Why, do you think he will make no deed at all of this that so seriously he does address himself unto?
Second Lord
None in the world; but return with an invention and clap upon you two or three probable lies: but we have almost embossed him; you shall see his fall to-night; for indeed he is not for your lordship’s respect.
First Lord
We’ll make you some sport with the fox ere we case him. He was first smoked by the old lord Lafeu: when his disguise and he is parted, tell me what a sprat you shall find him; which you shall see this very night.
Second Lord
I must go look my twigs: he shall be caught.
Bertram
Your brother he shall go along with me.
Second Lord
As’t please your lordship: I’ll leave you.
Exit
Bertram
Now will I lead you to the house, and show you
The lass I spoke of.
First Lord
But you say she’s honest.
Bertram
That’s all the fault: I spoke with her but once
And found her wondrous cold; but I sent to her,
By this same coxcomb that we have i’ the wind,
Tokens and letters which she did re-send;
And this is all I have done. She’s a fair creature:
Will you go see her?
First Lord
With all my heart, my lord.
Exeunt
SCENE VII. FLORENCE. THE WIDOW’S HOUSE.
Enter Helena and Widow
Helena
If you misdoubt me that I am not she,
I know not how I shall assure you further,
But I shall lose the grounds I work upon.
Widow
Though my estate be fallen, I was well born,
Nothing acquainted with these businesses;
And would not put my reputation now
In any staining act.
Helena
Nor would I wish you.
First, give me trust, the count he is my husband,
And what to your sworn counsel I have spoken
Is so from word to word; and then you cannot,
By the good aid that I of you shall borrow,
Err in bestowing it.
Widow
I should believe you:
For you have show’d me that which well approves
You’re great in fortune.
Helena
Take this purse of gold,
And let me buy your friendly help thus far,
Which I will over-pay and pay again
When I have found it. The count he wooes your daughter,
Lays down his wanton siege before her beauty,
Resolved to carry her: let her in fine consent,
As we’ll direct her how ’tis best to bear it.
Now his important blood will nought deny
That she’ll demand: a ring the county wears,
That downward hath succeeded in his house
From son to son, some four or five descents
Since the first father wore it: this ring he holds
In most rich choice; yet in his idle fire,
To buy his will, it would not seem too dear,
Howe’er repented after.
Widow
Now I see
The bottom of your purpose.
Helena
You see it lawful, then: it is no more,
But that your daughter, ere she seems as won,
Desires this ring; appoints him an encounter;
In fine, delivers me to fill the time,
Herself most chastely absent: after this,
To marry her, I’ll add three thousand crowns
To what is passed already.
Widow
I have yielded:
Instruct my daughter how she shall persever,
That time and place with this deceit so lawful
May prove coherent. Every night he comes
With musics of all sorts and songs composed
To her unworthiness: it nothing steads us
To chide him from our eaves; for he persists
As if his life lay on’t.
Helena
Why then to-night
Let us assay our plot; which, if it speed,
Is wicked meaning in a lawful deed
And lawful meaning in a lawful act,
Where both not sin, and yet a sinful fact:
But let’s about it.
Exeunt
ACT IV
SCENE I. WITHOUT THE FLORENTINE CAMP.
Enter Second French Lord, with five or six other Soldiers in ambush
Second Lord
He can come no other way but by this hedge-corner. When you sally upon him, speak what terrible language you will: though you understand it not yourselves, no matter; for we must not seem to understand him, unless some one among us whom we must produce for an interpreter.
First Soldier
Good captain, let me be the interpreter.
Second Lord
Art not acquainted with him? knows he not thy voice?
First Soldier
No, sir, I warrant you.
Second Lord
But what linsey-woolsey hast thou to speak to us again?
First Soldier
E’en such as you speak to me.
Second Lord
He must think us some band of strangers i’ the adversary’s entertainment. Now he hath a smack of all neighbouring languages; therefore we must every one be a man of his own fancy, not to know what we speak one to another; so we seem to know, is to know straight our purpose: choughs’ language, gabble enough, and good enough. As for you, interpreter, you must seem very politic. But couch, ho! here he comes, to beguile two hours in a sleep, and then to return and swear the lies he forges.
Enter Parolles
Parolles
Ten o’clock: within these three hours ’twill be time enough to go home. What shall I say I have done? It must be a very plausive invention that carries it: they begin to smoke me; and disgraces have of late knocked too often at my door. I find my tongue is too foolhardy; but my heart hath the fear of Mars before it and of his creatures, not daring the reports of my tongue.
