ye into famine,
Yet ye can crawl like crabs to wenches; handsomely
Fall but in love now, as ye see example,
And follow it but with all your thoughts, probatum,
There’s so much charge saved, and your hunger’s ended.

[Drum afar off.

[Exeunt.

Enter Suetonius, Demetrius, Decius, Drum and Colours.

Suet. Demetrius, is the messenger dispatch’d
To Penius, to command him to bring up
The Volans regiment!

Dem. He’s there by this time.

Suet. And are the horse well view’d we brought from Mona?

Dec. The troops are full and lusty.

Suet. Good Petillius,
Look to those eating rogues, that bawl for victuals,
And stop their throats a day or two: Provision
Waits but the wind to reach us.

Pet. Sir, already
I have been tampering with their stomachs, which I find
As deaf as adders to delays: Your clemency
Hath made their murmurs, mutinies; nay, rebellions;
Now, an they want but mustard, they are in uproars!
No oil but Candy, Lusitanian figs,
And wine from Lesbos, now can satisfy ’em;
The British waters are grown dull and muddy,
The fruit disgustful; Orontes must be sought for,
And apples from the Happy Isles; the truth is,
They are more curious now in having nothing,
Than if the sea and land turned up their treasures.
This lost the colonies, and gave Bonduca
(With shame we must record it) time and strength
To look into our fortunes; great discretion
To follow offer’d victory; and last, full pride
To brave us to our teeth, and scorn our ruins.

Suet. Nay, chide not, good Petillius! I confess
My will to conquer Mona, and long stay
To execute that will, let in these losses;
All shall be right again, and, as a pine,
Rent from Oëta by a sweeping tempest,
Jointed again, and made a mast, defies
Those angry winds that split him; so will I,
Pieced to my never-failing strength and fortune,
Steer through these swelling dangers, plough their prides up,
And bear like thunder through their loudest tempests.
They keep the field still?

Dem. Confident and full.

Pet. In such a number, one would swear they grew:
The hills are wooded with their partizans,
And all the vallies overgrown with darts,
As moors are with rank rushes; no ground left us
To charge upon, no room to strike. Say fortune
And our endeavours bring us into ’em,
They are so infinite, so ever-springing,
We shall be kill’d with killing; of desperate women,
That neither fear or shame e’er found, the devil
Has rank’d amongst ’em multitudes; say the men fail,
They’ll poison us with their petticoats; say they fail,
They have priests enough to pray us into nothing.

Suet. These are imaginations, dreams of nothings;
The man that doubts or fears—

Dec. I am free of both.

Dem. The self-same I.

Pet. And I as free as any;
As careless of my flesh, of that we call life,
So I may lose it nobly, as indifferent
As if it were my diet. Yet, noble general,
It was a wisdom learn’d from you, I learn’d it,
And worthy of a soldier’s