PAR. I beseech you, let me answer to the particular of the intergatories. Demand them singly.

1 SOLD. Do you know this captain Dumain? PAR. I know him: he was a botcher's 'prentice in Paris, from whence he was whipped for getting the shrieve's fool with child; a dumb innocent, that could not say him nay.

[DUMAIN lifts up his hand in anger. BER. Nay, by your leave, hold your hands; though I know, his brains are forfeit to the next tile that falls.

1 SOLD. Well, is this captain in the duke of Florence's camp?

PAR. Upon my knowledge, he is, and lousy. 1 LORD. Nay, look not so upon me; we shall hear of your lordship* anon.

1 SOLD. What is his reputation with the duke? PAR. The duke knows him for no other but a poor officer of mine; and writ to me this other day, to turn him out of the band: I think, I have his letter in my pocket.

1 SOLD. Marry, we'll search.

PAR. In good sadness, I do not know; either it is there, or it is upon a file, with the duke's other letters, in my tent.

1 SOLD. Here 'tis; here's a paper.

read it to you?

PAR. I do not know, if it be it, or no.

BER. Our interpreter does it well.

1 LORD. Excellently.

Shall I

Men are to mell with, boys are not to kiss : For count of this, the count's a fool, I know it, Who pays before, but not when he does owe it. Thine, as he vowed to thee in thine ear,

PAROLLES. BER. He shall be whipped through the army, with this rhyme in his forehead.

2 LORD. This is your devoted friend, sir, the manifold linguist, and the armipotent soldier. BER. I could endure anything before but a cat, and now he's a cat to me.

1 SOLD. I perceive, sir, by our general's looks, we shall be fain to hang you.

PAR. My life, sir, in any case! not that I am afraid to die, but that, my offences being many, I would repent out the remainder of nature: let me live, sir, in a dungeon, i' the stocks, or anywhere, so I may live.

1 SOLD. We'll see what may be done, so you confess freely; therefore, once more to this captain Dumain. You have answered to his reputation with the duke, and to his valour. What is his honesty?

PAR. He will steal, sir, an egg out of a cloister; for rapes and ravishments he parallels Nessus. He professes not keeping of oaths; in breaking them he is stronger than Hercules. He will lie, sir, with such volubility, that you would think truth were a fool: drunkenness is his best virtue, for

gold,

PAR. That is not the duke's letter, sir; that is an advertisement to a proper maid in Florence, one Diana, to take heed of the allurement of one count Rousillon, a foolish idle boy, but, for all that,

very ruttish: I pray you, sir, put it up again. 1 SOLD. Nay, I'll read it first, by your favour. PAR. My meaning in't, I protest, was very honest in the behalf of the maid: for I knew the young count to be a dangerous and lascivious boy, who is a whale to virginity, and devours up all the fry it finds.

BER. Damnable both-sides rogue!

1 SOLD. When he swears oaths, bid him drop gold, and take it;

After he scores, he never pays the score: Half won, is match well made; match, and well

(*) Old copy, Lord.

a I perceive, sir, by our general's looks,-] The old text has your general's looks;" altered by Capell.

b He will steal, sir, an egg out of a cloister] If an egg is not a misprint, it may have been used metaphorically for a young girl; one of the murderers of Macduff's family (" Macbeth," Act IV. Sc. 2) calls the boy "egg," and "young fry." So also Costard, in "Love's Labour's Lost," Act V. Sc. 1, terms Moth

little harm, save to his bed-clothes about him; but they know his conditions, and lay him in straw. I have but little more to say, sir, of his honesty; he has everything that an honest man should not have; what an honest man should have, he has nothing. 1 LORD. I begin to love him for this. BER. For this description of thine honesty? A pox upon him! for me, he is more and more a cat.

