INO. Pray give me leave, sir. After this, you are on a sudden created general, And pack'd away with a crowd of unhewn fellows, Whose courage hangs as loose about them As a slut's petticoats. Sir, he had other spirits In the court created for such perils. Excuse me, I know you fear not to meet destruction; But where men are sure to perish, 'Twere well the persons were of less concernment. He might have let you stay'd till you had gather'd An army fit for your command, and sent Some petty things upon this expedition Whose loss would have been nothing, and of whom It might have been recorded in our story As an honour, that they died monuments Of the king's folly. But let that pass; You'll say perhaps, you only have a spirit Fit for such undertakings? I wish you had not; Your want then would not be half so grievous. But here is the prodigy! you must fight them presently. Come, 'tis a project put into the king's head By some who have a plot on you and him. PLAN. It may be so, Inophilus, and I believe All this is true you tell me, and 't might startle A man were less resolv'd than I. But danger and I have been too long acquainted To shun a meeting now; I am engaged, and Cannot any ways come off with reputation. Hadst told me this before, perhaps I might Have thought on't; and yet I should not neither. If the king thinks I am grown dangerous, It is all one to me which way he takes Me from his fears. He could not do it Handsomer than thus; it makes less noise now-- But come, I must not fear such things, Inophilus: The king hath more virtue and honour than To do these actions, fit only for guilty souls; Nor must I fear, when my Inophilus fights by me. INO. Troth, sir, for all your compliment, if you've No valour but what owes itself to my company, you're like To make cold breakfast of your enemies: I have other business than to throw away My life, when there is so much odds against it: I'll stay at home, and pray for you, that's all, sir. PLAN. How! wilt not go then, Inophilus? INO. The time hath been, I thought it better sport To bustle through a bristly grove of pikes; When I have courted rugged danger with Hotter desires than handsome faces, And thought no woman half so beautiful As bloody gaping wounds: But, sir, To go and cast away myself now would not Be gallant, nor an action worth my envy: 'Tis weakness to make those that seek my ruin Laugh at my folly, With jaws stretch'd wider than the gulf that swallows us. I know when honour calls me, and when treason counterfeits Her voice. PLAN. Well, stay at home and freeze, And lose all sense of glory in A mistress' arms. Go, perish tamely, drunk With sin and peace; and may'st thou, since thou dar'st Not die with them, Outlive thy noble friends. INO. I thank you, sir, but I cannot be angry. SCENE III. _Enter_ NICETES _and_ ARAMNES, _with some Captains and Soldiers_.