The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 41
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 –
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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,
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Who then recovers. Say thou art mine, and ever
My love as it begins shall so persever.
DIANA I see that men make rope’s 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
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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’th’ world
In me to lose.
DIANA Mine honour’s such a ring;
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My chastity’s the jewel of our house,
Bequeathed down from many ancestors,
Which were the greatest obloquy i’th’ world
In me to lose. Thus your own proper wisdom
Brings in the champion Honour on my part
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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.
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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;
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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.
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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
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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
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To cozen him that would unjustly win. Exit.
4.3 Enter the two French Lords, and some two or three soldiers.
1 LORD You have not given him his mother’s letter?
2 LORD I have deliv’red it an hour since; there is
something in’t that stings his nature, for on the
reading it he chang’d almost into another man.
1 LORD He has much worthy blame laid upon him for
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shaking off so good a wife and so sweet a lady.
2 LORD Especially he hath incurred the everlasting
displeasure of the king, who had even tun’d his bounty
to sing happiness to him. I will tell you a thing, but
you shall let it dwell darkly with you.
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1 LORD When you have spoken it ’tis dead, and I am the
grave of it.
2 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
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given her his monumental ring, and thinks himself
made in the unchaste composition.
1 LORD Now, God delay our rebellion! As we are
ourselves, what things are we!
2 LORD Merely our own traitors. And as in the
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common course of all treasons we still see them reveal
themselves till they attain to their abhorr’d ends; so he
that in this action contrives against his own nobility, in
his proper stream o’erflows himself.
1 LORD Is it not meant damnable in us to be trumpeters
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of our unlawful intents? We shall not then have his
company tonight?
2 LORD Not till after midnight, for he is dieted to his
hour.
1 LORD That approaches apace. I would gladly have
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him see his company anatomiz’d, that he might take a
measure of his own judgments wherein so curiously he
had set this counterfeit.
2 LORD We will not meddle with him till he come, for
his presence must be the whip of the other.
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1 LORD In the meantime, what hear you of these wars?
2 LORD I hear there is an overture of peace.
1 LORD Nay, I assure you, a peace concluded.
2 LORD What will Count Rossillion do then? Will he
travel higher, or return again into France?
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1 LORD I perceive by this demand you are not
altogether of his council.
2 LORD Let it be forbid, sir! So should I be a great deal
of his act.
1 LORD Sir, his wife some two months since fled from
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his house. Her pretence is a pilgrimage to Saint Jaques
le Grand; which holy undertaking with most austere
sanctimony she accomplish’d; 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
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sings in heaven.
2 LORD How is this justified?
1 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
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to say is come, was faithfully confirm’d by the rector
of the place.
2 LORD Hath the count all this intelligence?
1 LORD Ay, and the particular confirmations, point
from point, to the full arming of the verity.
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2 LORD I am heartily sorry that he’ll be glad of this.
1 LORD How mightily sometimes we make us comforts
of our losses!
2 LORD And how mightily some other times we drown
our gain in tears! The great dignity that his valour
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hath here acquir’d for him shall at home be
encount’red with a shame as ample.
1 LORD The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good
and ill together; our virtues would be proud if our
faults whipp’d them not, and our crimes would
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despair if they were not cherish’d by our virtues.
Enter a Messenger.
How now? Where’s your master?
MESSENGER 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
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letters of commendations to the king.
2 LORD They shall be no more than ne
edful there if they
were more than they can commend.
Enter BERTRAM.
1 LORD They cannot be too sweet for the king’s tartness.
Here’s his lordship now. How now, my lord? Is’t not
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after midnight?
BERTRAM I have tonight dispatch’d sixteen businesses a
month’s length apiece. By an abstract of success: I
have congied with the duke, done my adieu with his
nearest, buried a wife, mourn’d for her, writ to my lady
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mother I am returning, entertain’d 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.
2 LORD If the business be of any difficulty, and this
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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
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this counterfeit module has deceiv’d me like a double-
meaning prophesier.
2 LORD Bring him forth. Exeunt soldiers.
Has sat i’th’ stocks all night, poor gallant knave.
BERTRAM No matter. His heels have deserv’d it in
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usurping his spurs so long. How does he carry
himself?
2 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
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milk; he hath confess’d 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’th’ stocks. And what think you he hath confess’d?
BERTRAM Nothing of me, has ’a?
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2 LORD His confession is taken, and it shall be read to
his face; if your lordship be in’t, as I believe you are,
you must have the patience to hear it.
Re-enter soldiers and PAROLLES, with first Soldier as his interpreter.
BERTRAM A plague upon him! muffled! He can say
nothing of me.
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1 LORD [aside to BERTRAM] Hush, hush! Hoodman
comes. [aloud] Portotartarossa.
1 SOLDIER He calls for the tortures. What will you say
without ’em?
PAROLLES I will confess what I know without
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constraint. If ye pinch me like a pasty I can say no
more.
1 SOLDIER Bosko chimurcho.
1 LORD Boblibindo chicurmurco.
1 SOLDIER You are a merciful general. Our general bids
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you answer to what I shall ask you out of a note.
PAROLLES And truly, as I hope to live.
1 SOLDIER [Reads.] First, demand of him, how many horse
the duke is strong. What say you to that?
PAROLLES Five or six thousand; but very weak and
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unserviceable: the troops are all scattered and the
commanders very poor rogues, upon my reputation
and credit – and as I hope to live.
1 SOLDIER Shall I set down your answer so?
PAROLLES Do. I’ll take the sacrament on’t, how and
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which way you will.
BERTRAM All’s one to him. What a past-saving slave is
this!
1 LORD Y’are deceiv’d, my lord; this is Monsieur
Parolles, the gallant militarist – that was his own
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phrase – that had the whole theoric of war in the knot
of his scarf, and the practice in the chape of his dagger.
2 LORD I will never trust a man again for keeping his
sword clean, nor believe he can have everything in him
by wearing his apparel neatly.
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1 SOLDIER Well, that’s set down.
PAROLLES ‘Five or six thousand horse’ I said – I will say
true – ‘or thereabouts’ set down, for I’ll speak truth.
1 LORD He’s very near the truth in this.
BERTRAM But I con him no thanks for’t, in the nature
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he delivers it.
PAROLLES ‘Poor rogues’ I pray you say.
1 SOLDIER Well, that’s set down.
PAROLLES I humbly thank you, sir; a truth’s a truth; the
rogues are marvellous poor.
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1 SOLDIER [Reads.] Demand of him of what strength they
are a-foot. What say you to that?
PAROLLES By my troth, sir, if I were to live this present
hour, I will tell true. Let me see: Spurio, a hundred