fetch home. I have been too unkind
To her, Tigranes: She, but nine years old,
I left her, and ne’er saw her since: Your wars
Have held me long, and taught me, though a youth,
The way to victory. She was a pretty child;
Then, I was little better; but now fame
Cries loudly on her, and my messengers
Make me believe she is a miracle.
She’ll make you shrink, as I did, with a stroke
But of her eye, Tigranes.

Tigr. Is it the course of
Iberia to use her prisoners thus?
Had fortune thrown my name above Arbaces’,
I should not thus have talk’d; for in Armenia,
We hold it base. You should have kept your temper
Till you saw home again, where ’tis the fashion,
Perhaps, to brag.

Arb. Be you my witness, earth,
Need I to brag? Doth not this captive prince
Speak me sufficiently, and all the acts
That I have wrought upon his suffering land?
Should I then boast? Where lies that foot of ground,
Within his whole realm, that I have not past,
Fighting and conquering: Far then from me
Be ostentation. I could tell the world,
How I have laid his kingdom desolate,
By this sole arm, propp’d by divinity;
Stript him out of his glories; and have sent
The pride of all his youth to people graves;
And made his virgins languish for their loves;
If I would brag. Should I, that have the power
To teach the neighbour world humility,
Mix with vain-glory?

Mar. Indeed, this is none!

[Aside.

Arb. Tigranes, no; did I but take delight
To stretch my deeds as others do, on words,
I could amaze my hearers.

Mar. So you do.

[Aside.

Arb. But he shall wrong his and my modesty,
That thinks me apt to boast: After an act
Fit for a god to do upon his foe,
A little glory in a soldier’s mouth
Is well-becoming; be it far from vain.

Mar. ‘Tis pity, that valour should be thus drunk.

[Aside.

Arb. I offer you my sister, and you answer,
I do insult: A lady that no suit,
Nor treasure, nor thy crown, could purchase thee,
But that thou fought’st with me.

Tigr. Though this be worse
Than that you spoke before, it strikes not me;
But, that you think to over-grace me with
The marriage of your sister, troubles me.
I would give worlds for ransoms, were they mine,
Rather than have her.

Arb. See, if I insult,
That am the conqueror, and for a ransom
Offer rich treasure to the conquered,
Which he refuses, and I bear his scorn!
It cannot be self-flattery to say,
The daughters of your country, set by her,
Would see their shame, run home, and blush to death
At their own foulness. Yet she is not fair,
Nor beautiful, those words express her not:
They say, her looks have something excellent,
That wants a name yet. Were she odious,
Her birth deserves the empire of the world:
Sister to such a brother; that hath ta’en
Victory prisoner, and throughout the earth
Carries her bound, and should he let her loose,
She durst not leave him. Nature did her wrong,
To print continual conquest on her cheeks,
And make no man worthy for her to take,
But me, that am too near her; and as strangely
She did for me: But you will think I brag.

Mar. I do, I’ll be sworn. Thy valour and thy passions severed, would have made two excellent fellows in their kinds. I know not, whether I should be sorry thou art so valiant, or so passionate: ‘Would one of ’em were away!

[Aside.