All's Well That Ends Well - William Shakespeare (adult books to read TXT) 📗

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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 Servant.]

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 despatch'd sixteen businesses, a month's length apiece; by an abstract of success: I have conge'd 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 despatch 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 has deceived me like a double-meaning prophesier.

SECOND LORD. Bring him forth.

[Exeunt Soldiers.]

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?

FIRST 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 he?

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.

[Re-enter Soldiers, with PAROLLES.]

BERTRAM. A plague upon him! muffled! he can say nothing of me; hush, hush!


FIRST LORD. Hoodman comes! Porto tartarossa.

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. '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 are 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 practice 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 everything 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. '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 fifty each; mine own company, Chitopher, Vaumond, Bentii, two hundred 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 the 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. '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, expertness in wars; or whether he thinks it were not possible, with well-weighing sums of gold, to corrupt him to a 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: he 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.

[FIRST LORD lifts up his hand in anger.]

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 Florence, 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 vow'd to thee in thine ear,
PAROLLES.

BERTRAM. He shall be whipped through the army with this rhyme in his forehead.

SECOND LORD. This is your devoted friend, sir, the manifold linguist, and the armipotent soldier.

BERTRAM. I could endure anything before but a cat, and now he's a cat to me.

FIRST SOLDIER. I perceive, sir, by our 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 anywhere, 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 them 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 bedclothes 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 everything 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, 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-villanied villainy 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 he 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