WIDOW. Nay, come; for if they do approach the city we shall lose

all the sight.

DIANA. They say the French count has done most honourable service.

WIDOW. It is reported that he has taken their great'st commander;

and that with his own hand he slew the Duke's brother. [Tucket]

We have lost our labour; they are gone a contrary way. Hark! you

may know by their trumpets.

MARIANA. Come, let's return again, and suffice ourselves with the

report of it. Well, Diana, take heed of this French earl; the

honour of a maid is her name, and no legacy is so rich as

honesty.

WIDOW. I have told my neighbour how you have been solicited by a

gentleman his companion.

MARIANA. I know that knave, hang him! one Parolles; a filthy

officer he is in those suggestions for the young earl. Beware of 

them, Diana: their promises, enticements, oaths, tokens, and all

these engines of lust, are not the things they go under; many a

maid hath been seduced by them; and the misery is, example, that

so terrible shows in the wreck of maidenhood, cannot for all that

dissuade succession, but that they are limed with the twigs that

threatens them. I hope I need not to advise you further; but I

hope your own grace will keep you where you are, though there

were no further danger known but the modesty which is so lost.

DIANA. You shall not need to fear me.

Enter HELENA in the dress of a pilgrim

WIDOW. I hope so. Look, here comes a pilgrim. I know she will lie

at my house: thither they send one another. I'll question her.

God save you, pilgrim! Whither are bound?

HELENA. To Saint Jaques le Grand.

Where do the palmers lodge, I do beseech you?

WIDOW. At the Saint Francis here, beside the port.

HELENA. Is this the way?

[A march afar] 

WIDOW. Ay, marry, is't. Hark you! They come this way.

If you will tarry, holy pilgrim,

But till the troops come by,

I will conduct you where you shall be lodg'd;

The rather for I think I know your hostess

As ample as myself.

HELENA. Is it yourself?

WIDOW. If you shall please so, pilgrim.

HELENA. I thank you, and will stay upon your leisure.

WIDOW. You came, I think, from France?

HELENA. I did so.

WIDOW. Here you shall see a countryman of yours

That has done worthy service.

HELENA. His name, I pray you.

DIANA. The Count Rousillon. Know you such a one?

HELENA. But by the ear, that hears most nobly of him;

His face I know not.

DIANA. What some'er he is,

He's bravely taken here. He stole from France,

As 'tis reported, for the King had married him 

Against his liking. Think you it is so?

HELENA. Ay, surely, mere the truth; I know his lady.

DIANA. There is a gentleman that serves the Count

Reports but coarsely of her.

HELENA. What's his name?

DIANA. Monsieur Parolles.

HELENA. O, I believe with him,

In argument of praise, or to the worth

Of the great Count himself, she is too mean

To have her name repeated; all her deserving

Is a reserved honesty, and that

I have not heard examin'd.

DIANA. Alas, poor lady!

'Tis a hard bondage to become the wife

Of a detesting lord.

WIDOW. I sweet, good creature, wheresoe'er she is

Her heart weighs sadly. This young maid might do her

A shrewd turn, if she pleas'd.

HELENA. How do you mean?

May be the amorous Count solicits her 

In the unlawful purpose.

WIDOW. He does, indeed;

And brokes with all that can in such a suit

Corrupt the tender honour of a maid;

But she is arm'd for him, and keeps her guard

In honestest defence.

Enter, with drum and colours, BERTRAM, PAROLLES, and the

whole ARMY

MARIANA. The gods forbid else!

WIDOW. So, now they come.

That is Antonio, the Duke's eldest son;

That, Escalus.

HELENA. Which is the Frenchman?

DIANA. He-

That with the plume; 'tis a most gallant fellow.

I would he lov'd his wife; if he were honester

He were much goodlier. Is't not a handsome gentleman?

HELENA. I like him well. 

DIANA. 'Tis pity he is not honest. Yond's that same knave

That leads him to these places; were I his lady

I would poison that vile rascal.

HELENA. Which is he?

DIANA. That jack-an-apes with scarfs. Why is he melancholy?

HELENA. Perchance he's hurt i' th' battle.

PAROLLES. Lose our drum! well.

MARIANA. He's shrewdly vex'd at something.

Look, he has spied us.

WIDOW. Marry, hang you!

MARIANA. And your courtesy, for a ring-carrier!

Exeunt BERTRAM, PAROLLES, and ARMY

WIDOW. The troop is past. Come, pilgrim, I will bring you

Where you shall host. Of enjoin'd penitents

There's four or five, to great Saint Jaques bound,

Already at my house.

HELENA. I humbly thank you.

Please it this matron and this gentle maid

To eat with us to-night; the charge and thanking

Shall be for me, and, to requite you further, 

I will bestow some precepts of this virgin,

Worthy the note.

BOTH. We'll take your offer kindly. Exeunt

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

FIRST LORD. If your lordship find him not a hiding, hold me no more

in your respect.

SECOND LORD. On my life, my lord, a bubble.

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

SECOND LORD. 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.

FIRST LORD. It were fit you knew him; lest, reposing too far in his

virtue, which he hath not, he might at some great and trusty

business in a main danger fail you.

BERTRAM. I would I knew in what particular action to try him.

FIRST LORD. None better than to let him fetch off his drum, which

you hear him so confidently undertake to do.

SECOND LORD. 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 anything.

FIRST LORD. 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.

Enter PAROLLES

SECOND LORD. O, for the love of laughter, hinder not the honour of

his design; let him fetch off his drum in any hand.

BERTRAM. How now, monsieur! This drum sticks sorely in your 

disposition.

FIRST LORD. A pox on 't; let it go; 'tis but a drum.

PAROLLES. But a drum! Is't but a drum? A drum so lost! There was

excellent command: to charge in with our horse upon our own