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The war loves danger, danger drink, drink dis- | (For understand them French beans, where the cipline,

Which is society and lechery;

These two beget commanders: Fear not, lady;

Thy son shall lead.

Jun. 'Tis a strange thing, Petillius,

That so ridiculous and loose a mirth Can master your affections.

Pet. Any mirth,

And any way, of any subject, Junius,

Is better than unmanly mustiness.

What harm is in drink? in a good wholesome wench?

I do beseech you, sir, what error? Yet

It cannot out of my head handsomely,

But thou wouldst fain be drunk: come, no more fooling;

The general has new wine, new come over.

fruits

Are ripened like the people, in old tubs)
For mine own part, I say, I am starved already,
Not worth another bean, consumed to nothing,
Nothing but flesh and bones left, miserable:
Now, if this musty provender can prick me
To honourable matters of atchievement, gentle-

men,

Why, there is the point.

4 Sold. I'll fight no more. Pet. You'll hang then!

A sovereign help for hunger. Ye eating rascals, Whose gods are beef and brewis! whose brave

angers

Do execution upon these, and chibbals!
Ye dog's heads in the porridge-pot! ye fight no
more?

Jun. He must have new acquaintance for it too, Does Rome depend upon your resolution

For I will none, I thank ye.

Pet. 'None, I thank you?

A short and touchy answer! 'None, I thank you?'

You do not scorn it, do you?

Jun. Gods defend you, sir!

I owe him still more honour.

Pet. None, I thank you?"

For eating mouldy pye-crust?

3 Sold. Would we had it!

Judas. I may do service, captain.

Pet. In a fish-market.

You, corporal Curry-comb, what will your fighting Profit the commonwealth? do you hope to triumph?

No company, no drink, no wench, 'I thank you?" Or dare your vamping valour, goodman Cobler,

You shall be worse entreated, sir.

Jun. Petillius,

As thou art honest, leave me!
Pet.None, I thank you?"

A modest and a decent resolution,

And well put on. Yes; I will leave you, Junius, And leave you to the boys, that very shortly Shall all salute you, by your new sirname,

Of Junius 'None I thank you." I would starve

now,

Hang, drown, despair, deserve the forks, lie open
To all the dangerous passes of a wench,
Bound to believe her tears, wed her aches,
Ere I would own thy follies. I have found you,
Your lays, and out-leaps, Junius, haunts, and
lodges;

I have viewed you, and I have found you, by my skill,

To be a fool of the first head, Junius,
And I will hunt you: You are in love, I know it;
You are an ass, and all the camp shall know it;
A peevish idle boy, your dame shall know it;
A wronger of my care, yourself shall know it.

Enter JUDAS and four Soldiers.

Judas. A bean? a princely diet, a full banquet, To what we compass.

1 Sold. Fight like hogs for acorns?

2. Sold. Venture our lives for pig-nuts?
Pet. What ail these rascals?

3 Sold. If this hold, we are starved.

Judas. For my part, friends,

Which is but twenty beans a day (a hard world For oficers, and men of action!),

And those so clipt by master mouse, and rotten

Clap a new sole to the kingdom? 'Sdeath, ye dog

whelps,

You fight, or not fight?
Judas. Captain!

Pet. Out, ye flesh-flies!

Nothing but noise and nastiness!
Judas. Give us meat,
Whereby we may do.

Pet. Whereby hangs your valour?
Judas. Good bits afford good blows.
Pet. A good position;

How long is it since thou eatest last? Wipe thy mouth,

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Judas. Alas, he lives by love, sir. [Exit Junius.
Pet. So he does, sir;

And cannot you do so too? All my company
Are now in love; ne'er think of meat, nor talk
Of what provant is: Ay me's! and hearty hey hoes!
Are sallads fit for soldiers. Live by meat?
By larding up your bodies? 'tis lewd, and lazy,
And shews ye merely mortal, dull, and drives ye
To fight like camels, with baskets at your noses.
Get ye in love! handsomely

Fall but in love now, as ye see example,

And follow it but with all your thoughts, probatum,

There is so much charge saved, and your hunger's ended. [Drum afar off. Away! I hear the general. Get ye in love all, Up to the ears in love, that I may hear

No more of these rude murmurings; and discreetly

Carry your stomachs, or I prophesy

A pickled rope will choke ye. Jog, and talk

not!

