_Ab._ Was ever age like this? [_Exit_ POLIN.
_Qu. M._ Polin is honest; Beside, the whole proceeding is so like The hair-brained rout, I guessed as much before. Know then, it is resolved to seize the king, When next he goes in penitential weeds Among the friars, without his usual guards; Then, under shew of popular sedition, For safety, shut him in a monastery, And sacrifice his favourites to their rage.
_Ab._ When is this council to be held again?
_Qu. M._ Immediately upon the duke's departure.
_Ab._ Why sends not then the king sufficient guards, To seize the fiends, and hew them into pieces?
_Qu. M._ 'Tis in appearance easy, but the effect Most hazardous; for straight, upon the alarm, The city would be sure to be in arms; Therefore, to undertake, and not to compass, Were to come off with ruin and dishonour. You know the Italian proverb--_Bisogna copriersi_[6],-- He, that will venture on a hornet's nest, Should arm his head, and buckler well his breast.
_Ab._ But wherefore seems the king so unresolved?
_Qu. M._ I brought Polin, and made the demonstration; Told him--necessity cried out, to take A resolution to preserve his life, And look on Guise as a reclaimless rebel: But, through the natural sweetness of his temper, And dangerous mercy, coldly he replied,-- Madam I will consider what you say.
_Ab._ Yet after all, could we but fix him--
_Qu. M._ Right,-- The business were more firm for this delay; For noblest natures, though they suffer long, When once provoked, they turn the face to danger. But see, he comes, Alphonso Corso with him; Let us withdraw, and when 'tis fit rejoin him. [_Exeunt._
_King._ That's much; yet I believe thee. My mother has the judgment of the world, And all things move by that; but, my Alphonso, She has a cruel wit.
_King._ I know it well; But,--if thou'dst have my heart within thy hand,-- All conjurations blot the name of kings. What honours, interest, were the world to buy him, Shall make a brave man smile, and do a murder? Therefore I hate the memory of Brutus, I mean the latter, so cried up in story. Cæsar did ill, but did it in the sun, And foremost in the field; but sneaking Brutus, Whom none but cowards and white-livered knaves Would dare commend, lagging behind his fellows, His dagger in his bosom, stabbed his father. This is a blot, which Tully's eloquence Could ne'er wipe off, though the mistaken man Makes bold to call those traitors,--men divine.