Ere thus I will out-braved be,
One of us two shall dye;
I know thee well, an Earl thou art,
Lord Piercy, so am I.
But trust me, Piercy, Pity it were,
And great Offence, to kill
Any of these our harmless Men,
For they have done no Ill.
Let thou and I the Battle try,
And set our Men aside;
Accurst be he, Lord Piercy said,
By whom this is deny'd.
When these brave Men had distinguished themselves in the Battle and a single Combat with each other, in the Midst of a generous Parly, full of heroic Sentiments, the
Scotch
Earl falls; and with his dying Words encourages his Men to revenge his Death, representing to them, as the most bitter Circumstance of it, that his Rival saw him fall.
With that there came an Arrow keen
Out of an English Bow,
Which struck Earl Douglas to the Heart
A deep and deadly Blow.
Who never spoke more Words than these,
Fight on, my merry Men all,
For why, my Life is at an End,
Lord Piercy sees my Fall.
Merry Men
, in the Language of those Times, is no more than a cheerful Word for Companions and Fellow-Soldiers. A Passage in the Eleventh Book of
Virgil's Æneid
is very much to be admired, where
Camilla