1
Rousillon. The COUNT’s palace.
2
Enter BERTRAM, the COUNTESS of Rousillon, HELENA,] [p]and LAFEU, all in black]
4
In delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband.
6
And I in going, madam, weep o'er my father's death
7
anew: but I must attend his majesty's command, to
8
whom I am now in ward, evermore in subjection.
10
You shall find of the king a husband, madam; you,
11
sir, a father: he that so generally is at all times
12
good must of necessity hold his virtue to you; whose
13
worthiness would stir it up where it wanted rather
14
than lack it where there is such abundance.
16
What hope is there of his majesty's amendment?
18
He hath abandoned his physicians, madam; under whose
19
practises he hath persecuted time with hope, and
20
finds no other advantage in the process but only the
21
losing of hope by time.
23
This young gentlewoman had a father,—O, that
24
'had'! how sad a passage 'tis!—whose skill was
25
almost as great as his honesty; had it stretched so
26
far, would have made nature immortal, and death
27
should have play for lack of work. Would, for the
28
king's sake, he were living! I think it would be
29
the death of the king's disease.
31
How called you the man you speak of, madam?
33
He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was
34
his great right to be so: Gerard de Narbon.
36
He was excellent indeed, madam: the king very
37
lately spoke of him admiringly and mourningly: he
38
was skilful enough to have lived still, if knowledge
39
could be set up against mortality.
41
What is it, my good lord, the king languishes of?
45
I heard not of it before.
47
I would it were not notorious. Was this gentlewoman
48
the daughter of Gerard de Narbon?
50
His sole child, my lord, and bequeathed to my
51
overlooking. I have those hopes of her good that
52
her education promises; her dispositions she
53
inherits, which makes fair gifts fairer; for where
54
an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities, there
55
commendations go with pity; they are virtues and
56
traitors too; in her they are the better for their
57
simpleness; she derives her honesty and achieves her goodness.
59
Your commendations, madam, get from her tears.
61
'Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise
62
in. The remembrance of her father never approaches
63
her heart but the tyranny of her sorrows takes all
64
livelihood from her cheek. No more of this, Helena;
65
go to, no more; lest it be rather thought you affect
66
a sorrow than have it.
68
I do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have it too.
70
Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead,
71
excessive grief the enemy to the living.
73
If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess
76
Madam, I desire your holy wishes.
78
How understand we that?
80
Be thou blest, Bertram, and succeed thy father
81
In manners, as in shape! thy blood and virtue
82
Contend for empire in thee, and thy goodness
83
Share with thy birthright! Love all, trust a few,
84
Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy
85
Rather in power than use, and keep thy friend
86
Under thy own life's key: be cheque'd for silence,
87
But never tax'd for speech. What heaven more will,
88
That thee may furnish and my prayers pluck down,
89
Fall on thy head! Farewell, my lord;
90
'Tis an unseason'd courtier; good my lord,
93
He cannot want the best
94
That shall attend his love.
96
Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram.
99
[To HELENA]The best wishes that can be forged in
100
your thoughts be servants to you! Be comfortable
101
to my mother, your mistress, and make much of her.
103
Farewell, pretty lady: you must hold the credit of
105
[Exeunt BERTRAM and LAFEU]
107
O, were that all! I think not on my father;
108
And these great tears grace his remembrance more
109
Than those I shed for him. What was he like?
110
I have forgot him: my imagination
111
Carries no favour in't but Bertram's.
112
I am undone: there is no living, none,
113
If Bertram be away. 'Twere all one
114
That I should love a bright particular star
115
And think to wed it, he is so above me:
116
In his bright radiance and collateral light
117
Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.
118
The ambition in my love thus plagues itself:
119
The hind that would be mated by the lion
120
Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, though plague,
121
To see him every hour; to sit and draw
122
His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,
123
In our heart's table; heart too capable
124
Of every line and trick of his sweet favour:
125
But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
126
Must sanctify his reliques. Who comes here?
129
One that goes with him: I love him for his sake;
130
And yet I know him a notorious liar,
131
Think him a great way fool, solely a coward;
132
Yet these fixed evils sit so fit in him,
133
That they take place, when virtue's steely bones
134
Look bleak i' the cold wind: withal, full oft we see
135
Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.
137
Save you, fair queen!
145
Are you meditating on virginity?
147
Ay. You have some stain of soldier in you: let me
148
ask you a question. Man is enemy to virginity; how
149
may we barricado it against him?
153
But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant,
154
in the defence yet is weak: unfold to us some
157
There is none: man, sitting down before you, will
158
undermine you and blow you up.
