Rod. Now to a traitor’s add a boaster’s name.
Jul. Shameless and arrogant, dost thou believe
I boast for pride or pastime? forced to boast,
Truth costs me more than falsehood e’er cost thee.
Divested of that purple of the soul,
That potency, that palm of wise ambition,
Cast headlong by thy madness from that height,
That only eminence ’twixt earth and heaven,
Virtue, which some desert, but none despise,
Whether thou art beheld again on earth,
Whether a captive or a fugitive,
Miner or galley-slave, depends on me:
But he alone who made me what I am
Can make me greater, or can make me less.
Rod. Chance, and chance only, threw me in thy power;
Give me my sword again and try my strength.
Jul. I tried it in the front of thousands.
Rod. Death
At least vouchsafe me from a soldier’s hand.
Jul. I love to hear thee ask for it—now my own
Would not be bitter; no, nor immature.
Rod. Defy it, say thou rather.
Jul. Death itself
Shall not be granted thee, unless from God;
A dole from his and from no other hand.
Thou shalt now hear and own thine infamy—
Rod. Chains, dungeons, tortures—but I hear no more.
Jul. Silence, thou wretch, live on—ay, live—abhorred.
Thou shalt have tortures, dungeons, chains, enough—
They naturally rise and grow around
Monsters like thee, everywhere, and for ever.