Pan.
Nay, ’tis well the king is pleased with it.
Arb.
Bessus, go you along too with her; I will prove All this that I have said, if I may live So long; but I am desperately sick, For she has given me poison in a kiss; She had’t betwixt her lips, and with her eyes She witches people: go without a word.
[Exeunt Gob. Pan. Bes. And Spaconia.
Why should you that have made me stand
in war
Like fate it self, cutting what threds
I pleas’d,
Decree such an unworthy end of me,
And all my glories? What am I, alas,
That you oppose me? if my secret thoughts
Have ever harbour’d swellings against
you,
They could not hurt you, and it is in
you
To give me sorrow, that will render me
Apt to receive your mercy; rather so,
Let it be rather so, than punish me
With such unmanly sins: Incest is
in me
Dwelling already, and it must be holy
That pulls it thence, where art Mardonius?
Mar.
Here Sir.
Arb.
I pray thee bear me, if thou canst,
Am I not grown a strange weight?
Mar.
As you were.
Arb.
No heavier?
Mar.
No Sir.
Arb.
Why, my legs
Refuse to bear my body; O Mardonius,
Thou hast in field beheld me, when thou
knowst
I could have gone, though I could never
run.
Mar.
And so I shall again.
Arb.
O no, ’tis past.
Mar.
Pray you go rest your self.
Arb.
Wilt thou hereafter when they talk of
me,
As thou shalt hear nothing but infamy,
Remember some of those things?
Mar.
Yes I will.
Arb.
I pray thee do: for thou shalt never see me so again.
[Exeunt.
Enter Bessus alone.
Bes.
They talk of fame, I have gotten it in the wars; and will afford any man a reasonable penny-worth: some will say, they could be content to have it, but that it is to be atchiev’d with danger; but my opinion is otherwise: for if I might stand still in Cannon-proof, and have fame fall upon me, I would refuse it: my reputation came principally by thinking to run away, which no body knows but Mardonius, and I think he conceals it to anger me. Before I went to the warrs, I came to the Town a young fellow, without means or parts to deserve friends; and my empty guts perswaded me to lie, and abuse people for my meat, which I did, and they beat me: then would I fast two days, till my hunger cri’d out on me, rail still, then me-thought I had a monstrous stomach to abuse ’em again, and did it. I, this state I