_Court_. Brother John Bates, is not that the morning which breaks yonder?
_Bates_. I think it be, _but we have no great cause to desire the approach of day_.
_Will_. We see yonder the beginning of the day, but I think we shall never see the end of it. Who goes there?
_Will_. A good old commander, and a most kind gentleman: I pray you, what thinks he of our estate?
_King._ Even as men wrecked upon a sand, that look to be washed off the next tide.
_Bates_. _He hath not told his thought to the king_?
_King_. No; nor it is not meet that he should; for though _I speak it to you_, I think the king is but a man as I am.
And it is here that he proceeds to make that important disclosure above quoted, that all his senses have but human conditions, and that all his _affections_, though _higher mounted, stoop with the like wing_; and therefore no man should in reason possess him with any appearance of fear, lest he, by showing it, 'should dishearten his army.'
_Bates_. He may show what outward courage he will; but, _I_ believe, as cold a night as 'tis, he could wish himself in the Thames, up to the neck; and so I would he were, and I by him, at all adventures, so we were quit here.
_King_. By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the king. I think he would not wish himself anywhere but where he is.
_Bates_. Then would he were here alone; so should he be sure to be ransomed, and a many poor men's lives saved.
_King_. I dare say you love him not so ill as to wish him here alone; _howsoever you speak this to feel other men's minds_; Methinks I could not die anywhere so contented as in the king's company; _his cause being just, and his quarrel honorable_.
_Bates_. Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know enough, if we know we are the king's subjects; if his cause be wrong, our obedience to the _king_ wipes the crime of it out of us.
_Will_. But _if the cause be not good_, the _king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make_; when all those legs and arms and heads chopped off in a battle shall join together at the latter day, and cry all--We died at such a place; some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them; some upon the debts they owe; some upon their children rawly left. I am afeared that few die well, that die in battle; for how can they _charitably_ dispose of anything _when blood is their argument_? Now if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it; whom to disobey were _against all proportion of subjection_.