[Exeunt.

SCENE III.

Enter SUETONIUS, DEMETRIUS, DECIUS, drum and colours.

Suet. Demetrius, is the messenger dispatched To Penius, to command him to bring up The Volans regiment?

Dem. He is there by this time.

Suet. And are the horse well viewed, we brought from Mona?

Dec. The troops are full and lusty.

Suet. Good Petillius,

Look to those eating rogues, that bawl for victuals,

And stop their throats a day or two: Provision Waits but the wind to reach us.

Pet. Sir, already

I have been tampering with their stomachs, which I find

As deaf as adders to delays: Your clemency Hath made their murmurs, mutinies; nay rebellions;

Now, an they want but mustard, they are in uproars!

No oil but Candy, Lusitanian figs,

And wine from Lesbos, now can satisfy them; The British waters are grown dull and muddy, The fruit disgustful; Orontes must be sought for, And apples from the happy isles; the truth is, They are more curious now, in having nothing, Than if the sea and land turned up their trea

sures.

This lost the colonies, and gave Bonduca
(With shame we must record it) time and strength
To look into our fortunes; great discretion
To follow offered victory; and last, full pride
To brave us to our teeth, and scorn our ruins.

Suet. Nay, chide not, good Petillius! I confess
My will to conquer Mona, and long stay
To execute that will, let in these losses:
All shall be right again, and as a pine
Rent from Oeta by a sweeping tempest,
Jointed again, and made a mast, defies
Those angry winds, that split him; so will I,
Pieced to my never-failing strength and fortune,
Steer through these swelling dangers, plow their
prides up,

And bear like thunder through their loudest tempests. They keep the field still?

Dem. Confident and full.

Pet. In such a number, one would swear they grew :

The hills are wooded with their partizans,
And all the vallies overgrown with darts,
As moors are with rank rushes; no ground
left us

To charge upon, no room to strike. Say fortune
And our endeavours bring us into them,
They are so infinite, so ever-springing,
We shall be killed with killing of desperate

women,

That neither fear or shame e'er found, the devil Has ranked amongst them multitudes; say the men fail,

They'll poison us with their petticoats; say they fail, They have priests enough to pray us into nothing. Suet. These are imaginations, dreams of nothing; The man, that doubts or fears

Dec. I am free of both.
Dem. The self-same I.

Pet. And I as free as any;

As careless of my flesh, of that we call life,
So I may lose it nobly, as indifferent

As if it were my diet. Yet, noble general,
It was a wisdom learned from you, I learned it,
And worthy of a soldier's care, most worthy,
To weigh with most deliberate circumstance
The ends of accidents, above their offers;
How to go on and get; to save a Roman,
Whose one life is more worth in way of doing,
Than millions of these painted wasps; how, view-
ing,

To find advantage out; how, found, to follow it
With counsel and discretion, lest mere fortune
Should claim the victory.

Suet. 'Tis true, Petillius,

And worthily remembered: The rule is certain,
Their uses no less excellent; but where time
Cuts off occasions, danger, time and all
Tend to a present peril, 'tis required

Our swords and manhoods be best counsellors,
Our expeditions, precedents. To win is nothing,
Where Reason, Time, and Counsel are our
camp-masters;

But there to bear the field, then to be conquerors,
Where pale destruction takes us, takes us beaten,
In wants and mutinies, ourselves but handfulls,
And to ourselves our own fears, needs a new way,
A sudden and a desperate execution:
Here, how to save, is loss; to be wise, dangerous;
Only a present well-united strength,
And minds made up for all attempts, dispatch it:
Disputing and delay here cool the courage;
Necessity gives time for doubts; (things infinite,
According to the spirit they are preached to :)
Rewards like them, and names for after-ages,
Must steel the soldier, his own shame help to
arm him:

And having forced his spirit, ere he cools,
Fling him upon his enemies; sudden and swift,
Like tigers amongst foxes, we must fight for it:
Fury must be our fortune; shame, we have lost,
Spurs ever in our sides to prick us forward:
Thre is no other wisdom nor discretion

Due to this day of ruin, but destruction; The soldier's order first, and then his anger. Dem. No doubt they dare redeem all. Suet. Then no doubt

The day must needs be ours. That the proud

woman

Is infinite in number better likes me,
Than if we dealt with squadrons; half her army
Shall choke themselves, their own swords dig their
graves.

