Believing that Love's Labour's Won—i.e. All's Well that Ends Well in its earlier form—reflects Southampton in the person of Bertram, and Florio as Parolles, I have suggested that the military capacity of the latter character infers a temporary military experience of Florio's in the year 1592. It is evident that most of the matter in this play following Act IV. Scene iii. belongs to the period of revision in 1598. In Act IV. Scene iii. we have what was apparently Parolles' final appearance in the old play of 1592; here he has been exposed, and his purpose in the play ended.
First Soldier. You are undone, Captain, all but your scarf; that has a knot on't yet.
Parolles. Who cannot be crushed with a plot?
First Soldier. If you could find out a country where women were that had received so much shame, you might begin an impudent nation. Fare ye well, Sir; I am for France too; we shall speak of you there.
[Exit Soldiers.
Parolles. Yet am I thankful: if my heart were great,
'Twould burst at this. Captain, I'll be no more;
But I will eat and drink, and sleep as soft
As captain shall: simply the thing I am
Shall make me live. Who knows himself a braggart,
Let him fear this, for it will come to pass
That every braggart shall be found an ass.
Rust sword! cool blushes! and, Parolles, live
Safest in shame, being fool'd, by foolery thrive.
There's place and means for every man alive.
I'll after them.
[Exit.
The resolution he here forms augurs for the future a still greater moral deterioration. He resolves to seek safety in shame; to thrive by foolery; and, though fallen from his captaincy, to
"eat and drink, and sleep as soft as captain shall."
When Shakespeare resumed his plan of reflecting Florio's association with Southampton, in the First Part of Henry IV. he recalled the state of mind and morals in which he had left him as Parolles in Love's Labour's Won, and allowing for a short lapse of time, and the effects of the life he had resolved to live, introduces him in Henry IV., Part I. Act 1. Scene ii., as follows: