Act 3, Scene 5

The Same. The Senate House. The Senate Sitting.

First Senator
1151 My lord, you have my voice to it: the fault's
1152 Bloody. 'tis necessary he should die;
1153 Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.
Second Senator
1154 Most true; the law shall bruise him.
[Enter ALCIBIADES, attended.]
Alcibiades
1155 Honour, health, and compassion to the senate!
First Senator
1156 Now, captain.
Alcibiades
1157 I am a humble suitor to your virtues;
1158 For pity is the virtue of the law,
1159 And none but tyrants use it cruelly.
1160 It pleases time and fortune to lie heavy
1161 Upon a friend of mine, who, in hot blood
1162 Hath stepp'd into the law, which is past depth
1163 To those that without heed do plunge into't.
1164 He is a man, setting his fate aside,
1165 Of comely virtues;
1166 Nor did he soil the fact with cowardice,—
1167 An honour in him which buys out his fault,—
1168 But, with a noble fury and fair spirit,
1169 Seeing his reputation touch'd to death,
1170 He did oppose his foe;
1171 And with such sober and unnoted passion
1172 He did behave his anger, ere 'twas spent,
1173 As if he had but prov'd an argument.
First Senator
1174 You undergo too strict a paradox,
1175 Striving to make an ugly deed look fair:
1176 Your words have took such pains as if they labour'd
1177 To bring manslaughter into form, and set
1178 Quarrelling upon the head of valour; which indeed
1179 Is valour misbegot, and came into the world
1180 When sects and factions were newly born.
1181 He's truly valiant that can wisely suffer
1182 The worst that man can breathe, and make his wrongs
1183 his outsides, to wear them like his raiment, carelessly,
1184 And ne'er prefer his injuries to his heart,
1185 To bring it into danger.
1186 If wrongs be evils, and enforce us kill,
1187 What folly 'tis to hazard life for ill!
Alcibiades
1188 My lord,—
First Senator
1189 You cannot make gross sins look clear;
1190 To revenge is no valour, but to bear.
Alcibiades
1191 My lords, then, under favour, pardon me,
1192 If I speak like a captain.
1193 Why do fond men expose themselves to battle,
1194 And not endure all threats? sleep upon't,
1195 And let the foes quietly cut their throats
1196 Without repugnancy? If there be
1197 Such valour in the bearing, what make we
1198 Abroad? why, then, women are more valiant
1199 That stay at home, if bearing carry it,
1200 And the ass more captain than the lion, the felon
1201 Loaden with irons wiser than the judge,
1202 If wisdom be in suffering. O my lords!
1203 As you are great, be pitifully good:
1204 Who cannot condemn rashness in cold blood?
1205 To kill, I grant, is sin's extremest gust;
1206 But, in defence, by mercy, 'tis most just.
1207 To be in anger is impiety;
1208 But who is man that is not angry?
1209 Weigh but the crime with this.
Second Senator
1210 You breathe in vain.
Alcibiades
1211 In vain! his service done
1212 At Lacedaemon and Byzantium
1213 Were a sufficient briber for his life.
First Senator
1214 What's that?
Alcibiades
1215 I say, my lords, has done fair service,
1216 And slain in fight many of your enemies.
1217 How full of valour did he bear himself
1218 In the last conflict, and made plenteous wounds!
Second Senator
1219 He has made too much plenty with 'em;
1220 He's a sworn rioter; he has a sin that often
1221 Drowns him and takes his valour prisoner;
1222 If there were no foes, that were enough
1223 To overcome him; in that beastly fury
1224 He has been known to commit outrages
1225 And cherish factions; 'tis inferr'd to us,
1226 His days are foul and his drink dangerous.
First Senator
1227 He dies.
Alcibiades
1228 Hard fate! he might have died in war.
1229 My lords, if not for any parts in him,—
1230 Though his right arm might purchase his own time,
1231 And be in debt to none,—yet, more to move you,
1232 Take my deserts to his, and join 'em both;
1233 And, for I know your reverend ages love
1234 Security, I'll pawn my victories, all
1235 My honour to you, upon his good returns.
1236 If by this crime he owes the law his life,
1237 Why, let the war receive't in valiant gore;
1238 For law is strict, and war is nothing more.
First Senator
1239 We are for law; he dies: urge it no more,
1240 On height of our displeasure. Friend or brother,
1241 He forfeits his own blood that spills another.
Alcibiades
1242 Must it be so? it must not be. My lords,
1243 I do beseech you, know me.
Second Senator
1244 How!
Alcibiades
1245 Call me to your remembrances.
Third Senator
1246 What!
Alcibiades
1247 I cannot think but your age has forgot me;
1248 It could not else be I should prove so base,
1249 To sue, and be denied such common grace.
1250 My wounds ache at you.
First Senator
1251 Do you dare our anger?
1252 'Tis in few words, but spacious in effect;
1253 We banish thee for ever.
Alcibiades
1254 Banish me!
1255 Banish your dotage; banish usury,
1256 That makes the Senate ugly.
First Senator
1257 If, after two days' shine, Athens contain thee,
1258 Attend our weightier judgment. And, not to swell our spirit,
1259 He shall be executed presently.
[Exeunt SENATORS.]
Alcibiades
1260 Now the gods keep you old enough; that you may live
1261 Only in bone, that none may look on you!
1262 I'm worse than mad: I have kept back their foes,
1263 While they have told their money and let out
1264 Their coin upon large interest; I myself
1265 Rich only in large hurts: all those for this?
1266 Is this the balsam that the usuring senate
1267 Pours into captains' wounds? Banishment!
1268 It comes not ill; I hate not to be banish'd;
1269 It is a cause worthy my spleen and fury,
1270 That I may strike at Athens. I'll cheer up
1271 My discontented troops, and lay for hearts.
1272 'Tis honour with most lands to be at odds;
1273 Soldiers should brook as little wrongs as gods.
[Exit.]

