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I was compell'd to her; but I love the |
By love's own sweet constraint, and will for ever |
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. |
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: |
If I should swear by Jove's great attributes |
I lov'd 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 |
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 |
That you do charge men with. Stand no more off, |
But give thyself unto my sick desires, |
Who then recovers. 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 |
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, |
Bequeathed down from many ancestors; |
Which were the greatest obloquy i' th' world |
In me to lose. |
DIANA. Mine honour's such a ring: |
My chastity's the jewel of our house, |
Bequeathed down from many ancestors; |
Which were the greatest obloquy i' th' world |
In me to lose. Thus your own proper wisdom |
Brings in the champion Honour on my part |
Against your vain assault. |
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. |
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. |
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. |
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 |
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 |
To cozen him that would unjustly win. Exit |
ACT IV. SCENE 3. |
The Florentine camp |
Enter the two FRENCH LORDS, and two or three SOLDIERS |
SECOND LORD. You have not given him his mother's letter? |
FIRST LORD. I have deliv'red it an hour since. There is something |
in't that stings his nature; for on the reading it he chang'd |
almost into another man. |
SECOND LORD. He has much worthy blame laid upon him for shaking off |
so good a wife and so sweet a lady. |
FIRST LORD. Especially he hath incurred the everlasting displeasure |
of the King, who had even tun'd his bounty to sing happiness to |
him. I will tell you a thing, but you shall let it dwell darkly |
with you. |
SECOND LORD. When you have spoken it, 'tis dead, and I am the grave |
of it. |
FIRST LORD. 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. |
SECOND LORD. Now, God delay our rebellion! As we are ourselves, |
what things are we! |
FIRST LORD. Merely our own traitors. And as in the common course of |
all treasons we still see them reveal themselves till they attain |
to their abhorr'd ends; so he that in this action contrives |
against his own nobility, in his proper stream, o'erflows |
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