since thou darest not dye with them,
Out-live thy noble friends.

Ino.
I thank you Sir, but I cannot be angry.