Complete Plays, The (318 page)

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

S
CENE
II. F
LORENCE
. T
HE
W
IDOW
’
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

S
CENE
III. T
HE
F
LORENTINE
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 sing 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!

Second Lord

And how mightily some other times we drown our gain in tears! The great dignity that his valour hath here acquired for him shall at home be encountered with a shame as ample.

First Lord

The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud, if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair, if they were not cherished by our virtues.

Enter a Messenger

How now! where’s your master?

Servant

He met the duke in the street, sir, of whom he hath taken a solemn leave: his lordship will next morning for France. The duke hath offered him letters of commendations to the king.

Second Lord

They shall be no more than needful there, if they were more than they can commend.

First Lord

They cannot be too sweet for the king’s tartness. Here’s his lordship now.

Enter Bertram

How now, my lord! is’t not after midnight?

Bertram

I have to-night dispatched sixteen businesses, a month’s length a-piece, by an abstract of success: I have congied with the duke, done my adieu with his nearest; buried a wife, mourned for her; writ to my lady mother I am returning; entertained my convoy; and between these main parcels of dispatch effected many nicer needs; the last was the greatest, but that I have not ended yet.

Second Lord

If the business be of any difficulty, and this morning your departure hence, it requires haste of your lordship.

Bertram

I mean, the business is not ended, as fearing to hear of it hereafter. But shall we have this dialogue between the fool and the soldier? Come, bring forth this counterfeit module, he has deceived me, like a double-meaning prophesier.

Second Lord

Bring him forth: has sat i’ the stocks all night, poor gallant knave.

Bertram

No matter: his heels have deserved it, in usurping his spurs so long. How does he carry himself?

Second Lord

I have told your lordship already, the stocks carry him. But to answer you as you would be understood; he weeps like a wench that had shed her milk: he hath confessed himself to Morgan, whom he supposes to be a friar, from the time of his remembrance to this very instant disaster of his setting i’ the stocks: and what think you he hath confessed?