King.  They swarme like Bees about us, insomuch
Our People cannot sacrifice nor give Incense
But with interruptions; they still are buzzing thus,
Saying:  Their Gods delight not in vaine showes
But intellectual thoughts pure and unstain’d,
Therefore reduce them from their heresies
Or build our prison walls with Christians bones. 
What thinkes our Bellizarius, he that was wont
To be more swift to execute than we to command? 
Why sits not Bellizarius?

Belliz.  I dare not.

King.  Protect me, Iove!  Who dare gainesay it?

Belliz.  I must not.

King.  Say we command it?

Belliz.  Truth is, I neither can nor will.

Omn.  Hee’s mad.

Belliz.  Yes, I am mad
To see such Wolvish Tyrants as you are
Pretend a Justice and condemne the iust. 
Oh you white soules that hover in the aire,
Who through my blindnesse were made death his[144] prey;
Be but appeas’d, you spotlesse Innocents,
Till with my blood I have made a true atonement,
And through those tortures, by this braine devis’d,
In which you perisht, I may fall as you
To satisfie your yet fresh bleeding memories
And meete you in that garden where content
Dwels onely.  I, that in blood did glory,
Will now spend blood to heighten out your story.

Anton.  Why, Bellizarius—­

Belliz.  Hinder me not:  I’me in a happy progresse, would not change my guest Nor be deterr’d by Moles and Wormes that cannot see Such as you are.  Alas, I pitty you.

Dam.  The King’s in presence.

Belliz.  I talke of one that’s altitudes above him,
That owes[145] all Principalities:  he is no King
That keepes not his decrees, nor am I bound
In duty to obey him in unwist acts.

King.  All leave the roome.

Omnes.  We obey your highnesse.
                                   [Exeunt Lords.

King.  Sir, nay.  Sir; good Bellizarius.

Belliz.  In that I doe obey.

King.  Doe you make scruple, then, of our command?

Belliz.  Yes, Sir, where the act’s unjust and impure.

King.  Why, then, are we a king, if not obey’d?

Belliz.  You are plac’d on earth but as a Substitute
To a Diviner being as subiects are to you;
And are so long a king to be obey’d
As you are iust.

King.  Good Bellizarius, wherein doe I digresse? 
Have I not made thee great, given thee authority
To scourge those mis-beleevers, those wild Locusts
That thus infect our Empire with their Scismes? 
The World is full of Bellizarius deedes. 
Succeeding times will Canonize thy Acts
When they shall read what great ones thou hast done
In honour of us and our sacred gods;
For which, next unto Iove, they gave a Laurell
To Bellizarius, whose studious braine
Fram’d all these wracks and tortures for these Christians. 
Hast thou not all our Treasure in thy power? 
Who but your selfe commands as [us?], Bellizarius? 
Then whence, my Bellizarius, comes this change?