AND. Prince Balthezar, I know your valiant spirit; I know your courage to be tried and good, And yet, O prince, be not confirmed in blood: Not that I taste of fear or cowardice, But of religion, piety, and love To many bosoms, that yet firmly move Without disturbed spleens. O, in thy heart Weigh the dear drops of many a purple part, That must be acted on the field’s green stage, Before the evening dews quench the sun’s rage. Let tribute be appeased and so stayed, And let not wonted fealty be denayed To our desertful kingdom. Portugals, Keep your forefathers’ oaths; that virtue craves; Let them not lie foresworn now in their graves, To make their ashes perjured and unjust, For heaven can be revenged on their dust. They swore to Spain, both for themselves and you; And will posterity prove their sires untrue? This should not be ’mong men of virtuous sp’rit: Pay tribute thou, and receive peace and writ. BAL. O virtuous coward! HOR. O ignoble spirit! To term him coward for his virtuous merit! AND. Coward! nay, then, relentless rib of steel, What virtue cannot, thou shalt make him feel. LOR. Proud Alexandro, thou art mine. ALEX. Agreed. ROG. And thou, Vollupo, mine. VOL. I’ll make thee bleed. HOR. And thou, Don Pedro, mine. DON PED. I care not whose; or thine, or thine, or all at once. BAL. I bind thee, Don Andrea, by thy honour, Thy valiancy, and all that thou hold’st great, To meet me single in the battle’s heat; Where I’ll set down, in characters on thy flesh, Four precious lines, spoke by our father’s mouth, When first thou cam’st embassador; these they are: ’Tis said we shall not answer, at next birth, Our fathers’ faults in heaven, why then on earth? Which proves and shows, That what they lost by base captivity, We may redeem with wonted valiancy: And to this crimson end our colours spread; Our courages are new-born, our valours bred Therefore, Andrea, as thou tenderest fame, Wars, reputation, and a soldier’s name, Meet me. AND. I will. BAL. Single me out. AND. I shall. ALEX. Do you the like. LOR. And you all, and we. AND. Can we be foes, and all so well agreed? BAL. Why, man, in war there’s bleeding amity; And he this day gives me the deepest wound, I’ll call him brother. AND. Then, prince, call me so; To gain that name, I’ll give the deepest blow. JER. Nay. then, if brotherhood by strokes come due, I hope, boy, thou wilt gain a brother too. HOR. Father, doubt it not. AND. Lord general, Breathe, like your name, a general defiance ’Gainst Portugal. GEN. Defiance to the Portugals! BAL. The like Breathe our lord general against the Spaniards. GEN. Defiance to the Spaniards! AND. Now cease, words: I long to hear the music of clashed swords. BAL. Why, thou shalt hear it presently. [_They offer to fight._ AND. Quickly then.