The blooming honour of your drooping age.
Pan. True, coz, true. They say that men of hope are crush’d;
Good are supprest by base desertless clods,
That stifle gasping virtue. Look, sweet youth,
How provident our quick Venetians are,
Lest hooves of jades should trample on my boy: 310
Look how they lift him up to eminence,
Heave him ’bove reach of flesh. Ha, ha, ha!
Alb. Uncle, this laughter ill becomes your grief.
Pan. Would’st have me cry, run raving up and down,
For my son’s loss? Would’st have me turn rank mad,
Or wring my face with mimic action;
Stamp, curse, weep, rage, and then my bosom strike?
Away, ’tis aspish action, player-like.[234]
If he is guiltless, why should tears be spent?
Thrice blessèd soul that dieth innocent. 320
If he is leper’d with so foul a guilt,
Why should a sigh be lent, a tear be spilt?
The gripe of chance is weak to wring a tear
From him that knows what fortitude should bear.
Listen, young blood. ’Tis not true valour’s pride
To swagger, quarrel, swear, stamp, rave, and chide,
To stab in fume of blood, to keep loud coil
To bandy factions in domestic broils,
To dare the act of sins, whose filth excels
The blackest customs of blind infidels. 330
No, my lov’d youth: he may of valour vaunt
Whom fortune’s loudest thunder cannot daunt;
Whom fretful gales of chance, stern fortune’s siege,
Makes not his reason slink, the soul’s fair liege;
Whose well-pais’d[235] action ever rests upon
Not giddy humours but discretion.
This heart in valour even Jove out-goes:
Jove is without, but this ’bove sense of woes:[236]
And such a one, eternity. Behold—
Good morrow, son; thou bid’st a fig for cold. 340
Sound louder music: let my breath exact
[Loud music.
You strike sad tones unto this dismal act.
[Exeunt.
[207] Wrinkled.