Ino. The danger is the greater; you will be kill'd, sir,
And lose your army.
Plan. Is this all? I care not.
Ino. But so do I, and so do all your friends.
I smell a rat, sir; there's juggling in this business;
I am as confident of it as I am alive.
The king might within this twenty-four hours
Have made a peace on fair conditions.
Plan. But dishonourable.
Ino. And would not—
On a sudden useth the ambassadors scurvily,
And provokes the Argives, yet himself
In no posture of defence.
Plan. But——
Ino. Pray give me leave, sir.
After this, you are on a sudden created general,
And pack'd away with a crowd of unhewn fellows,
Whose courage hangs as loose about them
As a slut's petticoats. Sir, he had other spirits
In the court created for such perils.
Excuse me, I know you fear not to meet destruction;
But where men are sure to perish,
'Twere well the persons were of less concernment.
He might have let you stay'd till you had gather'd
An army fit for your command, and sent
Some petty things upon this expedition
Whose loss would have been nothing, and of whom
It might have been recorded in our story
As an honour, that they died monuments
Of the king's folly. But let that pass;
You'll say perhaps, you only have a spirit
Fit for such undertakings? I wish you had not;
Your want then would not be half so grievous.
But here is the prodigy! you must fight them presently.
Come, 'tis a project put into the king's head
By some who have a plot on you and him.
Plan. It may be so, Inophilus, and I believe
All this is true you tell me, and 't might startle
A man were less resolv'd than I.
But danger and I have been too long acquainted
To shun a meeting now; I am engaged, and
Cannot any ways come off with reputation.
Hadst told me this before, perhaps I might
Have thought on't; and yet I should not neither.
If the king thinks I am grown dangerous,
It is all one to me which way he takes
Me from his fears. He could not do it
Handsomer than thus; it makes less noise now—
But come, I must not fear such things, Inophilus:
The king hath more virtue and honour than
To do these actions, fit only for guilty souls;
Nor must I fear, when my Inophilus fights by me.
Ino. Troth, sir, for all your compliment, if you've
No valour but what owes itself to my company, you're like
To make cold breakfast of your enemies:
I have other business than to throw away
My life, when there is so much odds against it:
I'll stay at home, and pray for you, that's all, sir.