ACT IV.

SCENE I. Without the Florentine Camp.

Enter first Lord, with five or six Soldiers in ambush.

1 Lord. He can come no other way but by this hedge's 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.

1 Sold. Good captain, let me be the interpreter. 1 Lord. Art not acquainted with him? Knows he not thy voice?

1 Sold. No, sir, I warrant you.

1 Lord. But what linsey-woolsey hast thou to speak to us again?

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 neighboring 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: chough's 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.

3

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

1 i. e. foreign troops in the enemy's pay.

2 The sense of this passage is obvious, though there is an apparent imperfection in the form of expression.

3 A bird of the jack-daw kind.

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.

[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 ?1 Tongue, I must put you into a butterwoman's mouth, and buy another of Bajazet's mute, 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.

1 Lord. Hardly serve.

[Aside.

Par. Though I swore I leaped from the window of the citadel

1 Lord. How deep?

Par. Thirty fathom.

[Aside.

1 Lord. Three great oaths would scarce make that be believed.

[Aside. Par. I would I had any drum of the enemy's; I would swear I recovered it.

1 Lord. You shall hear one anon.

1 The proof.

[Aside.

The old copy reads mule. The emendation was made by Warburton. 3 ie. the shaving of my beard. To bare anciently signified to shave.

Par. A drum now of the enemy's!,

[Alarum within

1 Lord. Throca movousus, cargo, cargo, cargo. All. Cargo, cargo, villianda par corbo, cargo. Par. O ransom, ransom.-Do not hide mine eyes [They seize him and blindfold him

1 Sold. Boskos thromuldo boskos.

Par. 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 will discover that which shall undo

The Florentine.

1 Sold.

Boskos vauvado.

I understand thee, and can speak thy tongue.-
Kerelybonto:-Sir,

Betake thee to thy faith, for seventeen poniards
Are at thy bosom.

Par.

1 Sold.

Oh!

O pray, pray, pray.

Manka revania dulche.

1 Lord.

• Oscorbi dulchos volivorca. 1 Sold. The general is content to spare thee yet; And, hoodwinked as thou art, will lead thee on To gather from thee; haply, thou mayst inform Something to save thy life.

Par.
O, let me live,
And all the secrets of our camp I'll show,

Their force, their purposes.
Which you will wonder at.
1 Sold.

Par. If I do not, damn me. 1 Sold.

Nay, I'll speak that

But wilt thou faithfully?

Come on, thou art granted space.

Acordo linta.

[Exit, with PAROLLES guarded.

I 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.

2 Sold.

Captain, I will.

1 Lord. He will betray us all unto ourselves';Inform 'em that.

1 Lord. Till then, I'll keep him dark, and safely

locked.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II. Florence. A Room in the Widow's

House.

Enter BERTRAM and DIANA.

Ber. They told me that your name was Fontibell. Dia. No, my good lord, Diana.

Ber. 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.

Dia. She then was honest.

Ber.

Dia.

So should

you be.

No.

My mother did but duty; such, my lord,
As you owe to your wife.

Ber.

No more of that!

I pr'ythee, do not strive against my vows:1

I was compelled to her; but. I love thee

By love's own sweet constraint, and will forever
Do thee all rights of service.

Dia.

Till we serve you: but when

Ay, so you serve us,

you have our roses,

You barely leave our thorns to prick ourselves,

And mock us with our bareness.

1 i. e. against his determined resolution never to cohabit with Helena.

Ber.

How have I sworn?

Dia. 'Tis not the many oaths, that make the

truth;

But the plain, single vow, that is vowed true.

What is not holy, that we swear not by,

But take the Highest to witness.1 Then pray you, tell

me,

If I should swear by Jove'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.3 Therefore, your

oaths

Are words, and poor conditions, but unsealed;

At least, in my opinion.

Ber.

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.

Dia. I see that men make hopes, in such a war,3
That we'll forsake ourselves. Give me that ring.
Ber. I'll lend it thee, my dear, but have no power
To give it from me.

Dia.

Will you not, my lord?
Ber. It is an honor 'longing to our house,
Bequeathed down from many ancestors;
Which were the greatest obloquy i'the world
In me to lose.

1 The sense is, we never swear by what is not holy, but take to witness the Highest, the Divinity.

2 This passage is considered obscure by some commentators; but the meaning appears to be very obvious: an oath has no binding force, when we swear by the Deity, whom we profess to love, that we will commit a deed that is displeasing to him.

3 The old copy reads, "make ropes in such a scarre." Rowe changed it to, "make hopes in such affairs;" and Malone to, "make hopes in such a scene." But affairs and scene have no literal resemblance to the old word scarre: warre is always so written in the old copy; the change is therefore less violent, and more probable.