With every minute you do change a mind;
And call him noble that was now your hate;
Him vile, that was your garland.”
As his constancy despises their unstableness, so his audacious courage detests their cowardice:
“Now put your shields before your hearts, and fight
With hearts more proof than shields.”
Seeing them driven back by the Volsces, he exclaims,—
“You souls of geese
That bear the shapes of men, how have you run
From slaves that apes would beat? Pluto and hell!