ACT I.

Palace.

NA, and LAFEU, all in black.

Count. In delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband.

Ber. And I, in going, madam, weep o'er my father's death anew; but I must attend his majesty's command, to whom I am now in award, evermore in subjection.

Laf. You shall find of the king a husband, madam; -you, sir, a father. He that so generally is at all times good, must of necessity hold his virtue to you, whose worthiness would stir it up where it wanted, rather than black it where there is such abundance. Count. What hope is there of his majesty's amend

ment?

Laf. He hath abandoned his physicians, madam;

a The heirs of great fortunes were the king's wards.b A bate

far would have made nature immortal, and death should have play for lack of work. Would, for the king's sake, he were living! I think it would be the death of the king's disease.

Laf. How called you the man you speak of,

madam?

Count. He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his great right to be so-Gerard de Narbon.

Laf. He was excellent, indeed, madam: the king He was skilful enough to have lived still, if knowlvery lately spoke of him, admiringly and mourningly. edge could be set up against mortality.

Ber. What is it, my good lord, the king languishes of?

Laf. A fistula, my lord.
Ber. I heard not of it before.

Laf. I would it were not notorious.-Was this gentlewoman the daughter of Gerard de Narbon ?

Count. His sole child, my lord; and bequeathed | to my overlooking. I have those hopes of her good that her education promises: her dispositions she inherits, which make fair gifts fairer; for where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities, there commendations go with pity: they are virtues and traitors too in her they are the better for their simpleness; she derives her honesty, and achieves her goodness.

Laf. Your commendations, madam, get from her

tears.

Count. 'Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise in. The remembrance of her father never approaches her heart, but the tyranny of her sorrows takes all livelihood from her cheek.-No more of this, Helena: go to, no more; lest it be rather thought you affect a sorrow, than to have. Hel. I do affect a sorrow, indeed; but I have it

too.

Laf. Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead, excessive grief the enemy to the living. Count. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal.

Ber. Madam, I desire your holy wishes.
Laf. How understand we that?

[father
Count. Be thou blest, Bertram; and succeed thy
İn manners, as in shape! thy blood, and virtue,
Contend for empire in thee; and thy goodness
Share with thy birth-right! Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy
Rather in power than use; and keep thy friend
Under thy own life's key: be check'd for silence,
But never tax'd for speech. What heaven more will,
That thee may furnish, and my prayers pluck down,
Fall on thy head!-Farewell, my lord:
'Tis an unseason'd courtier: good my lord,
Advise him.

Laf. Farewell, pretty lady: you must hold the credit of your father. [Exeunt BERTRAM and LAFEU. Hel. O, were that all!-I think not on my father; And these great tears grace his remembrance more Than those I shed for him. What was he like? I have forgot him: my imagination Carries no favor in't but only Bertram's. I am undone: there is no living, none, If Bertram be away. It were all one, That I should love a bright particular star, And think to wed it, he is so above me: In his bright radiance and collateral light Must I be comforted, not in his sphere. Th' ambition in my love thus plagues itself: The hind that would be mated by the lion Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, though a plague, To see him every hour; to sit and draw His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls, In my heart's table; heart, too capable Of every line and trick of his sweet favor: But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy Must sanctify his relics. Who comes here? Enter PAROLLES.

One that goes with him: I love him for his sake, And yet I know him a notorious liar,

nance.

Than to have," i. e., than have it.-b Trace.- Counte

Think him a great way fool, solely a coward;
Yet these fix'd evils sit so fit in him,
That they take place, when virtue's steely bones
Look bleak in the cold wind: withal, full oft we see
Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.
Par. Save you, fair queen.
Hel. And you, monarch.
Par. No.

Hel. And no.

Par. Are you meditating on virginity?

Hel. Ay. You have some stain of soldier in you; let me ask you a question: man is enemy to virginity; how may we barricado it against him? Par. Keep him out.

Hel. But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant in the defence, yet is weak. Unfold to us some warlike resistance.

Par. There is none: man, sitting down before you, will undermine you, and blow you up.

Hel. Bless our poor virginity from underminers, and blowers up!-Is there no military policy, how virgins might blow up men?