I'll tell ye all my fears; one single valour,
The virtues of the valiant Caratach,

More doubts me than all Britain: He's a soldier
So forged out, and so tempered for great fortunes,
So much man thrust into him, so old in dangers,
So fortunate in all attempts, that his mere name
Fights in a thousand men, himself in millions,
To make him Roman: But no more. Petillius,
How stands your charge?

Pet. Ready for all employments,
To be commanded too, sir.

Suet. 'Tis well governed;

To-morrow we'll draw out, and view the cohorts:
In the mean time, all apply their offices.
Where's Junius?

Pet. In his cabin, sick of the mumps, sir.
Suet. How?

Pet. In love, indeed in love, most lamentably loving,

To the tune of Queen Dido.

Dec. Alas, poor gentleman!

Suet. 'Twill make him fight the nobler. . With what lady?

I'll be a spokesman for him.
Pet. You'll scant speed, sir.

Suet. Who is it?

Pet. The devil's dam, Bonduca's daughter, Her youngest, cracked in the ring.

Suet. I'm sorry for him:

But sure his own discretion will reclaim him;
He must deserve our anger else. Good captains,
Apply yourselves in all the pleasing forms
Ye can, unto the soldiers; fire their spirits,
And set them fit to run this action;
Mine own provisions shall be shared amongst
them,

'Till more come in; tell them, if now they con

quer,

The fat of all the kingdom lies before them.
Their shames forgot, their honours infinite,
And want for ever banished. Two days hence,
Our fortunes, and our swords, and gods be for us!
[Exeunt.

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Pen. Set me to lead a handful of my men Against an hundred thousand barbarous slaves, That have marched name by name with Rome's best doers?

Serve them up some other meat; I'll bring no
food

To stop the jaws of all those hungry wolves;
My regiment's mine own. I must, iny language?
Enter CURIUS.

Cur. Penius, where lies the host?
Pen. Where fate may find them.
Cur. Are they ingirt?

Pen. The battle's lost.

Cur. So soon?

Pen. No; but 'tis lost, because it must be won;
The Britons must be victors. Whoever saw
A troop of bloody vultures hovering
About a few corrupted carcasses,
Let him behold the silly Roman host,
Girded with millions of fierce Britain's swains,
With deaths as many as they have had hopes;
And then go thither, he that loves his shame!
I scorn my life, yet dare not lose my name.

Cur. Do not you hold it a most famous end,
When both our names and lives are sacrificed
For Rome's encrease?

Pen. Yes, Curius; but mark this too:
What glory is there, or what lasting fame
Can be to Rome or us, what full example,
When one is smothered with a multitude,
And crowded in amongst a nameless press?
Honour got out of flint, and on their heads
Whose virtues, like the sun, exhaled all vapours,
Must not be lost in mists and fogs of people,

Room for his execution? what air to cool us,
But poisoned with their blasting breaths and

curses,

Where we lie buried quick above the ground, And are with labouring sweat, and breathless pain,

Killed like to slaves, and cannot kill again?

Drus. Penius, mark antient wars, and know, that then

A captain weighed an hundred thousand men,
Pen. Drusius, mark antient wisdom, and you'll
find then,

He gave the overthrow, that saved his men.
I must not go.

Reg. The soldiers are desirous,
Their eagles all drawn out, sir.

Pen. Who drew up? Regulus?
Ha? speak! did you? whose bold will durst at-
tempt this?

Drawn out? why, who commands, sir? on whose

warrant

Durst they advance?

Reg. I keep mine own obedience.

Drus, Tis like the general cause, their love of honour,

Relieving of their wants

Pen. Without my knowledge?

Am I no more? my place but at their pleasures?
Come, who did this?"

