“But the causes of their joys were far different; for as the shepherd
and the butcher both may look upon one sheep with pleasing conceits,
but the shepherd with mind to profit himself by preserving, the
butcher with killing him, so she rejoiced to find that mine own
benefits had made me to be her friend, who was a prince of such
greatness, and lovingly rejoiced. But his joy grew, as I to my danger
after perceived, by the occasion of the queen Artaxia’s setting my
head to sale for having slain her brother Tiridates, which being the
sum of an hundred thousand crowns, to {226} whosoever brought me alive
into her hands, that old wretch, who had over-lived all good nature,
though he had lying idly by him much more than that, yet above all
things loving money, for money’s own sake, determined to betray me, so
well deserving of him, for to have that which he was determined never
to use. And so knowing that the next morning I was resolved to go to
the place where I had left Anaxius, he sent in all speed to a captain
of a garrison near by, which though it belonged to the king of Iberia,
yet knowing the captain’s humour to delight so in riotous spending,
that he cared not how he came by the means to maintain it, doubted not
that to be half with him in the gain, he would play his quarter part
in the treason. And therefore that night agreeing of the fittest
places where they might surprise me in the morning, the old caitiff
was grown so ceremonious, that he would needs accompany me some miles
in my way, a sufficient token to me, if nature had made me apt to
suspect; since a churl’s courtesy rarely comes, but either for gain or
falsehood. But I suffered him to stumble into that point of good
manners: to which purpose he came out with all his clowns, horsed upon
such cart-jades, and so furnished, as in good faith I thought with
myself, if that were thrift, I wish none of my friends or subjects
ever to thrive. As for his daughter, the gentle Dido, she would also,
but in my conscience with a far better mind, prolong the time of
farewell, as long as he.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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