Fata si miseros juvant, habes salutem;
Fata si vitam negant, habes sepulchrum.
If destiny thy miseries do ease,
Then hast thou health; and happy shalt thou be:
If destiny deny thee life, Hieronimo,
Yet shalt thou[229] be assured of a tomb:
If neither; yet let this thy comfort be,
Heaven covereth him that hath no burial.
And to conclude, I will revenge his death:
But how? not as the vulgar wits of men,
With open but inevitable ills,
As by a secret, yet a certain mean,
Which under kindship will be cloaked best.
Wise men will take their opportunity,
Closely and safely fitting things to time.
But in extremes advantage hath no time:
And therefore all times fit not for revenge.
Thus therefore will I rest me in unrest,
Dissembling quiet in unquietness:
Not seeming that I know their villainies
That my simplicity may make them think,
That ignorantly I will let all[230] slip;
For ignorance, I wot, and well they know,
Remedium malorum mors est.
Nor aught avails it me to menace them
Who, as a wintry storm upon a plain,
Will bear me down with their nobility.
No, no, Hieronimo, thou must enjoin
Thine eyes to observation, and thy tongue
To milder speeches than thy spirit affords,[231]
Thy heart to patience and thy hands to rest,
Thy cap to courtesy and thy knee to bow,
Till to revenge thou know, when, where, and how.
[A noise within.
How now, what noise? what coil is that you keep?
Enter a Servant.
Servant.
Here are a sort of poor petitioners,
That are importunate, and it shall please you, sir,
That you should plead their cases[232] to the king.
Hieronimo.