BERTRAM. It is an honour ’longing to our house, Bequeathed down from many ancestors, Which were the greatest obloquy i’ the 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’ the 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._] SCENE III. The Florentine camp. Enter the two French Lords and two or three Soldiers. FIRST LORD. You have not given him his mother’s letter? SECOND 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. FIRST LORD. He has much worthy blame laid upon him for shaking off so good a wife and so sweet a lady. SECOND 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. FIRST LORD. When you have spoken it, ’tis dead, and I am the grave of it. SECOND 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. FIRST LORD. Now, God delay our rebellion! As we are ourselves, what things are we! SECOND 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 himself. FIRST LORD. Is it not meant damnable in us to be trumpeters of our unlawful intents? We shall not then have his company tonight?