_Cleom._ My wife! my mother! O, I'm so divided, That I grieve most for both, and love both most! Two twining vines about this elm, whose fall Must shortly--very shortly, crush you both. And yet I will not go to ground, Without a noble ruin round my trunk: The forest shall be shaken when I sink, And all the neighbouring trees Shall groan, and fall beneath my vast destruction. _Crat._ That's something yet, an earnest of an action; Another groan or two, and all goes well. _Cleom._ Well, I will live. _Crat._ Thou shalt. _Cleom._ I'll try at least. _Crat._ Do not go back, and beat off what thou saidst. _Cleon._ Peace, peace, good grandmother; he lives already, And conquers too, in saying he will try: Nay, if the king of Sparta says he'll do't, I ask no more than that; For 'tis below a king to tell a lie. _Cleor._ But where's the means? _Cleon._ The means is in the daring: Had my own mother lived, and asked that question, I should have thought my father had begot me Without her help, as Pallas sprung from Jove. _Cleor._ Think'st thou, he can defend us all, alone? _Cleon._ No; for I mean to help him. _Cleom._ That's my boy, my hopeful lion's whelp. [_Takes and kisses him._ _Cleor._ So Hector hugged his young Astyanax; Went out to fight, and never saw him more. _Cleon._ But why did not Astyanax go with Hector? _Crat._ Because he was a child, and could not go. _Cleon._ Was he a Spartan child? _Cleor._ Oh no! a Trojan. _Cleon._ There's it, a Trojan child. But grant me this, There are no Spartan children; we are born men; And though you say, I have but fifteen years, We Spartans take ten strides before our age, And start beyond dull nature. _Cleom._ Let me but live to shadow this young plant From blights and storms, he'll soon shoot up a hero: He must; I got him in the pride of conquest; For, coming back from my first maiden battle, Wherein I made the great Aratus fly, And added all his laurels to my brow, I well remember, that I spurred it hard, And, like a meteor, shot before my troops, To reach my love that night. I was bridegroom, Or scarce had lost that name; and, stealing home, According to my country's modest use, I found my Ægiatis just undrest, Wearying the gods with vows for my return. My transport was so great, I could not stay, But kissed, and took her, trembling, in my arms; And in that fury of my love, I stampt This image of my soul.--[41] _Enter_ PANTHEUS. What, my Pantheus! Where hast thou been this long long year of hours? _Panth._ Where I have past a merry morning's walk, With the best company. _Cleom._ With whom?