Page 3144 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3
P. 3144
Honour, health and compassion to the Senate! [5]
FIRST SENATOR
Now, captain?
ALCIBIADES
I am an humble suitor to your virtues;
For pity is the virtue of the law,
And none but tyrants use it cruelly.
It pleases time and fortune to lie heavy [10]
Upon a friend of mine, who in hot blood
Hath stepp’d into the law, which is past depth
To those that, without heed, do plunge into ’t.
He is a man, setting his fate aside,
Of comely virtues; [15]
Nor did he soil the fact with cowardice
(An honour in him which buys out his fault)
But with a noble fury and fair spirit,
Seeing his reputation touch’d to death,
He did oppose his foe; [20]
And with such sober and unnoted passion
He did behove his anger, ere ‘twas spent,
As if he had but prov’d an argument.
FIRST SENATOR
You undergo too strict a paradox,
Striving to make an ugly deed look fair. [25]
Your words have took such pains as if they labour’d
To bring manslaughter into form, and set quarrelling
Upon the head of valour; which indeed
Is valour misbegot, and came into the world
When sects and factions were newly born. [30]
He’s truly valiant that can wisely suffer
The worst that man can breathe,
And make his wrongs his outsides,
To wear them like his raiment, carelessly,
And ne’er prefer his injuries to his heart, [35]
To bring it into danger.