ACT V., SCENE 1.
Enter Duke, trumpets and drums sounding, colours victoriously displayed. Field-Officers with Soldiers martially ordered in rank and file.
Her. What a majesty
Without all servile affectation
His personating presence, cloth'd with state
And princely posture, seems to represent!
All. Conquest and affability contend
Which to his count'nance may pretend most right.
His spirit's too evenly poised to be transported
With the success of fortune. Let us hear him.
Duke. Safely arriv'd, thanks to the pow'rs above,
Here are we come: our enemies subdu'd,
Our wrongs redress'd, our merchants satisfi'd:
No foreign force t' oppose us. Thus has time
Crown'd our addresses with triumphant palms,
And by just war begot a thankful peace.
All. Long live Eugenio, Seville's governor!
Duke. Our constant care shall gratify your love.
Meantime, let these brave soldiers sharers be
In our success: whom you and we're to hold
Such joint assistants in our victories,
As their redoubted prowess merits fame,
And competent rewards to recompense
Their noble service: for (believe it, friends)
Never were hazards better seconded,
Nor by their valour to a period
Sooner reduced; so prosperous was our fight
In dark'ning those who took away our light.
And having now compos'd these broils abroad,
We're to look homeward, and redress those wrongs
Which nestle in the bosom of our state:
So much more dang'rous, because connivance
Has wrought them into habits. These, we fear,
Pretend a privilege, because the face
Of greatness gives them count'nance. But our laws
Must be no spider-webs, to take small flies,
And let the great ones 'scape. We have resolv'd
"Greatness shall be no subterfuge to guilt."
This must we act with speed, and closely too;
For secrecy, wing'd with celerity,
Be the two wheels which manage moral states
And martial actions. After short repose,
These we'll chastise; and by a due survey,
As just complaints shall be exhibited,
Measure our censure to the peccants' crime.
Nor must we spin our time: we have design'd
Our very next day for aggrievances
Of court and city, where our absence might
Admit, perchance, more freedom to offend.
"The only way to salve a deep disease
Is to give what may cure, not what may please.
Wherein delays prove worst: artists apply
Receipts, before distempers grow too high."
[Exit, tubis et tympanis sonantibus; conspicuo aulicorum et stratiotum cœtu comitante.
All. Under such guardians may we live and die.