Act II

Methinks I do.

And how does your content

Tender your own good fortune?

I remember

You did supplant your brother Prospero.

True:

And look how well my garments sit upon me;

Much feater than before: my brother’s servants

Were then my fellows; now they are my men.

But, for your conscience?

’Twould put me to my slipper: but I feel not

This deity in my bosom: twenty consciences,

That stand ’twixt me and Milan, candied be they

And melt ere they molest! Here lies your brother,

No better than the earth he lies upon,

If he were that which now he’s like, that’s dead;

Whom I, with this obedient steel, three inches of it,

Can lay to bed for ever; whiles you, doing thus,

To the perpetual wink for aye might put

This ancient morsel, this Sir Prudence, who

Should not upbraid our course. For all the rest,

They’ll take suggestion as a cat laps milk;

They’ll tell the clock to any business that

We say befits the hour.