The course of things can be with-held no longer
From breaking forth to their appointed end:
My vengeance, ripened in the womb of time,
Presses for birth, and longs to be disclosed.
Grillon, the Guise is doomed to sudden death:
The sword must end him:--has not thine an edge?
_Gril._ Yes, and a point too; I'll challenge him.
_King._ I bid thee kill him. [_Walking._
_Gril._ So I mean to do.
_King._ Without thy hazard.
_Gril._ Now I understand you; I should murder him:
I am your soldier, sir, but not your hangman.
_King._ Dost thou not hate him?
_Gril._ Yes.
_King._ Hast thou not said,
That he deserves it?
_Gril._ Yes; but how have I
Deserved to do a murder?
_King._ 'Tis no murder;
'Tis sovereign justice, urged from self-defence.
_Gril._ 'Tis all confest, and yet I dare not do't.
_King._ Go; thou art a coward.
_Gril._ You are my king.
_King._ Thou say'st, thou dar'st not kill him.
_Gril._ Were I a coward, I had been a villain,
And then I durst have done't.
_King._ Thou hast done worse, in thy long course of arms.
Hast thou ne'er killed a man?
_Gril._ Yes, when a man would have killed me.
_King._ Hast thou not plundered from the helpless poor?
Snatched from the sweating labourer his food?
_Gril._ Sir, I have eaten and drank in my own defence, when I was
hungry and thirsty; I have plundered, when you have not paid me; I
have been content with a farmer's daughter, when a better whore was
not to be had.
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