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Count. Sir, I am a poor friend of yours, that loves you.

Clo. O Lord, sir,-Thick, thick, spare not me. Count. I think, sir, you can eat none of this homely meat.

Clo. O Lord, sir,-Nay, put me to 't, I war

rant you.

Count. You were lately whipped, sir, as I think.

Clo. O Lord, sir,-spare not me.

Count. Do you cry, ‘O Lord, sir,' at your whipping, and spare not me?' Indeed, your O Lord, sir,' is very sequent to your whipping; you would answer very well to a whipping, if you were but bound to 't. "

Clo. I ne'er had worse luck in my life in my→ 'O Lord, sir:' I see things may serve long, but

not serve ever.

Par. Why 't is the rarest argument of wonder
that hath shot out in our latter times.
Ber. And so 'tis.

Laf. To be relinquish'd of the artists,---
Par. So I say; both of Galen and Paracelsus.
Laf. Of all the learned and authentic fel-
lows,-

Par. Right, so I say.

Laf. That gave him out incurable,—
Par. Why, there 't is; so say I too.
Laf. Not to be helped,-

Par. Right: as 't were a man assured of a—-
Laf. Uncertain life, and sure death.
Par. Just, you say well; so would I have
said.

Laf. I may truly say, it is a novelty to the world.

Par. It is indeed: if you will have it in Count. I play the noble housewife with the showing, you shall read it in,─What do you

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Par. That's it: I would have said the very

same.

Laf. Why, your dolphin is not lustier: 'fore me I speak in respect―

Par. Nay, 'tis strange, 't is very strange, that is the brief and the tedious of it; and he is of a most facinorous spirit that will not acknowledge it to be the

Laf. Very hand of heaven.
Par. Ay, so I say.

Laf. In a most weak

Par. And debile minister, great power, great
transcendence: which should, indeed, give us a
further use to be made, than alone the recovery
of the king, as to be-
Laf. Generally thankful.

Enter KING, HELENA, and Attendants.
Par. I would have said it; you say well.
Here comes the king.

Laf. Lustick, as the Dutchman says: I'll like

What do you call there? Equivalent to" What d'ye call it?"

b Steevens and Malone have a controversy on this passage. Steevens maintains that your dolphin means the dauphinthe heir-apparent of France. Malone, more rationally, contends that the allusion is to the gambols of the dolphin, and quotes the well-known passage fron Antony and Cleopatra"His delights were dolphin-like."

Lustick.-Capell has a valuable note on this passage, which is not found in any of the variorum editions: "An old play, that has a great deal of merit, called The Weakest Goeth to the Wall' (printed in 1600, but how much earlier written, or by whom written, we are nowhere informed), has in it a Dutchman, called Jacob van Smelt, who speaks a jargon of Dutch and our language, and upon several occasions uses this very word, which in English is-lusty."

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1 Lord. And grant it. Hel.

Thanks, sir; all the rest is mute. Laf. I had rather be in this choice than throw ames-ace for my life.

Hel. The honour, sir, that flames in your fair eyes,

Before I speak, too threateningly replies:
Love make your fortunes twenty times above
Her that so wishes, and her humble love!
2 Lord. No better, if you please.
Hel.
My wish receive,
Which great love grant! and so I take my leave.
Laf. Do all they deny her? An they were
sons of mine, I'd have them whipped; or I

Fair maid, send forth thine eye: this youthful would send them to the Turk, to make eunuchs

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of.

Hel. Be not afraid [to a Lord] that I your hand should take;

I'll never do you wrong for your own sake:
Blessing upon your vows! and in your bed
Find fairer fortune, if you ever wed!

Laf. These boys are boys of ice, they'll none have her: sure they are bastards to the English; the French ne'er got them.

Hel. You are too young, too happy, and too

good,

To make yourself a son out of my blood. 4 Lord. Fair one, I think not so.

Laf. There's one grape yet,-I am sure thy father drank wine.-But if thou be'st not an ass, I am a youth of fourteen; I have known thee already.

Hel. I dare not say I take you; [to BER-
TRAM] but I give

Me and my service, ever whilst I live,
Into your guiding power.-This is the man.