Par. Virginity being blown down, man will quicklier be blown up: marry, in blowing him down again, with the breach yourselves made you lose your city. It is not politic in the commonwealth of nature to preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational increase; and there was never virgin got, till virginity was first lost. That you were made of is metal to make virgins. Virginity, by being once lost, may be ten times found: by being ever kept, it is ever lost. 'Tis too cold a companion: away with't.

Hel. I will stand for't a little, though therefore I die a virgin.

Par. There's little can be said in't: 'tis against the rule of nature. To speak on the part of virginity is to accuse your mothers, which is most infallible disobedience. He that hangs himself is a virgin: virginity murders itself, and should be buried in highways, out of all sanctified limit, as a desperate offendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites, much like a cheese; consumes itself to the very paring, and so dies with feeding his own stomach. Besides, virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made of selflove, which is the most finhibited sin in the canon. Keep it not: you cannot choose but lose by't. Out with't: within two years it will make itself two, which is a goodly increase, and the principal itself not much the worse. Away with't.

Hel. How might one do, sir, to lose it to her own liking?

Par. Let me see: marry, ill; to like him that ne'er it likes. 'Tis a commodity will lose the gloss with lying; the longer kept, the less worth: off with't, while 'tis vendible: answer the time of request. Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of fashion; richly suited, but unsuitable: just like the brooch and the tooth-pick, which & wear not now. Your date is better in your pie and your porridge, than in your cheek: and your virginity, your old virginity, is like one of our French withered pears: it looks ill, it eats dryly; marry, 'tis a withered pear: it was formerly better; marry, yet, 'tis a withered pear. Will you 4 do any thing with it? Hel. Not with my virginity yet.

There shall your master have a thousand loves,
A mother, and a mistress, and a friend,
A phoenix, captain, and an enemy,
A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign,
A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear:

d Altogether. Tincture. Forbidden.-" Which wear not now," i. e., which are not now worn.

a

His humble ambition, proud humility,
His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet,
His faith, his sweet disaster; with a world
Of pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms,
That blinking Cupid gossips. Now shall he-
I know not what he shall:-God send him well!-
The court's a learning-place ;—and he is one-
Par. What one, i'faith?

Hel. That I wish well.-'Tis pity-
Par. What's pity?

Hel. That wishing well had not a body in't,
Which might be felt; that we, the poorer born,
Whose baser stars do shut us up in wishes,
Might with effects of them follow our friends,
And show what we alone must think; which never
Returns us thanks.

Enter a Page.

Page. Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you. [Exit Page. Par. Little Helen, farewell: if I can remember thee, I will think of thee at court.

Hel. Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable star.

Par. Under Mars, I.

Hel. I especially think, under Mars.

Par. Why under Mars?

Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES. 1 Lord. It is the count Rousillon, my good lord, Young Bertram.

King.

Par. When he was predominant.

Hel. When he was retrograde, I think, rather. Par. Why think

you

so?

Hel. You go so much backward when you fight. Par. That's for advantage.

Hel. So is running away, when fear proposes the safety: but the composition that your valor and fear 1 make in you is a virtue of a good "wing, and I like the wear well.

Par. I am so full of businesses, I cannot answer thee acutely. I will return perfect courtier; in the which my instruction shall serve to naturalize thee, so thou wilt be capable of a courtier's counsel, and understand what advice shall thrust upon thee; else thou diest in thine unthankfulness, and thine ignorance makes thee away: farewell. When thou hast leisure, say thy prayers; when thou hast none, remember thy friends. Get thee a good husband, and use him as he uses thee: so farewell. [Exit.

Hel. Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky Gives us free scope; only, doth backward pull Our slow designs, when we ourselves are dull. What power is't which mounts my love so high; That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye? The mightiest space in nature fortune brings To join like likes, and kiss like native things. Impossible be strange attempts to those That weigh their pains in sense; and do suppose, What hath been cannot be. Who ever strove To show her merit, that did miss her love? The king's disease-my project may deceive me; But my intents are fix'd, and will not leave me. [Exit.