160
Bless our poor virginity from underminers and
161
blowers up! Is there no military policy, how
162
virgins might blow up men?
164
Virginity being blown down, man will quicklier be
165
blown up: marry, in blowing him down again, with
166
the breach yourselves made, you lose your city. It
167
is not politic in the commonwealth of nature to
168
preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational
169
increase and there was never virgin got till
170
virginity was first lost. That you were made of is
171
metal to make virgins. Virginity by being once lost
172
may be ten times found; by being ever kept, it is
173
ever lost: 'tis too cold a companion; away with 't!
175
I will stand for 't a little, though therefore I die a virgin.
177
There's little can be said in 't; 'tis against the
178
rule of nature. To speak on the part of virginity,
179
is to accuse your mothers; which is most infallible
180
disobedience. He that hangs himself is a virgin:
181
virginity murders itself and should be buried in
182
highways out of all sanctified limit, as a desperate
183
offendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites,
184
much like a cheese; consumes itself to the very
185
paring, and so dies with feeding his own stomach.
186
Besides, virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made of
187
self-love, which is the most inhibited sin in the
188
canon. Keep it not; you cannot choose but loose
189
by't: out with 't! within ten year it will make
190
itself ten, which is a goodly increase; and the
191
principal itself not much the worse: away with 't!
193
How might one do, sir, to lose it to her own liking?
195
Let me see: marry, ill, to like him that ne'er it
196
likes. 'Tis a commodity will lose the gloss with
197
lying; the longer kept, the less worth: off with 't
198
while 'tis vendible; answer the time of request.
199
Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out
200
of fashion: richly suited, but unsuitable: just
201
like the brooch and the tooth-pick, which wear not
202
now. Your date is better in your pie and your
203
porridge than in your cheek; and your virginity,
204
your old virginity, is like one of our French
205
withered pears, it looks ill, it eats drily; marry,
206
'tis a withered pear; it was formerly better;
207
marry, yet 'tis a withered pear: will you anything with it?
209
Not my virginity yet[—]
210
There shall your master have a thousand loves,
211
A mother and a mistress and a friend,
212
A phoenix, captain and an enemy,
213
A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign,
214
A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear;
215
His humble ambition, proud humility,
216
His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet,
217
His faith, his sweet disaster; with a world
218
Of pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms,
219
That blinking Cupid gossips. Now shall he—
220
I know not what he shall. God send him well!
221
The court's a learning place, and he is one—
225
That I wish well. 'Tis pity—
229
That wishing well had not a body in't,
230
Which might be felt; that we, the poorer born,
231
Whose baser stars do shut us up in wishes,
232
Might with effects of them follow our friends,
233
And show what we alone must think, which never
236
Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.
239
Little Helen, farewell; if I can remember thee, I
240
will think of thee at court.
242
Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable star.
246
I especially think, under Mars.
250
The wars have so kept you under that you must needs
253
When he was predominant.
255
When he was retrograde, I think, rather.
259
You go so much backward when you fight.
261
That's for advantage.
263
So is running away, when fear proposes the safety;
264
but the composition that your valour and fear makes
265
in you is a virtue of a good wing, and I like the wear well.
267
I am so full of businesses, I cannot answer thee
268
acutely. I will return perfect courtier; in the
269
which, my instruction shall serve to naturalize
270
thee, so thou wilt be capable of a courtier's
271
counsel and understand what advice shall thrust upon
272
thee; else thou diest in thine unthankfulness, and
273
thine ignorance makes thee away: farewell. When
274
thou hast leisure, say thy prayers; when thou hast
275
none, remember thy friends; get thee a good husband,
276
and use him as he uses thee; so, farewell.
279
Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
280
Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky
281
Gives us free scope, only doth backward pull
282
Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull.
283
What power is it which mounts my love so high,
284
That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?
285
The mightiest space in fortune nature brings
286
To join like likes and kiss like native things.
287
Impossible be strange attempts to those
288
That weigh their pains in sense and do suppose
289
What hath been cannot be: who ever strove
290
So show her merit, that did miss her love?
291
The king's disease—my project may deceive me,
292
But my intents are fix'd and will not leave me.
1
Paris. The KING’s palace.
2
Flourish of cornets. Enter the KING of France,] [p]with letters, and divers Attendants]
4
The Florentines and Senoys are by the ears;
5
Have fought with equal fortune and continue
10
Nay, 'tis most credible; we here received it
11
A certainty, vouch'd from our cousin Austria,
12
With caution that the Florentine will move us
13
For speedy aid; wherein our dearest friend
14
Prejudicates the business and would seem
15
To have us make denial.
