Mel. Yes, sir.
I thank you.—My Lord Calianax, well met.
Your causeless hate to me, I hope, is buried.

Cal. Yes, I do service for your sister here,
That brings my own poor child to timeless death;
She loves your friend Amintor; such another
False-hearted lord as you.

Mel. You do me wrong,
A most unmanly one, and I am slow
In taking vengeance! But be well advised.

Cal. It may be so.—Who placed the lady there,
So near the presence of the king?

Mel. I did.

Cal. My lord, she must not sit there.

Mel. Why?

Cal. The place is kept for women of more worth.

Mel. More worth than she? It misbecomes your age,
And place, to be thus womanish. Forbear!
What you have spoke, I am content to think
The palsy shook your tongue to.

Cal. Why, ’tis well
If I stand here to place men’s wenches.

Mel. I shall forget this place, thy age, my safety,
And, thorough all, cut that poor sickly week,
Thou hast to live, away from thee.

Cal. Nay, I know you can fight for your whore.

Mel. Bate the king, and be he flesh and blood,
He lies, that says it! Thy mother at fifteen
Was black and sinful to her.

Diag. Good my lord!

Mel. Some god pluck threescore years from that fond man,
That I may kill him and not stain mine honour.
It is the curse of soldiers, that in peace
They shall be braved by such ignoble men,
As, if the land were troubled, would with tears
And knees beg succour from ’em. ’Would, that blood,
That sea of blood, that I have lost in fight,
Were running in thy veins, that it might make thee
Apt to say less, or able to maintain,
Should’st thou say more! This Rhodes, I see, is nought
But a place privileged to do men wrong.

Cal. Ay, you may say your pleasure.

Enter AMINTOR.

Amin. What vile injury
Has stirr’d my worthy friend, who is as slow
To fight with words as he is quick of hand?

Mel. That heap of age, which I should reverence
If it were temperate; but testy years
Are most contemptible.

Amin. Good sir, forbear.

Cal. There is just such another as yourself.

Amin. He will wrong you, or me, or any man,
And talk as if he had no life to lose,
Since this our match. The king is coming in:
I would not for more wealth than I enjoy,
He should perceive you raging. He did hear
You were at difference now, which hastened him.