For God doth know how many now in health
Shall drop their blood, in approbation
Of what your reverence shall incite us to.
Therefore take heed how you impawn your person,
How you awake our sleeping sword of war;
We charge you in the name of God, take heed.
For never two such kingdoms did contend
Without much fall of blood, whose guiltless drops
Are every one a woe, a sore complaint
'Gainst him, whose wrong gives edge unto the swords
That make such waste in brief mortality.
Under this conjuration, speak, my lord;
For we will hear, note, and believe in heart,
That what you speak, is in your conscience wash'd,
As pure as sin with baptism.
Another characteristic instance of the blindness of human nature to
everything but its own interests is the complaint made by the king
of 'the ill neighbourhood' of the Scot in attacking England when she
was attacking France.
For once the eagle England being in prey,
To her unguarded nest the weazel Scot
Comes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs.
It is worth observing that in all these plays, which give an
admirable picture of the spirit of the good old times, the moral
inference does not at all depend upon the nature of the actions, but
on the dignity or meanness of the persons committing them.
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