Leo. Falls like a Traitor on our swords.
Euph. Oh Heaven, my Brother bleeds: Conon, thou art
A villain, an unthankful man, and shalt
Pay me thy bloud for his, for his is mine:
Thou wert my friend, but he is still my Brother;
And though a friend sometimes be nearer said
In some gradation it can never be
Where that same Brother can be made a friend,
Which dearest Crates thus low I implore;
What in my poverty I would not seek,
Because I would not burthen you, now here
In all my height of bliss I beg of you,
Your friendship; my advancement, Sir, is yours;
I never held it strange, pray use it so:
We are but two, which Number Nature fram'd
In the most useful faculties of man,
To strengthen mutually and relieve each other:
Two eyes, two ears, two arms, two legs and feet,
That where one faild, the other might supply;
And I, your other eye, ear, your arm and leg,
Tender my service, help and succor to ye.
Ag. Leo. A most divine example.
Euph. For dear Brother,
You have been blind, and lame, and deaf to me,
Now be no more so: in humility
I give ye the duty of a younger Brother,
Which take you as a Brother, not a Father,
And then you'll pay a duty back to me.
Cra. Till now I have not wept these thirty years.
Euph. Discording Brothers, are like mutual legs
Supplanting one another: he that seeks
Aid from a stranger and forsakes his Brother,
Does but like him that madly lops his arm,
And to his body joyns a wooden one:
Cuts off his natural leg, and trusts a Crutch,
Plucks out his eye to see with Spectacles.
Cra. Most dear Euphanes, in this crimson floud
Wash my unkindness out: you have o'rcome me,
Taught me humanity and brotherhood;
Full well knew Nature thou wert fitter far
To be a Ruler o'r me than a Brother,
Which henceforth be: Jove surely did descend
When thou wert gotten in some heavenly shape
And greet my Mother, as the poets tell
Of other Women.
Ag. Be this Holy-day.
Leo. And noted ever with the whitest stone.
Co. And pardon me my Lord, look you, I bleed
Faster than Crates; what I have done I did
To reconcile your loves, to both a friend,
Which my blood ciment, never to part or end.