We play no more this night.
It is a deadly thing we think.
I'd rather I was sleeping with them
than tempted, wearied, by this fire.
Outside, it warms; inside it burns.
I'm troubled by my raging thoughts.
I would grasp something new:
as they are sleeping assured by my watch,
this watch, would tempt me be a murderer.
A murderer of fiends.
Are these not bloody men
soundly sleeping by my feet
nestled round this fire?
I would make them sleep forever
as they have done before
to many good and honest souls,
and yet, forestalled, my dagger
at my belt, undrawn, my hand
has not gone to. This fired thought,
raging dreams of a waking soul,
seems not the flame of heaven.
No, a darker fire, perdition's burn,
infests like the wounding from an asp.
I am stung. Poison, sin, my brains
in miserable blaze are tormented.
I know no right nor wrong this night,
neither my right nor left is clear.
God, which way is sin? Which is good?
To pity those who've pity none?
They lie here.
To pity those who'd pity none
received?
To pity those who'll pity none
receive?
Shall I have pity for all the world,
this hateful world of passing ruin?
Yet this, not past nor future,
this present night, I dare not slay.
Maybe and were are other things.
These foul men trust me.
God, if I betray their trust,
anon, who will I truly trust?
Is that selfish and vain to think?
Yet, marshaled, I think, to something good,
these evil men march out to do what's right;
To slay them here as part of me now would
may also spare the one we hope to fight.
Tale Told 