A street
Enter Captain Ager with his two Friends.
CAPTAIN AGER
Well, your wills now?
FIRST FRIEND OF CAPTAIN AGER
Our wills? Our loves, our duties
To honoured fortitude: what wills have we
But our desires to nobleness and merit,
Valour’s advancement, and the sacred rectitude
Due to a valorous cause?
CAPTAIN AGER
Oh, that’s not mine!
SECOND FRIEND OF CAPTAIN AGER
War has his court of justice, that’s the field,
Where all cases of manhood are determined,
And your case is no mean one.
CAPTAIN AGER
True, then ‘twere virtuous;
But mine is in extremes foul and unjust.
Well, now y’ave got me hither, y’are as far
To seek in your desire as at first minute,
For by the strength and honour of a vow,
I will not lift a finger in this quarrel.
FIRST FRIEND OF CAPTAIN AGER
How? Not in this? Be not so rash a sinner!
Why, sir, do you ever hope to fight again then?
Take heed on’t, you must never look for that:
Why, the universal stock of the world’s injury
Will be too poor to find a quarrel for you.
Give up your right and title to desert, sir:
If you fail virtue here, she needs you not
All your time after; let her take this wrong,
And never presume then to serve her more;
Bid farewell to the integrity of arms,
And let that honourable name of soldier
Fall from you like a shivered wreath of laurel
By thunder struck from a desertless forehead,
That wears another’s right by usurpation.
Good Captain, do not willfully cast away
At one hour all the fame your life has won:
This is your native seat; here you should seek
Most to preserve it. Or if you will dote
So much on life — poor life, which in respect
Of life in honour is but death and darkness —
That you will prove neglectful of yourself,
Which is to me too fearful to imagine,
Yet for that virtuous lady’s cause, your mother,
Her reputation, dear to nobleness
As grace to penitence, whose fair memory
E’en crowns fame in your issue, for that blessedness
Give not this ill place, but in spite of hell
And all her base fears, be exactly valiant.
CAPTAIN AGER
Oh, oh, oh!
SECOND FRIEND OF CAPTAIN AGER
Why, well said, there’s fair hope in that;
Another such a one.
CAPTAIN AGER
Came they in thousands,
’Tis all against you.
FIRST FRIEND OF CAPTAIN AGER
Then, poor friendless merit,
Heaven be good to thee! Thy professor leaves thee.
Enter Colonel and his two Friends.
He’s [come]: do but you draw, we’ll fight it for you.
CAPTAIN AGER
I know too much to grant that.
FIRST FRIEND OF CAPTAIN AGER
Oh, dead manhood!
Had ever such a cause so faint a servant?
Shame brand me if I do not suffer for him.
COLONEL
I’ve heard, sir, y’ave been guilty of much boasting
For your brave earliness at such a meeting:
Y’ave lost the glory of that way this morning;
I was the first today.
CAPTAIN AGER
So were you ever
In my respect, sir.
FIRST FRIEND OF CAPTAIN AGER
Oh, most base praeludium!
CAPTAIN AGER
I never thought on victory, our mistress,
With greater reverence than I have your worth,
Nor ever loved her better.
FIRST FRIEND OF CAPTAIN AGER
‘Slight, I could knock
His brains about his heels, methinks!
SECOND FRIEND OF CAPTAIN AGER
Peace, prithee, peace.
CAPTAIN AGER
Success in you has been my absolute joy,
And when I have wished content, I have wished your friendship.
FIRST FRIEND OF CAPTAIN AGER
Stay, let me but run him through the tongue a little;
There’s lawyer’s blood in’t, you shall see foul gear straight.
SECOND FRIEND OF CAPTAIN AGER
Come, you are as mad now as he’s cowardous.
COLONEL
I came not hither, sir, for an encomium.
FIRST FRIEND OF CAPTAIN AGER
No, the more coxcomb he that claws the head
Of your vainglory with’t!
COLONEL
I came provided
For storms and tempests, and the foulest season
That ever rage let forth, or blew in wildness
From the incensed prison of man’s blood.
CAPTAIN AGER
’Tis otherwise with me; I come with mildness,
Peace, constant amity, and calm forgiveness:
The weather of a Christian and a friend.
FIRST FRIEND OF CAPTAIN AGER
Give me a valiant Turk, though not worth tenpence, rather.
CAPTAIN AGER
Yet, sir, the world will judge the injury mine,
Insufferable mine, mine beyond injury:
Thousands have made a less wrong reach to hell,
Ay, and rejoiced in his most endless vengeance,
A miserable triumph, though a just one.
But when I call to memory our long friendship,
Methinks it cannot be too great a wrong
That then I should not pardon. Why should man,
For a poor hasty syllable or two,
And vented only in forgetful fury,
Chain all the hopes and riches of his soul
To the revenge of that, die, lost forever?
For he that makes his last peace with his Maker
In anger, anger is his peace eternally:
He must expect the same return again
Whose venture is deceitful, must he not, sir?
COLONEL
[Sheathing his sword] I see what I must do: fairly put up again,
For here’ll be nothing done, I perceive that.
CAPTAIN AGER
What shall be done in such a worthless business,
But to be sorry, and to be forgiven,
You, sir, to bring repentance, and I pardon?
COLONEL
I bring repentance, sir?
CAPTAIN AGER
If it be too much
To say repentance, call it what you please, sir,
Choose your own word; I know you’re sorry for’t,
And that’s as good.
