Æcius. All that goodness
Is but your Graces Creature.
Emp. Tell me truly,
For thou dar'st tell me.
Æcius. Any thing concerns ye,
That's fit for me to speak and you to pardon.
Emp. What say the Souldiers of me, and the same words,
Mince 'em not, good Æcius, but deliver
The very forms and tongues they talk withal.
Æcius. I'll tell your Grace, but with this caution
You be not stir'd, for should the gods live with us,
Even those we certainly believe are righteous,
Give 'em but drink, they would censure them too.
Emp. Forward.
Æcius. Then to begin, they say you sleep too much,
By which they judge your Majesty too sensual,
Apt to decline your strength to ease and pleasures,
And when you do not sleep, you drink too much,
From which they fear suspicions first, then ruines;
And when ye neither drink nor sleep, ye wench much,
Which they affirm first breaks your understanding,
Then takes the edge of Honour, makes us seem,
That are the ribs, and rampires of the Empire,
Fencers, and beaten Fools, and so regarded;
But I believe 'em not; for were these truths,
Your vertue can correct them.
Emp. They speak plainly.
Æc. They say moreover (since your Grace will have it,
For they will talk their freedoms, though the Sword
Were in their throat) that of late time, like Nero,
And with the same forgetfulness of glory,
You have got a vein of fidling, so they term it.
Emp. Some drunken dreams, Æcius.