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Rousillon. The COUNT's palace.
[Enter BERTRAM, the COUNTESS of Rousillon, HELENA, and LAFEU, all in black]
COUNTESS
In delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband.
BERTRAM
And I in going madam, weep ore my father's death anew; but I must attend his
majesty's command, to whom I am now in ward, evermore in subjection.
LAFEU
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 lack it where
there is such abundance.
COUNTESS
What hope is there of his majesty's amendment?
LAFEU
He hath abandoned his physicians madam, under whose practises he hath
persecuted time with hope, and finds no other advantage in the process, but
only the losing of hope by time.
COUNTESS
This young gentlewoman had a father, O that had, how sad a passage 'tis,
whose skill was almost as great as his honesty, had it stretched so 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.
LAFEU
How called you the man you speak of madam?
COUNTESS
He was famous sir in his profession, and it was his great right to be so:
Gerard de Narbon.
LAFEU
He was excellent indeed madam, the king very lately spoke of him admiringly,
and mourningly: he was skilful enough to have lived still, if knowledge
could be set up against mortality.
BERTRAM
What is it (my good lord) the king languishes of?
LAFEU
A fistula my lord.
BERTRAM
I heard not of it before.
LAFEU
I would it were not notorious. Was this gentlewoman the daughter of Gerard
de Narbon?
COUNTESS
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 makes 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.
LAFEU
Your commendations madam get from her tears.
COUNTESS
'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 have it--
HELENA
I do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have it too.
LAFEU
Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead, excessive grief the enemy to
the living.
COUNTESS
If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal.
BERTRAM
Madam I desire your holy wishes.
LAFEU
How understand we that?
COUNTESS
,
, ,
2 ,
,
Be thou | blessed Bert/ram, and suc|ceed thy |
father
, ,
, ,
, 2->
In man|ners as | in shape:| thy blood | and
vir||tue
,
, , , 2
,
Contend | for em|pire in | thee, and thy |
goodness
,
2 T T T
T T . T
Share with thy | birthright. Love | all, trust a
few,
T T . T
x ,
, 2
Do wrong to none:| be able | for thine | enemy*
,
x ,
, ,
Rather | in power | than use:| and keep | thy
friend
, 2
T T T
, x
Under thy | own life's key.| Be checked | for
silence,
x
, ,
Tx T T
But never | taxed for | speech. What | heaven
more will,
,
, ,
, ,
That thee | may furn|ish, and my // prayers pluck
down,
,
, ,
, oo
Fall on | thy head.| Farewell | my lord,|
T . T T
, 2 ,
,
'Tis an unseas|oned court|ier; good | my lord
,
2
Advise | him.
LAFEU
,
, ,
He can|not want | the best
,
, ,
oo
That shall | attend | his love.|
(tetra with prev)
COUNTESS
Heaven bless him: Farewell Bertram.
BERTRAM
The best wishes that can be forged in your thoughts be servants to you: Be
comfortable to my mother, your mistress, and make much of her.
LAFEU
Farewell pretty lady, you must hold the credit of your father.
[Exeunt BERTRAM and LAFEU]
HELENA
,
, ,
, 2 ,
O^were | that^all,| I think | not on my | father,
. T
T T ,
, ,
And these great tears | grace his | remem|brance
more
,
, ,
, ,
Than those | I shed | for him.| What was | he
like?
, ,
, , , ->
I have | forgot | him. My | ima|gina||tion
,
, , x
,
Car|ries no | favor | in it but | Bertram's,
,
, , ,
,
I am | undone,| there is / no liv|ing, none,
,
, , T T
T
If Bert|ram be | away.| 'Twere all one,
, ,
, , 2
,
That I | should love | a bright | partic|ular
star,
,
x , ,
,
And think | to wed it,| he is | so a|bove me
2 ,
, , , 2 ,
In his bright | radi|ance and | collat|eral
light,
,
, , ,
,
Must^I | be com|forted,/ not in | his sphere;
2 ,
, , ,
,
The ambit|ion in | my love | thus plagues |
itself:
,
, , ,
x
The hind | that would | be mat|ed by | the lion
,
, ,
, ,
Must die | for love.| 'Twas pret|ty, though | a
plague
,
, ,
, ,
To see | him eve|ry hour | to sit | and draw
,
, ,
, ,
His arch|ed brows,| his hawk|ing eye,| his curls
, x T
T T ,
In our / heart's table:| heart too cap|able
,
, ,
2 , ,
Of eve|ry line | and trick | of his sweet |
favor,
,
, x , 2 ,
But now | he's gone,| and my id|olatrous | fancy
,
, x
T T T
Must sanc|tify | his relics.| Who comes here?
,
, 2 ,
, ,
One that | goes with him:| I love | him for / his
sake,
, ,
, , 2
x
And yet | I know | him a | notor|ious liar,
, 2
T T T ,
2 ,
Think him a | great way fool,| solely a | coward,
. T T
T , , ,
Yet^these fixed ev|ils^sit | so fit | in him,
,
, ,
, ,
That they / take place,| when vir|tue's steel|y
bones
,
, , , ,
,
Look* bleak | in the / cold wind:| withal,| full
oft | we see
__ ,
, , ,
2 ,
Cold | wisdom | waiting | on sup|erfluous |
folly. (hex with prev)
PAROLLES
Save you, fair queen.
