FIRST SENATOR.
My lord, you have my voice to ’t. The fault’s
Bloody. ’Tis necessary he should die.
Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.
SECOND SENATOR.
Most true, the law shall bruise ’em.
ALCIBIADES.
Honour, health, and compassion to the senate!
FIRST SENATOR.
Now, captain?
ALCIBIADES.
I am a humble suitor to your virtues,
For pity is the virtue of the law,
And none but tyrants use it cruelly.
It pleases time and fortune to lie heavy
Upon a friend of mine, who in hot blood
Hath stepped into the law, which is past depth
To those that without heed do plunge into’t.
He is a man, setting his fate aside,
Of comely virtues,
Nor did he soil the fact with cowardice—
An honour in him which buys out his fault—
But with a noble fury and fair spirit,
Seeing his reputation touched to death,
He did oppose his foe;
And with such sober and unnoted passion
He did behave his anger, ere ’twas spent,
As if he had but proved an argument.
FIRST SENATOR.
You undergo too strict a paradox,
Striving to make an ugly deed look fair.
Your words have took such pains as if they laboured
To bring manslaughter into form and set quarrelling
Upon the head of valour, which indeed
Is valour misbegot and came into the world
When sects and factions were newly born.
He’s truly valiant that can wisely suffer
The worst that man can breathe, and make his wrongs
His outsides to wear them like his raiment, carelessly,
And ne’er prefer his injuries to his heart,
To bring it into danger.
If wrongs be evils and enforce us kill,
What folly ’tis to hazard life for ill!
ALCIBIADES.
My lord—
FIRST SENATOR.
You cannot make gross sins look clear.
To revenge is no valour, but to bear.
ALCIBIADES.
My lords, then, under favour, pardon me
If I speak like a captain.
Why do fond men expose themselves to battle
And not endure all threats? Sleep upon’t,
And let the foes quietly cut their throats
Without repugnancy? If there be
Such valour in the bearing, what make we
Abroad? Why, then, women are more valiant
That stay at home, if bearing carry it,
And the ass more captain than the lion, the felon
Loaden with irons wiser than the judge,
If wisdom be in suffering. O my lords,
As you are great, be pitifully good.
Who cannot condemn rashness in cold blood?
To kill, I grant, is sin’s extremest gust,
But in defence, by mercy, ’tis most just.
To be in anger is impiety,
But who is man that is not angry?
Weigh but the crime with this.
SECOND SENATOR.
You breathe in vain.