SCENE II.-Paris. A Room in the KING'S Palace. Flourish of cornets. Enter the KING of France, with letters; Lords and others attending.

King. The Florentines and Senoys are by th' ears; Have fought with equal fortune, and continue

"Adoptious christendoms," i. e., adopted appellations.That is, and show by realities what we now must only think. A bird of a good wing was one of swift and strong flight. Susceptible.The "Senoys" were citizens of the republic of which Sienna is the capital.

Ber. My thanks and duty are your majesty's.
King. I would I had that corporal soundness now,
As when thy father, and myself, in friendship
First tried our soldiership. He did look far

Into the service of the time, and was
Discipled of the bravest: he lasted long;
But on us both did haggish age steal on,
And wore us out of act. It much repairs me
To talk of your good father. In his youth
He had the wit, which I can well observe
To-day in our young lords; but they may jest,
Till their own scorn return to them unnoted,
Ere they can hide their levity in & honor:
So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness
Were in his pride, or sharpness; if they were,
His equal had awak'd them: and his honor,
Clock to itself, knew the true minute when
Exception bid him speak, and at this time
His tongue obey'd his hand: who were below him
He us'd as creatures of another place,
And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks,
Making them proud of his humility,

In their poor praise he humbled. Such a man
Might be a copy to these younger times,
Which, follow'd well, would demonstrate them now
But goers backward.

Ber.

His good remembrance, sir, Lies richer in your thoughts, than on his tomb: So in approof lives not his epitaph,

a

I, after him, do after him wish too,

Since I nor wax nor honey can bring home,

I quickly were dissolved from my hive,

To give some laborers room.

2 Lord.

You are lov'd, sir; They, that least lend it you, shall lack you first. King. I fill a place, I know't.-How long is't, count, Since the physician at your father's died? He was much fam'd.

Ber. Some six months since, my lord. King. If he were living, I would try him yet:Lend me an arm:-the rest have worn me out With several applications: nature and sickness Debate it at their leisure. Welcome, count; My son's no dearer. Ber.

Thank your majesty. [Exeunt.

SCENE III.-Rousillon. A Room in the COUNTESS's Palace.

Enter COUNTESS, Steward, and Clown. Count. I will now hear: what say you of this gentlewoman?

Stew. Madam, the care I have had to even your content, I wish might be found in the calendar of my past endeavors; for then we wound our modesty, and make foul the clearness of our deservings, when of ourselves we publish them.

Count. What does this knave here? Get you gone, sirrah: the complaints I have heard of you, I do not all believe: 'tis my slowness, that I do not; for I know you lack not folly to commit them, and have ability enough to make such knaveries yours.

Clo. 'Tis not unknown to you, madam, I am a poor fellow.

Count. Well, sir.

Clo. No, madam; 'tis not so well, that I am poor, though many of the rich are damned. But, if I may have your ladyship's good-will to go to the world, Isbel, the woman, and I will do as we may.

Count. Wilt thou needs be a beggar?
Clo. I do beg your good-will in this case.
Count. In what case?

Clo. In Isbel's case, and mine own. Service is no heritage; and, I think, I shall never have the blessing of God, till I have issue of my body, for they say, bairns are blessings.

Count. Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry. Clo. My poor body, madam, requires it: I am driven on by the flesh, and he must needs go that the devil drives.

Count. Is this all your worship's reason? Clo. Faith, madam, I have other holy reasons, such as they are.

Count. May the world know them?

Clo. I have been, madam, a wicked creature, as you and all flesh and blood are; and, indeed, I do marry that I may repent.

Count. Thy marriage, sooner than thy wickedness. Clo. I am out o' friends, madam; and I hope to have friends for my wife's sake.

