Complete Plays, The

by William Shakespeare

  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!