1 SOLD. What say you to his expertness in war? PAR. 'Faith, sir, he has led the drum before the English tragedians,(2)-to belie him, I will not,and more of his soldiership I know not; except, in that country, he had the honour to be the officer at a place there called Mile-end, to instruct for the doubling of files: I would do the man what honour I can, but of this I am not certain.

1 LORD. He hath out-villained villainy so far, that the rarity redeems him.

BER. A pox on him! he's a cat still!

1 SOLD. His qualities being at this poor price, I

"pigeon-egg of discretion."

e Mile-end,-] See note (4), p. 628, Vol. I.

d He's a cat still!] Bertram had before told us that a cat was his particular aversion, and that Parolles was now a cat to him. When the rogue becomes more scurrilous in his revelations, Bertram says,He is more and more a cat;" and, finally, when he had "out-villained villany," the count impetuously exclaims, he's a cat still!" that is, a cat always, a cat evermore.

PAR. Ay, and the captain of his horse, count Rousillon.

1 SOLD. I'll whisper with the general, and know his pleasure.

PAR. [Aside.] I'll no more drumming: a plague of all drums! Only to seem to deserve well, and to beguile the supposition of that lascivious young boy the count, have I run into this danger. Yet, who would have suspected an ambush where I was taken ?

1 SOLD. There is no remedy, sir, but you must die the general says, you, that have so traitorously discovered the secrets of your army, and made such pestiferous reports of men very nobly held, can serve the world for no honest use; therefore you must die. Come, headsman, off with his hend.

PAR. O Lord, sir; let me live, or let me sce my death!

all

1 SOLD. That shall friends. your

you, and take your leave of
[Unmuffling him.

So, look about you; know you any here?
BER. Good morrow, noble captain.

2 LORD. God bless you, captain Parolles.
1 LORD. God save you, noble captain.
2 LORD. Captain, what greeting will you to my

lord Lafeu? I am for France.

1 LORD. Good captain, will you give me a copy of the sonnet you writ to Diana in behalf of the count Rousillon? an I were not a very coward, I'd compel it of you; but fare well. [Exeunt BERTRAM, Lords, &c. 1 SOLD. You are undone, captain: all but your scarf, that has a knot on't yet.

you

PAR. Who cannot be crushed with a plot?

1 SOLD. If you could find out a country where but women were that had received so much shame, you might begin an impudent nation. Fare you well, sir; I am for France too; we shall speak of [Exit. you there.

PAR. Yet am I thankful: if my heart were great,

"Twould burst at this. Captain, I'll be no more;
But I will eat and drink, and sleep as soft
As captain shall: simply the thing I am
Shall make me live. Who knows himself a brag-

a Marseilles] Marseilles, in the old copy Marcelle, must be pronounced as a word of three syllables-Marsellis. See note (b), p. 247, Vol. I.

b

When saucy trusting of the cozen'd thoughts
Defiles the pitchy night,-]

Hanmer reads fancy; saucy, however, is sometimes employed by
Shakespeare in the sense of prurient, and it may bear that
meaning here. But how is the context to be understood?
Yet, I pray you
But with the word;}

с

Blackstone proposed an ingenious emendation of this passage:"Yet, I fray you

But with the word."

HEL. That you may well perceive I have not wrong'd you,

One of the greatest in the Christian world
Shall be my surety; 'fore whose throne 'tis
needful,

Ere I can perfect mine intents, to kneel.
Time was, I did him a desired office,
Dear almost as his life; which gratitude
Through flinty Tartar's bosom would peep forth,
And answer, thanks: I duly am inform'd,
His grace is at Marseilles; to which place
We have convenient convoy. You must know,
My husband hies him home; where, heaven aiding,
I am supposed dead: the army breaking,
And by the leave of my good lord the king,
We'll be, before our welcome.

WID.
Gentle madam,
You never had a servant, to whose trust
Your business was more welcome.

HEL.

