Make me but like my thoughts; and I shall prove A lover of thy drum, hater of love. [Exeunt. SCENE IV. - Rousillon. A Room in the Enter COUNTESS and Steward. Count. Alas! and would you take the letter of her? Might you not know, she would do as she has done, By sending me a letter? Read it again. With sainted vow my faults to have amended. I, his despiteful Juno, sent him forth Count. Ah, what sharp stings are in her mildest Rinaldo, you did never lack advice so much, Stew. Pardon me, madam: If I had given you this at over-night, She might have been o'er-ta'en; and yet she writes, Pursuit would be but vain. Count. What angel shall Bless this unworthy husband? he cannot thrive, Unless her prayers, whom heaven delights to hear, And loves to grant, reprieve him from the wrath Of greatest justice. Write, write, Rinaldo, To this unworthy husband of his wife: 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. Despatch the most convenient messenger: -When, haply, he shall hear that she is gone, 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: — My heart is heavy, and mine age is weak; Grief would have tears, and sorrow bids me speak. [Exeunt. SCENE V. - Without the Walls of Florence. A tucket afar off. Enter an old Widow of Florence, DIANA, VIOLENTA, MARIANA, and other Citizens. Wid. Nay, come; for if they do approach the city, we shall lose all the sight. Dia. They say, the French count has done most honourable service. Wid. It is reported that he has taken their greatest commander; and that with his own hand he slew the duke's brother. We have lost our labour: they are gone a contrary way: hark! you inay know by their trumpets. Mar. Come, let's return again, and suffice ourselves 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. Wid. I have told my neighbour, how you have been solicited by a gentleman his companion. Mar. 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 hath been seduced by them; and the misery is, example that so terrible shows in the wreck of maidenhood, cannot for all that dissuade succession, but that they are limed with the twigs that threaten them. I hope I need not to advise you further; but, I hope, your own grace will keep you where you are, though there were no further danger known, but the modesty which is so lost. Dia. You shall not need to fear me. Enter HELENA, in the dress of a pilgrim. Wid. I hope so. - Look, here comes a pilgrim: I know she will lie at my house: thither they send one another; I'll question her. God save you, pilgrim! Whither are you bound? Where do the palmers lodge, I do beseech you? Ay, marry, is it. - Hark you! [A march afar of They come this way: - If you will tarry, holy pilgrim, the owner of no one good quality worthy your lordship's entertainment. 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. Ber. 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 surprize him; such I will have, whom I am sure, he knows not from the enemy: we will bind and hood-wink 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 tents: Be but your 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 judgment in any thing. 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, 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 Dia. That jack-an-apes with scarfs: Why is he the humour of his design: let him fetch off his melancholy? Hel. Perchance he's hurt i'the battle. Par. Lose our drum! well. Mar. He's shrewdly vexed at something: Look, ne has spied us. Wid. Marry, hang you! Mar. And your courtesy, for a ring-carrier ! [Exeunt BERTRAM, PAROLLES, Officers, and Soldiers. Wid. 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. Hel. I humbly thank you : Please it this matron, and this gentle maid, To eat with us to-night, the charge and thanking, Shall be for me; and, to requite you further, I will bestow some precepts on this virgin, Worthy the note. Both. We'll take your offer kindly. [Exeunt. SCENE VI. - Camp before Florence. 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. Ber. 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 inunite and endless liar, an hourly promise-breaker, drum in any hand. Ber. How now, monsieur? this drum sticks sorely in your disposition. 2 Lord. A pox on't, let it go; 'tis but a drum. Par. But a drum! Is't but a drum? A drum so lost! There was an excellent command! to charge in with our horse upon our own wings, and to rend our own soldiers. 2 Lord. That was not to be blamed in the command of the service; it was a disaster of war that Cæsar himself could not have prevented, if he had been there to command. Ber. Well, we cannot greatly condemn our success: some dishonour we had in the loss of that drum; but it is not to be recovered. Par. It might have been recovered. Par. 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. Ber. 