Page:Hudibras - Volume 1 (Butler, Nash, Bohn; 1859).djvu/197

CANTO III.] 'Tis not restraint, or liberty, That makes men prisoners or free; But perturbations that possess The mind, or equanimities. The whole world was not half so wide To Alexander, when he cry'd, Because he had but one to subdue, As was a paltry narrow tub to Diogenes: who is not said, For aught that ever I could read, To whine, put finger i' th' eye, and sob, Because h' had ne'er another tub. The ancients make two sev'ral kinds Of prowess in heroic minds, The active and the passive valiant, Both which are pari libra gallant; For both to give blows, and to carry, In fights are equi-necessary: But in defeats, the passive stout Are always found to stand it out Most desp'rately, and to out-do The active, 'gainst a conqu'ring foe: Tho' we with blacks and blues are suggil'd, Or, as the vulgar say, are cudgel'd; He that is valiant, and dares fight, Though drubb'd, can lose no honour by't. Honour's a lease for lives to come, And cannot be extended from The legal tenant: 'tis a chattel Not to be forfeited in battel. If he that in the field is slain. Be in the bed of honour lain, He that is beaten may be said To lie in honour's truckle-bed.