ARTHUR. In sooth (good Cador), so our fortune fares, As needs we must return to wonted force. To wars we must; but such unhappy wars, As leave no hope for right or wrong to ’scape. Myself foresees the fate; it cannot fall Without our dearest blood: much may the mind Of pensive sire presage, whose son so sins. All truth, all trust, all blood, all bands be broke! The seeds are sown that spring to future spoil. My son, my nephew, yea, each side myself, Nearer than all (woe’s me), too near, my foe! Well, ’tis my plague for life so lewdly led. The price of guilt is still a heavier guilt; For were it light, that ev’n by birth myself Was bad, I made my sister bad: nay, were That also light, I have begot as bad, Yea, worse, an heir assign’d to all our sins. Such was his birth: what base, what vulgar vice, Could once be look’d for of so noble blood? The deeper guilt descends, the more it roots: The younger imps effect the huger crimes. [_Exeunt._ CHORUS. 1. When many men assent to civil wars And yield a suffrage to enforce the fates, No man bethinks him of his own mishap, But turns that luck unto another’s share. Whereas if fear did first forewarn each foil, Such love to fight would breed no Briton’s bane. And better were still to preserve our peace, Than thus to vent for peace through waging wars. What folly to forego such certain haps, And in their stead to feed uncertain hopes! Such hopes as oft have puff’d up many a realm, Till cross-success hath press’d it down as deep: Whiles blind affection, fetch’d from private cause, Misguiding wit hath mask’d in wisdom’s veil, Pretending what in purpose it abhorr’d. 2. Peace hath three foes encamped in our breasts; Ambition, wrath and envy, which subdu’d, We should not fail to find eternal peace. ’Tis in our pow’r to joy it all at will, And few there be, but if they will, they may: But yet even those, who like the name of peace, Through fond desire repine at peace itself, Between the hope whereof and it itself A thousand things may fall, that further wars. The very speech sometimes and treats of truce Is slash’d and cut asunder with the sword. Nor seld the name of peace doth edge our minds, And sharpeneth on our fury, till we fight; So that the mention made of love and rest Is oft a whetstone to our hate and rage.