Obrázky stránek
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

"I am St. Jaqués' pilgrim, thither gone :
Ambitious love hath so in me offended,
That barefoot plod I the cold ground upon,
With sainted vow my faults to have amended.
Write, write, that from the bloody course of war
My dearest master, your dear son, may hie:
Bless him at home in peace, whilst I from far
His name with zealous fervour sanctify.
His taken labours bid him me forgive:

I, his despiteful Juno, sent him forth
From courtly friends, with camping foes to live,

Where death and danger dog the heels of worth. He is too good and fair for death and me; Whom I myself embrace, to set him free. Count. Ah, what sharp stings are in her mildest words!

Rinaldo, you did never lack advice so much
As letting her pass so: had I spoke with her,
I could have well diverted her intents,

Which thus she hath prevented.
Pardon me, madam,

Stew.

[blocks in formation]

Of greatest justice.-Write, write, Rinaldo,
To this unworthy husband of his wife;
Let every word weigh heavy of her worth,
That he does weigh too light: my greatest grief,
Though little he do feel it, set down sharply.
Despatch the most convenient messenger.—
When, haply, he shall hear that she is gone,
He will return; and hope I may that she,
Hearing so much, will speed her foot again,
Led hither by pure love: which of them both
Is dearest to me, I have no skill in sense
To make distinction.-Provide this messenger:-
My heart is heavy, and mine age is weak;
Grief would have tears, and sorrow bids me speak.
[Exeunt.

SCENE V. Without the Walls of Florence.

A tucket afar off. Enter an Old Widow of Florence, DIANA, VIOLENTA, MARIANA, and other Citizens.

Wid. Nay, come; for if they do approach the city, we shall lose all the sight.

Dia. They say, the French count has done most honourable service.

Wid. It is reported that he has taken their greatest commander; and that with his own hand he slew the Duke's brother. We have lost our labour; they are gone a contrary way. Hark! you may know by their trumpets.

Mar. 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.

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

Mar. 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 lust, are not the things they go under many a maid hath been seduced by them; and the misery is, example, that so terrible shews in the wreck of maidenhood, cannot for all that dissuade succession, but they are limed with the twigs that threaten 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.

Dia. You shall not need to fear me.

Enter HELENA, in the dress of a Pilgrim. Wid. 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.—God save you, pilgrim! Whither are you bound?

Hel. To St. Jaques le grand. Where do the palmers lodge, I do beseech you? Wid. At the Saint Francis here, beside the port. Hel. Is this the way?

Wid. Ay, marry, is it. Hark you! [Amarch afar off. They come this way.-If you will tarry, holy pilgrim, But till the troops come by,

I will conduct you where you shall be lodged:
The rather for I think I know your hostess
As ample as myself.

Hel.

Is it yourself?

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
[graphic]
[blocks in formation]

Dia. That jack-an-apes with scarfs: why is he melancholy?

Hel. Perchance he's hurt i' the battle.

Par. Lose our drum! well.

Mar. He's shrewdly vexed at something: look, he has spied us.

Wid. Marry, hang you!

Mar. And your courtesy, for a ring-carrier! [Exeunt BERTRam, Parolles, Officers, and Soldiers.

Wid. The troop is past. Come, pilgrim, I will bring you

Where you shall host: of enjoined penitents There's four or five, to great Saint Jaqués bound, Already at my house.

[blocks in formation]

SCENE VI.-Camp before Florence. Enter BERTRAM, and the two French Lords. 1st Lord. Nay, good my lord, put him to 't; let him have his way.

2nd Lord. If your lordship find him not a hilding, hold me no more in your respect.

1st Lord. On my life, my lord, a bubble. Ber. Do you think I am so far deceived in him? 1st 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 lordship's entertainment.

2nd 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.

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

2nd Lord. None better than to let him fetch off his drum, which you hear him so confidently undertake to do.

1st 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 tents. Be but your lordship 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.

2nd Lord. O, for the love of laughter, let him fetch his drum; he says he has a stratagem for 't: when your lordship 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.

1st Lord. O, for the love of laughter, hinder not the humour of his design: let him fetch off his drum, in any hand.

Enter PAROLLES.

Ber. How now, monsieur? this drum sticks sorely in your disposition.

