SCENE III. The same.
[Enter Sir Arthur and Lucy.]
LUCY.
Sir, as I am a maid, I do affect
You above any suitor that I have,
Although that soldiers scarce knows how to love.
ARTHUR.
I am a soldier, and a gentleman,
Knows what belongs to war, what to a lady:
What man offends me, that my sword shall right:
What woman loves me, I am her faithful knight.
LUCY.
I neither doubt your valour, nor your love,
But there be some that bares a soldier’s form,
That swears by him they never think upon,
Goes swaggering up and down from house to house,
Crying God peace: and—
ARTHUR.
Yfaith, Lady, I’ll discry you such a man,
of them there be many which you have spoke of,
That bear the name and shape of soldiers,
Yet God knows very seldom saw the war:
That haunt your taverns, and your ordinaries,
Your ale-houses sometimes, for all a-like
To uphold the brutish humour of their minds,
Being marked down, for the bondmen of despair:
Their mirth begins in wine, but ends in blood,
Their drink is clear, but their conceits are mud.
LUCY.
Yet these are great gentlemen soldiers.
ARTHUR.
No, they are wretched slaves,
Whose desperate lives doth bring them timeless graves.
LUCY.
Both for your self, and for your form of life,
If I may choose, I’ll be a soldier’s wife.
[Exeunt.]