GAWIN. As chance hath made you king, so chance may change. Provide for peace: that’s it the highest peers, No state except, even conquerors, ought to seek. Remember Arthur’s strength, his conquests late, His fiery mind, his high-aspiring heart. Mark then the odds: he expert, you untried; He ripe, you green. Yield you, whiles yet you may; He will not yield: he wins his peace with wars.
MORDRED. If chance may change, his chance was last to win; The likelier now to lose. His haughty heart And mind I know: I feel mine own no less. As for his strength and skill, I leave to hap: Where many meet, it lies not all in one. What though he vanquish’d have the Roman troops, That boots him not: himself is vanquish’d here. Then weigh your words again: if conquerors ought To seek for peace, the conquered must perforce. But he’ll not yield; he’ll purchase peace with wars. Well, yield that will; I neither will nor can. Come peace, come wars, choose him; my danger’s his, His safety mine: our states do stand alike. If peace be good, as good for him as me; If wars be good, as good for me as him.
GAWIN. What cursed wars (alas) were those, wherein Both son and sire should so oppose themselves! Him whom you now, unhappy man, pursue, If you should win, yourself would first bewail. Give him his crown: to keep it peril breeds.
MORDRED. The crown I’ll keep myself, ensue what will. Death must be once; how soon, I least respect. He best provides that can beware in time, Not why nor when, but whence and where he falls. What fool, to live a year or twain in rest, Would lose the state and honour of a crown?
GAWIN. Consider then your father’s grief and want, Whom you bereave of kingdom, realm, and crown,
MORDRED. Trust me, a huge and mighty kingdom ’tis To bear the want of kingdom, realm, and crown.
GAWIN. A common want, which works each worlding’s woe: That many have too much, but none enough. It were his praise could he be so content, Which makes you guilty of the greater wrong. Wherefore think on the doubtful state of wars. Where Mars hath sway, he keeps no certain course: Sometimes he lets the weaker to prevail, Sometimes the stronger troops: hope, fear, and rage With eyeless lot rules all uncertain good, Most certain harms be his assured haps. No luck can last; now here, now there it lights: No state alike, chance blindly snatcheth all, And fortune maketh guilty whom she lists.