Count. Such friends are thine enemies, knave. Clo. You are shallow, madam; e'en great. friends; for the knaves come to do that for me, which I am a-weary of. He, that ears my land, spares my team, and gives me leave to inn the crop: if I be

• That is, who make no other use of their faculties than to invent new modes of dress.-b"To even your content," i. e., to act up to your desires. "To go to the world," that is, to be married. Children.- Ploughs.

wife is the cherisher of my flesh and blood; he that cherishes my flesh and blood, loves my flesh and blood; he that loves my flesh and blood is my friend; fergo, he that kisses my wife is my friend. If men could be contented to be what they are, there were no fear in marriage; for young Charbon the puritan, and old Poysam the papist, howsome'er their hearts are severed in religion, their heads are both one; they may joll horns together, like any deer i' the

herd.

Count. Wilt thou ever be a foul-mouthed and calumnious knave?

Clo. A prophet I, madam; and I speak the truth the next way:

For I the ballad will repeat,

Which men full true shall find ;
Your marriage comes by destiny,
Your cuckoo sings by kind.

Count. Get you gone, sir: I'll talk with you more

anon.

Stew. May it please you, madam, that he bid Helen come to you? of her I am to speak. Count. Sirrah, tell my gentlewoman, I would speak with her; Helen, I mean.

Clo.

Was this fair face,' quoth she, the cause,
Why the Grecians sacked Troy?
Fond done, done fond, good sooth it was;
Was this king Priam's joy?

3 With that she sighed as she stood
And gave this sentence then;
Among nine bad if one be good,
There's yet one good in ten.

Count. What! one good in ten? you corrupt the song, sirrah.

Clo. One good woman in ten, madam, which is a purifying o' the song, and mending o' the sex. Would God would serve the world so all the year! we'd find no fault with the tithe-woman if I were the parson. One in ten, quoth a'! an we might have a good woman-born-but one-every blazing star, or at an earthquake, 'twould mend the lottery well: a man may draw his heart out, ere he pluck

one.

Count. You'll be gone, sir knave, and do as I command you?

Clo. That man should be at woman's command,

and yet no hurt done!-Though honesty be no puritan, yet it will do no hurt; it will wear the surplice of humility over the black gown of a big heart.-I am going, forsooth: the business is for Helen to come hither. [Exit.

Count. Well, now. Stew. I know, madam, you love your gentlewoman entirely.

Count. Faith, I do; her father bequeathed her to me; and she herself, without other advantage, may lawfully make title to as much love as she finds: there is more owing her than is paid, and more shall be paid her than she'll demand."

Stew. Madam, I was very late more near her than, I think, she wished me: alone she was, and did communicate to herself, her own words to her own ears; she thought, I dare vow for her, they touched not any stranger sense. Her matter was, she loved your son: fortune, she said, was no goddess, that had put such difference betwixt their two estates; love, no god, that would not extend his might, only where qualities were level; Diana, no queen of vir

Therefore. "The next," i. e., the readicst.- Naturc.— ¡Foolishly.

gins, that would suffer her poor knight to be surprised, without rescue, in the first assault, or ransom afterward. This she delivered in the most bitter touch of sorrow, that e'er I heard virgin exclaim in; which I held my duty speedily to acquaint you withal, a sithence in the loss that may happen it concerns you something to know it.

Count. You have discharged this honestly: keep it to yourself. Many likelihoods informed me of this before, which hung so tottering in the balance, that I could neither believe, nor misdoubt. Pray you, leave me: stall this in your bosom, and I thank you for your honest care. I will speak with you farther anon. [Exit Steward.1 Count. Even so it was with me, when I was young: If ever we are nature's, these are ours; this thorn Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong;

Our blood to us, this to our blood is born: Is is the show and seal of nature's truth, Where love's strong passion is impress'd in youth. Enter HELENA.

By our remembrances of days foregone

2 Search we out faults, for then we thought them none.
Her eye is sick on't: I observe her now.
Hel. What is your pleasure, madam?
Count.

I am a mother to you.

You know, Helen,

Hel. Mine honorable mistress. Count. Nay, a mother. Why not a mother? When I said, a mother, Methought you saw a serpent: what's in mother, That you start at it? I say, I am your mother, And put you in the catalogue of those That were enwombed mine. 'Tis often seen, Adoption strives with nature; and choice breeds A native slip to us from foreign seeds: You ne'er oppress'd me with a mother's groan, Yet I express to you a mother's care. God's mercy, muiden! does it curd thy blood, Το I am thy mother? What's the matter, That this distemper'd messenger of wet, The many-color'd Iris, rounds thine eye? Why, that you are my daughter?

say,

Hel.

