| ACT IV SCENE I | Without the Florentine camp. | |
| [
Enter Second French Lord, with five or six other
Soldiers in ambush
] |
| Second 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 | 5 |
| must produce for an interpreter. |
| First Soldier | Good captain, let me be the interpreter. |
| Second Lord | Art not acquainted with him? knows he not thy voice? |
| First Soldier | No, sir, I warrant you. |
| Second Lord | But what linsey-woolsey hast thou to speak to us again? | 10 |
| First Soldier | E'en such as you speak to me. |
| Second 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 | 15 |
| speak one to another; so we seem to know, is to |
| know straight our purpose: choughs' 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, | 20 |
| and then to return and swear the lies he forges. |
| [Enter PAROLLES] |
| PAROLLES | Ten o'clock: within these three hours 'twill 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 | 25 |
| have of late knocked too often at my door. I find |
| my tongue is too foolhardy; but my heart hath the |
| fear of Mars before it and of his creatures, not |
| daring the reports of my tongue. |
| Second Lord | This is the first truth that e'er thine own tongue | 30 |
| was guilty of. |
| PAROLLES | 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 | 35 |
| 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 | 40 |
| Bajazet's mule, if you prattle me into these perils. |
| Second Lord | Is it possible he should know what he is, and be |
| that he is? |
| PAROLLES | I would the cutting of my garments would serve the |
| turn, or the breaking of my Spanish sword. | 45 |
| Second Lord | We cannot afford you so. |
| PAROLLES | Or the baring of my beard; and to say it was in |
| stratagem. |
| Second Lord | 'Twould not do. |
| PAROLLES | Or to drown my clothes, and say I was stripped. | 50 |
| Second Lord | Hardly serve. |
| PAROLLES | Though I swore I leaped from the window of the citadel. |
| Second Lord | How deep? |
| PAROLLES | Thirty fathom. |
| Second Lord | Three great oaths would scarce make that be believed. | 55 |
| PAROLLES | I would I had any drum of the enemy's: I would swear |
| I recovered it. |
| Second Lord | You shall hear one anon. |
| PAROLLES | A drum now of the enemy's,-- |
| [Alarum within] |
| Second Lord | Throca movousus, cargo, cargo, cargo. | 60 |
| All | Cargo, cargo, cargo, villiando par corbo, cargo. |
| PAROLLES | O, ransom, ransom! do not hide mine eyes. |
| [They seize and blindfold him] |
| First Soldier | Boskos thromuldo boskos. |
| PAROLLES | I know you are the Muskos' regiment: |
| And I shall lose my life for want of language; | 65 |
| If there be here German, or Dane, low Dutch, |
| Italian, or French, let him speak to me; I'll |
| Discover that which shall undo the Florentine. |
| First Soldier | Boskos vauvado: I understand thee, and can speak |
| thy tongue. Kerely bonto, sir, betake thee to thy | 70 |
| faith, for seventeen poniards are at thy bosom. |
| PAROLLES | O! |
| First Soldier | O, pray, pray, pray! Manka revania dulche. |
| Second Lord | Oscorbidulchos volivorco. |
| First Soldier | The general is content to spare thee yet; | 75 |
| And, hoodwink'd as thou art, will lead thee on |
| To gather from thee: haply thou mayst inform |
| Something to save thy life. |
| PAROLLES | O, let me live! |
| And all the secrets of our camp I'll show, | 80 |
| Their force, their purposes; nay, I'll speak that |
| Which you will wonder at. |
| First Soldier | But wilt thou faithfully? |
| PAROLLES | If I do not, damn me. |
| First Soldier | Acordo linta. | 85 |
| Come on; thou art granted space. |
| [Exit, with PAROLLES guarded. A short alarum within] |
| Second Lord | Go, tell the Count Rousillon, and my brother, |
| We have caught the woodcock, and will keep him muffled |
| Till we do hear from them. |
| Second Soldier | Captain, I will. | 90 |
| Second Lord | A' will betray us all unto ourselves: |
| Inform on that. |
| Second Soldier | So I will, sir. |
| Second Lord | Till then I'll keep him dark and safely lock'd. |
| [Exeunt] |