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?
Bertram
Nothing of me, has a’?
Second 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.
Enter Parolles guarded, and First Soldier
Bertram
A plague upon him! muffled! he can say nothing of me: hush, hush!
First Lord
Hoodman comes! Portotartarosa
First Soldier
He calls for the tortures: what will you say without ’em?
Parolles
I will confess what I know without constraint: if ye pinch me like a pasty, I can say no more.
First Soldier
Bosko chimurcho.
First Lord
Boblibindo chicurmurco.
First Soldier
You are a merciful general. Our general bids you answer to what I shall ask you out of a note.
Parolles
And truly, as I hope to live.
First 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 unserviceable: the troops are all scattered, and the commanders very poor rogues, upon my reputation and credit and as I hope to live.
First Soldier
Shall I set down your answer so?
Parolles
Do: I’ll take the sacrament on’t, how and which way you will.
Bertram
All’s one to him. What a past-saving slave is this!
First Lord
You’re deceived, my lord: this is Monsieur Parolles, the gallant militarist,— that was his own phrase,— that had the whole theoric of war in the knot of his scarf, and the practise in the chape of his dagger.
Second Lord
I will never trust a man again for keeping his sword clean. nor believe he can have every thing in him by wearing his apparel neatly.
First 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.
First Lord
He’s very near the truth in this.
Bertram
But I con him no thanks for’t, in the nature he delivers it.
Parolles
Poor rogues, I pray you, say.
First Soldier
Well, that’s set down.
Parolles
I humbly thank you, sir: a truth’s a truth, the rogues are marvellous poor.
First 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 and fifty; Sebastian, so many; Corambus, so many; Jaques, so many; Guiltian, Cosmo, Lodowick, and Gratii, two hundred and fifty each; mine own company, Chitopher, Vaumond, Bentii, two hundred and fifty each: so that the muster-file, rotten and sound, upon my life, amounts not to fifteen thousand poll; half of the which dare not shake snow from off their cassocks, lest they shake themselves to pieces.
Bertram
What shall be done to him?
First Lord
Nothing, but let him have thanks. Demand of him my condition, and what credit I have with the duke.
First Soldier
Well, that’s set down.
[Reads] ‘You shall demand of him, whether one Captain Dumain be i’ the camp, a Frenchman; what his reputation is with the duke; what his valour, honesty, and expertness in wars; or whether he thinks it were not possible, with well-weighing sums of gold, to corrupt him to revolt.’ What say you to this? what do you know of it?
Parolles
I beseech you, let me answer to the particular of the inter’gatories: demand them singly.
First Soldier
Do you know this Captain Dumain?
Parolles
I know him: a’ was a botcher’s ’prentice in Paris, from whence he was whipped for getting the shrieve’s fool with child,— a dumb innocent, that could not say him nay.
Bertram
Nay, by your leave, hold your hands; though I know his brains are forfeit to the next tile that falls.
First Soldier
Well, is this captain in the duke of Florence’s camp?
Parolles
Upon my knowledge, he is, and lousy.
First Lord
Nay look not so upon me; we shall hear of your lordship anon.
First Soldier
What is his reputation with the duke?
Parolles
The duke knows him for no other but a poor officer of mine; and writ to me this other day to turn him out o’ the band: I think I have his letter in my pocket.
First Soldier
Marry, we’ll search.
Parolles
In good sadness, I do not know; either it is there, or it is upon a file with the duke’s other letters in my tent.
First Soldier
Here ’tis; here’s a paper: shall I read it to you?
Parolles
I do not know if it be it or no.
Bertram
Our interpreter does it well.
First Lord
Excellently.
First Soldier
[Reads] ‘Dian, the count’s a fool, and full of gold,’—
Parolles
That is not the duke’s letter, sir; that is an advertisement to a proper maid in Floren
ce, one Diana, to take heed of the allurement of one Count Rousillon, a foolish idle boy, but for all that very ruttish: I pray you, sir, put it up again.
First Soldier
Nay, I’ll read it first, by your favour.
