'Tis not restraint, or liberty,
That makes men prisoners or free;
But perturbations that possess
The mind, or equanimities. 1020
The whole world was not half so wide
To Alexander, when he cry'd,
Because he had but one to subdue,[1]
As was a paltry narrow tub to
Diogenes: who is not said, 1025
For aught that ever I could read,
To whine, put finger i' th' eye, and sob,
Because h' had ne'er another tub.
The ancients make two sev'ral kinds
Of prowess in heroic minds,1030
The active and the passive valiant,
Both which are pari libra gallant;
For both to give blows, and to carry,
In fights are equi-necessary:
But in defeats, the passive stout 1035
Are always found to stand it out
Most desp'rately, and to out-do
The active, 'gainst a conqu'ring foe:
Tho' we with blacks and blues are suggil'd,[2]
Or, as the vulgar say, are cudgel'd; 1040
He that is valiant, and dares fight,
Though drubb'd, can lose no honour by't.
Honour's a lease for lives to come,
And cannot be extended from
The legal tenant: 'tis a chattel 1045
Not to be forfeited in battel.
If he that in the field is slain.
Be in the bed of honour lain,[3]
He that is beaten may be said
To lie in honour's truckle-bed.[4] 1050
- ↑ See Juven. Sat. x. 168; xiv. 308.
- ↑ Beaten black and blue; from the Latin suggillare.
- ↑ "The bed of honour," says Farquhar (in the Recruiting Officer), "is a mighty large bed. Ten thousand people may lie in it together and never feel one another."
- ↑ The truckle-bed is a small bed upon wheels, which goes under the larger one. The pun is upon the word "truckle."
