All’s Well That Ends Well
| 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] | ||
Next: All’s Well That Ends Well, Act 4, Scene 2