Act III
Scene I
Florence. The Duke’s palace.
Flourish. Enter the Duke of Florence attended; the two Frenchmen, with a troop of soldiers. | |
Duke |
So that from point to point now have you heard
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First Lord |
Holy seems the quarrel
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Duke |
Therefore we marvel much our cousin France
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Second Lord |
Good my lord,
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Duke | Be it his pleasure. |
First Lord |
But I am sure the younger of our nature,
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Duke |
Welcome shall they be;
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Scene II
Rousillon. The Count’s palace.
Enter Countess and Clown. | |
Countess | It hath happened all as I would have had it, save that he comes not along with her. |
Clown | By my troth, I take my young lord to be a very melancholy man. |
Countess | By what observance, I pray you? |
Clown | Why, he will look upon his boot and sing; mend the ruff and sing; ask questions and sing; pick his teeth and sing. I know a man that had this trick of melancholy sold a goodly manor for a song. |
Countess | Let me see what he writes, and when he means to come. Opening a letter. |
Clown | I have no mind to Isbel since I was at court: our old ling and our Isbels o’ the country are nothing like your old ling and your Isbels o’ the court: the brains of my Cupid’s knocked out, and I begin to love, as an old man loves money, with no stomach. |
Countess | What have we here? |
Clown | E’en that you have there. Exit. |
Countess |
This is not well, rash and unbridled boy.
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Re-enter Clown. | |
Clown | O madam, yonder is heavy news within between two soldiers and my young lady! |
Countess | What is the matter? |
Clown | Nay, there is some comfort in the news, some comfort; your son will not be killed so soon as I thought he would. |
Countess | Why should he be killed? |
Clown | So say I, madam, if he run away, as I hear he does: the danger is in standing to’t; that’s the loss of men, though it be the getting of children. Here they come will tell you more: for my part, I only hear your son was run away. Exit. |
Enter Helena, and two Gentlemen. | |
First Gentleman | Save you, good madam. |
Helena | Madam, my lord is gone, for ever gone. |
Second Gentleman | Do not say so. |
Countess |
Think upon patience. Pray you, gentlemen,
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Second Gentleman |
Madam, he’s gone to serve the duke of Florence:
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Helena |
Look on his letter, madam; here’s my passport.
This is a dreadful sentence. |
Countess | Brought you this letter, gentlemen? |
First Gentleman |
Ay, madam;
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Countess |
I prithee, lady, have a better cheer;
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Second Gentleman | Ay, madam. |
Countess | And to be a soldier? |
Second Gentleman |
Such is his noble purpose; and believe’t,
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Countess | Return you thither? |
First Gentleman | Ay, madam, with the swiftest wing of speed. |
Helena |
’Tis bitter. |
Countess | Find you that there? |
Helena | Ay, madam. |
First Gentleman | ’Tis but the boldness of his hand, haply, which his heart was not consenting to. |
Countess |
Nothing in France, until he have no wife!
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First Gentleman |
A servant only, and a gentleman
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Countess | Parolles, was it not? |
First Gentleman | Ay, my good lady, he. |
Countess |
A very tainted fellow, and full of wickedness.
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First Gentleman |
Indeed, good lady,
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Countess |
You’re welcome, gentlemen.
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Second Gentleman |
We serve you, madam,
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Countess |
Not so, but as we change our courtesies.
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Helena |
“Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France.”
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Scene III
Florence. Before the Duke’s palace.
Flourish. Enter the Duke of Florence, Bertram, Parolles, Soldiers, Drum, and Trumpets. | |
Duke |
The general of our horse thou art; and we,
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Bertram |
Sir, it is
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Duke |
Then go thou forth;
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Bertram |
This very day,
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Scene IV
Rousillon. The Count’s palace.
Enter Countess and Steward. | |
Countess |
Alas! and would you take the letter of her?
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Steward |
Reads.
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Countess |
Ah, what sharp stings are in her mildest words!
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Steward |
Pardon me, madam:
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Countess |
What angel shall
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Scene V
Florence. Without the walls. A tucket afar off.
Enter an old Widow of Florence, Diana, Violenta, and Mariana, with other Citizens. | |
Widow | Nay, come; for if they do approach the city, we shall lose all the sight. |
Diana | They say the French count has done most honourable service. |
Widow | It is reported that he has taken their greatest commander; and that with his own hand he slew the duke’s brother. 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 lust, 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 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. |
Diana | You shall not need to fear me. |
Widow | I hope so. |
Enter Helena, disguised like a Pilgrim. | |
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? | |
Helena |
To Saint Jaques le Grand.
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Widow | At the Saint Francis here beside the port. |
Helena | Is this the way? |
Widow |
Ay, marry, is’t. A march afar. Hark you! they come this way.
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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
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Helena | His name, I pray you. |
Diana | The Count Rousillon: know you such a one? |
Helena |
But by the ear, that hears most nobly of him:
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Diana |
Whatsome’er he is,
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Helena | Ay, surely, mere the truth: I know his lady. |
Diana |
There is a gentleman that serves the count
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Helena | What’s his name? |
Diana | Monsieur Parolles. |
Helena |
O, I believe with him,
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Diana |
Alas, poor lady!
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Widow |
I warrant, good creature, wheresoe’er she is,
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Helena |
How do you mean?
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Widow |
He does indeed;
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Mariana | The gods forbid else! |
Widow | So, now they come: |
Drum and Colours. | |
Enter Bertram, Parolles, and the whole army. | |
That is Antonio, the duke’s eldest son;
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Helena | Which is the Frenchman? |
Diana |
He;
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Helena | I like him well. |
Diana |
’Tis pity he is not honest: yond’s that same knave
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Helena | Which is he? |
Diana | That jack-an-apes with scarfs: why is he melancholy? |
Helena | Perchance he’s hurt i’ the battle. |
Parolles | Lose our drum! well. |
Mariana | He’s shrewdly vexed 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
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Helena |
I humbly thank you:
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Both | We’ll take your offer kindly. Exeunt. |
Scene VI
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 lordship find him not a hilding, 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 lordship’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 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 any thing. |
First 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. |
Enter Parolles. | |
Second Lord | Aside to Bertram. 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 blamed 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 your worthiness. |
Parolles | By the hand of a soldier, I will undertake it. |
Bertram | But you must not now slumber in it. |
Parolles | 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. |
Bertram | May I be bold to acquaint his grace you are gone about it? |
Parolles | I know not what the success will be, my lord; but the attempt I vow. |
Bertram | I know thou’rt valiant; and, to the possibility of thy soldiership, will subscribe for thee. Farewell. |
Parolles | I love not many words. Exit. |
Second 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 be damned than to do’t? |
First 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. |
Bertram | Why, do you think he will make no deed at all of this that so seriously he does address himself unto? |
Second 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. |
First 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. |
Second Lord | I must go look my twigs: he shall be caught. |
Bertram | Your brother he shall go along with me. |
Second Lord | As’t please your lordship: I’ll leave you. Exit. |
Bertram |
Now will I lead you to the house, and show you
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First Lord | But you say she’s honest. |
Bertram |
That’s all the fault: I spoke with her but once
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First Lord | With all my heart, my lord. Exeunt. |
Scene VII
Florence. The Widow’s house.
Enter Helena and Widow. | |
Helena |
If you misdoubt me that I am not she,
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Widow |
Though my estate be fallen, I was well born,
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Helena |
Nor would I wish you.
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Widow |
I should believe you;
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Helena |
Take this purse of gold,
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Widow |
Now I see
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Helena |
You see it lawful, then: it is no more,
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Widow |
I have yielded:
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Helena |
Why then to-night
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