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ACT IV.
Enter Clytus in his Macedonian habit; Hephestion, Eumenes, Meleager, &c. in Persian Robes.
Clyt.
AWay, I will not wear these Persian Robes;
Nor ought the King be angry for the reverence
I owe my Country, sacred are her Customs,
Which honest Clytus shall preserve to death.
O let me rot in Macedonian rags,
Rather then shine in fashions of the East.
Then for the Adorations he requires,
Rost my old body in eternal flames,
Or let him Cage me, like Calisthenes.
Eum.
Dear Clytus, be perswaded.
Heph.
You know the King
Is God-like, full of all the richest Virtues
That ever Royal heart possess'd; yet you
Perverse, but to one humour will oppose him.
Clyt.
Call you it humour! 'tis a pregnant one,
By Mars there's venom in it, burning pride;
And though my life shou'd follow, rather then
Bear such a hot ambition in my bowels,
I'd rip 'em up to give the poyson vent.
Mel.
Was not that Jupiter whom we adore
A man? but for his more then human acts,
Advanc'd to Heav'n, and worshipt for its Lord!
Heph.
By all his Thunder, and his Sov'raign Power,
I'le not believe the Earth yet ever felt
An arm like Alexanders; not that God
You nam'd, though riding in a Car of fire,
And drawn by flying Horses wing'd with Lightning,
Cou'd in a space more short do greater deeds,
Drive all the Nations, and lay wast the World.
Clyt.
There's not a man of War amongst you all
That loves the King like me; yet I'le not flatter,
Nor sooth his vanity, 'tis blamable,
And when the wine works, Clytus thoughts will out,