CONAN. If pow’r be join’d with right, men must obey. MORDRED. My will must go for right. CONAN. If they assent. MORDRED. My sword shall force assent. CONAN. No, gods forbid! MORDRED. What! shall I stand, whiles Arthur sheds my blood? And must I yield my neck unto the axe? Whom fates constrain, let him forego his bliss; But he that needless yields unto his bane, When he may shun, doth well deserve to lose The good he cannot use. Who would sustain A baser life, that may maintain the best? We cannot part the crown: a regal throne Is not for two: the sceptre fits but one. But whether is the fitter of us two, That must our swords discern, and shortly shall. CONAN. How much were you to be renowned more, If casting off these ruinous attempts, You would take care how to supply the loss, Which former wars and foreign broils have wrought; How to deserve the people’s hearts with peace, With quiet rest and deep-desired ease Not to increase the rage that long hath reign’d, Nor to destroy the realm you seek to rule. Your father rear’d it up, you pluck it down. You lose your country, whiles you win it thus: To make it yours, you strive to make it none. Where kings impose too much, the commons grudge;[264] Good-will withdraws; assent becomes but slow. MORDRED. Must I to gain renown incur my plague, Or hoping praise sustain an exile’s life? Must I for country’s ease disease myself, Or for their love despise my own estate?[265] No. ’Tis my hap that Britain serves my turn; That fear of me doth make the subjects crouch; That what they grudge they do constrained yield. If their assents be slow, my wrath is swift: When favour fails to bend, let fury break. If they be yet to learn, let terror teach, What kings may do, what subjects ought to bear. Then is a kingdom at a wished stay, When whatsoever the sovereign wills or nills, Men be compell’d as well to praise as bear, And subjects’ wills enforc’d against their wills. CONAN. But whoso seeks true praise and just renown, Would rather seek their praising hearts than tongues. MORDRED. True praise may happen to the basest groom; A forced praise to none but to a prince. I wish that most, that subjects most repine. CONAN. But yet where wars do threaten your estate, There needeth friends to fortify your crown. MORDRED. Each crown is made of that attractive mould, That of itself it draws a full defence. CONAN. That is a just and no usurped crown; And better were an exile’s life, than thus Disloyally to wrong your sire and liege. Think not that impious crimes can prosper long: A time they ’scape, in time they be repaid. MORDRED. The hugest crimes bring best success to some. CONAN. Those some be rare. MORDRED. Why may not I be rare? CONAN. It was their hap. MORDRED. It is my hope.