JUL. 'Tis hard
And base to live beneath a conqueror:
Yet, amid all this grief and infamy,
'Twere something to have rushed upon the ranks
In their advance; 'twere something to have stood
Defeat, discomfiture; and, when around
No beacon blazes, no far axle groans
Through the wide plain, no sound of sustenance
Or succour soothes the still-believing ear,
To fight upon the last dismantled tower,
And yield to valour, if we yield at all.
But rather should my neck lie trampled down
By every Saracen and Moor on earth,
Than my own country see her laws o'erturned
By those who should protect them: Sir, no prince
Shall ruin Spain; and, least of all, her own.
Is any just or glorious act in view,
Your oaths forbid it: is your avarice,
Or, if there be such, any viler passion,
To have its giddy range, and to be gorged,
It rises over all your sacraments,
A hooded mystery, holier than they all.

ROD. Hear me, Don Julian; I have heard thy wrath
Who am thy king, nor heard man's wrath before.

JUL. Thou shalt hear mine, for thou art not my king.

ROD. Knowest thou not the altered face of war?
Xeres is ours; from every region round