Page 2808 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

There’s not the meanest spirit on our party
Without a heart to dare, or sword to draw,
When Helen is defended; nor none so noble
Whose life were ill bestowed, or death unfamed, [160]

Where Helen is the subject. Then, I say,
Well may we fight for her whom, we know well,
The world’s large spaces cannot parallel.

HECTOR
Paris and Troilus, you have both said well,

And on the cause and question now in hand [165]
Have glozed, but superficially − not much
Unlike young men whom Aristotle thought
Unfit to hear moral philosophy.
The reasons you allege do more conduce

To the hot passion of distempered blood [170]
Than to make up a free determination
’Twixt right and wrong; for pleasure and revenge

Have ears more deaf than adders to the voice
Of any true decision. Nature craves
All dues be rendered to their owners: now, [175]
What nearer debt in all humanity
Than wife is to the husband? If this law

Of nature be corrupted through affection,
And that great minds, of partial indulgence
To their benumbèd wills, resist the same, [180]

There is a law in each well-ordered nation
To curb those raging appetites that are
Most disobedient and refractory.
If Helen then be wife to Sparta’s king,
As it is known she is, these moral laws [185]

Of nature and of nations speak aloud
To have her back returned; thus to persist
In doing wrong extenuates not wrong,

But makes it much more heavy. Hector’s opinion
Is this in way of truth; yet, ne’ertheless, [190]
My sprightly brethren, I propend to you
In resolution to keep Helen still;