HELENA
And you monarch.
PAROLLES
No.
HELENA
And no.
PAROLLES
Are you meditating on virginity?
HELENA
Aye: 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?
PAROLLES
Keep him out.
HELENA
But he assails, and our virginity though valiant, in the defense yet is
weak: unfold to us some warlike resistance.
PAROLLES
There is none: man sitting down before you, will undermine you, and blow you
up.
HELENA
Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers up. Is there no
military policy how virgins might blow up men?
PAROLLES
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 it.
HELENA
I will stand for it a little, though therefore I die a virgin.
PAROLLES
There's little can be said in it, '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
self-love, which is the most inhibited sin in the canon. Keep it not, you
cannot choose but lose by it. out with it: within ten year it will make
itself two, which is a goodly increase, and the principal itself not much
the worse. Away with it.
HELENA
How might one do sir, to lose it to her own liking?
PAROLLES
Let me see. Marry ill, to like him that nere it likes. 'Tis a commodity will
lose the gloss with lying: the longer kept, the less worth: off with it
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 toothpick, 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 drily, marry 'Tis a withered pear: it was formerly better; marry yet
'tis a withered pear: will you anything with it?
HELENA
,
, 2 ,
Not my | virgin|ity yet: \\
,
, ,
, ,
There shall | your mast|er have | a thous|and
loves,
, , ,
, ,
A moth|er and | a mist|ress, and | a friend,
,
, , ,
,
A phoe|nix, cap|tain, and | an en|emy,
,
, , ,
,
A guide,| a god|dess, and | a sov|ereign,
,
, , 2
, ,
A couns|ellor,| a trait|oress, and | a dear:
x
, ,
, ,
His humble | ambi|tion, proud | humil|ity:
,
, , 2 ,
,
His jar|ring, con|cord: and his |
discord,^|dulcet:
,
, ,
, ,
His faith,| his sweet | disas|ter: with | a world
,
, ,
, ,
Of pret|ty, fond,| adopt|ious Christ|endoms,
,
, ,
, ,
That blink|ing Cup|id gos|sips. Now | shall he:
, T
T . T ,
,
I know | not what he shall,| God* send | him
well,
,
, ,
, ,
The court's | a learn|ing place,| and he | is
one.
PAROLLES
What one in faith?
HELENA
That I wish well, 'tis pity.
PAROLLES
What's pity?
HELENA
,
, , ,
x
That wish|ing well | had not | a bod|y in it,
, ,
, ,
,
Which^might | be felt,| that we | the poor|er
born,
x
, , ,
,
Whose* baser | stars do*| shut us | up in |
wishes,
,
, , ,
,
Might with | effects | of them | follow | our
friends,
,
, , ,
x
And show | what we | alone | must think,| which
never
, ,
Return | us thanks. \\
[Enter Page]
PAGE
Monsieur Parolles,
My lord calls for you.
PAROLLES
Little Helen farewell, if I can remember thee, I will think of thee at
court.
HELENA
Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable star.
PAROLLES
Under Mars I.
HELENA
I especially think, under Mars.
PAROLLES
Why under Mars?
HELENA
The wars have so kept you under, that you must needs be born under Mars.
PAROLLES
When he was predominant.
HELENA
When he was retrograde I think rather.
PAROLLES
Why think you so?
HELENA
You go so much backward when you fight.
PAROLLES
That's for advantage.
HELENA
So is running away,
When fear proposes the safety:
But the composition that your valor and fear makes in you, is a virtue of a
good wing, and I like the wear well.
PAROLLES
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.
HELENA
, , ,
2 T T T
Our re|medies | oft in our|selves do lie,
,
, x
, ,
Which^we | ascribe | to heaven:| the fat|ed sky
T . T
T , ,
,
Gives us free scope,| only | doth^back|ward pull
,
, ,
, ,
Our slow | designs,| when we | ourselves | are
dull.
x
x ,
T T T
What power | is it, which | mounts my | love so
high,
,
, ,
, ,
That makes | me see,| and can|not feed |
mine^eye?
, 2 ,
, , ,
The might|iest space | in fort|une, nat|ure
brings
. T T
T ,
, ,
To join like, likes;| and kiss | like nat|ive
things.
, ,
, ,
,
Impos|sible | be strange | attempts | to those
,
, ,
, ,
That weigh | their pains | in sense,| and do |
suppose
,
, ,
, ,
What hath | been, can|not be.| Who ev|er strove
,
, ,
, ,
So* show | her mer|it, that | did miss | her
love?
,
, , ,
, o
(The king's | disease)| my proj|ect may | deceive
| me,
, ,
, , ,
o
But my | intents | are fixed,| and will | not
leave | me. (hex with prev)
[Exit]