The wars of Troy, but not Troy’s overthrow;
For ballast, empty Dido’s treasury;
Take what ye will, but leave Æneas here.
Achates, thou shalt be so seemly clad
As sea-born nymphs shall swarm about thy ships
And wanton mermaids court thee with sweet songs,
Flinging in favors of more sovereign worth
Than Thetis hangs about Apollo’s neck,
So that Æneas may but stay with me.”
But far finer than this, in the same costly way, is the speech of Barabas in “The Jew of Malta,” ending with a line that has incorporated itself in the language with the familiarity of a proverb:—