Page:Richard III (1927) Yale.djvu/151

Richard the Third, V. iii

Let not our babbling dreams affright our souls;

For conscience is a word that cowards use,

Devis'd at first to keep the strong in awe:

Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law.

March on, join bravely, let us to 't pell-mell;

If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell.

What shall I say more than I have inferr'd?

Remember whom you are to cope withal:

A sort of vagabonds, rascals, and run-aways,

A scum of Britaines and base lackey peasants,

Whom their o'ercloyed country vomits forth

To desperate adventures and assur'd destruction.

You sleeping safe, they bring you to unrest;

You having lands, and bless'd with beauteous wives,

They would restrain the one, distain the other.

And who doth lead them but a paltry fellow,

Long kept in Britaine at our mother's cost?

A milksop, one that never in his life

Felt so much cold as over shoes in snow?

Let's whip these stragglers o'er the seas again;

Lash hence these overweening rags of France,

These famish'd beggars, weary of their lives;

Who, but for dreaming on this fond exploit,

For want of means, poor rats, had hang'd themselves:

If we be conquer'd, let men conquer us,

And not these bastard Britaines; whom our fathers

Have in their own land beaten, bobb'd, and thump'd,

And, on record, left them the heirs of shame.

Shall these enjoy our lands? lie with our wives?

 315 Cf. n.

316 cope withal: have to do with

317 sort: set

323 distain: defile

325 Britaine: Brittany

329 overweening: presumptuous

335 bobb'd: banged