That I am not.

Pardon, madam;

Count. I say, I am your mother. Hel. The count Rousillon cannot be my brother; I am from humble, he from honor'd name; No note upon my parents, his all noble : My master, my dear lord he is; and I His servant live, and will his vassal die. He must not be my brother.

Count.

Nor I your mother? Hel. You are my mother, madam: would you were (So that my lord, your son, were not my brother) Indeed, my mother!-or were you both our mothers, I care no more for, than I do for heaven, So I were not his sister. Can't no other, But, I your daughter, he must be my brother? [law. Count. Yes, Helen, you might be my daughter-inGod shield, you mean it not! daughter, and mother, So strive upon your pulse. What, pale again? My fear hath catch'd your fondness: Now I see The mystery of your loneliness, and find Your salt tears' head. Now to all sense 'tis gross, You love my son invention is asham'd, Against the proclamation of thy passion, To say, thou dost not: therefore tell me true; But tell me then, 'tis so:-for, look, thy cheeks Confess it, th' one to the other; and thine eyes

Since. Conceal. Recollections.- "Can't no other," 1. e., can it be no other way? Contend.- Source.

See it so grossly shown in thy behaviors,
That in their kind they speak it: only sin,
And hellish obstinacy tie thy tongue,
That truth should be suspected. Speak, is't so?
If it be so, you have wound a goodly clue;
If it be not, forswear't: howe'er, I charge thee,
As heaven shall work in me for thine avail,
To tell me truly.
Hel.
Good madam, pardon me.

Count. Do you love my son?

Hel. Your pardon, noble mistress. Count. Love you my son? Hel. Do not you love him, madam? Count. Go not about: my love hath in't a bond, Whereof the world takes note. Come, come, disclose The state of your affection, for your passions Have to the full appeach'd.

[Rising.

Hel. Then, I confess, 3[ Kneeling. Here on my knee, before high heaven and you, That before you, and next unto high heaven, I love your son.— My friends were poor, but honest; so's my love: Be not offended, for it hurts not him, That he is lov'd of me. I follow him not By any token of presumptuous suit; Nor would I have him, till I do deserve him, Yet never know how that desert should be. I know I love in vain, strive against hope; Yet, in this captious and intenible sieve, I still pour in the waters of my love, And lack not to lose still. Thus, Indian-like, Religious in mine error, I adore

h

The sun, that looks upon his worshipper,

But knows of him no more. My dearest madam,
Let not your hate encounter with my love,
For loving where you do: but, if yourself,
Whose aged honor cites a virtuous youth,
Did ever, in so true a flame of liking,
Wish chastely, and love dearly, that your Dian
Was both herself and love, O! then, give pity
To her, whose state is such, that cannot choose
But lend and give where she is sure to lose;
That seeks not to find that her search implies,
But, riddle-like, lives sweetly where she dies.
Count. Had you not lately an intent, speak truly,
To go to Paris?

Madam, I had.

Hel. Count. Wherefore? tell true. Hel. I will tell truth, by grace itself I swear. You know, my father left me some prescriptions Of rare and prov'd effects, such as his reading And manifold experience had collected For general sovereignty; and that he will'd me In heedfull'st reservation to bestow them, As notes, whose faculties inclusive were More than they were in 'note. Amongst the rest, There is a remedy approv'd, set down To cure the desperate languishings whereof The king is render'd lost. This was your motive

Count.

For Paris, was it? speak.

Hel. My lord, your son, made me to think of this: Else Paris, and the medicine, and the king, Had, from the conversation of my thoughts, m Haply been absent then.

Count. But think you, Helen, If you should tender your supposed aid, He would receive it? He and his physicians Are of a mind; he, that they cannot help him,

Language "Captious," i. e., deceitful.-i" Intenible," i. e.., incapable of holding.-"Faculties inclusive," i, e., concealed virtues.-"More than they were in note," i. e., greater than was apparent. Perhaps,