GUENEVERA. Why dost thou still stir up my flames delay’d? His strays and errors must not move my mind: A law for private men binds not the king. What, that I ought not to condemn my liege, Nor can, thus guilty to mine own offence! Where both have done amiss, both will relent: He will forgive that needs must be forgiven. MORDRED. A likely thing, your faults must make you friends; What sets you both at odds must join you both. Think well, he casts already for revenge, And how to plague us both. I know his law; A judge severe to us, mild to himself. What then avails you to return too late, When you have passed too far? You feed vain hopes. GUENEVERA. The further past, the more this fault is yours. It served your turn t’ usurp your father’s crown: His is the crime, whom crime stands most in stead. MORDRED. They that conspire in faults offend alike: Crime makes them equal, whom it jointly stains. If for my sake you then pertook my guilt, You cannot guiltless seem: the crime was joint. GUENEVERA. Well should[257] she seem most guiltless unto thee, Whate’er she be, that’s guilty for thy sake. The remnant of that sober mind, which thou Had’st heretofore ne’er vanquish’d, yet resists. Suppress, for shame, that impious mouth so taught, And so much skill’d t’ abuse the wedded bed. Look back to former fates: Troy still had stood, Had not her prince made light of wedlock’s lore. The vice that threw down Troy doth threat thy throne. Take heed: there Mordred stands, whence Paris fell. [_Exit_. CONAN. Since that your highness knows for certain truth, What power your sire prepares to claim his right. It nearly now concerns you to resolve In humblest sort to reconcile yourself Gainst his return. MORDRED. Will war? CONAN. That lies in chance. MORDRED. I have as great a share in chance as he. CONAN. His ways be blind that maketh chance his guide. MORDRED. Whose refuge lies in chance, what dares he not? CONAN. Wars were a crime far worse than all the rest. MORDRED. The safest passage is from bad to worse. CONAN. That were to pass too far and put no mean. MORDRED. He is a fool that puts a mean in crimes. CONAN. But sword and fire would cause a common wound. MORDRED. So sword and fire will often sear the sore. CONAN. Extremest cures must not be used first. MORDRED. In desperate times the headlong way is best. CONAN. Y’ have many foes. MORDRED. No more than faithful friends. CONAN. Trust t’ it, their faith will faint, where fortune fails. Where many men pretend a love to one, Whose power may do what good or harm he will, ’Tis hard to say which be his faithful friends. Dame Flattery flitteth oft: she loves and hates With time, a present friend, an absent foe. MORDRED. But yet I’ll hope the best.[258]