Drus. By heaven, sir, I am ignorant.

[Drum softly within, then enter Soldiers, with drum and colours.

Pen. What! am I grown a shadow?— Hark! they march.

I'll know, and will be myself. Stand! Disobe-
dience?

He, that advances one foot higher, dies for it.
Run through the regiment, upon your duties,
And charge them, on command, beat back again;
By heaven, I'll tithe them all else!

Reg. We'll do our best. [Exe. Drus. and Reg.
Pen. Back! cease your bawling drums there!
I'll beat the tubs about your brains else. Back!
Do I speak with less fear than thunder to ye?
Must I stand to beseech ye? Home, home!-Ha!
D'ye stare upon me? Are those minds I moulded,
Those honest valiant tempers I was proud
To be a fellow to, those great discretions
Made your names feared and honoured, turned
to wildfires?

Oh, gods, to disobedience? Command, farewell!

Noteless, and out of name, both rude and naked :: And ye be witness with me, all things sacred,

Nor can Rome task us with impossibilities,
Or bid us fight against a flood; we serve her,
That she may proudly say she has good soldiers,
Not slaves to choke all hazards. Who but fools,
That make no difference betwixt certain dying,
And dying well, would thing their faines and for-
tudes

Into this Britain gulf, this quicksand ruin,
That, sinking, swallows us? what noble hand
Can find a subject fit for blood there? or what
sword

I have no share in these mens' shames! March,
soldiers,

And seek your own sad ruins; your old Penius
Dares not behold your murders.

1 Sold. Captain!

2 Sold. Captain!

3 Sold. Dear, honoured captain!
Pen. Too, too dear-loved soldiers,

Which made ye weary of me, and heaven yet

knows,

Though in your mutinics, I dare not hate you;

Take your own wills! 'tis fit your long experience | Of what strange violence, that, like the plague, Should now know how to rule yourselves;

wrong ye,

In wishing ye to save your lives and credits,

To keep your necks whole from the axe hangs o'er ye:

Alas, I much dishonoured ye; go, seek the Britons,

And say ye come to glut their sacrifices;

But do not say I sent ye. What ye have been,
How excellent in all parts, good, and governed,
Is only left of my command, for story;
What now ye are, for pity. Fare ye well!

Enter DRUSIUS and REGULUS.

Drus. Oh, turn again, great Penius! see the soldier

In all points apt for duty.

Reg. See his sorrow

For his disobedience, which he says was haste, And haste, he thought, to please you with. See, captain,

The toughness of his courage turned to water; See how his manly heart melts.

Pen. Go; beat homeward;

There learn to eat your little with obedience; And henceforth strive to do as I direct ye. Macer. My answer, sir. [Exeunt soldiers.

Pen. Tell the great general, My companies are no faggots to fill breaches; Myself no man that must, or shall, can carry : Bid him be wise, and where he is, he's safe then; And when he finds out possibilities,

He may command me. Commend me to the cap

tains.

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It works upon our spirits? Blind they feign him; I'm sure, I find it so

Pet. A dog shall lead you.

Jun. His fond affections blinder
Pet. Hold you there still?
Jun. It takes away my sleep-
Pet. Alas, poor
chicken!

Jun. My company, content, almost my fashion

Pet. Yes, and your weight too, if you follow it. Jun. 'Tis sure the plague, for no man dare

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That wanton fools call fashion, thus abuse me? Take me beyond my reason? Why should not I Doat on my horse well trapt, iny sword well hatched?

They are as handsome things, to me more useful, And possible to rule too. Did I but love,

Yet 'twere excusable, my youth would bear it; But to love there, and that no time can give me, Mine honour dare not ask (she has been ravished), My nature must not know (she hates our nation), Thus to dispose my spirit!

Pet. Stay a little; he will declaim again.

Jun. I will not love! I am a man, have reason, And I will use it; I'll no more tormenting, Nor whining for a wench; there are a thousand

Pet. Hold thee there, boy!

Jun. A thousand will entreat me.

Pet. Ten thousand, Junius.

Jun. I am young and lusty,

And to my fashion valiant. I will be man again.

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