COLONEL
[Drawing his sword] I sorry? By fame’s honour, I am wronged!
Do you seek for peace and draw the quarrel larger?
CAPTAIN AGER
Then ’tis I’m sorry that I thought you so.
FIRST FRIEND OF CAPTAIN AGER
A captain? I could gnaw his title off!
CAPTAIN AGER
Nor is it any misbecoming virtue, sir,
In the best manliness to repent a wrong,
Which made me bold with you.
FIRST FRIEND OF CAPTAIN AGER
I could cuff his head off!
SECOND FRIEND OF CAPTAIN AGER
Nay, pish!
FIRST FRIEND OF CAPTAIN AGER
Pox on him, I could eat his buttock baked, methinks!
COLONEL
[Sheathing his sword] So, once again take thou thy peaceful rest, then;
But as I put thee up, I must proclaim
This captain here, both to his friends and mine,
That only came to see fair valour righted,
A base submissive coward. So, I leave him.
Offers to go away.
CAPTAIN AGER
Oh, heaven has pitied my excessive patience,
And sent me a cause! Now I have a cause:
A coward I was never. Come you back, sir!
COLONEL
How!
CAPTAIN AGER
You left a coward here?
COLONEL
Yes, sir, with you.
CAPTAIN AGER
’Tis such base metal, sir, ‘twill not be taken;
It must home again with you.
SECOND FRIEND OF CAPTAIN AGER
Should this be true now!
FIRST FRIEND OF CAPTAIN AGER
Impossible! Coward do more than bastard?
COLONEL
I prithee, mock me not; take heed you do not,
For if I draw once more, I shall grow terrible,
And rage will force me do what will grieve honour.
CAPTAIN AGER
Ha, ha, ha!
COLONEL
He smiles! Dare it be he? What think you, gentlemen?
Your judgments: shall I not be cozened in him?
This cannot be the man. Why, he was bookish,
Made an invective lately against fighting —
A thing, in troth, that moved a little with me —
Put up a fouler contumely far
Than thousand ‘cowards’ came to, and grew thankful.
CAPTAIN AGER
Blessed remembrance in time of need!
I’d lost my honour else.
SECOND FRIEND OF CAPTAIN AGER
Do you note his joy?
CAPTAIN AGER
I never felt a more severe necessity,
Then came thy excellent pity. Not yet ready?
Have you such confidence in my just manhood
That you dare so long trust me, and yet tempt me
Beyond the toleration of man’s virtue?
Why, would you be more cruel than your injury?
Do you first take pride to wrong me, and then think me
Not worth your fury? Do not use me so;
I shall deceive you then. Sir, either draw,
And that not slightingly, but with the care
Of your best preservation, with that watchfulness
As you’d defend yourself from circular fire,
Your sin’s rage, or her lord — this will require it —
Or you’ll be too soon lost, for I’ve an anger
Has gathered mighty strength against you, mighty;
Yet you shall find it honest to the last,
Noble and fair.
COLONEL
I’ll venture ‘t once again;
And if’t be but as true as it is wondrous,
I shall have that I come for. Your leave, gentlemen.
[They draw their swords.]
FIRST FRIEND OF CAPTAIN AGER
If he should do’t indeed, and deceive ‘s all now!
Stay, by this hand he offers, fights, i’faith;
Fights, by this light he fights, sir!
SECOND FRIEND OF CAPTAIN AGER
So methinks, sir.
FIRST FRIEND OF CAPTAIN AGER
An absolute punto, hay!
SECOND FRIEND OF CAPTAIN AGER
’Twas a passado, sir.
FIRST FRIEND OF CAPTAIN AGER
Why, let it pass, and ’twas; I’m sure ’twas somewhat.
What’s that now?
SECOND FRIEND OF CAPTAIN AGER
That’s a punto.
FIRST FRIEND OF CAPTAIN AGER
Oh, go to, then;
I knew ’twas not far off. What a world’s this!
Is coward a more stirring meat than bastard, my masters?
Put in more eggs, for shame, when you get children,
And make it true court-custard.
[The Colonel falls.]
Ho, I honour thee!
’Tis right and fair, and he that breathes against it,
He breathes against the justice of a man,
And man to cut him off ’tis no injustice.
Thanks, thanks, for this most unexpected nobleness!
CAPTAIN AGER
Truth never fails her servant, sir, nor leaves him
With the day’s shame upon him.
FIRST FRIEND OF CAPTAIN AGER
Th’ast redeemed
Thy worth to the same height ’twas first esteemed.
Exeunt Captain and his Friends.
FIRST FRIEND OF THE COLONEL
Alas, how is it, sir? Give us some hope
Of your stay with us; let your spirit be seen
Above your fortune: the best fortitude
Has been of fate ill-friended. Now force your empire,
And reign above your blood, spite of dejection;
Reduce the monarchy of your abler mind,
Let not flesh straiten it.
COLONEL
Oh, just heaven has found me,
And turned the stings of my too hasty injuries
Into my own blood! I pursued my ruin,
And urged him past the patience of an angel:
Could man’s revenge extend beyond man’s life,
This would ha’ waked it. If this flame will light me
But till I see my sister, ’tis a kind one;
More I expect not from ‘t. Noble deserver!
Farewell, most valiant and most wronged of men;
Do but forgive me, and I am victor then.
Exeunt, led by them.