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Approved so to your majesty, may plead
21
He hath arm'd our answer,
22
And Florence is denied before he comes:
23
Yet, for our gentlemen that mean to see
24
The Tuscan service, freely have they leave
25
To stand on either part.
28
A nursery to our gentry, who are sick
29
For breathing and exploit.
32
[Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES]
34
It is the Count Rousillon, my good lord,
37
Youth, thou bear'st thy father's face;
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Frank nature, rather curious than in haste,
39
Hath well composed thee. Thy father's moral parts
40
Mayst thou inherit too! Welcome to Paris.
42
My thanks and duty are your majesty's.
44
I would I had that corporal soundness now,
45
As when thy father and myself in friendship
46
First tried our soldiership! He did look far
47
Into the service of the time and was
48
Discipled of the bravest: he lasted long;
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But on us both did haggish age steal on
50
And wore us out of act. It much repairs me
51
To talk of your good father. In his youth
52
He had the wit which I can well observe
53
To-day in our young lords; but they may jest
54
Till their own scorn return to them unnoted
55
Ere they can hide their levity in honour;
56
So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness
57
Were in his pride or sharpness; if they were,
58
His equal had awaked them, and his honour,
59
Clock to itself, knew the true minute when
60
Exception bid him speak, and at this time
61
His tongue obey'd his hand: who were below him
62
He used as creatures of another place
63
And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks,
64
Making them proud of his humility,
65
In their poor praise he humbled. Such a man
66
Might be a copy to these younger times;
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Which, follow'd well, would demonstrate them now
70
His good remembrance, sir,
71
Lies richer in your thoughts than on his tomb;
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So in approof lives not his epitaph
73
As in your royal speech.
75
Would I were with him! He would always say—
76
Methinks I hear him now; his plausive words
77
He scatter'd not in ears, but grafted them,
78
To grow there and to bear,—'Let me not live,'—
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This his good melancholy oft began,
80
On the catastrophe and heel of pastime,
81
When it was out,—'Let me not live,' quoth he,
82
'After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff
83
Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses
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All but new things disdain; whose judgments are
85
Mere fathers of their garments; whose constancies
86
Expire before their fashions.' This he wish'd;
87
I after him do after him wish too,
88
Since I nor wax nor honey can bring home,
89
I quickly were dissolved from my hive,
90
To give some labourers room.
93
They that least lend it you shall lack you first.
95
I fill a place, I know't. How long is't, count,
96
Since the physician at your father's died?
99
Some six months since, my lord.
101
If he were living, I would try him yet.
102
Lend me an arm; the rest have worn me out
103
With several applications; nature and sickness
104
Debate it at their leisure. Welcome, count;
1
Rousillon. The COUNT’s palace.
2
[Enter COUNTESS, Steward, and Clown]
4
I will now hear; what say you of this gentlewoman?
6
Madam, the care I have had to even your content, I
7
wish might be found in the calendar of my past
8
endeavours; for then we wound our modesty and make
9
foul the clearness of our deservings, when of
10
ourselves we publish them.
12
What does this knave here? Get you gone, sirrah:
13
the complaints I have heard of you I do not all
14
believe: 'tis my slowness that I do not; for I know
15
you lack not folly to commit them, and have ability
16
enough to make such knaveries yours.
18
'Tis not unknown to you, madam, I am a poor fellow.
22
No, madam, 'tis not so well that I am poor, though
23
many of the rich are damned: but, if I may have
24
your ladyship's good will to go to the world, Isbel
25
the woman and I will do as we may.
27
Wilt thou needs be a beggar?
29
I do beg your good will in this case.
33
In Isbel's case and mine own. Service is no
34
heritage: and I think I shall never have the
35
blessing of God till I have issue o' my body; for
36
they say barnes are blessings.
38
Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry.
40
My poor body, madam, requires it: I am driven on
41
by the flesh; and he must needs go that the devil drives.
43
Is this all your worship's reason?
45
Faith, madam, I have other holy reasons such as they
48
May the world know them?
50
I have been, madam, a wicked creature, as you and
51
all flesh and blood are; and, indeed, I do marry
54
Thy marriage, sooner than thy wickedness.
56
I am out o' friends, madam; and I hope to have
57
friends for my wife's sake.
59
Such friends are thine enemies, knave.
61
You're shallow, madam, in great friends; for the
62
knaves come to do that for me which I am aweary of.
