Whose entrails fir'd with rancour, wrath, and rage, The former petty combats did displace, And camp to camp did endless battles wage, Which on the mountain-tops of warlike Thrace Made thund'ring Mars (Dissension's common friend) Amongst the forward soldiers first descend, Arm'd with his blood-besmeared keen coutelace. Who first attempted to excite to arms The troops enraged with the trumpet's sound, Headlong to run and reck no after-harms; Where in the flow'red meads dead men were found, Falling as thick (through warlike cruelty) As ears of corn for want of husbandry; That (wastful) shed their grain upon the ground. O war, if thou wert subject but to death, And by desert might'st fall to Phlegethon, The torment that Ixion suffereth, Or his whose soul the vulture seizeth on, Were all too little to reward thy wrath: Nor all the plagues that fiery Pluto hath The most outrageous sinners laid upon. Accursed caitiffs! wretches that we are! Perceive we not that for the fatal doom The Fates make haste enough, but we (by war) Must seek in hell to have a hapless room? Or fast enough do foolish men not die, But they (by murder of themselves) must hie, Hopeless to hide them in a hapless tomb? All sad and desolate our city lies, And for fair corn-ground are our fields surcloy'd With worthless gorse,[346] that yearly fruitless dies, And chokes the good, which else we had enjoy'd. Death dwells within us, and if gentle peace Descend not soon, our sorrows to surcease, Latium (already quail'd) will be destroy'd. FOOTNOTES: [340] So, in Ben Jonson's "Catiline," act ii. sc. 3-- "But you think, Carius, 'Tis _covetise_ hath wrought me: if you love me, Change that unkind conceit." In the "Alchymist," act ii. sc. 3-- "Why, this is covetise!" And in "Pierce Penilesse his Supplication to the Divell," p. 29: "Under vellany I comprehend murder, treason, theft, cousnage, cut-throat _covetise_, and such like." [341] _Foyld'st_, first and second edition. [342] [Old copies, _we_.] [343] Seldom. It is a word often used by ancient writers. See Mr Steevens's note on "Coriolanus," act ii. sc. 1. Again, in Churchyard's "Worthiness of Wales," 1587-- "So many springs that _sield_ that soil is dry." [344] What pleases us best. So in "King Lear," act ii. sc. 1-- "His face _likes_ me not." In the "Maid's Tragedy," act ii.-- "What look _likes_ you best." In "The Woman-Hater," act i. sc. 3-- "If I can find no company that _likes_ me." In "Euphues and his England," 1582, p. 16: "Enquire no farther than beseemeth you, least you heare that which cannot _like you_." And ibid., p. 92: "This _liked_ them all exceedingly. And thus Surius with a good grace and pleasant speech began to enter into the lists with Camilla."