Be still yourselves, ye fight against the drosse
Of those, that oft have runne from you with losse.
How many Somersets, dissentions brands,
Have felt the force of our revengefull hands!
From whome this Youth, as from a princely floud,
Derives his best, yet not untainted bloud.
Have our affaults made Lancaster to droupe?
And shall this Welshman with his ragged troupe
Subdue the Norman and the Saxon line,
That onely Merlin may be thought divine?
See what a guide these fugitives have chose,
Who, bred among the French, our ancient foes,
Forgets the English language, and the ground,
And knowes not what our drums and trumpets found!"
Sir J. Peaumont's Poems.
Lond. Ed. 1629.
"IT is in vaine, brave friends, to shew the right
Which we are forc'd to feeke by civill fight.
Your swords are brandisht in a noble cause,
To free your Country from a Tyrant's jawes.
What angry Planet, what disastrous figne
Directs Plantagenet's afflicted line?
Ah, was it not enough, that mutuall rage
In deadly battels should this race ingage,
Till by their blowes themselves they fewer make,
And pillers fall, which France could never shake?
But must this crooked Monfter now be found,
To lay rough hands on that unclosed wound?
His fecret plots have much increast the flood,
He with his brother's, and his nephewes blood,
Hath ftain'd the brightnesse of his Father's flowres,
And made his own white Rose as red as ours.
This is the day, whose splendour puts to flight
Obfcuring clouds, and brings an age of light.
We fee no hindrance of those wished times,
But this Ufurper, whose depreffing crimes
Will drive him from the mountaine where he stands,
So that he needs must fall without our hands.
In this we happy are, that by our armes
Both Yorke and Lancaster revenge their harmes.
Here Henry's fervants joyne with Edward's friends,
And leave their privat griefes for publicke ends."
SPEECH. of VOADA, Queen of the
BRITTONS, before the Battle with the
"M Y state and sex, not hand or hart, most valiant Friends, with-hild
Me (wretched cause of your repaire, by wicked Romans il'd) From that revenge which I do wish, and ye have cause to
In which suppose not Voada in female feares to lurke.
For, loe, myselfe, unlike myselfe, and these same Ladies faire
In armor, not to shrinke an ynch wheare hottest doings are.
Even we do dare to bid the base, and you yourselves shall fee
Your selves to come behind in armes: the Romaines too
Such Conquerors, and valiantlie can womankind oppresse, Shall know that Brittish women can the Romish wrongs re
Then arme ye with like courages as Ladies shall present, Whom ye, nor wounds, nor death, the praise of onset shall
Nor envie that our martiall rage exceeds your manly ire, For by how much more we endure, so much more we defire Revenge, on those in whose default we are unhallowed thus, Whilst they forget themselves for men, or to be borne of us :
Ye yeeld them tribute, and from us their Legions have their
pay;
Thus were too much, but more then thus, the haughtie
Tirant's sway;
That I am Queene from being wrong'd doth nothing me
protect :
Their rapes against my Daughters both I also might object:
They maydes deflower, they wives enforce, and use their wils
And yeat we live, defferring fight, inferring so our fall.
But valiant Brutons, ventrous Scots, and warlike Pichts, I
Exhorting whom I should dehort, your fiearcenes to deferre :
Leffe courage more confiderate would make your foes to
My heart hath joy'd to fee your hands the Romaine standards take.
But when as force and fortune fail'd, that you with teeth
And in the faces of their Foes your women, in despight,
Should fling their fuckling Babes, I hild fuch valiantnes but
Inforced flight is no disgrace, such flyers fight againe.
Here are ye, Scots, that with the King, my valiant Brother
The Latines, wondring at your prowes, through Rome in
triumph led:
Ye Mars-star'd Pichtes of Scythian breed are here colleagues,
and more,
Ye Dardane Brutes, last named, but in valour meant before :
In your conduct, most knightly Friends, I superseade the
Ye come to fight, and we in fight to hope and helpe our best."
Warner's Alb. Eng.
Chap. 18. B. 3. 1602.
MUTIUS SCÆVOLA to PORSENNA.
"BEHOLD, grim Tyrant, here before thee stands
A man had been thy death, had not these hands
Prov'd traitours to my mind: had made that grave
Been thine, which now's prepared for thy flave.
If Scævola must undergo death's doom,
There's none but will write guiltlesse on his tomb:
I set upon with fearlesse courage those
Who were our Capitols, our Countrie's foes.
Why are the Heavens then thus against me bent;
And not propitious to my brave intent:
What, are the Gods afham'd to lend their aid;
Or are they of this Tyrant's pow'r afraid ?
Or have the Fates referved him that he
In future triumphs might a trophie be?
Whate'er 'twas made them thus 'gainst me conspire,
It grieves my foul it had not its defire.
Etruria, fee what fouls the Romans bear,
Admire the noble acts the Latians dare;
Long after me that will this fact yet do,
There comes an other and an other too;
There want not those who hope to say they wore
A lawrel died in thy crimson gore:
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