for which Spain has hitherto so anxiously sought a pretext. With a single nod you will excite to the direst confusion what, with patient effort, we have so long kept in abeyance. Think of the towns, the nobles, the people; think of commerce, agriculture, trade! Realize the murder, the desolation! Calmly the soldier beholds his comrade fall beside him in the battlefield. But towards you, carried downwards by the stream, shall float the corpses of citizens, of children, of maidens, till, aghast with horror, you shall no longer know whose cause you are defending, since you shall see those, for whose liberty you drew the sword, perishing around you. And what will be your emotions when conscience whispers, "It was for my own safety that I drew it "?
Orange. We are not ordinary men, Egmont. If it becomes us to sacrifice ourselves for thousands, it becomes us no less to spare ourselves for thousands.
Egmont. He who spares himself becomes an object of suspicion ever to himself.
Orange. He who is sure of his own motives can, with confidence, advance or retreat.
Egmont. Your own act will render certain the evil that you dread.
Orange. Wisdom and courage alike prompt us to meet an inevitable evil.
Egmont. When the danger is imminent the faintest hope should be taken into account.
Orange We have not the smallest footing left; we are on the very brink of the precipice.
Egmont. Is the king's favour on ground so narrow?
Orange. Not narrow, perhaps, but slippery.
Egmont. By heavens! he is belied. I cannot endure that he should be so meanly thought of! He is Charles's son, and incapable of meanness.
Orange. Kings of course do nothing mean.
Egmont. He should be better known.
Orange. Our knowledge counsels us not to await the result of a dangerous experiment.
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