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

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.

FIRST LORD. {Aside.] 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.

FIRST LORD. {Aside.] 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.

FIRST LORD. {Aside.] We cannot afford you so.

PAROLLES. Or the baring of my beard; and to say it was in stratagem.

FIRST LORD. {Aside.] 'Twould not do.

PAROLLES. Or to drown my clothes, and say I was stripped.

FIRST LORD. {Aside.] Hardly serve.

PAROLLES. Though I swore I leap'd from the window of the citadel,--

FIRST LORD. {Aside.] How deep?

PAROLLES. Thirty fathom.

FIRST LORD. {Aside.] 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.

FIRST LORD. {Aside.] You shall hear one anon.

PAROLLES. A drum now of the enemy's!

[Alarum within.]

FIRST LORD. Throca movousus, cargo, cargo, cargo.

ALL. Cargo, cargo, cargo, villianda 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.

SECOND SOLDIER. Boskos vauvado:--I understand thee, and can speak thy tongue. Kerelybonto:--Sir, Betake thee to thy faith, for seventeen poniards Are at thy bosom.

PAROLLES. O!

FIRST SOLDIER. O, pray, pray, pray!-- Manka revania dulche.

FIRST LORD. Oscorbi dulchos 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.]

FIRST 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.

FIRST LORD. 'A will betray us all unto ourselves;-- Inform 'em that.

SECOND SOLDIER. So I will, sir.

FIRST LORD. Till then I'll keep him dark, and safely lock'd.

[Exeunt.]


SCENE 2. Florence. A room in 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 the 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 stern; 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 of that! I pr'ythee, 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 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 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 hopes in such a case, 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 3. The Florentine camp.

[Enter the two French Lords, and two or three Soldiers.]

FIRST LORD. You have not given him his mother's letter?

SECOND LORD. I have deliv'red 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 sing 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 meantime, 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 counsel.

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, 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!

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.