King. Why then, young Bertram, take her,

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I can build up. Strange is it, that our bloods, Of colour, weight, and heat, pour'd all together, Would quite confound distinction, yet stand off In differences so mighty: If she be

All that is virtuous, (save what thou dislik'st, A poor physician's daughter,) thou dislik'st Of virtue for the name: but do not so:

From lowest place when virtuous things proceed,

The place is dignified by the doer's deed:
Where great additions swell, and virtue none,
It is a dropsied honour: good alone
Is good without a name; vileness is so :
The property by what it is should go,
Not by the title. She is young, wise, fair;
In these to nature she 's immediate heir,
And these breed honour: that is honour's

scorn

Which challenges itself as honour's born,
And is not like the sire: Honours thrive,
When rather from our acts we them derive
Than our fore-goers: the mere word 's a slave,
Debosh'd on every tomb, on every grave
A lying trophy; and as oft is dumb,
Where dust, and damn'd oblivion, is the tomb
Of honour'd bones indeed. What should be
said?

If thou can'st like this creature as a maid,
I can create the rest: virtue, and she,

Is her own dower; honour, and wealth, from

me.

Ber. I cannot love her, nor will strive to do 't.

King. Thou wrong'st thyself, if thou should'st strive to choose.

Hel. That you are well restor'd, my lord, I'm glad;

Let the rest go.

King. My honour's at the stake; which to defeat,

I must produce my power: Here, take her hand,

Proud scornful boy, unworthy this good gift,
That dost in vile misprision shackle up
My love, and her desert; that canst not dream,
We, poizing us in he defective scale,

Shall weigh thee to the beam; that wilt not know
It is in us to plant thine honour, where
We please to have it grow: Check thy con-

tempt:

Obey our will, which travails in thy good:
Believe not thy disdain, but presently
Do thine own fortunes that obedient right
Which both thy duty owes and our power claims;
Or I will throw thee from my care for ever,

Into the staggers, and the careless lapse
Of youth and ignorance; both my revenge and
hate

Loosing upon thee, in the name of justice,
Without all terms of pity: Speak! thine answer!
Ber. Pardon, my gracious lord; for I submit
My fancy to your eyes: When I consider
What great creation, and what dole of honour,
Flies where you bid it, I find, that she, which
late

Was in my nobler thoughts most base, is now
The praised of the king; who, so ennobled,
Is, as 't were, born so.

King.

.. Take her by the hand, And tell her she is thine: to whom I promise A counterpoise; if not to thy estate,

A balance more replete.

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Smile upon this contract; whose ceremony Shall seem expedient on the now-born brief, And be perform'd to-night: the solemn, feast Shall more attend upon the coming space, Expecting absent friends. As thou lov'st her, Thy love's to me religious; else, does err.

[Exeunt KING, BERTRAM, HELENA, Lords, and Attendants.b

Laf. Do you hear, monsieur? a word with you. Par. Your pleasure, sir?

Laf. Your lord and master did well to make his recantation.

Par. Recantation?-My lord? my master? Laf. Ay: Is it not a language I speak? Par. A most harsh one; and not to be understood without bloody succeeding. My master? Laf. Are you companion to the count Rousillon?

Par. To any count; to all counts; to what is

man.

Laf. To what is count's man; count's master is of another style.

Par. You are too old, sir: let it satisfy you, you are too old.

Laf. I must tell thee, sirrah, I write man; to which title age cannot bring thee.

Par. What I dare too well do I dare not do. Laf. I did think thee, for two ordinaries, to

The staggers. Johnson supposes the allusion is to the disease so called in horses. Surely it is a metaphorical expression for uncertainty, insecurity. In Cymbeline, Posthumus says,

"Whence come these staggers on me?"

In the original, the following curious stage direction here occurs: Parolles and Lafeu stay behind, commenting of this wedding."

For two ordinaries-during two ordinaries at the same table.

be a pretty wise fellow; thou didst make tolerable vent of thy travel; it might pass: yet the scarfs and the bannerets about thee did manifoldly dissuade me from believing thee a vessel of too great a burden." I have now found thee; when I lose thee again I care not: yet art thou good for nothing but taking up; and that thou art scarce worth.

Par. Hadst thou not the privilege of antiquity upon thee,

Laf. Do not plunge thyself too far in anger, lest thou hasten thy trial;-which if-Lord have mercy on thee for a hen! So, my good window of lattice, fare thee well; thy casement I need not open, for I look through thee. Give me thy hand.

there's news for you; you have a new mis

tress.

Par. I most unfeignedly beseech your lordship to make some reservation of your wrongs: He is my good lord: whom I serve above is my

master.

Laf. Who? God?

Par. Ay, sir.

