All's Well That Ends Well Part 8

[Tucket]

We have lost our labour; they are gone a contrary way. Hark!

you may know by their trumpets.

MARIANA. 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.

WIDOW. I have told my neighbour how you have been solicited by a gentleman his companion.

MARIANA. 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 l.u.s.t, 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 threatens 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.

DIANA. You shall not need to fear me.

Enter HELENA in the dress of a pilgrim

WIDOW. 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.

G.o.d save you, pilgrim! Whither are bound?

HELENA. To Saint Jaques le Grand.

Where do the palmers lodge, I do beseech you?

WIDOW. At the Saint Francis here, beside the port.

HELENA. Is this the way?

[A march afar]

WIDOW. Ay, marry, is't. Hark you! They come this way.

If you will tarry, holy pilgrim, But till the troops come by, I will conduct you where you shall be lodg'd; The rather for I think I know your hostess As ample as myself.

HELENA. Is it yourself?

WIDOW. If you shall please so, pilgrim.

HELENA. I thank you, and will stay upon your leisure.

WIDOW. You came, I think, from France?

HELENA. I did so.

WIDOW. Here you shall see a countryman of yours That has done worthy service.

HELENA. His name, I pray you.

DIANA. The Count Rousillon. Know you such a one?

HELENA. But by the ear, that hears most n.o.bly of him; His face I know not.

DIANA. What some'er he is, He's bravely taken here. He stole from France, As 'tis reported, for the King had married him Against his liking. Think you it is so?

HELENA. Ay, surely, mere the truth; I know his lady.

DIANA. There is a gentleman that serves the Count Reports but coa.r.s.ely of her.

HELENA. What's his name?

DIANA. Monsieur Parolles.

HELENA. O, I believe with him, In argument of praise, or to the worth Of the great Count himself, she is too mean To have her name repeated; all her deserving Is a reserved honesty, and that I have not heard examin'd.

DIANA. Alas, poor lady!

'Tis a hard bondage to become the wife Of a detesting lord.

WIDOW. I sweet, good creature, wheresoe'er she is Her heart weighs sadly. This young maid might do her A shrewd turn, if she pleas'd.

HELENA. How do you mean?

May be the amorous Count solicits her In the unlawful purpose.

WIDOW. He does, indeed; And brokes with all that can in such a suit Corrupt the tender honour of a maid; But she is arm'd for him, and keeps her guard In honestest defence.

Enter, with drum and colours, BERTRAM, PAROLLES, and the whole ARMY

MARIANA. The G.o.ds forbid else!

WIDOW. So, now they come.

That is Antonio, the Duke's eldest son; That, Escalus.

HELENA. Which is the Frenchman?

DIANA. He- That with the plume; 'tis a most gallant fellow.

I would he lov'd his wife; if he were honester He were much goodlier. Is't not a handsome gentleman?

HELENA. I like him well.

DIANA. 'Tis pity he is not honest. Yond's that same knave That leads him to these places; were I his lady I would poison that vile rascal.

HELENA. Which is he?

DIANA. That jack-an-apes with scarfs. Why is he melancholy?

HELENA. Perchance he's hurt i' th' battle.

PAROLLES. Lose our drum! well.

MARIANA. He's shrewdly vex'd at something.

Look, he has spied us.

WIDOW. Marry, hang you!

MARIANA. And your courtesy, for a ring-carrier!

Exeunt BERTRAM, PAROLLES, and ARMY WIDOW. 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.

HELENA. 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 of this virgin, Worthy the note.

BOTH. We'll take your offer kindly. Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE 6.

Camp before Florence

Enter BERTRAM, and the two FRENCH LORDS

SECOND LORD. Nay, good my lord, put him to't; let him have his way.

FIRST LORD. If your lords.h.i.+p find him not a hiding, hold me no more in your respect.

SECOND LORD. On my life, my lord, a bubble.

BERTRAM. Do you think I am so far deceived in him?

SECOND 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 infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise-breaker, the owner of no one good quality worthy your lords.h.i.+p's entertainment.

FIRST 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.

BERTRAM. I would I knew in what particular action to try him.

FIRST LORD. None better than to let him fetch off his drum, which you hear him so confidently undertake to do.

SECOND LORD. I with a troop of Florentines will suddenly surprise him; such I will have whom I am sure he knows not from the enemy.

We will bind and hoodwink 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 own tents. Be but your lords.h.i.+p 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 anything.

FIRST LORD. O, for the love of laughter, let him fetch his drum; he says he has a stratagem for't. When your lords.h.i.+p 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

SECOND LORD. O, for the love of laughter, hinder not the honour of his design; let him fetch off his drum in any hand.

BERTRAM. How now, monsieur! This drum sticks sorely in your disposition.

FIRST LORD. A pox on 't; let it go; 'tis but a drum.

PAROLLES. But a drum! Is't but a drum? A drum so lost! There was excellent command: to charge in with our horse upon our own wings, and to rend our own soldiers!

FIRST LORD. That was not to be blam'd in the command of the service; it was a disaster of war that Caesar himself could not have prevented, if he had been there to command.

BERTRAM. Well, we cannot greatly condemn our success.

Some dishonour we had in the loss of that drum; but it is not to be recovered.

PAROLLES. It might have been recovered.

BERTRAM. It might, but it is not now.

PAROLLES. 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.'

BERTRAM. 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 enterprise, 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 our worthiness.

PAROLLES. By the hand of a soldier, I will undertake it.

BERTRAM. But you must not now slumber in it.