「I know you all and will awhile uphold the unyoked humour of your idleness. Yet herein will I imitate the sun, who doth permit the base contagious clouds to smother up his beauty from the world, that, when he please again to be himself, being wanted, he may be more wondered at, by breaking through the foul and ugly mists of vapours that did seem to strangle him. If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work. But when they seldom come, they wished for come, and nothing pleaseth but rare accidents. So, when this loose behaviour I throw off and pay the debt I never promised, by how much better than my word I am, by so much shall I falsify men's hopes. And like bright metal on a sullen ground, my reformation, glittering o'er my fault, shall show more goodly and attract more eyes than that which hath no foil to set it off. I'll so offend, to make offence a skill, redeeming time when men think least I will.」
「What need I be so forward with him that calls not on me? Well, 'tis no matter, honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on? How then? Can honour set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? No What is honour? A word. What is in that word honour? What is that honour? Air. A trim reckoning. Who hath it? He that died a'Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. 'Tis insensible, then. Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I'll none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon. And so ends my catechism.」
「Brave Percy. Fare thee well, great heart. Ill-weaved ambition, how much art thou shrunk. When that this body did contain a spirit a kingdom for it was too small a bound, and now, two paces of the vilest earth is room enough. Adieu.」
HD
