Which holds him much to have." COUNT. You are welcome, gentlemen. I will entreat you, when you see my son, 2 GEN. [Exeunt COUNTESS and Gentlemen. HEL. Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France. Nothing in France, until he has no wife! With sharp constraint of hunger; better 't were SCENE III.-Florence. Before the Duke's Palace. Flourish. Enter the DUKE of FLORENCE, BERTRAM, Lords, Officers, Soldiers, and others. DUKE. The general of our horse thou art; and we, The fellow has a deal of that, too much, Which holds him much to have.] Of this passage no one has yet succeeded in making sense. It is, we fear, irremediably corrupt. b-Move the still-piecing air,-] The old text has "still peering." Still-piecing, that is, ever closing, was proposed by Malone. Tyr STEW. [Reads.] I am St. Jaques' pilgrim, thither gone : With sainted vow my faults to have amended. 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 Rinaldo, you did never lack advice so much, STEW. Pardon me, madam : If I had given you this at over-night, She might have been o'er-ta'en; and yet she writes, Pursuit would be but vain. COUNT. What angel shall whitt thought a farther alteration necessary, and would have substituted rove for move: -"rove the still-piecing air;" but there is authority for more, in the sense of penetrate, or wound. "High preasse thy flames, the chrystall aire to move." A Sonnet by WILLIAM LITHGOW, 1615. Bless this unworthy husband? he cannot thrive, 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 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 ■ Mere the truth;] Quite the truth. Honesty,-] That is, chastity. e I write good creature:] So the first folio, but which the editor of the second, not perhaps understanding, altered to,"I right, good creature." The phrase to write, in the sense of to proclaim, &c. was not at all uncommon formerly. It occurs, indeed, three or four times in Shakespeare: thus, in the present play, Act II. Sc. 3, Lafeu says, "Sirrah, I write man," &c. 2 LORD. If your lordship find him not a hilding, hold me no more in your respect. 1 LORD. On my life, my lord, a bubble. BER. Do you think, I am so far deceived in him? 1 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 promisebreaker, the owner of no one good quality worthy your lordship's entertainment. 2 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. 2 LORD. None better than to let him fetch off his drum, which you hear him so confidently undertake to do. 1 LORD. I, with a troop of Florentines, will D 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. success 2 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* in't, and to what metal this counterfeit lump of oret will be melted, if you give him not John Drum's entertainment,(2) your inclining cannot be removed. Here he comes. 1 LORD. O, for the love of laughter, hinder not the honour 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. 2 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. 2 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. 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 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. it. PAR. By the hand of a soldier, I will undertake 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. 1 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. 2 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. BER. Why, do you think he will make no deed at all of this, that so seriously he does address himself unto? b 1 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. 2 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. 1 LORD. I must go look my twigs; he shall be caught. BER. Your brother, he shall go along with me. 1 LORD. As't please your lordship: I'll leave you. [Exit. BER. Now will I lead you to the house, and show you the lass I spoke of. 2 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, was said to be embossed, when, exhausted and outrun, he foamed and frothed at the mouth. The meaning is, we have hunted him almost to his fall. |