Tigr. Do I refuse her, that I doubt her worth?
Were she as virtuous as she would be thought;
So perfect, that no one of her own sex
Could find a want she had; so tempting fair,
That she could wish it off, for damning souls;
I would pay any ransom, twenty lives,
Rather than meet her married in my bed.
Perhaps, I have a love, where I have fix’d
Mine eyes, not to be moved, and she on me;
I am not fickle.

Arb. Is that all the cause?
Think you, you can so knit yourself in love
To any other, that her searching sight
Cannot dissolve it? So, before you tried,
You thought yourself a match for me in fight.
Trust me, Tigranes, she can do as much
In peace, as I in war; she’ll conquer too.
You shall see, if you have the power to stand
The force of her swift looks. If you dislike,
I’ll send you home with love, and name your ransom
Some other way; but if she be your choice,
She frees you. To Iberia you must.

Tigr. Sir, I have learn’d a prisoner’s sufferance,
And will obey. But give me leave to talk
In private with some friends before I go.

Arb. Some do await him forth, and see him safe;
But let him freely send for whom he please,
And none dare to disturb his conference;
I will not have him know what bondage is,
Till he be free from me.

[Exit Tigranes with Attendants.

Mar. And yet you conquer’d him.

Arb. And yet I conquer’d him, and could have done,
Hadst thou joined with him, though thy name in arms
Be great. Must all men, that are virtuous,
Think suddenly to match themselves with me?
I conquer’d him, and bravely; did I not?

Bes. An please your majesty, I was afraid at first—

Mar. When wert thou other?

Arb. Of what?

Bes. That you would not have spied your best advantages; for your majesty, in my opinion, lay too high; methinks,under favour, you should have lain thus.

Mar. Like a tailor at a wake.

Bes. And then, if’t please your majesty to remember, at one time—by my troth, I wish’d myself wi’ you.

Mar. By my troth, thou wouldst ha’ stunk ’em both out o’ th’ lists.

Arb. What to do?

Bes. To put your majesty in mind of an occasion: you lay thus, and Tigranes falsified a blow at your leg, which you, by doing thus, avoided; but, if you had whipped up your leg thus, and reach’d him on the ear, you had made the blood-royal run about his head.

Mar. What country fence-school didst thou learn that at?

Arb. Puff! did not I take him nobly?

Mar. Why, you did, and you have talk’d enough on’t.

Arb. Talk enough!
Will you confine my words? By Heav’n and earth,
I were much better be a king of beasts
Than such a people! If I had not patience
Above a god, I should be call’d a tyrant,
Throughout the