2nd Lord. A pox on 't, let it go; 'tis but a drum. Par. But a drum! Is 't but a drum? A drum so lost! There was an excellent command! to charge in with our horse upon our own wings, and to rend our own soldiers.

2nd Lord. That was not to be blamed in the command of the service: it was a disaster of war that Cæsar himself could not have prevented, if he had been there to command.

Ber. Well, we cannot greatly condemn our success: some dishonour we had in the loss of that drum; but it is not to be recovered.

Par. It might have been recovered.
Ber. It might, but it is not now.

Par. 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.

Ber. 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 enterprize, 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 your worthiness.

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

Ber. But you must not now slumber in it.

Par. I'll about it this evening: and I will presently pen down my dilemmas, encourage myself in my certainty, put myself into my mortal preparation, and by midnight look to hear further from me.

Ber. May I be bold to acquaint his grace you are gone about it?

Par. I know not what the success will be, my lord; but the attempt I vow.

Ber. I know thou art valiant; and, to the possibility of thy soldiership, will subscribe for thee. Farewell.

Par. I love not many words.

[Exit.

1st Lord. No more than a fish loves water.Is not this a strange fellow, my lord, that so confidently seems to undertake this business, which he knows is not to be done; damns himself to do, and dares better to be damned than to do 't? 2nd Lord. You do not know him, my lord, as we do: certain it is that he will steal himself into a man's favour, and for a week escape a great deal of discoveries; but when you find him out, you have him ever after.

you

Ber. Why, do think he will make no deed at all of this, that so seriously he does address himself unto?

1st Lord. None in the world; but return with an invention, and clap upon you two or three probable lies but we have almost embossed him; you shall see his fall to-night; for, indeed, he is not for your lordship's respect.

2nd Lord. We'll make you some sport with the fox, 'ere we case him. He was first smoked by the old lord Lafeu: when his disguise and he is parted, tell me what a sprat you shall find him; which you shall see this very night.

1st Lord. I must go look my twigs; he shall be caught.

Ber. Your brother, he shall go along with me. 1st Lord. As't please your lordship: I'll leave [Exit.

you.

Ber. Now will I lead you to the house, and shew you The lass I spoke of.

2nd Lord. But you say she's honest.

Ber. That's all the fault. I spoke with her but once, And found her wondrous cold; but I sent to her, By this same coxcomb that we have i' the wind, Tokens and letters, which she did re-send: And this is all I have done. She's a fair creature: Will you go see her? 2nd Lord.

With all my heart, my lord. [Exeunt.

[blocks in formation]

I should believe you;

For you have shewed me that which well approves
You are great in fortune.

Hel. Take this purse of gold.
And let me buy your friendly help thus far,
Which I will overpay, and pay again,
When I have found it. The count he woos your daughter,
Lays down his wanton siege before her beauty,
Resolves to carry her: let her, in fine, consent,
As we'll direct her how 'tis best to bear it,
Now his important blood will nought deny
That she'll demand.-A ring the county wears
That downward hath succeeded in his house,
From son to son, some four or five descents,
Since the first father wore it: this ring he holds
In most rich choice; yet, in his idle fire,
To buy his will, it would not seem too dear,
Howe'er repented after.
Now I see

Wid.

The bottom of your purpose.

It is no more,

Hel. You see it lawful, then. But that your daughter, ere she seems as won, Desires this ring; appoints him an encounter; In fine, delivers me to fill the time, Herself most chastely absent. To marry her, I'll add three thousand crowns To what is past already.

I have yielded:

After this,

Wid. Instruct my daughter how she shall perséver, That time and place, with this deceit so lawful, May prove coherent. Every night he comes With musics of all sorts, and songs composed To her unworthiness: it nothing steads us To chide him from our eaves; for he persists As if his life lay on 't. Hel. Why then, to-night Let us assay our plot; which, if it speed, Is wicked meaning in a lawful deed, And lawful meaning in a lawful act; Where both not sin, and yet a sinful fact. But let's about it.

[Exeunt.

ACT

SCENE I-Without the Florentine Camp.

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

1st Lord. He can come no other way but by this hedge-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.

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

1st Sol. No, sir, I warrant you.

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

1st Sol. Even such as you speak to me.

1st 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.

1st 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 another of Bajazet's mule, if you prattle me into these perils.

1st 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.

1st Lord. We cannot afford you so.

[Aside.

i

« PředchozíPokračovat »