63
He that ears my land spares my team and gives me
64
leave to in the crop; if I be his cuckold, he's my
65
drudge: he that comforts my wife is the cherisher
66
of my flesh and blood; he that cherishes my flesh
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and blood loves my flesh and blood; he that loves my
68
flesh and blood is my friend: ergo, he that kisses
69
my wife is my friend. If men could be contented to
70
be what they are, there were no fear in marriage;
71
for young Charbon the Puritan and old Poysam the
72
Papist, howsome'er their hearts are severed in
73
religion, their heads are both one; they may jowl
74
horns together, like any deer i' the herd.
76
Wilt thou ever be a foul-mouthed and calumnious knave?
78
A prophet I, madam; and I speak the truth the next
80
For I the ballad will repeat,
81
Which men full true shall find;
82
Your marriage comes by destiny,
83
Your cuckoo sings by kind.
85
Get you gone, sir; I'll talk with you more anon.
87
May it please you, madam, that he bid Helen come to
88
you: of her I am to speak.
90
Sirrah, tell my gentlewoman I would speak with her;
93
Was this fair face the cause, quoth she,
94
Why the Grecians sacked Troy?
96
Was this King Priam's joy?
97
With that she sighed as she stood,
98
With that she sighed as she stood,
99
And gave this sentence then;
100
Among nine bad if one be good,
101
Among nine bad if one be good,
102
There's yet one good in ten.
104
What, one good in ten? you corrupt the song, sirrah.
106
One good woman in ten, madam; which is a purifying
107
o' the song: would God would serve the world so all
108
the year! we'ld find no fault with the tithe-woman,
109
if I were the parson. One in ten, quoth a'! An we
110
might have a good woman born but one every blazing
111
star, or at an earthquake, 'twould mend the lottery
112
well: a man may draw his heart out, ere a' pluck
115
You'll be gone, sir knave, and do as I command you.
117
That man should be at woman's command, and yet no
118
hurt done! Though honesty be no puritan, yet it
119
will do no hurt; it will wear the surplice of
120
humility over the black gown of a big heart. I am
121
going, forsooth: the business is for Helen to come hither.
126
I know, madam, you love your gentlewoman entirely.
128
Faith, I do: her father bequeathed her to me; and
129
she herself, without other advantage, may lawfully
130
make title to as much love as she finds: there is
131
more owing her than is paid; and more shall be paid
132
her than she'll demand.
134
Madam, I was very late more near her than I think
135
she wished me: alone she was, and did communicate
136
to herself her own words to her own ears; she
137
thought, I dare vow for her, they touched not any
138
stranger sense. Her matter was, she loved your son:
139
Fortune, she said, was no goddess, that had put
140
such difference betwixt their two estates; Love no
141
god, that would not extend his might, only where
142
qualities were level; Dian no queen of virgins, that
143
would suffer her poor knight surprised, without
144
rescue in the first assault or ransom afterward.
145
This she delivered in the most bitter touch of
146
sorrow that e'er I heard virgin exclaim in: which I
147
held my duty speedily to acquaint you withal;
148
sithence, in the loss that may happen, it concerns
149
you something to know it.
151
You have discharged this honestly; keep it to
152
yourself: many likelihoods informed me of this
153
before, which hung so tottering in the balance that
154
I could neither believe nor misdoubt. Pray you,
155
leave me: stall this in your bosom; and I thank you
156
for your honest care: I will speak with you further anon.
159
Even so it was with me when I was young:
160
If ever we are nature's, these are ours; this thorn
161
Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong;
162
Our blood to us, this to our blood is born;
163
It is the show and seal of nature's truth,
164
Where love's strong passion is impress'd in youth:
165
By our remembrances of days foregone,
166
Such were our faults, or then we thought them none.
167
Her eye is sick on't: I observe her now.
169
What is your pleasure, madam?
172
I am a mother to you.
174
Mine honourable mistress.
177
Why not a mother? When I said 'a mother,'
178
Methought you saw a serpent: what's in 'mother,'
179
That you start at it? I say, I am your mother;
180
And put you in the catalogue of those
181
That were enwombed mine: 'tis often seen
182
Adoption strives with nature and choice breeds
183
A native slip to us from foreign seeds:
184
You ne'er oppress'd me with a mother's groan,
185
Yet I express to you a mother's care:
186
God's mercy, maiden! does it curd thy blood
187
To say I am thy mother? What's the matter,
188
That this distemper'd messenger of wet,
189
The many-colour'd Iris, rounds thine eye?
