1 LORD. Art not acquainted with him? knows he not thy voice?

1 SOLD. No, sir, I warrant you.

1 LORD. But what linsy-woolsy hast thou to speak to us again?

1 SOLD. E'en 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 neighbouring 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.

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. [Aside.] This is the first truth that e'er thine own tongue was guilty of.

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.

a

1 LORD. [Aside.] Is it possible, he should know what he is, and be that he is?

PAR. I would the cutting of my garments would serve the turn; or the breaking of my Spanish sword.

1 LORD. [Aside.] We cannot afford you so. PAR. Or the baring of my beard; and to say, it was in stratagem.

1 LORD. [Aside.] 'Twould not do. PAR. Or to drown my clothes, and stripped.

say,

I was

1 LORD. [Aside.] Hardly serve. PAR. Though I swore I leaped from the window of the citadel

1 LORD. [Aside.] How deep? PAR. Thirty fathom.

1 LORD. Aside.] Three great oaths would scarce make that be believed.

PAR. I would I had any drum of the enemy's; I would swear, I recovered it.

1 LORD. [Aside.] You shall hear one anon. [Alarum within. PAR. A drum now of the enemy's!

1 LORD. Throca movousus, cargo! cargo! cargo!

ALL. Cargo cargo! villianda par corbo, cargo!

a Wherefore? what's the instance?] Wherefore did I volunteer this exploit? For what object?

And, hood-wink'd as thou art, will lead thee on To gather from thee: haply, thou may'st 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: nay, I'll speak that Which you will wonder at. 1 SOLD.

But wilt thou faithfully? PAR. If I do not, damn me. 1 SOLD.

Acordo linta.-Come on, thou art granted space. [4 short alarum without. Exit, with PAROLLES guarded.

1 LORD. Go, tell the count Rousillon, and my

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.

DIA. 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. BER.

How have I sworn! DIA. '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, you dearly, would believe my oaths, When I did love you ill? this has no holding, To swear by him whom I protest to love, [oaths [oaths That I will work against him. Therefore, your Are words, and poor conditions, but unseal'd;"

Cold and stern;] Stern is rigid, unyielding.

"Can generous hearts in nature be so stern?"
GREENE'S James the Fourth.

"In former times, some countries have been so chary in this behalf, so stern, that if a child were crooked or deformed in body or mind, they made him away."-BURTON's Anatomy of Melancholy.

Tis not the many oaths, &c. &c.] All the best modern editors have laboured earnestly to render this passage intelligible. That they have failed is, we believe, owing to their not perceiving that the accomplished compositors or transcribers of the folio, 1623, have contrived, with their customary dexterity, to graft a speech of Bertram on to that of Diana. If we read the dialogue as follows, aca in it that was nebulous becomes clear, and a way is seen to the comprehension of the rest :

BER.

Here, take my ring: My house, mine honour, yea, my life be thine, And I'll be bid by thee.

DIA. 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.
BER. A heaven on earth I have won, by wooing
thee.
[Exit.
DIA. For which live long to thank both heaven
and me!

c Love is holy,-] We should, perhaps, read, "My love is holy."

d I see, that men make hopes, in such a snare,-] The old copy has,

"I see that men make rope's in such a scarre;" which, though some critics have attempted to explain, none has yet succeeded in making intelligible. The alteration of hopes for rope's was proposed by Rowe, who reads,

"I see that men make hopes in such affairs."

e Since Frenchmen are so braid,-] Braid, in this place, means false, tricking, deceitful.

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?

2 LORD. I have delivered 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, 'tis 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.

1 LORD. Now, God delay our rebellion; as we are ourselves, what things are we!

b

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.

1 LORD. In the mean time, what hear you of these wars?

2 LORD. I hear, there is an overture of peace. 1 LORD. Nay, I assure you, a peace concluded.

a And thinks himself made-] Made seems strangely inapplicable. We should, perhaps, read, "paid." b Merely-] That is, absolutely.

To their abhorred ends;] Their disgraceful punishments; and not, as the words are usually explained, the opportunity of effecting their treachery;-an opportunity not very likely to occur, if they were always revealing the object they had in hand.

2 LORD. What will count Rousillon do then? will he travel higher, or return again into France? 1 LORD. I perceive, by this demand, you are not altogether of his council.

2 LORD. Let it be forbid, sir! so should I be a great deal of his act.

1 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.

2 LORD. How is this justified?

1 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.

2 LORD. Hath the count all this intelligence? 1 LORD. Ay, and the particular confirmations, point from point, to the full arming of the verity. 2 LORD. I am heartily sorry, that he'll be glad

of this.

1 LORD. How mightily, sometimes, we make

us comforts of our losses!

2 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.

I 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.

nesses, a month's length a-piece, 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.

2 LORD. If the business be of any difficulty, and this morning your departure hence, it requires haste of your lordship.

BER. 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; he has deceived me, like a double-meaning prophesier.

2 LORD. Bring him forth: [Exeunt Soldiers.] he has sat i'the stocks all night, poor gallant knave.

BER. No matter; his heels have deserved it, in usurping his spurs so long. How does he carry himself?

1 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 the stocks: and what think you he hath confessed?

BER. Nothing of me, has he?

2 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.

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

1 LORD. Hoodman (1) comes!-Portotartarossa. 1 SOLD. He calls for the tortures; what will you say without 'em?

PAR. I will confess what I know without constraint; if ye pinch me like a pasty, I can say

no more.

PAR. 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.

1 SOLD. Shall I set down your answer so? PAR. Do; I'll take the sacrament on't, how and which way you will.

&

BER. All's one to him. What a past-saving slave is this!

1 LORD. You are deceived, my lord; this is monsieur Parolles, the gallant militarist, (that was his own phrase,) that had the whole theorick of war in the knot of his scarf, and the practice in the chape of his dagger.

2 LORD. I will never trust a man again, for keeping his sword clean; nor believe he can have every thing in him, by wearing his apparel neatly. 1 SOLD. Well, that's set down.

PAR. Five or six thousand horse, I said,—I will say true, or thereabouts, set down,-for I'll speak truth.

1 LORD. He's very near the truth in this. BER. But I con him no thanks for't, in the nature he delivers it."

a truth's a

PAR. Poor rogues, I pray you, say. 1 SOLD. Well, that's set down. PAR. I humbly thank you, sir: truth, the rogues are marvellous poor. 1 SOLD. Demand of him of what strength they are afoot. What say you to that?

d

PAR. 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 musterfile, 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.

BER. What shall be done to him?

e

1 LORD. Nothing, but let him have thanks. Demand of him my condition, and what credit I have with the duke?

1 SOLD. Well, that's set down. You shall demand of him, whether one captain Dumain be the camp, a Frenchman; what his reputation is with the duke, what his valour, honesty, and 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 you know of it?

do

present hour" seems more germane to his position. Live, possibly, is a misprint of leare. He may have meant, "If I were free to depart this very hour."

d Sebastian so many, Corambus so many, Jacques so many,-] So many means, as many.

e My condition,-] That is, disposition and character.