language, gabble enough, and good enough. As for you, interpreter, you must seem very politic. But couch, hoa! here he comes; to beguile two hours in a sleep, and then to return and swear the lies he forges. Enter PAROLLES. : PAR. Ten o'clock: within these three hours 't will 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. [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 myself another of Bajazet'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. "T would 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 citadel1 LORD. How deep? [Aside. PAR. Thirty fathom. [Aside. 1 LORD. Three great oaths would scarce make that be believed. PAR. I would I had any drum of the enemy's; I would swear I had recovered it. 1 LORD. You shall hear one anon. PAR. A drum now of the enemy's! 1 LORD. Throca movousus, cargo, cargo, cargo. 66 1 SOLD. Boskos thromuldo boskos. PAR. I know you are the Muskos' regiment, [Aside. [Alarum within. [They seize him and blindfold him. And I shall lose my life for want of language: • Mule. So the original. It was proposed by Warburton, with great plausibility, to read Bajazet's mute." 1 SOLD. But wilt thou faithfully? Acordo linta. [Exit, with PAROLLES guarded. Come on, thou art granted space. 1 LORD. Go, tell the count Rousillon, and my brother, 2 SOLD. Captain, I will. 1 LORD. Till then, I'll keep him dark, and safely lock'd. SCENE II.-Florence. A Room in the Widow's House. [Exeunt. On. So the original. The common reading is "inform 'em that." But the change is scarcely wanted. "Inform on that" is, give information on that point. DIA. "T is not the many oaths that make 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, 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. 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, Who then recover: say, thou art mine, and ever DIA. I see that men make ropes, in such a scarre, That we'll forsake, ourselves. Give me that ring. The reading which we here give, that of the original, is startling and difficult. The common reading, that of Rowe, is, DIA. When midnight comes, knock at my chamber window; Now will I charge you in the band of truth, When you have conquer'd my yet maiden bed, My reasons are most strong; and you shall know them, And on your finger, in the night, I'll put Adieu, till then; then, fail not: You have won BER. A heaven on earth I have won, by wooing thee. My mother told me just how he would woo, Malone reads, "I see that men make hopes, in such affairs." "I see that men make hopes, in such a scene." [Exit. Tieck justly observes that to "make hopes" is a very weak expression, and, "in such affairs," equally trivial. "In such a scene" is little better. Looking at the tendency of Shakspere to the use of strong metaphorical expressions, the original reading, however obscure, ought not to be lightly rejected; for unquestionably such a word as scarre was not likely to be substituted by the printer for a more common word, such as scene or affairs. A scarre is a rock-a precipitous cliff -and thus, figuratively, a difficulty to be surmounted. Men, says Diana, pretend to show how we can overpass the obstacle. Such terms as "love is holy"-" my love shall persever"—are the ropes by the aid of which the steep rock is to be climbed. The ropes "that we 'll forsake, ourselves," are the supports of which we ourselves lose our hold, after we have unwisely trusted to them. If hopes is substituted for ropes, and scarre retained, the sense then may be, that men hope in such a position of difficulty, that we 'll forsake ourselves-cease to rely upon ourselves. As if she sat in his heart; she says, all men Have the like oaths: he had sworn to marry me, Only, in this disguise, I think 't no sin To cozen him that would unjustly win. SCENE III.-The Florentine Camp. Enter the two French Lords, and two or three Soldiers. 1 LORD. You have not given him his mother's letter? [Exit. 2 LORD. I have deliver'd it an hour since: there is something in 't that stings his nature; for, on the reading it, he changed almost into another man. 1 LORD. He has much worthy blame laid upon him, for shaking off so good a wife, and so sweet a lady. 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 't is 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 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. I 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. ▪ Braid-crafty, according to Steevens. Horne Tooke has a curious notion that the word here means brayed as a fool is said to be in a mortar. Mr. Richardson, in his Dictionary,' says, "The word appears to refer to the suddenness and violence with which Bertram had wooed her." Mr. Dyce thinks that braid is here equivalent to "violent in desire." e I live. So the first and second folios. I'll live is the modern reading. |