Parolles
My meaning in’t, I protest, was very honest in the behalf of the maid; for I knew the young count to be a dangerous and lascivious boy, who is a whale to virginity and devours up all the fry it finds.
Bertram
Damnable both-sides rogue!
First Soldier
[Reads] ‘When he swears oaths, bid him drop gold, and take it;
After he scores, he never pays the score:
Half won is match well made; match, and well make it;
He ne’er pays after-debts, take it before;
And say a soldier, Dian, told thee this,
Men are to mell with, boys are not to kiss:
For count of this, the count’s a fool, I know it,
Who pays before, but not when he does owe it.
Thine, as he vowed to thee in thine ear,
Parolles.’
Bertram
He shall be whipped through the army with this rhyme in’s forehead.
Second Lord
This is your devoted friend, sir, the manifold linguist and the armipotent soldier.
Bertram
I could endure any thing before but a cat, and now he’s a cat to me.
First Soldier
I perceive, sir, by the general’s looks, we shall be fain to hang you.
Parolles
My life, sir, in any case: not that I am afraid to die; but that, my offences being many, I would repent out the remainder of nature: let me live, sir, in a dungeon, i’ the stocks, or any where, so I may live.
First Soldier
We’ll see what may be done, so you confess freely; therefore, once more to this Captain Dumain: you have answered to his reputation with the duke and to his valour: what is his honesty?
Parolles
He will steal, sir, an egg out of a cloister: for rapes and ravishments he parallels Nessus: he professes not keeping of oaths; in breaking ’em he is stronger than Hercules: he will lie, sir, with such volubility, that you would think truth were a fool: drunkenness is his best virtue, for he will be swine-drunk; and in his sleep he does little harm, save to his bed-clothes about him; but they know his conditions and lay him in straw. I have but little more to say, sir, of his honesty: he has every thing that an honest man should not have; what an honest man should have, he has nothing.
First Lord
I begin to love him for this.
Bertram
For this description of thine honesty? A pox upon him for me, he’s more and more a cat.
First Soldier
What say you to his expertness in war?
Parolles
Faith, sir, he has led the drum before the English tragedians; to belie him, I will not, and more of his soldiership I know not; except, in that country he had the honour to be the officer at a place there called Mile-end, to instruct for the doubling of files: I would do the man what honour I can, but of this I am not certain.
First Lord
He hath out-villained villany so far, that the rarity redeems him.
Bertram
A pox on him, he’s a cat still.
First Soldier
His qualities being at this poor price, I need not to ask you if gold will corrupt him to revolt.
Parolles
Sir, for a quart d’ecu he will sell the fee-simple of his salvation, the inheritance of it; and cut the entail from all remainders, and a perpetual succession for it perpetually.
First Soldier
What’s his brother, the other Captain Dumain?
Second Lord
Why does be ask him of me?
First Soldier
What’s he?
Parolles
E’en a crow o’ the same nest; not altogether so great as the first in goodness, but greater a great deal in evil: he excels his brother for a coward, yet his brother is reputed one of the best that is: in a retreat he outruns any lackey; marry, in coming on he has the cramp.
First Soldier
If your life be saved, will you undertake to betray the Florentine?
Parolles
Ay, and the captain of his horse, Count Rousillon.
First Soldier
I’ll whisper with the general, and know his pleasure.
Parolles
[Aside] I’ll no more drumming; a plague of all drums! Only to seem to deserve well, and to beguile the supposition of that lascivious young boy the count, have I run into this danger. Yet who would have suspected an ambush where I was taken?
First Soldier
There is no remedy, sir, but you must die: the general says, you that have so traitorously discovered the secrets of your army and made such pestiferous reports of men very nobly held, can serve the world for no honest use; therefore you must die. Come, headsman, off with his head.
Parolles
O Lord, sir, let me live, or let me see my death!
First Lord
That shall you, and take your leave of all your friends.
Unblinding him
So, look about you: know you any here?
Bertram
Good morrow, noble captain.
Second Lord
God bless you, Captain Parolles.