Laf. The devil it is that's thy master. Why dost thou garter up thy arms o' this fashion? dost make hose of thy sleeves? do other servants so? Thou wert best set thy lower part where thy nose stands. By mine honour, if I were but two hours younger, I'd beat thee: methinks, thou art a general offence, and every man should beat thee. I think thou wast created for men

Par. My lord, you give me most egregious to breathe themselves upon thee. indignity.

Laf. Ay, with all my heart; and thou art worthy of it.

Par. I have not, my lord, deserved it.
Laf. Yes, good faith, every dram of it: and
I will not bate thee a scruple.

Par. Well, I shall be wiser.

Laf. Even as soon as thou canst, for thou hast to pull at a smack o' the contrary. If ever thou be'st bound in thy scarf, and beaten, thou shalt find what it is to be proud of thy bondage. I have a desire to hold my acquaintance with thee, or rather my knowledge, that I may say, in the default, he is a man I know.

Par. My lord, you do me most insupportable vexation.

Laf. I would it were hell-pains for thy sake, and my poor doing eternal: for doing I am past, as I will by thee, in what motion age will give me leave. [Exit.

Par. Well, thou hast a son shall take this disgrace off me; scurvy, old, filthy, scurvy lord!—Well, I must be patient; there is no fettering of authority. I'll beat him, by my life, if I can meet him with any convenience, an he were double and double a lord. I'll have no more pity of his age, than I would have of—I'll beat him, an if I could but meet him again.

Re-enter LAFeu.

Laf. Sirrah, your lord and master's married;

a Parolles, from this, and several passages of a similar nature, appears to have been intended for a great coxcomb in dress; and Lafeu here compares his trappings to the gaudy decorations of a pleasure-vessel, not" of too great a burden.” Hall, in his Satires (b. iv. s. 6), has described a soldier so scarfed :

"The sturdy ploughman doth the soldier see
All scarfed with pied colours to the knee,
Whom Indian pillage hath made fortunate;
And now he 'gins to loath his former state.'

Par. This is hard and undeserved measure, my lord.

Laf. Go to, sir; you were beaten in Italy for picking a kernel out of a pomegranate; you are a vagabond, and no true traveller: you are more saucy with lords and honourable personages, than the commission of your birth and virtue gives you heraldry." You are not worth another word, else I'd call you knave. I leave you. [Exit.

Enter BERTRAM.

Par. Good, very good; it is so then.-Good, very good; let it be concealed a while.

Ber. Undone, and forfeited to cares for ever!
Par. What is the matter, sweet heart?
Ber. Although before the solemn priest I
have sworn,

I will not bed her.

Par. What? what, sweet heart?

Ber. O my Parolles, they have married me:—
I'll to the Tuscan wars, and never bed her.
Par. France is a dog-hole, and it no more

merits

The tread of a man's foot: to the wars!
Ber. There's letters from my mother; what
the import is,

I know not yet.

Par. Ay, that would be known: To the wars,
my boy, to the wars!

He wears his honour in a box unseen
That hugs his kickie-wickie here at home;
Spending his manly marrow in her arms,
Which should sustain the bound and high

curvet

Of Mars's fiery steed: To other regions!

So the original. The passage is ordinarily printed thus: "than the heraldry of your birth and virtue gives you com mission."

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Par. Bless you, my fortunate lady!

Hel. I hope, sir, I have your good will to have mine own good fortunes.

Par. You had my prayers to lead them on: and to keep them on, have them still.-O, my knave! How does my old lady?

a Bertram would say-the strife of war is nothing, compared to that of the dark house, &c. By the "dark house" we understand the house which is the seat of gloom and discontent.

[SCENES IV., V. Clo. So that you had her wrinkles, and I her money, I would she did as you say.

Par. Why, I say nothing.

Clo. Marry, you are the wiser man; for many a man's tongue shakes out his master's undoing: To say nothing, to do nothing, to know nothing, and to have nothing, is to be a great part of your title; which is within a very little of nothing. Par. Away, thou 'rt a knave.

Clo. You should have said, sir, before a knave thou art a knave; that is, before me thou art a knave: this had been truth, sir.

Par. Go to, thou art a witty fool; I have found thee.

Clo. Did you find me in yourself, sir? or were you taught to find me? The search, sir, was profitable; and much fool may you find in you, even to the world's pleasure, and the increase of laughter.

Par. A good knave, i' faith, and well fed.Madam, my lord will go away to-night :

A very serious business calls on him.
The great prerogative and rite of love,
Which, as your due, time claims, he does ac-
knowledge;

But puts it off to a compell'd restraint;

Whose want, and whose delay, is strew'd with

sweets,

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