190
Why? that you are my daughter?
194
I say, I am your mother.
197
The Count Rousillon cannot be my brother:
198
I am from humble, he from honour'd name;
199
No note upon my parents, his all noble:
200
My master, my dear lord he is; and I
201
His servant live, and will his vassal die:
202
He must not be my brother.
206
You are my mother, madam; would you were,—
207
So that my lord your son were not my brother,—
208
Indeed my mother! or were you both our mothers,
209
I care no more for than I do for heaven,
210
So I were not his sister. Can't no other,
211
But, I your daughter, he must be my brother?
213
Yes, Helen, you might be my daughter-in-law:
214
God shield you mean it not! daughter and mother
215
So strive upon your pulse. What, pale again?
216
My fear hath catch'd your fondness: now I see
217
The mystery of your loneliness, and find
218
Your salt tears' head: now to all sense 'tis gross
219
You love my son; invention is ashamed,
220
Against the proclamation of thy passion,
221
To say thou dost not: therefore tell me true;
222
But tell me then, 'tis so; for, look thy cheeks
223
Confess it, th' one to th' other; and thine eyes
224
See it so grossly shown in thy behaviors
225
That in their kind they speak it: only sin
226
And hellish obstinacy tie thy tongue,
227
That truth should be suspected. Speak, is't so?
228
If it be so, you have wound a goodly clew;
229
If it be not, forswear't: howe'er, I charge thee,
230
As heaven shall work in me for thine avail,
233
Good madam, pardon me!
237
Your pardon, noble mistress!
241
Do not you love him, madam?
243
Go not about; my love hath in't a bond,
244
Whereof the world takes note: come, come, disclose
245
The state of your affection; for your passions
246
Have to the full appeach'd.
249
Here on my knee, before high heaven and you,
250
That before you, and next unto high heaven,
252
My friends were poor, but honest; so's my love:
253
Be not offended; for it hurts not him
254
That he is loved of me: I follow him not
255
By any token of presumptuous suit;
256
Nor would I have him till I do deserve him;
257
Yet never know how that desert should be.
258
I know I love in vain, strive against hope;
259
Yet in this captious and intenible sieve
260
I still pour in the waters of my love
261
And lack not to lose still: thus, Indian-like,
262
Religious in mine error, I adore
263
The sun, that looks upon his worshipper,
264
But knows of him no more. My dearest madam,
265
Let not your hate encounter with my love
266
For loving where you do: but if yourself,
267
Whose aged honour cites a virtuous youth,
268
Did ever in so true a flame of liking
269
Wish chastely and love dearly, that your Dian
270
Was both herself and love: O, then, give pity
271
To her, whose state is such that cannot choose
272
But lend and give where she is sure to lose;
273
That seeks not to find that her search implies,
274
But riddle-like lives sweetly where she dies!
276
Had you not lately an intent,—speak truly,—
281
Wherefore? tell true.
283
I will tell truth; by grace itself I swear.
284
You know my father left me some prescriptions
285
Of rare and proved effects, such as his reading
286
And manifest experience had collected
287
For general sovereignty; and that he will'd me
288
In heedfull'st reservation to bestow them,
289
As notes whose faculties inclusive were
290
More than they were in note: amongst the rest,
291
There is a remedy, approved, set down,
292
To cure the desperate languishings whereof
293
The king is render'd lost.
296
For Paris, was it? speak.
298
My lord your son made me to think of this;
299
Else Paris and the medicine and the king
300
Had from the conversation of my thoughts
301
Haply been absent then.
303
But think you, Helen,
304
If you should tender your supposed aid,
305
He would receive it? he and his physicians
306
Are of a mind; he, that they cannot help him,
307
They, that they cannot help: how shall they credit
308
A poor unlearned virgin, when the schools,
309
Embowell'd of their doctrine, have left off
310
The danger to itself?
312
There's something in't,
313
More than my father's skill, which was the greatest
314
Of his profession, that his good receipt
315
Shall for my legacy be sanctified
316
By the luckiest stars in heaven: and, would your honour
317
But give me leave to try success, I'ld venture
318
The well-lost life of mine on his grace's cure
319
By such a day and hour.
323
Ay, madam, knowingly.
325
Why, Helen, thou shalt have my leave and love,
326
Means and attendants and my loving greetings
327
To those of mine in court: I'll stay at home
328
And pray God's blessing into thy attempt:
329
Be gone to-morrow; and be sure of this,
330
What I can help thee to thou shalt not miss.
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