Second Lord
This is the first truth that e’er thine own tongue was guilty of.
Parolles
What the devil should move me to undertake the recovery of this drum, being not ignorant of the impossibility, and knowing I had no such purpose? I must give myself some hurts, and say I got them in exploit: yet slight ones will not carry it; they will say, ‘Came you off with so little?’ and great ones I dare not give. Wherefore, what’s the instance? Tongue, I must put you into a butter-woman’s mouth and buy myself another of Bajazet’s mule, if you prattle me into these perils.
Second Lord
Is it possible he should know what he is, and be that he is?
Parolles
I would the cutting of my garments would serve the turn, or the breaking of my Spanish sword.
Second Lord
We cannot afford you so.
Parolles
Or the baring of my beard; and to say it was in stratagem.
Second Lord
’Twould not do.
Parolles
Or to drown my clothes, and say I was stripped.
Second Lord
Hardly serve.
Parolles
Though I swore I leaped from the window of the citadel.
Second Lord
How deep?
Parolles
Thirty fathom.
Second Lord
Three great oaths would scarce make that be believed.
Parolles
I would I had any drum of the enemy’s: I would swear I recovered it.
Second Lord
You shall hear one anon.
Parolles
A drum now of the enemy’s,�
�
Alarum within
Second Lord
Throca movousus, cargo, cargo, cargo.
All
Cargo, cargo, cargo, villiando par corbo, cargo.
Parolles
O, ransom, ransom! do not hide mine eyes.
They seize and blindfold him
First Soldier
Boskos thromuldo boskos.
Parolles
I know you are the Muskos’ regiment:
And I shall lose my life for want of language;
If there be here German, or Dane, low Dutch,
Italian, or French, let him speak to me; I’ll
Discover that which shall undo the Florentine.
First Soldier
Boskos vauvado: I understand thee, and can speak thy tongue. Kerely bonto, sir, betake thee to thy faith, for seventeen poniards are at thy bosom.
Parolles
O!
First Soldier
O, pray, pray, pray! Manka revania dulche.
Second Lord
Oscorbidulchos volivorco.
First Soldier
The general is content to spare thee yet;
And, hoodwink’d as thou art, will lead thee on
To gather from thee: haply thou mayst inform
Something to save thy life.
Parolles
O, let me live!
And all the secrets of our camp I’ll show,
Their force, their purposes; nay, I’ll speak that
Which you will wonder at.
First Soldier
But wilt thou faithfully?
Parolles
If I do not, damn me.
First Soldier
Acordo linta.
Come on; thou art granted space.
Exit, with Parolles guarded. A short alarum within
Second Lord
Go, tell the Count Rousillon, and my brother,
We have caught the woodcock, and will keep him muffled
Till we do hear from them.
Second Soldier
Captain, I will.
Second Lord
A’ will betray us all unto ourselves:
Inform on that.
Second Soldier
So I will, sir.
Second Lord
Till then I’ll keep him dark and safely lock’d.
Exeunt
SCENE II. FLORENCE. THE WIDOW’S HOUSE.
Enter Bertram and Diana
Bertram
They told me that your name was Fontibell.
Diana
No, my good lord, Diana.
Bertram
Titled goddess;
And worth it, with addition! But, fair soul,
In your fine frame hath love no quality?
If quick fire of youth light not your mind,
You are no maiden, but a monument:
When you are dead, you should be such a one
As you are now, for you are cold and stem;
And now you should be as your mother was
When your sweet self was got.
Diana
She then was honest.
Bertram
So should you be.
Diana
No:
My mother did but duty; such, my lord,
As you owe to your wife.
Bertram
No more o’ that;
I prithee, do not strive against my vows:
I was compell’d to her; but I love thee
By love’s own sweet constraint, and will for ever
Do thee all rights of service.
Diana
Ay, so you serve us
Till we serve you; but when you have our roses,
You barely leave our thorns to prick ourselves
And mock us with our bareness.
Bertram
How have I sworn!
Diana
’Tis not the many oaths that makes the truth,
But the plain single vow that is vow’d true.
What is not holy, that we swear not by,
But take the High’st to witness: then, pray you, tell me,
If I should swear by God’s great attributes,
I loved you dearly, would you believe my oaths,
When I did love you ill? This has no holding,
To swear by him whom I protest to love,
That I will work against him: therefore your oaths
Are words and poor conditions, but unseal’d,
At least in my opinion.
Bertram
Change it, change it;
Be not so holy-cruel: love is holy;
And my integrity ne’er knew the crafts
That you do charge men with. Stand no more off,
But give thyself unto my sick desires,
Who then recover: say thou art mine, and ever
My love as it begins shall so persever.
