All’s Well That Ends Well
ACT IV SCENE II | Florence. The Widow’s house. | |
[Enter BERTRAM and DIANA] | ||
BERTRAM | They told me that your name was Fontibell. | |
DIANA | No, my good lord, Diana. | |
BERTRAM | Titled goddess; | |
And worth it, with addition! But, fair soul, | ||
In your fine frame hath love no quality? | 5 | |
If quick fire of youth light not your mind, | ||
You are no maiden, but a monument: | ||
When you are dead, you should be such a one | ||
As you are now, for you are cold and stem; | ||
And now you should be as your mother was | 10 | |
When your sweet self was got. | ||
DIANA | She then was honest. | |
BERTRAM | So should you be. | |
DIANA | No: | |
My mother did but duty; such, my lord, | 15 | |
As you owe to your wife. | ||
BERTRAM | No more o’ that; | |
I prithee, do not strive against my vows: | ||
I was compell’d to her; but I love thee | ||
By love’s own sweet constraint, and will for ever | 20 | |
Do thee all rights of service. | ||
DIANA | Ay, so you serve us | |
Till we serve you; but when you have our roses, | ||
You barely leave our thorns to prick ourselves | ||
And mock us with our bareness. | 25 | |
BERTRAM | How have I sworn! | |
DIANA | ‘Tis not the many oaths that makes the truth, | |
But the plain single vow that is vow’d true. | ||
What is not holy, that we swear not by, | ||
But take the High’st to witness: then, pray you, tell me, | 30 | |
If I should swear by God’s great attributes, | ||
I loved you dearly, would you believe my oaths, | ||
When I did love you ill? This has no holding, | ||
To swear by him whom I protest to love, | ||
That I will work against him: therefore your oaths | 35 | |
Are words and poor conditions, but unseal’d, | ||
At least in my opinion. | ||
BERTRAM | Change it, change it; | |
Be not so holy-cruel: love is holy; | ||
And my integrity ne’er knew the crafts | 40 | |
That you do charge men with. Stand no more off, | ||
But give thyself unto my sick desires, | ||
Who then recover: say thou art mine, and ever | ||
My love as it begins shall so persever. | ||
DIANA | I see that men make ropes in such a scarre | 45 |
That we’ll forsake ourselves. Give me that ring. | ||
BERTRAM | I’ll lend it thee, my dear; but have no power | |
To give it from me. | ||
DIANA | Will you not, my lord? | |
BERTRAM | It is an honour ‘longing to our house, | 50 |
Bequeathed down from many ancestors; | ||
Which were the greatest obloquy i’ the world | ||
In me to lose. | ||
DIANA | Mine honour’s such a ring: | |
My chastity’s the jewel of our house, | 55 | |
Bequeathed down from many ancestors; | ||
Which were the greatest obloquy i’ the world | ||
In me to lose: thus your own proper wisdom | ||
Brings in the champion Honour on my part, | ||
Against your vain assault. | 60 | |
BERTRAM | Here, take my ring: | |
My house, mine honour, yea, my life, be thine, | ||
And I’ll be bid by thee. | ||
DIANA | When midnight comes, knock at my chamber-window: | |
I’ll order take my mother shall not hear. | 65 | |
Now will I charge you in the band of truth, | ||
When you have conquer’d my yet maiden bed, | ||
Remain there but an hour, nor speak to me: | ||
My reasons are most strong; and you shall know them | ||
When back again this ring shall be deliver’d: | 70 | |
And on your finger in the night I’ll put | ||
Another ring, that what in time proceeds | ||
May token to the future our past deeds. | ||
Adieu, till then; then, fail not. You have won | ||
A wife of me, though there my hope be done. | 75 | |
BERTRAM | A heaven on earth I have won by wooing thee. | |
[Exit] | ||
DIANA | For which live long to thank both heaven and me! | |
You may so in the end. | ||
My mother told me just how he would woo, | ||
As if she sat in ‘s heart; she says all men | 80 | |
Have the like oaths: he had sworn to marry me | ||
When his wife’s dead; therefore I’ll lie with him | ||
When I am buried. Since Frenchmen are so braid, | ||
Marry that will, I live and die a maid: | ||
Only in this disguise I think’t no sin | 85 | |
To cozen him that would unjustly win. | ||
[Exit] |
Next: All’s Well That Ends Well, Act 4, Scene 3