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108

Sith I have cause and will and strength and means

To do 't. Examples gross as earth exhort me:

Witness this army of such mass and charge

Led by a delicate and tender prince,

Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd

Makes mouths at the invisible event,

Exposing what is mortal and unsure

To all that fortune, death and danger dare,

Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great

Is not to stir without great argument,

But greatly to find quarrel in a straw

When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,

That have a father kill'd, a mother stain' d,

Excitements of my reason and my blood,

And let all sleep, while, to my shame, I see

The imminent death of twenty thousand men,

That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,

Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot

Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,

Which is not tomb enough and continent

To hide the slain? O! from this time forth,

My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!

Exit.]

Queen. I will not speak with her.

Gent. She is importunate, indeed distract:

Her mood will needs be pitied.

 45 Sith: since

47 charge: expense

50 mouths: grimaces

54 argument: cause

58 Excitements: incentives

61 trick: trifle

64 continent: receptacle  Scene V, S. d.; cf. n.

2 importunate: persistent