Diana
I see that men make ropes in such a scarre
That we’ll forsake ourselves. Give me that ring.
Bertram
I’ll lend it thee, my dear; but have no power
To give it from me.
Diana
Will you not, my lord?
Bertram
It is an honour ’longing to our house,
Bequeathed down from many ancestors;
Which were the greatest obloquy i’ the world
In me to lose.
Diana
Mine honour’s such a ring:
My chastity’s the jewel of our house,
Bequeathed down from many ancestors;
Which were the greatest obloquy i’ the world
In me to lose: thus your own proper wisdom
Brings in the champion Honour on my part,
Against your vain assault.
Bertram
Here, take my ring:
My house, mine honour, yea, my life, be thine,
And I’ll be bid by thee.
Diana
When midnight comes, knock at my chamber-window:
I’ll order take my mother shall not hear.
Now will I charge you in the band of truth,
When you have conquer’d my yet maiden bed,
Remain there but an hour, nor speak to me:
My reasons are most strong; and you shall know them
When back again this ring shall be deliver’d:
And on your finger in the night I’ll put
Another ring, that what in time proceeds
May token to the future our past deeds.
Adieu, till then; then, fail not. You have won
A wife of me, though there my hope be done.
Bertram
A heaven on earth I have won by wooing thee.
Exit
Diana
For which live long to thank both heaven and me!
You may so in the end.
My mother told me just how he would woo,
As if she sat in ’s heart; she says all men
Have the like oaths: he had sworn to marry me
When his wife’s dead; therefore I’ll lie with him
When I am buried. Since Frenchmen are so braid,
Marry that will, I live and die a maid:
Only in this disguise I think’t no sin
To cozen him that would unjustly win.
Exit
SCENE III. THE FLORENTINE CAMP.
Enter the two French Lords and some two or three Soldiers
First Lord
You have not given him his mother’s letter?
Second Lord
I have delivered it an hour since: there is something in’t that stings his nature; for on the reading it he changed almost into another man.
First Lord
He has much worthy blame laid upon him for shaking off so good a wife and so sweet a lady.
Second Lord
Especially he hath incurred the everlasting displeasure of the king, who had even tuned his bounty to si
ng happiness to him. I will tell you a thing, but you shall let it dwell darkly with you.
First Lord
When you have spoken it, ’tis dead, and I am the grave of it.
Second Lord
He hath perverted a young gentlewoman here in Florence, of a most chaste renown; and this night he fleshes his will in the spoil of her honour: he hath given her his monumental ring, and thinks himself made in the unchaste composition.
First Lord
Now, God delay our rebellion! as we are ourselves, what things are we!
Second Lord
Merely our own traitors. And as in the common course of all treasons, we still see them reveal themselves, till they attain to their abhorred ends, so he that in this action contrives against his own nobility, in his proper stream o’erflows himself.
First Lord
Is it not meant damnable in us, to be trumpeters of our unlawful intents? We shall not then have his company to-night?
Second Lord
Not till after midnight; for he is dieted to his hour.
First Lord
That approaches apace; I would gladly have him see his company anatomized, that he might take a measure of his own judgments, wherein so curiously he had set this counterfeit.
Second Lord
We will not meddle with him till he come; for his presence must be the whip of the other.
First Lord
In the mean time, what hear you of these wars?
Second Lord
I hear there is an overture of peace.
First Lord
Nay, I assure you, a peace concluded.
Second Lord
What will Count Rousillon do then? will he travel higher, or return again into France?
First Lord
I perceive, by this demand, you are not altogether of his council.
Second Lord
Let it be forbid, sir; so should I be a great deal of his act.
First Lord
Sir, his wife some two months since fled from his house: her pretence is a pilgrimage to Saint Jaques le Grand; which holy undertaking with most austere sanctimony she accomplished; and, there residing the tenderness of her nature became as a prey to her grief; in fine, made a groan of her last breath, and now she sings in heaven.
Second Lord
How is this justified?
First Lord
The stronger part of it by her own letters, which makes her story true, even to the point of her death: her death itself, which could not be her office to say is come, was faithfully confirmed by the rector of the place.
Second Lord
Hath the count all this intelligence?
First Lord
Ay, and the particular confirmations, point from point, so to the full arming of the verity.
Second Lord
I am heartily sorry that he’ll be glad of this.
First Lord
How mightily sometimes we make us comforts of our losses!
Complete Plays, The Page 255
