Speeches (Lines) for Lord E. in "All's Well That Ends Well"

King of France. He hath arm'd our answer,
And Florence is denied before he comes:
Yet, for our gentlemen that mean to see
The Tuscan service, freely have they leave
To stand on either part.

Lord E.. It well may serve
A nursery to our gentry, who are sick
For breathing and exploit.

King of France. Would I were with him! He would always say--
Methinks I hear him now; his plausive words
He scatter'd not in ears, but grafted them,
To grow there and to bear,--'Let me not live,'--
This his good melancholy oft began,
On the catastrophe and heel of pastime,
When it was out,--'Let me not live,' quoth he,
'After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff
Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses
All but new things disdain; whose judgments are
Mere fathers of their garments; whose constancies
Expire before their fashions.' This he wish'd;
I after him do after him wish too,
Since I nor wax nor honey can bring home,
I quickly were dissolved from my hive,
To give some labourers room.

Lord E.. You are loved, sir:
They that least lend it you shall lack you first.

King of France. No, no, it cannot be; and yet my heart
Will not confess he owes the malady
That doth my life besiege. Farewell, young lords;
Whether I live or die, be you the sons
Of worthy Frenchmen: let higher Italy,--
Those bated that inherit but the fall
Of the last monarchy,--see that you come
Not to woo honour, but to wed it; when
The bravest questant shrinks, find what you seek,
That fame may cry you loud: I say, farewell.

Lord E.. Health, at your bidding, serve your majesty!

Parolles. 'Tis not his fault, the spark.

Lord E.. O, 'tis brave wars!

Parolles. Commit it, count.

Lord E.. I am your accessary; and so, farewell.

Lord G.. Farewell, captain.

Lord E.. Sweet Monsieur Parolles!

Helena. The honour, sir, that flames in your fair eyes,
Before I speak, too threateningly replies:
Love make your fortunes twenty times above
Her that so wishes and her humble love!

Lord E.. No better, if you please.

Duke of Florence. Therefore we marvel much our cousin France
Would in so just a business shut his bosom
Against our borrowing prayers.

Lord E.. Good my lord,
The reasons of our state I cannot yield,
But like a common and an outward man,
That the great figure of a council frames
By self-unable motion: therefore dare not
Say what I think of it, since I have found
Myself in my incertain grounds to fail
As often as I guess'd.

"Both". We'll take your offer kindly.

Lord E.. Nay, good my lord, put him to't; let him have his
way.

Lord G.. If your lordship find him not a hilding, hold me no
more in your respect.

Lord E.. On my life, my lord, a bubble.

Bertram. Do you think I am so far deceived in him?

Lord E.. 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.

Lord G.. None better than to let him fetch off his drum,
which you hear him so confidently undertake to do.

Lord E.. 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.

Lord G.. 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.

Lord E.. [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.

Parolles. I love not many words.

Lord E.. 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?

Bertram. Why, do you think he will make no deed at all of
this that so seriously he does address himself unto?

Lord E.. 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.

Lord G.. 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.

Lord E.. I must go look my twigs: he shall be caught.

Bertram. Your brother he shall go along with me.

Lord E.. As't please your lordship: I'll leave you.

Helena. Why then to-night
Let us assay our plot; which, if it speed,
Is wicked meaning in a lawful deed
And lawful meaning in a lawful act,
Where both not sin, and yet a sinful fact:
But let's about it.

Lord E.. 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
must produce for an interpreter.

First Soldier. Good captain, let me be the interpreter.

Lord E.. Art not acquainted with him? knows he not thy voice?

First Soldier. No, sir, I warrant you.

Lord E.. But what linsey-woolsey hast thou to speak to us again?

First Soldier. E'en such as you speak to me.

Lord E.. 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
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,
and then to return and swear the lies he forges.

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
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.

Lord E.. This is the first truth that e'er thine own tongue
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
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
Bajazet's mule, if you prattle me into these perils.

Lord E.. 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.

Lord E.. We cannot afford you so.

Parolles. Or the baring of my beard; and to say it was in
stratagem.

Lord E.. 'Twould not do.

Parolles. Or to drown my clothes, and say I was stripped.

Lord E.. Hardly serve.

Parolles. Though I swore I leaped from the window of the citadel.

Lord E.. How deep?

Parolles. Thirty fathom.

Lord E.. Three great oaths would scarce make that be believed.

Parolles. I would I had any drum of the enemy's: I would swear
I recovered it.

Lord E.. You shall hear one anon.

Parolles. A drum now of the enemy's,--

Lord E.. Throca movousus, cargo, cargo, cargo.

First Soldier. O, pray, pray, pray! Manka revania dulche.

Lord E.. Oscorbidulchos volivorco.

First Soldier. Acordo linta.
Come on; thou art granted space.

Lord E.. 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.

Lord E.. A' will betray us all unto ourselves:
Inform on that.

Second Soldier. So I will, sir.

Lord E.. Till then I'll keep him dark and safely lock'd.

Lord G.. You have not given him his mother's letter?

Lord E.. I have delivered it an hour since: there is
something in't that stings his nature; for on the
reading it he changed almost into another man.