First Lord
God save you, noble captain.
Second Lord
Captain, what greeting will you to my Lord Lafeu? I am for France.
First Lord
Good captain, will you give me a copy of the sonnet you writ to Diana in behalf of the Count Rousillon? an I were not a very coward, I’ld compel it of you: but fare you well.
Exeunt Bertram and Lords
First Soldier
You are undone, captain, all but your scarf; that has a knot on’t yet
Parolles
Who cannot be crushed with a plot?
First Soldier
If you could find out a country where but women were that had received so much shame, you might begin an impudent nation. Fare ye well, sir; I am for France too: we shall speak of you there.
Exit with Soldiers
Parolles
Yet am I thankful: if my heart were great,
’Twould burst at this. Captain I’ll be no more;
But I will eat and drink, and sleep as soft
As captain shall: simply the thing I am
Shall make me live. Who knows himself a braggart,
Let him fear this, for it will come to pass
that every braggart shall be found an ass.
Rust, sword? cool, blushes! and, Parolles, live
Safest in shame! being fool’d, by foolery thrive!
There’s place and means for every man alive.
I’ll after them.
Exit
SCENE IV. FLORENCE. THE WIDOW’S HOUSE.
Enter Helena, Widow, and Diana
Helena
That you may well perceive I have not wrong’d you,
One of the greatest in the Christian world
Shall be my surety; ’fore whose throne ’tis needful,
Ere I can perfect mine intents, to kneel:
Time was, I did him a desired office,
Dear almost as his life; which gratitude
Through flinty Tartar’s bosom would peep forth,
And answer, thanks: I duly am inform’d
His grace is at Marseilles; to which place
We have convenient convoy. You must know
I am supposed dead: the army breaking,
My husband hies him home; where, heaven aiding,
And by the leave of my good lord the king,
We’ll be before our welcome.
Widow
Gentle madam,
You never had a servant to whose trust
Your business was more welcome.
Helen
a
Nor you, mistress,
Ever a friend whose thoughts more truly labour
To recompense your love: doubt not but heaven
Hath brought me up to be your daughter’s dower,
As it hath fated her to be my motive
And helper to a husband. But, O strange men!
That can such sweet use make of what they hate,
When saucy trusting of the cozen’d thoughts
Defiles the pitchy night: so lust doth play
With what it loathes for that which is away.
But more of this hereafter. You, Diana,
Under my poor instructions yet must suffer
Something in my behalf.
Diana
Let death and honesty
Go with your impositions, I am yours
Upon your will to suffer.
Helena
Yet, I pray you:
But with the word the time will bring on summer,
When briers shall have leaves as well as thorns,
And be as sweet as sharp. We must away;
Our wagon is prepared, and time revives us:
All’s well that ends well; still the fine’s the crown;
Whate’er the course, the end is the renown.
Exeunt
SCENE V. ROUSILLON. THE COUNT’S PALACE.
Enter Countess, Lafeu, and Clown
Lafeu
No, no, no, your son was misled with a snipt-taffeta fellow there, whose villanous saffron would have made all the unbaked and doughy youth of a nation in his colour: your daughter-in-law had been alive at this hour, and your son here at home, more advanced by the king than by that red-tailed humble-bee I speak of.
Countess
I would I had not known him; it was the death of the most virtuous gentlewoman that ever nature had praise for creating. If she had partaken of my flesh, and cost me the dearest groans of a mother, I could not have owed her a more rooted love.
Lafeu
’Twas a good lady, ’twas a good lady: we may pick a thousand salads ere we light on such another herb.
Clown
Indeed, sir, she was the sweet marjoram of the salad, or rather, the herb of grace.
Lafeu
They are not herbs, you knave; they are nose-herbs.
Clown
I am no great Nebuchadnezzar, sir; I have not much skill in grass.
Lafeu
Whether dost thou profess thyself, a knave or a fool?
Clown
A fool, sir, at a woman’s service, and a knave at a man’s.
Lafeu
Your distinction?
Clown
I would cozen the man of his wife and do his service.
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