Enter in triumph with Drums, Trumpets, Colours, Martius, Valerius, Sophocles bound, Nicodemus, Cornelius, Captains and Soldiers.
Mar. What means proud Sophocles?
Soph. To go even with Martius,
And not to follow him like his Officer:
I never waited yet on any man.
Mar. Why poor Athenian Duke, thou art my slave,
My blows have conquerd thee.
Soph. Thy slave? proud Martius,
Cato thy countrey-man (whose constancie,
Of all the Romans, I did honor most)
Rip'd himself twice to avoid slavery,
Making himself his own Anatomie.
But look thee Martius, not a vein runs here
From head to foot, but Sophocles would unseame, and
Like a spring garden shoot his scornfull blood
Into their eyes, durst come to tread on him:
As for thy blows, they did [not] conquer me:
Seven Battailes have I met thee face to face,
And given thee blow for blow, and wound for wound,
And till thou taught'st me, knew not to retire;
Thy sword was then as bold, thy arm as strong;
Thy blows then Martius, cannot conquer me.
Val. What is it then?
Soph. Fortune.
Val. Why, yet in that
Thou art the worse man, and must follow him.
Soph. Young Sir, you erre: If Fortune could be call'd
Or his, or your's, or mine, in good or evill
For any certain space, thou hadst spoke truth:
But she but jests with man, and in mischance
Abhors all constancie, flowting him still
With some small touch of good, or seeming good
Midst of his mischief: which vicissitude
Makes him strait doff his armour, and his fence
He had prepar'd before, to break her strokes.
So from the very Zenith of her wheel,
When she has dandled some choice favorite,
Given him his boons in women, honor, wealth,
And all the various delecacies of earth;
That the fool scorns the gods in his excess,
She whirls, and leaves him at th' Antipodes.
Mar. Art sure we have taken him? Is this Sophocles?
His fettred arms say no; his free soul, I.
This Athens nurseth Arts, as well as Arms.