The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 39
And loves to grant, reprieve him from the wrath
Of greatest justice. Write, write, Rynaldo,
To this unworthy husband of his wife;
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Let every word weigh heavy of her worth
That he does weigh too light; my greatest grief,
Though little he do feel it, set down sharply.
Dispatch the most convenient messenger.
When haply he shall hear that she is gone,
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He will return; and hope I may that she,
Hearing so much, will speed her foot again,
Led hither by pure love. Which of them both
Is dearest to me I have no skill in sense
To make distinction. Provide this messenger.
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My heart is heavy and mine age is weak;
Grief would have tears and sorrow bids me speak.
Exeunt.
3.5 A tucket afar off. Enter old Widow of Florence, her daughter DIANA, VIOLENTA and MARIANA, with other citizens.
WIDOW Nay, come; for if they do approach the city, we
shall lose all the sight.
DIANA They say the French count has done most
honourable service.
WIDOW It is reported that he has taken their great’st
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commander, and that with his own hand he slew the
duke’s brother. [Tucket.] We have lost our labour; they
are gone a contrary way. Hark! You may know by their
trumpets.
MARIANA Come, let’s return again and suffice ourselves
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with the report of it. Well, Diana, take heed of this
French earl; the honour of a maid is her name, and no
legacy is so rich as honesty.
WIDOW I have told my neighbour how you have been
solicited by a gentleman his companion.
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MARIANA I know that knave, hang him! one Parolles; a
filthy officer he is in those suggestions for the young
earl. Beware of them, Diana: their promises,
enticements, oaths, tokens, and all these engines of
lust, are not the things they go under; many a maid
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hath been seduced by them; and the misery is,
example, that so terrible shows in the wrack of
maidenhood, cannot for all that dissuade succession,
but that they are limed with the twigs that threatens
them. I hope I need not to advise you further; but I
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hope your own grace will keep you where you are,
though there were no further danger known but the
modesty which is so lost.
DIANA You shall not need to fear me.
Enter HELENA.
WIDOW I hope so. Look, here comes a pilgrim. I know
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she will lie at my house; thither they send one another.
I’ll question her: God save you, pilgrim! Whither are
bound?
HELENA To Saint Jaques le Grand.
Where do the palmers lodge, I do beseech you?
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WIDOW At the Saint Francis here beside the port.
HELENA Is this the way? [A march afar.]
WIDOW Ay, marry, is’t. Hark you, they come this way.
If you will tarry, holy pilgrim
But till the troops come by
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I will conduct you where you shall be lodg’d;
The rather for I think I know your hostess
As ample as myself.
HELENA Is it yourself?
WIDOW If you shall please so, pilgrim.
HELENA I thank you and will stay upon your leisure.
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WIDOW You came, I think, from France?
HELENA I did so.
WIDOW Here you shall see a countryman of yours
That has done worthy service.
HELENA His name, I pray you.
DIANA The Count Rossillion. Know you such a one?
HELENA But by the ear, that hears most nobly of him;
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His face I know not.
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.
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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
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To have her name repeated; all her deserving
Is a reserved honesty, and that
I have not heard examin’d.
DIANA Alas, poor lady!
’Tis a hard bondage to become the wife
Of a detesting lord.
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WIDOW I warrant, good creature, wheresoe’er she is,
Her heart weighs sadly. This young maid might do
her
A shrewd turn if she pleas’d.
HELENA How do you mean?
Maybe the amorous count solicits her
In the unlawful purpose?
WIDOW He does indeed,
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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.
Drum and colours. Enter BERTRAM, PAROLLES and the whole army.
MARIANA The gods forbid else!
WIDOW So, now they come.
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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 lov’d his wife; if he were honester
He were much goodlier. Is’t not a handsome
gentleman?
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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 jackanapes with scarfs. Why is he melancholy?
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HELENA Perchance he’s hurt i’th’ battle.
PAROLLES Lose our drum! Well!
MARIANA He’s shrewdly vex’d at something. Look, he
has spied us.
WIDOW Marry, hang you!
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MARIANA And your curtsy, for a ring-carrier!
Exeunt Bertram, Parolles and the 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.
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Please it this matron and this gentle maid
To eat with us tonight; 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.
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3.6 Enter BERTRAM and the two French Lords.
1 LORD Nay, good my lord, put him to’t; let him have
his way.
2 LORD If your lordship find him not a hilding, hold me
no more in your respect.
1 LORD On my life, my lord, a bubble.
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BER
TRAM Do you think I am so far deceived in him?
1 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
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of no one good quality worthy your lordship’s enter-
tainment.
2 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.
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BERTRAM I would I knew in what particular action to
try him.
2 LORD None better than to let him fetch off his drum,
which you hear him so confidently undertake to do.
1 LORD I, with a troop of Florentines, will suddenly
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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
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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
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judgment in anything.
2 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,
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if you give him not John Drum’s entertainment your
inclining cannot be removed. Here he comes.
Enter PAROLLES.
1 LORD O, for the love of laughter, hinder not the
honour of his design; let him fetch off his drum in any
hand.
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BERTRAM How now, monsieur! This drum sticks sorely
in your disposition.
2 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
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horse upon our own wings and to rend our own
soldiers!
2 LORD That was not to be blam’d 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
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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.
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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.
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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
magnanimious in the enterprise and go on; I will grace
the attempt for a worthy exploit; if you speed well in it
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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.
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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
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gone about it?
PAROLLES I know not what the success will be, my lord,
but the attempt I vow.
BERTRAM I know th’art valiant; and to the possibility of
thy soldiership will subscribe for thee. Farewell.
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PAROLLES I love not many words. Exit.
1 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