Nor you, * mistress, Ever a friend, whose thoughts more truly labour To recompense your love; doubt not, but heaven Hath brought me up to be your daughter's dower, As it hath fated her to be my motive And helper to a husband. But O strange men! That can such sweet use make of what they hate, When saucy trusting of the cozen'd thoughts Defiles the pitchy night, so lust doth play With what it loaths, for that which is away: But more of this hereafter. You, Diana, Under my poor instructions yet must suffer Something in my behalf.

DIA.

b

Let death and honesty Go with your impositions, I am yours Upon your will to suffer. HEL.

Yet, I pray you

с

с

LAF. No, no, no, your son was misled with a snipttaffata fellow there, whose villainous saffron would have made all the unbaked and doughy youth of a nation in his colour; your daughter-in-law had been alive at this hour, and your son here at home, more advanced by the king, than by that red-tailed humble-bee I speak of.

COUNT. I would I had not known him! it was the death of the most virtuous gentlewoman, that ever nature had praise for creating: if she had partaken of my flesh, and cost me the dearest groans of a mother, I could not have owed her a more rooted love.

LAP. 'Twas a good lady, 'twas a good lady: we may pick a thousand salads, ere we light on such another herb.

CLO. Indeed, sir, she was the sweet-marjoram of the salad, or, rather the herb of grace.

LAP. They are not salad-herbs, you knave: they are nose-herbs.

*

CLO. I am no great Nebuchadnezzar, sir, I have not much skill in grass." LAF. Whether dost thou profess thyself, a knave or a fool?

CLO. A fool, sir, at a woman's service, and a knave at a man's.

LAF. I will subscribe for thee; thou art both knave and fool.

CLO. At your service.

LAF. No, no, no.

CLO. Why, sir, if I cannot serve you, I serve as great a prince as you are.

LAF. Who's that? a Frenchman?

can

CLO. Faith, sir, he has an English name,* but his phisnomy is more hotter in France, than there. LAF. What prince is that?

CLO. The black prince, sir; alias, the prince of darkness; alias, the devil.

LAF. Hold thee, there's my purse; I give thee not this to suggest thee from thy master thou talkest of; serve him still.

CLO. I am a woodland fellow, sir, that always loved a great fire; and the master I speak of, ever keeps a good fire. But, sure, he is the prince of the world; let his nobility remain in his court. I am for the house with the narrow gate, which I take to be too little for pomp to enter: some, that humble themselves, may; but the many will be too chill and tender; and they'll be for the flowery way, that leads to the broad gate, and the great fire.

LAF. Go thy ways, I begin to be a-weary of thee; and I tell thee so before, because I would not fall out with thee. Go thy ways; let my horses be well looked to, without tricks. any

CLO. If I put any tricks upon 'em, sir, they shall be jades' tricks; which are their own right by the law of nature. [Exit.

LAF. A shrewd knave, and an unhappy. COUNT. So he is. My lord, that's gone, made himself much sport out of him; by his authority he remains here, which he thinks is a patent for his sauciness, and, indeed, he has no pace, but runs where he will.

LAF. I like him well; 'tis not amiss: and I was about to tell you. Since I heard of the good lady's death, and that my lord your son was upon his return home, I moved the king my master, to speak in the behalf of my daughter; which, in the minority of them both, his majesty, out of a self-gracious remembrance, did first propose: his highness hath promised me to do it; and, to stop up the displeasure he hath conceived against your How does your son, there is no fitter matter. ladyship like it?

COUNT. With very much content, my lord, and I wish it happily effected.

LAF. His highness comes post from Marseilles, of as able body as when he numbered thirty: he will be here to-morrow, or I am deceived by him that in such intelligence hath seldom failed.

COUNT. It rejoices me, that I hope I shall see him ere I die. I have letters, that my son will be here to-night: I shall beseech your lordship, to remain with me till they meet together.

LAF. Madam, I was thinking, with what manners I might safely be admitted.

COUNT. You need but plead your honourable privilege.

LAF. Lady, of that I have made a bold charter, but, I thank my God, it holds yet.