Brings in the champion honour on my part,
Against your vain assault.

Ber.

Here, take my ring:

My house, mine honour, yea, my life be thine,
And I'll be bid by thee.

Dia. When midnight comes, knock at my cham-
ber 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.
Ber. A heaven on earth I have won, by wooing

thee.

[Exit. Dia. 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 his 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 5,
Marry that will, I'll live and die a maid:
Only in this diguise, I think't no sin,
To cozen him, that would unjustly win.

[Exit.

5. i. e. false, deceitful, tricking, beguiling, from the A. S. hræd, bɲægd, fraus astus. (This word must not be confounded with a braid, often used by Chaucer and the older poets for any sud den motion, which is from ahɲædan, to arouse, to awake, to snatch.

SCENE III. The Florentine Camp.

Enter the two French Lords, and two or three Soldiers. 1 Lord. You have not given him his mother's letter?

2 Lord. 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.

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

2 Lord. 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.

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

2 Lord. He hath perverted a young gentlewoman here in Florence, of a most chaste renown; and this

seize, or strike with violence.) The passage from Chaucer's Troilus and Cressida being doubtful, in which brede is seemingly used in the same sense, I have sought for other authorities, and, I trust, not without success:

'Jak's brother had he slayn, the Waleis that is said,
The more Jak was fayn, to do William that braid.
Selcouthly he endeth; the man that is fals,

If he trest on frendes, thei begile him als,

Begiled is William.'

Hearne's Langtoft, p. 329.

In his confused Glossary, Hearne has explained this word various ways, but deceit, guile, are among his meanings. In the Curious Carol for St. Stephen's Day, printed by Ritson from a MS. of the reign of Henry VI., Herod says to the saint who is vaticinating about the birth of the Saviour:

'What eyleth the, Stevyn, art thou wood? or thou gynnist to brede?' (i. e. to beguile.)

Thus also in Green's Never too Late, 1616, as cited by Steevens: 'Dian rose with all her maids,

Blushing thus at Love his braids.'

Braided wares, were false, deceitful, damaged wares, and this explains unbraided wares in The Winter's Tale, Act iv. Sc. 3. See note there.

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.

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

2 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 abhorred ends1; so he that in this action contrives against his own nobility, in his proper stream o'erflows himself2.

1 Lord. Is it not meant damnable3 in us to be trumpeters of our unlawful intents? We shall not then have his company to-night.

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

4

1 Lord. That approaches apace; I would gladly have him see his company anatomized; that he might take a measure of his own judgments 5, wherein so curiously he had set this counterfeit.

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

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

2 Lord. I hear, there is an overture of peace.

1 This may mean, they are perpetually talking about the mischief they intend to do, till they have obtained an opportunity of doing it.'

2 i. e. betrays his own secrets in his own talk.

3 Damnable for damnably; the adjective used adverbially. 4 Company for companion. We have companies for companions again in K. Henry V.

5 This is a very just and moral reason. Bertram, by finding how erroneously he has judged, will be less confident, and more easily moved by admonition.

6 Counterfeit, besides its ordinary signification of a person pretending to be what he is not, also meant a picture, the word set shows that the word is used in both senses here.

1 Lord. Nay, I assure you, a peace concluded. 2 Lord. What will count Rousillon do then? will he travel higher, or return again into France?

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

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

1 Lord. 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.

2 Lord. How is this justified?

1 Lord. 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.

2 Lord. Hath the count all this intelligence?

1 Lord. Ay, and the particular confirmations, point from point, to the full arming of the verity. 2 Lord. I am heartily sorry, that he'll be glad of

this.

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

2 Lord. 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.

1 Lord. The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud, if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair, if they were not cherish'd by our virtues.

Enter a Servant.

How now? where's

your master?

Serv. 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.

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

Enter BERTRAM.

1 Lord. They cannot be too sweet for the king's tartness. Here's his lordship now. How now, my lord, is't not after midnight?

Ber. I have to-night despatched sixteen businesses, a month's length a-piece, by an abstract of success: I have conge'd 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 despatch, effected many nicer needs; the last was the greatest, but that I have not ended yet.

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

Ber. 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.

2 Lord. Bring him forth: [Exeunt Soldiers.] he has sat in the stocks all night, poor gallant knave. Ber. No matter; his heels have deserved it, in

7 Module and model were synonymous. The meaning is, bring forth this counterfeit representation of a soldier.