But couch, ho! Here he comes to beguile two hours

Lord
But couch, ho! Here he comes to beguile two hours
in a sleep and then to return and swear the lies
he forges.  They move aside.

 Enter Parolles.

Parolles
Ten o’clock. Within these three hours ’twill
be time enough to go home. What shall I say I have
done? It must be a very plausive invention that
carries it. They begin to smoke me, and disgraces
have of late knocked too often at my door. I find
my tongue is too foolhardy, but my heart hath the
fear of Mars before it, and of his creatures, not
daring the reports of my tongue.

Is it possible he should know what he is,
and be that he is?

Lord, aside
This is the first truth that e’er thine own
tongue was guilty of.
Parolles
What the devil should move me to undertake
the recovery of this drum, being not ignorant
of the impossibility and knowing I had no such
purpose? I must give myself some hurts and say I
got them in exploit. Yet slight ones will not carry it.
They will say “Came you off with so little?” And
great ones I dare not give. Wherefore? What’s the
instance? Tongue, I must put you into a butter-woman’s
mouth and buy myself another of Bajazeth’s mule
if you prattle me into these perils.
Lord, aside
Is it possible he should know what he is,
and be that he isEpistrophe?
Parolles
I would the cutting of my garments would
serve the turn, or the breaking of my Spanish sword.
Lord, aside
We cannot afford you so.
Parolles
Or the baring of my beard, and to say it was
in stratagem.
Lord, aside
’Twould not do.
Parolles
Or to drown my clothes and say I was stripped.
Lord, aside
Hardly serve.
Parolles
Though I swore I leapt from the window of
the citadel—
Lord, aside
How deep?
Parolles
Thirty fathom.
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 recovered it.
Lord, aside
You shall hear one anon.
Parolles
A drum, now, of the enemy’s—
 Alarum within.