You to the pillory of future ages!
[Cromwell shrugs his shoulders.
Rochester [still only half awake.
Where are my wits?—If I am not asleep,
Certes, I'm dead. But Cromwell puzzles me.
Already here! 'Twas only yesterday
I left him up on earth.
[Addressing the soldiers who surround him.
Might I not change
My dream, or else my hell? Deliver me
From Noll! you seem to be good fellows all.
Look you: the projects that you had in mind
Were most incredible. What! capture Cromwell
In a child's trap, and murder him! Go to!
For your triumphant swords, my gentlemen,
Would not have treated me, before yon gate,
As David treated Saul within the cave;
No one of you the function of his blade
Would have confined to clipping my cloak's hem.
I know. 'Tis plain enough, and I approve.
But while approving, truth to say, methinks
Your project might perchance have been conceived
More shewdly; that, in fine, the woof thereof
Was of too frail a tissue. By ill luck
I knew it not, my brethren, till too late
My ideas to make known to you thereon;
Be not offended, pray. You must, in sooth,
Have laboured stoutly to devise the scheme.
But I, like Joshua who was undismayed
By the combined assault of twenty kings,
Have cut the ham-strings of your steeds of war.
We all have acted as 'twas meet we should:
