THIRD CHORUS. Would gods your mind had felt no such remorse, And that your foes had no such favour found! So might your friends have had far friendlier fates, If rebels for their due deserts had died. The wicked’s death is safety to the just; To spare the traitors was to spoil the true: Of force he hurts the good that helps the bad. In that you sought your country’s gain, ’twas well: In that you shunned not her loss, ’twas hard. Good is the friend that seeks to do us good; A mighty friend that doth prevent our harms. ARTHUR. Well, so it was; it cannot be redress’d; The greater is my grief that sees it so. My life (I feel) doth fade, and sorrows flow, The rather that my name is thus extinct; In this respect, so Mordred did succeed, O that myself had fall’n and Mordred liv’d! That having conquer’d all my foes but him, I mought have left you him, that conquer’d me. O heavy, wretched lot! to be the last That falls! to view the burial of my realm! Where each man else hath felt his several fate, I only pine, oppress’d with all their fates! FOURTH CHORUS. Although your highness do sustain such grief, As needs enforceth all your realm to rue, Yet since such ruth affordeth no relief, Let due discretion ’suage each cureless sore, And bear the harms that run without redress. The loss is ours, that lose so rare a prince: You only win, that see your foe here foil’d. [_The breathless body of_ MORDRED _in armour, as he fell, is brought upon the stage._ ARTHUR. A causeless foe. When wars did call me hence, He was in years but young, in wit too old. As virtue shineth most in comeliest wights, When inward gifts are deck’d with outward grace, So did his wit and feature feed that hope, Which falsely train’d me to this woful hap. His mind transformed thus, I cannot choose But long to see what change his face sustains. My blood and kindred, doubled in his birth, Inspires a mix’d and twice-descending love, Which drives my dying veins to wish his view. Unhelm his luckless head, set bare his face, That face which erst pleas’d me and mine too much. FIRST CHORUS. See (worthiest king) the hope of all your realm, Had not his lust to rule prevented all. ARTHUR. I see (alas), I see (hide, hide again: O, spare mine eyes!) a witness of my crimes; A fearful vision of my former guilt; A dreadful horror of a future doom, A present gall of mind. O happy they, Whose spotless lives attain a dreadless death! And thou, O hapless boy! O spite of fates! (What mought I term thee--nephew, son, or both?) Alas! how happy should we both have been, If no ambitious thought had vex’d thy head, Nor thou thus striv’d to reave thy father’s rule, But stay’d thy time, and not forestall’d us both!