1. O Britain’s prosperous state, were heavenly powers But half so willing to preserve thy peace, As they are prone to plague thee for thy wars! But thus, O gods, yea, thus it likes you still, When you decree to turn and touse the world, To make our errors cause of your decrees. We fretting fume, and burning wax right wood; We cry for swords and harmful harness crave; We rashly rave, whiles from our present rage You frame a cause of long-foredeemed doom. 2. When Britain so desired her own decay, That even her native brood would root her up, Seem’d it so huge a work, O heavens, for you To tumble down and quite subvert her state, Unless so many nations came in aid? What thirst of spoil, O fates! In civil wars Were you afraid to faint for want of blood? But yet, O wretched state in Britons fond, What needed they to stoop to Mordred’s yoke, Or fear the man themselves so fearful made? Had they but link’d like friends in Arthur’s bands, And join’d their force against the foreign foes, These wars and civil sins had soon surceas’d, And Mordred, reft of rule, had fear’d his sire. 3. Would gods these wars had drawn no other blood, Than such as sprang from breasts of foreign foes! So that the fountain, fed with changeless course, Had found no nearer vents for dearer juice. Or if the fates so thirst for British blood, And long so deeply for our last decay, O, that the rest were spar’d and safe reserv’d, Both Saxons, Danes, and Normans most of all! Hereof, when civil wars have worn us out, Must Britain stand, a borrow’d blood for Brute. 4. When prosperous haps and long-continuing bliss Have pass’d the ripeness of their budding growth, They fall and foulter like the mellow fruit, Surcharg’d with burden of their own excess: So fortune, wearied with our often wars, Is forc’d to faint and leave us to our fates. If men have minds presaging ought their harms, If ever heavy heart foreween her woe, What Briton lives so far remov’d from home, In any air or pole, or coast abroad, But that even now, through nature’s sole instinct, He feels the fatal sword imbrue his breast, Wherewith his native soil for aye is slain! What hopes and haps lie wasted in these wars! Who knows the foils he suffered in these fields? _The Argument of the Fifth Act._ 1. In the first scene Arthur and Cador returned deadly wounded, and bewailed the misfortunes of themselves and their country, and are likewise bewailed of the Chorus. 2. In the second scene the ghost of Gorlois returneth rejoicing at his revenge, and wishing ever after a happier fate unto Britain; which done, he descendeth where he first rose. _The Argument and Manner of the Fifth and Last Dumb Show._