Act 4, Scene 2

Florence. A room in the WIDOW'S house.

[Enter BERTRAM and DIANA.]
Bertram
1811 They told me that your name was Fontibell.
Diana
1812 No, my good lord, Diana.
Bertram
1813 Titled goddess;
1814 And worth it, with addition! But, fair soul,
1815 In your fine frame hath love no quality?
1816 If the quick fire of youth light not your mind,
1817 You are no maiden, but a monument;
1818 When you are dead, you should be such a one
1819 As you are now, for you are cold and stern;
1820 And now you should be as your mother was
1821 When your sweet self was got.
Diana
1822 She then was honest.
Bertram
1823 So should you be.
Diana
1824 No:
1825 My mother did but duty; such, my lord,
1826 As you owe to your wife.
Bertram
1827 No more of that!
1828 I pr'ythee, do not strive against my vows:
1829 I was compell'd to her; but I love thee
1830 By love's own sweet constraint, and will for ever
1831 Do thee all rights of service.
Diana
1832 Ay, so you serve us
1833 Till we serve you; but when you have our roses
1834 You barely leave our thorns to prick ourselves,
1835 And mock us with our bareness.
Bertram
1836 How have I sworn?
Diana
1837 'Tis not the many oaths that makes the truth,
1838 But the plain single vow that is vow'd true.
1839 What is not holy, that we swear not by,
1840 But take the Highest to witness: then, pray you, tell me,
1841 If I should swear by Jove's great attributes
1842 I lov'd you dearly, would you believe my oaths
1843 When I did love you ill? This has no holding,
1844 To swear by him whom I protest to love
1845 That I will work against him: therefore your oaths
1846 Are words and poor conditions; but unseal'd,—
1847 At least in my opinion.
Bertram
1848 Change it, change it;
1849 Be not so holy-cruel. Love is holy;
1850 And my integrity ne'er knew the crafts
1851 That you do charge men with. Stand no more off,
1852 But give thyself unto my sick desires,
1853 Who then recover: say thou art mine, and ever
1854 My love as it begins shall so persever.
Diana
1855 I see that men make hopes in such a case,
1856 That we'll forsake ourselves. Give me that ring.
Bertram
1857 I'll lend it thee, my dear, but have no power
1858 To give it from me.
Diana
1859 Will you not, my lord?
Bertram
1860 It is an honour 'longing to our house,
1861 Bequeathed down from many ancestors;
1862 Which were the greatest obloquy i' the world
1863 In me to lose.
Diana
1864 Mine honour's such a ring:
1865 My chastity's the jewel of our house,
1866 Bequeathed down from many ancestors;
1867 Which were the greatest obloquy i' the world
1868 In me to lose. Thus your own proper wisdom
1869 Brings in the champion honour on my part
1870 Against your vain assault.
Bertram
1871 Here, take my ring:
1872 My house, mine honour, yea, my life, be thine,
1873 And I'll be bid by thee.
Diana
1874 When midnight comes, knock at my chamber-window;
1875 I'll order take my mother shall not hear.
1876 Now will I charge you in the band of truth,
1877 When you have conquer'd my yet maiden-bed,
1878 Remain there but an hour, nor speak to me:
1879 My reasons are most strong; and you shall know them
1880 When back again this ring shall be deliver'd;
1881 And on your finger in the night, I'll put
1882 Another ring; that what in time proceeds
1883 May token to the future our past deeds.
1884 Adieu till then; then fail not. You have won
1885 A wife of me, though there my hope be done.
Bertram
1886 A heaven on earth I have won by wooing thee.
[Exit.]
Diana
1887 For which live long to thank both heaven and me!
1888 You may so in the end.—
1889 My mother told me just how he would woo,
1890 As if she sat in's heart; she says all men
1891 Have the like oaths: he had sworn to marry me
1892 When his wife's dead; therefore I'll lie with him
1893 When I am buried. Since Frenchmen are so braid,
1894 Marry that will, I live and die a maid:
1895 Only, in this disguise, I think't no sin
1896 To cozen him that would unjustly win.
[Exit.]

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Notes

TLN 1817rhetorical device
“You are no maiden, but a monument; When you are dead, you should be such a one As you are now, for you are cold and stern”
Bertram argues that Diana's refusal makes her indistinguishable from a carved tombstone effigy: cold, lifeless, unchanged whether alive or dead. A 'monument' here means the sculptured stone figure laid on top of a tomb. The argument is a standard seduction-logic: a chaste woman wastes the 'quick fire of youth' that she was given to enjoy.
TLN 1828cultural context
“I pr'ythee, do not strive against my vows: I was compell'd to her; but I love thee By love's own sweet constraint”
Bertram claims his marriage to Helena was forced ('compell'd') and therefore does not bind his heart, while his feeling for Diana is a free choice ('love's own sweet constraint'). This is his rationale for treating the King's compelled match as no real marriage. 'Compell'd' echoes the exact word Helena used in the letter Bertram sent her (reported in 3.2): 'I was compelled to wed her.' The argument was legally and theologically dubious: a marriage made under duress was technically voidable, but Bertram has already consummated none of the grounds.
historical The bed-trick
TLN 1837rhetorical device
“'Tis not the many oaths that makes the truth, But the plain single vow that is vow'd true”
Diana demolishes Bertram's vow-swearing with a compact logical argument: the more oaths a man piles up, the less each one is worth. One plain, honestly meant promise beats a hundred sworn by 'Jove's great attributes.' She then adds a second argument: an oath sworn in the name of love, to do something against love, is self-cancelling and 'but unseal'd' — not legally binding. 'Jove' is the Roman king of the gods, by whom serious oaths were sworn.
TLN 1860cultural context
“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”
Bertram describes his ring as an heirloom — a physical token of his noble lineage passed down through generations, not personal property to give away. To surrender it would be 'obloquy,' meaning public disgrace and reproach. In Elizabethan aristocratic culture, family rings and jewels could embody a house's honour and credit, functioning almost like deeds to a title.
historical Giletta of Narbonne (the source story)
TLN 1864rhetorical device
“Mine honour's such a ring: My chastity's the jewel of our house, Bequeathed down from many ancestors”
Diana takes Bertram's exact words about his ancestral ring — honour, bequeathed, ancestors, obloquy, lose — and mirrors them back to him to describe her own virginity. Her chastity is her family's heirloom, worth exactly as much as his ring. She calls this 'your own proper wisdom' turned against his assault, and the rhetorical move is deliberately devastating: he cannot surrender his ring without conceding the same logic that should make her refuse him.
historical A woman's honour: chastity and the double standard
TLN 1874cultural context
“When midnight comes, knock at my chamber-window; I'll order take my mother shall not hear”
Diana lays out the terms of the bed-trick: Bertram is to come at midnight, stay only an hour, and say nothing. In exchange she will give him 'another ring' in the dark. The audience knows that Helena — not Diana — will be in the bed. The silence Bertram must keep ('Remain there but an hour, nor speak to me') is a crucial condition: in total darkness and without a word, he cannot tell he has the wrong woman.
historical The bed-trickhistorical Giletta of Narbonne (the source story)
TLN 1893archaic vocab
“Since Frenchmen are so braid, Marry that will, I live and die a maid”
'Braid' is an archaic adjective meaning deceitful, crafty, or crooked — used here by Diana in her closing soliloquy to mean that Frenchmen (like Bertram) are so crooked in their wooings that any woman who marries one is a fool. The word, rare even in Shakespeare's day, survives only in this passage and a handful of Scottish texts. Diana is not using it to mean 'braided' hair.