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 magnanimous in the enterprize, and go on; I will grace the attempt for a worthy exploit: if you speed well in it, the duke shall both speak of it, and extend to you what further becomes his greatness, even to the utmost syllable of your worthiness. Par. By the hand of a soldier, I will undertake it Ber. But you must not now slumber in it. Par. I'll about it this evening and I will presently pen down my dilemmas, encourage myself in my certainty, put myself into my mortal prepar 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 done; damns himself to do, and dares better be damned than to do't. 2 Lord. You do not know him, my lord, as we do: certain it is, that he will steal himself into a man's favour, and, for a week, escape a great deal of discoveries; but when you find him out, you have him ever after. Ber. Why, do you think, he will make no deed at all of this, that so seriously he does address himself unto? 1 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. 2 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. 1 Lord. I must go look my twigs; he shall be caught. Ber. Your brother, he shall go along with me. 1 Lord. As't please your lordship: I'll leave you. [Erit. Ber. Now will I lead you to the house, and show First, give me trust, the count he is my husband; For you have show'd me that, which well approve Lays down his wanton siege before her beauty, Wid. 1 Sold. Even such as you speak to me. 1 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 to one another; so we seem to know, is to know straight our purpose: chough's language, gabble enough, and good enough. for you, interpreter, you must seem very politick. But couch, ho! here he comes; to beguile two hours in a sleep, and then to retuin and swear the lies he forges. Enter PAROLLES. As Par. 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 fool-hardy; but my heart hath the fear of Mars before it, and of his creatures, not daring the reports of my tongue. 1 Lord. This is the first truth that e'er thine own tongue was guilty of. [Exit, with PAROLLES guarded. 1 Lord. Go, tell the count Rousillon, and my brother, We have caught the woodcock, and will keep him Till we do hear from them. Captain, I will. So I will, sir. [Aside. Par. 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 another of Bajazet's SCENE II. Florence. A Room in the Widow's mule, if you prattle me into these perils. 1 Lord. Is it possible, he should know what he is, and be that he is? [Aside. Par. I would the cutting of my garments would serve the turn; or the breaking of my Spanish sword. 1 Lord. We cannot afford you so. [Aside. Par. Or the baring of my beard; and to say, it was in stratagem. 1 Lord. 'Twould not do. [Aside. Par. Or to drown my clothes, and say, I was stripped. [Aside. 1 Lord. Hardly serve. of the citadel 1 Lord. Till then, I'll keep him dark, and safely House. Ber. So should you be. My mother did but duty; such, my lord, Ber. No: No more of that! Dia. Ber. How have I sworn? Dia. 'Tis not the many oaths, that make the truth; But the plain single vow, that is vow'd true. But take the Highest to witness: Then, pray you, tell me, If I should swear by Jove's great attributes, I lov'd you dearly, would you believe my caths, R When I did love you ill? this has no holding, Ber. Change it, change it; Be not so holy-cruel: love is holy; And my integrity ne'er knew the crafts, 2 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. 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 That you do charge men with: Stand no more off, this night he fleshes his will in the spoil of her 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. Ber. Here, take my ring: My house, mine honour, yea, my life be thine, And I'll be bid by thee. Dia. When midnight comes, knock at my chamber window; I'll order take, my mother shall not hear. 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. Ber. A. heaven on earth I have won, by wooing thee. [Exit. Dia. For which live long to thank both heaven and me! You may so in the end. honour he hath 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 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. 1 Lord. Is it not meant damnable in us, to be trumpeters of our unlawful intents? We shall not then have his company to-night? 2 Lord. Not till after midnight; for he is dieted to his hour. 1 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. 2 Lord. We will not meddle with him till he come; for his presence must be the whip of the other. 1 Lord. In the mean time, 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 Rousillon do then? will he travel higher, or return again into France? 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 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. 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 to say, is come, was faithfully confirmed by the rector of the place. 2 Lord. Hath the count all this intelligence? Lord. Ay, and the particular confirmations, point from point, to the full arming of the verity. 2 Lord. I am heartily sorry, that he'll be glad of this. 1 Lord. How mightily, sometimes, we make u comforts of our losses! 2 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. 1 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 cherish d by our virtues. |