Complete Plays, The (317 page)

Diana

Whatsome’er he is,
He’s bravely taken here. He stole from France,
As ’tis reported, for the king had married him
Against his liking: think you it is so?

Helena

Ay, surely, mere the truth: I know his lady.

Diana

There is a gentleman that serves the count
Reports but coarsely of her.

Helena

What’s his name?

Diana

Monsieur Parolles.

Helena

 
O, I believe with him,
In argument of praise, or to the worth
Of the great count himself, she is too mean
To have her name repeated: all her deserving
Is a reserved honesty, and that
I have not heard examined.

Diana

Alas, poor lady!
’Tis a hard bondage to become the wife
Of a detesting lord.

Widow

I warrant, good creature, wheresoe’er she is,
Her heart weighs sadly: this young maid might do her
A shrewd turn, if she pleased.

Helena

How do you mean?
May be the amorous count solicits her
In the unlawful purpose.

Widow

He does indeed;
And brokes with all that can in such a suit
Corrupt the tender honour of a maid:
But she is arm’d for him and keeps her guard
In honestest defence.

Mariana

The gods forbid else!

Widow

So, now they come:

Drum and Colours

Enter Bertram, Parolles, and the whole army

That is Antonio, the duke’s eldest son;
That, Escalus.

Helena

 
Which is the Frenchman?

Diana

He;
That with the plume: ’tis a most gallant fellow.
I would he loved his wife: if he were honester
He were much goodlier: is’t not a handsome gentleman?

Helena

I like him well.

Diana

’Tis pity he is not honest: yond’s that same knave
That leads him to these places: were I his lady,
I would Poison that vile rascal.

Helena

Which is he?

Diana

That jack-an-apes with scarfs: why is he melancholy?

Helena

Perchance he’s hurt i’ the battle.

Parolles

Lose our drum! well.

Mariana

He’s shrewdly vexed at something: look, he has spied us.

Widow

Marry, hang you!

Mariana

And your courtesy, for a ring-carrier!

Exeunt Bertram, Parolles, and army

Widow

The troop is past. Come, pilgrim, I will bring you
Where you shall host: of enjoin’d penitents
There’s four or five, to great Saint Jaques bound,
Already at my house.

Helena

I humbly thank you:
Please it this matron and this gentle maid
To eat with us to-night, the charge and thanking
Shall be for me; and, to requite you further,
I will bestow some precepts of this virgin
Worthy the note.

Both

 
We’ll take your offer kindly.

Exeunt

S
CENE
VI. C
AMP
BEFORE
F
LORENCE
.

Enter Bertram and the two French Lords

Second Lord

Nay, good my lord, put him to’t; let him have his way.

First Lord

If your lordship find him not a hilding, hold me no more in your respect.

Second Lord

On my life, my lord, a bubble.

Bertram

Do you think I am so far deceived in him?

Second Lord

Believe it, my lord, in mine own direct knowledge, without any malice, but to speak of him as my kinsman, he’s a most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise-breaker, the owner of no one good quality worthy your lordship’s entertainment.

First Lord

It were fit you knew him; lest, reposing too far in his virtue, which he hath not, he might at some great and trusty business in a main danger fail you.

Bertram

I would I knew in what particular action to try him.

First Lord

None better than to let him fetch off his drum, which you hear him so confidently undertake to do.

Second Lord

I, with a troop of Florentines, will suddenly surprise him; such I will have, whom I am sure he knows not from the enemy: we will bind and hoodwink him so, that he shall suppose no other but that he is carried into the leaguer of the adversaries, when we bring him to our own tents. Be but your lordship present at his examination: if he do not, for the promise of his life and in the highest compulsion of base fear, offer to betray you and deliver all the intelligence in his power against you, and that with the divine forfeit of his soul upon oath, never trust my judgment in any thing.

First Lord

O, for the love of laughter, let him fetch his drum; he says he has a stratagem for’t: when your lordship sees the bottom of his success in’t, and to what metal this counterfeit lump of ore will be melted, if you give him not John Drum’s entertainment, your inclining cannot be removed. Here he comes.

Enter Parolles

Second Lord

[Aside to Bertram]
 
O, for the love of laughter, hinder not the honour of his design: let him fetch off his drum in any hand.

Bertram

How now, monsieur! this drum sticks sorely in your disposition.

First Lord

A pox on’t, let it go; ’tis but a drum.

Parolles

‘But a drum’! is’t ‘but a drum’? A drum so lost! There was excellent command,— to charge in with our horse upon our own wings, and to rend our own soldiers!

First Lord

That was not to be blamed in the command of the service: it was a disaster of war that Caesar himself could not have prevented, if he had been there to command.

Bertram

Well, we cannot greatly condemn our success: some dishonour we had in the loss of that drum; but it is not to be recovered.

Parolles

It might have been recovered.

Bertram

It might; but it is not now.

Parolles

It is to be recovered: but that the merit of service is seldom attributed to the true and exact performer, I would have that drum or another, or ’hic jacet.’

Bertram

Why, if you have a stomach, to’t, monsieur: if you think your mystery in stratagem can bring this instrument of honour again into his native quarter, be magnanimous in the enterprise and go on; I will grace the attempt for a worthy exploit: if you speed well in it, the duke shall both speak of it. and extend to you what further becomes his greatness, even to the utmost syllable of your worthiness.

Parolles

By the hand of a soldier, I will undertake it.

Bertram

But you must not now slumber in it.

Parolles

I’ll about it this evening: and I will presently pen down my dilemmas, encourage myself in my certainty, put myself into my mortal preparation; and by midnight look to hear further from me.

Bertram

May I be bold to acquaint his grace you are gone about it?

Parolles

I know not what the success will be, my lord; but the attempt I vow.

Bertram

I know thou’rt valiant; and, to the possibility of thy soldiership, will subscribe for thee. Farewell.

Parolles

I love not many words.

Exit

Second Lord

No more than a fish loves water. Is not this a strange fellow, my lord, that so confidently seems to undertake this business, which he knows is not to be done; damns himself to do and dares better be damned than to do’t?

First Lord

You do not know him, my lord, as we do: certain it is that he will steal himself into a man’s favour and for a week escape a great deal of discoveries; but when you find him out, you have him ever after.

Bertram

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

S
CENE
VII. F
LORENCE
. T
HE
W
IDOW
’
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

A
CT
IV

S
CENE
I. W
ITHOUT
THE
F
LORENTINE
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.