All's Well That Ends Well

by William Shakespeare

FIRST LORD.
[Aside.] We cannot afford you so.

PAROLLES.
Or the baring of my beard, and to say it was in stratagem.

FIRST LORD.
[Aside.] ’Twould not do.

PAROLLES.
Or to drown my clothes, and say I was stripped.

FIRST LORD.
[Aside.] Hardly serve.

PAROLLES.
Though I swore I leap’d from the window of the citadel,—

FIRST LORD.
[Aside.] How deep?

PAROLLES.
Thirty fathom.

FIRST LORD.
[Aside.] Three great oaths would scarce make that be believed.

PAROLLES.
I would I had any drum of the enemy’s; I would swear I recover’d it.