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Notes

TLN 1153rhetorical device
“Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy”
The First Senator's opening maxim — that mercy only encourages wrongdoing — is a sententious axiom (a compact moral saying), here used to justify condemning Alcibiades's soldier without appeal. Shakespeare and Middleton deploy it as evidence of the Senate's hard-line legal philosophy, which the scene then puts under pressure.
TLN 1158rhetorical device
“pity is the virtue of the law, And none but tyrants use it cruelly”
Alcibiades argues that the law's proper virtue is pity (mercy), not severity, and that only tyrants wield the law cruelly. The line directly reverses the senator's opening maxim, setting up a debate between strict legalism and equity that runs through the whole scene.
TLN 1162archaic vocab
“stepp'd into the law, which is past depth To those that without heed do plunge into't”
Alcibiades describes his friend as having 'stepped into the law' — that is, got entangled in a legal offence — and extends the metaphor: the law is a body of water too deep for a person who plunges in without looking. The image captures both the accidental nature of the killing and the soldier's vulnerability once the legal machinery is set in motion.
TLN 1174archaic vocab
“You undergo too strict a paradox, Striving to make an ugly deed look fair”
'Paradox' here does not mean a logical puzzle; it means a position contrary to received opinion — a claim so against the accepted view that maintaining it is itself a kind of strain. The senator is saying that Alcibiades has taken on an impossible argumentative burden: trying to make manslaughter look honourable.
TLN 1181rhetorical device
“He's truly valiant that can wisely suffer The worst that man can breathe”
The senator proposes a Stoic definition of true courage: the genuinely brave man patiently endures insults rather than retaliating. 'Make his wrongs his outsides' means wear injuries like an outer garment — on the surface only, not carried to the heart. This ideal of patient endurance is a Stoic commonplace that Alcibiades will demolish in his reply.
TLN 1211historical topical
“his service done At Lacedaemon and Byzantium”
Lacedaemon is the ancient Greek name for Sparta, Athens's great rival; Byzantium is the city at the mouth of the Black Sea (modern Istanbul). Both were arenas of Athenian military operations during the Peloponnesian War period. Alcibiades argues that the condemned soldier's battlefield service at these distant, dangerous postings should outweigh a single violent crime.
classical Alcibiades and ungrateful Athens
TLN 1220archaic vocab
“He's a sworn rioter; he has a sin that often Drowns him and takes his valour prisoner”
'Rioter' in this period means a dissolute, recklessly debauched person, not just a street brawler; 'riot' was the word for loose, wasteful living (the same usage as Timon's own 'riotous' feasting). The senator is saying the soldier is a chronic drunk or debauchee — someone whose vice regularly overpowers his military virtue, so that even in the absence of enemies he would destroy himself.
TLN 1230archaic vocab
“his right arm might purchase his own time”
'Purchase' here means earn or acquire, not buy in a commercial sense. 'His own time' means his own lifetime — the continuation of his life. Alcibiades is saying the soldier's fighting record alone should be enough to earn him the right to live; but he goes further and adds his own military credit as surety on top of it.
TLN 1233historical topical
“your reverend ages love Security, I'll pawn my victories”
'Security' is a financial-legal term for a pledge or guarantee against a loan or obligation. Alcibiades is ironically flattering the senators — men who love financial security — by offering to pawn (pledge) his own military victories and honour as collateral for his friend's good conduct. The financial language is pointed: in a play saturated with debt and usury, the general is forced to speak to the Senate in the only currency they understand.
TLN 1253historical topical
“We banish thee for ever”
Banishment — formal expulsion from the city — was the second most severe civic penalty in classical Athens (death being the first). The Senate's punishment of Alcibiades for pressing an argument they dislike is a legal overreach that mirrors the play's central theme of ingratitude rewarding service with rejection. Historically, the real Alcibiades was banished from Athens more than once; the play compresses and intensifies that pattern.
classical Alcibiades and ungrateful Athens
TLN 1255historical topical
“Banish your dotage; banish usury, That makes the Senate ugly”
Alcibiades responds to the Senate's banishment by turning the word back on them: they should banish their own senility ('dotage') and their practice of usury (money-lending at interest). Usury was a sharp political charge in Elizabethan England as well as in classical Athens: lending money for profit was widely condemned as morally corrupt.
TLN 1266archaic vocab
“Is this the balsam that the usuring senate Pours into captains' wounds?”
'Balsam' (also spelled 'balm') is a healing ointment — here the metaphorical reward that a grateful city should pour into the wounds its soldiers suffer on its behalf. Alcibiades asks: is banishment really the salve Athens gives to its defenders? The rhetorical question turns the word 'usuring' (lending at interest, exploitative) into a permanent epithet for the Senate.
TLN 1273rhetorical device
“Soldiers should brook as little wrongs as gods”
'Brook' means endure or tolerate — Alcibiades is saying soldiers should put up with insults as rarely as the gods do: that is, not at all. The gods of classical mythology were famously swift to punish those who wronged them. The comparison lifts soldiers onto a divine level of honour-sensitivity, crowning Alcibiades's argument for retaliatory violence and implicitly justifying his coming war on Athens.