FIRST SOLDIER. [_Reads._] _When he swears oaths, bid him drop gold, and take it; After he scores, he never pays the score. Half won is match well made; match, and well make it; He ne’er pays after-debts, take it before. And say a soldier, ‘Dian,’ told thee this: Men are to mell with, boys are not to kiss; For count of this, the count’s a fool, I know it, Who pays before, but not when he does owe it. Thine, as he vow’d to thee in thine ear,_ PAROLLES. BERTRAM. He shall be whipped through the army with this rhyme in’s forehead. SECOND LORD. This is your devoted friend, sir, the manifold linguist, and the armipotent soldier. BERTRAM. I could endure anything before but a cat, and now he’s a cat to me. FIRST SOLDIER. I perceive, sir, by our general’s looks we shall be fain to hang you. PAROLLES. My life, sir, in any case. Not that I am afraid to die, but that, my offences being many, I would repent out the remainder of nature. Let me live, sir, in a dungeon, i’ the stocks, or anywhere, so I may live. FIRST SOLDIER. We’ll see what may be done, so you confess freely. Therefore, once more to this Captain Dumaine: you have answer’d to his reputation with the duke, and to his valour. What is his honesty? PAROLLES. He will steal, sir, an egg out of a cloister: for rapes and ravishments he parallels Nessus. He professes not keeping of oaths; in breaking them he is stronger than Hercules. He will lie, sir, with such volubility that you would think truth were a fool: drunkenness is his best virtue, for he will be swine-drunk, and in his sleep he does little harm, save to his bedclothes about him; but they know his conditions and lay him in straw. I have but little more to say, sir, of his honesty; he has everything that an honest man should not have; what an honest man should have, he has nothing. FIRST LORD. I begin to love him for this. BERTRAM. For this description of thine honesty? A pox upon him for me, he’s more and more a cat. FIRST SOLDIER. What say you to his expertness in war? PAROLLES. Faith, sir, has led the drum before the English tragedians,—to belie him I will not,—and more of his soldiership I know not, except in that country he had the honour to be the officer at a place there called Mile-end, to instruct for the doubling of files. I would do the man what honour I can, but of this I am not certain. FIRST LORD. He hath out-villain’d villainy so far that the rarity redeems him. BERTRAM. A pox on him! He’s a cat still. FIRST SOLDIER. His qualities being at this poor price, I need not to ask you if gold will corrupt him to revolt. PAROLLES. Sir, for a quart d’ecu he will sell the fee-simple of his salvation, the inheritance of it, and cut the entail from all remainders, and a perpetual succession for it perpetually. FIRST SOLDIER. What’s his brother, the other Captain Dumaine? SECOND LORD. Why does he ask him of me? FIRST SOLDIER. What’s he?