All's Well That Ends Well: Act 4

Therefore we must
every one be a man of his own fancy, not to know
what we speak one to another.

Tongue, I must put you into a butter-woman’s mouth and buy myself another of Bajazeth’s mule if you prattle me into these perils.

PAROLLES: Though I swore I leapt from the window of the citadel—
LORD, aside: How deep?
PAROLLES: Thirty fathom.

Kerelybonto, sir, betake thee to thy faith, for seventeen poniards are at thy bosom.

It is an honor ’longing to our house,
Bequeathèd down from many ancestors,
Which were the greatest obloquy i’ th’ world
In me to lose.

It is an honor ’longing to our house,
Bequeathèd down from many ancestors,
Which were the greatest obloquy i’ th’ world
In me to lose.

Only, in this disguise I think ’t no sin
To cozen him that would unjustly win.

Especially he hath incurred the everlasting displeasure of the King, who had even tuned his bounty to sing happiness to him.

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.

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.

SECOND LORD: Not till after midnight, for he is dieted to his hour.
FIRST LORD: That approaches apace.

I hear there is an overture of peace.

Her pretense is a pilgrimage to Saint Jaques le Grand, which holy undertaking with most austere sanctimony she accomplished.

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

I have tonight dispatched sixteen businesses, a month’s length apiece.

His heels have deserved it in usurping his spurs so long.

Let me see: Spurio a hundred and fifty, Sebastian so many, Corambus
so many, Jaques so many; Guiltian, Cosmo, Lodowick and Gratii, two hundred fifty each; mine own company, Chitopher, Vaumond, Bentii, two hundred fifty each; so that the muster-file, rotten and sound, upon my life amounts not to fifteen thousand poll, half of the which dare not shake the snow from off their cassocks lest they shake themselves to pieces.

My meaning in ’t, I protest, was very honest in the behalf of the maid, for I knew the young count to be a dangerous and lascivious boy....

He will steal, sir, an egg out of a cloister.

He will lie, sir, with such volubility that you would think truth were a fool.

To belie him I will not, and more of his soldiership I know not, except in that country he had the honor to be the officer at a place there called Mile End, to instruct for the doubling of files.

He excels his brother for a coward, yet his brother is reputed one of the best that is.

In a retreat he outruns any lackey.

Only to seem to deserve well, and to beguile the supposition of that lascivious young boy the Count, have I run into this danger.

But fare you well.

If you could find out a country where but women were that had received so much shame, you might begin an impudent nation.

I duly am informed
His Grace is at Marseilles, to which place
We have convenient convoy.

Nor you, mistress,
Ever a friend whose thoughts more truly labor
To recompense your love.

But O, strange men,
That can such sweet use make of what they hate
When saucy trusting of the cozened thoughts
Defiles the pitchy night!

Let death and honesty
Go with your impositions, I am yours
Upon your will to suffer.

Faith, sir, he has an English name, but his phys’nomy is more hotter in France than there.

I am for the house with the narrow gate, which I take to be too little for pomp to enter.

A shrewd knave and an unhappy.

So he is. My lord that’s gone made himself much sport out of him. By his authority he remains here, which he thinks is a patent for his sauciness, and indeed he has no pace, but runs where he will.

His Highness hath promised me to do it, and to stop up the displeasure he hath conceived against your son there is no fitter matter.