Lord G.. He has much worthy blame laid upon him for shaking
off so good a wife and so sweet a lady.

Lord E.. Especially he hath incurred the everlasting
displeasure of the king, who had even tuned his
bounty to sing happiness to him. I will tell you a
thing, but you shall let it dwell darkly with you.

Lord G.. When you have spoken it, 'tis dead, and I am the
grave of it.

Lord E.. He hath perverted a young gentlewoman here in
Florence, of a most chaste renown; and this night he
fleshes his will in the spoil of her honour: he hath
given her his monumental ring, and thinks himself
made in the unchaste composition.

Lord G.. Now, God delay our rebellion! as we are ourselves,
what things are we!

Lord E.. Merely our own traitors. And as in the common course
of all treasons, we still see them reveal
themselves, till they attain to their abhorred ends,
so he that in this action contrives against his own
nobility, in his proper stream o'erflows himself.

Lord G.. Is it not meant damnable in us, to be trumpeters of
our unlawful intents? We shall not then have his
company to-night?

Lord E.. Not till after midnight; for he is dieted to his hour.

Lord G.. That approaches apace; I would gladly have him see
his company anatomized, that he might take a measure
of his own judgments, wherein so curiously he had
set this counterfeit.

Lord E.. We will not meddle with him till he come; for his
presence must be the whip of the other.

Lord G.. In the mean time, what hear you of these wars?

Lord E.. I hear there is an overture of peace.

Lord G.. Nay, I assure you, a peace concluded.

Lord E.. What will Count Rousillon do then? will he travel
higher, or return again into France?

Lord G.. I perceive, by this demand, you are not altogether
of his council.

Lord E.. Let it be forbid, sir; so should I be a great deal
of his act.

Lord G.. Sir, his wife some two months since fled from his
house: her pretence is a pilgrimage to Saint Jaques
le Grand; which holy undertaking with most austere
sanctimony she accomplished; and, there residing the
tenderness of her nature became as a prey to her
grief; in fine, made a groan of her last breath, and
now she sings in heaven.

Lord E.. How is this justified?

Lord G.. The stronger part of it by her own letters, which
makes her story true, even to the point of her
death: her death itself, which could not be her
office to say is come, was faithfully confirmed by
the rector of the place.

Lord E.. Hath the count all this intelligence?

Lord G.. Ay, and the particular confirmations, point from
point, so to the full arming of the verity.

Lord E.. I am heartily sorry that he'll be glad of this.

Lord G.. How mightily sometimes we make us comforts of our losses!

Lord E.. And how mightily some other times we drown our gain
in tears! The great dignity that his valour hath
here acquired for him shall at home be encountered
with a shame as ample.

Servant. He met the duke in the street, sir, of whom he hath
taken a solemn leave: his lordship will next
morning for France. The duke hath offered him
letters of commendations to the king.

Lord E.. They shall be no more than needful there, if they
were more than they can commend.

Bertram. I have to-night dispatched sixteen businesses, a
month's length a-piece, by an abstract of success:
I have congied with the duke, done my adieu with his
nearest; buried a wife, mourned for her; writ to my
lady mother I am returning; entertained my convoy;
and between these main parcels of dispatch effected
many nicer needs; the last was the greatest, but
that I have not ended yet.

Lord E.. If the business be of any difficulty, and this
morning your departure hence, it requires haste of
your lordship.

Bertram. I mean, the business is not ended, as fearing to
hear of it hereafter. But shall we have this
dialogue between the fool and the soldier? Come,
bring forth this counterfeit module, he has deceived
me, like a double-meaning prophesier.

Lord E.. Bring him forth: has sat i' the stocks all night,
poor gallant knave.

Bertram. No matter: his heels have deserved it, in usurping
his spurs so long. How does he carry himself?

Lord E.. I have told your lordship already, the stocks carry
him. But to answer you as you would be understood;
he weeps like a wench that had shed her milk: he
hath confessed himself to Morgan, whom he supposes
to be a friar, from the time of his remembrance to
this very instant disaster of his setting i' the
stocks: and what think you he hath confessed?

Bertram. Nothing of me, has a'?

Lord E.. His confession is taken, and it shall be read to his
face: if your lordship be in't, as I believe you
are, you must have the patience to hear it.

Lord G.. You're deceived, my lord: this is Monsieur
Parolles, the gallant militarist,--that was his own
phrase,--that had the whole theoric of war in the
knot of his scarf, and the practise in the chape of
his dagger.

Lord E.. I will never trust a man again for keeping his sword
clean. nor believe he can have every thing in him
by wearing his apparel neatly.

Bertram. He shall be whipped through the army with this rhyme
in's forehead.

Lord E.. This is your devoted friend, sir, the manifold
linguist and the armipotent soldier.

First Soldier. What's his brother, the other Captain Dumain?

Lord E.. Why does be ask him of me?

Bertram. Good morrow, noble captain.

Lord E.. God bless you, Captain Parolles.

Lord G.. God save you, noble captain.

Lord E.. Captain, what greeting will you to my Lord Lafeu?
I am for France.