ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

All’s Well That Ends Well is one of Shakespeare’s least performed and least loved comedies. It is also one of his most fascinating and intriguingly modern works. The play presents a battlefield of opposing value systems: abstract codes jostle against material commodities, words are undermined by actions, generation argues with generation, and a sex war rages.

The language of sexual relations is persistently intermingled with that of warfare. The key word, deployed with equal force in conversations about the bedroom, the court, and the battlefield, is “honour.” The atmosphere feels very different from that of Shakespeare’s comic green world. All’s Well shares the darker view of human nature and the more troubling preoccupations of three other plays written at the end of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign and the beginning of James I’s: Troilus and Cressida, Othello, and Measure for Measure.

In the very first scene, virginity is described by Parolles as woman’s weapon of resistance. But man will besiege it, “undermine” it, and “blow up” his foe—make her pregnant. Like honor, virginity may variously be seen as a mystical treasure, a mark of integrity, a marketable commodity, and a kind of nothing. Traditional wisdom suggests that it is something a girl must preserve with care. But the play is full of proverbs and moral maxims that are found wanting, “undermined” by the demands of the body. Lavatch, Shakespeare’s most cynical and lascivious fool, is on hand to remind us of this. “I am driven on by the flesh,” he remarks, suggesting that the story of the sexes boils down to “Tib’s rush for Tom’s forefinger.” “Tib” was a generic name for a whore; the “rush” is a rudimentary wedding ring fashioned from reeds, but a woman’s “ring” is also the place where she is penetrated by a man’s nether finger.

“War” says Bertram, “is no strife / To the dark house and the detested wife.” For a young man in search of action, a wife is but a “clog,” a block of wood tied to an animal to prevent it from escaping. Parolles voices the same sentiment in the tumble of language that is his hallmark:

To th’wars, my boy, to th’wars!

He wears his honour in a box unseen

That hugs his kicky-wicky here at home,

Spending his manly marrow in her arms,

Which should sustain the bound and high curvet

Of Mars’ fiery steed. To other regions,

France is a stable, we that dwell in’t jades:

Therefore, to th’war!

“Kicky-wicky” is an abusive term for a wife, the “box unseen” is the vagina and “marrow” is the essence of manliness (according to ancient physiology, semen was distilled from the marrow in the backbone). A proper man, Parolles suggests, should be off riding a “fiery steed” into battle, in the spirit of Mars, god of war; those who stay at home are no better than female horses good only for breeding and sexual indulgence (“jade” was another slang term for “whore”).

All’s Well is in the mainstream of comedy insofar as it is about young people and the process of growing up. Bertram is like most young men of every era: he wants to be one of the boys, to prove his manhood. Enlistment in the army provides the ideal opportunity. He wants to sow some wild oats along the way, but is not ready for marriage. Critics hate him for not loving the lovely humble Helen from the start. “I cannot reconcile my heart to Bertram,” wrote Dr. Johnson with characteristic candor and forthrightness, “a man noble without generosity, and young without truth; who marries Helen as a coward, and leaves her as a profligate: when she is dead by his unkindness, sneaks home to a second marriage, is accused by a woman whom he has wronged, defends himself by falsehood, and is dismissed to happiness.” Of course, there is something obnoxious in the snobbery with which Bertram first dismisses Helen on the grounds of her low status, but when he goes on to say that he is simply not in love with her, he reveals a kind of integrity. He bows to the king’s will and marries her, but since his heart does not belong to her he refuses to give her his body. If a woman were forced to marry in this way, we would rather admire her for withholding sexual favors from her husband.

Bertram represents modernity in that he acts according to an existential principle: he follows his own self, not some preexistent code of duty, service to his monarch, or obligation to the older generation. One word for this code is indeed integrity. Another is selfishness. It is the prerogative of the old, especially mothers, to know, to suffer, and still to forgive the selfishness of their young. Bertram’s mother, the widowed Countess of Rossillion, who treats the orphaned Helen like a daughter and is only too happy to accept her as a daughter-in-law, regardless of her lowly background, was described by George Bernard Shaw as “the most beautiful old woman’s part ever written” (though she could perfectly well be in her forties). Since female parts were written for young male actors, strong maternal roles such as this are exceptional in Shakespeare. The only analogous parts are the more overbearing figures of Queen Margaret in the Henry VI plays, Tamora in Titus Andronicus, and Volumnia in Coriolanus. The serenity of the countess has meant that the principal reason for modern revivals of All’s Well has been the opportunity to showcase actresses such as Edith Evans, Peggy Ashcroft, and Judi Dench in their later years.

One of the key debates in the play is that between nature and nurture. The Countess of Rossillion believes that her son is a fundamentally good boy who has fallen into bad company, as embodied by the worthless Parolles. Helen, meanwhile, has strong natural qualities (the “dispositions she inherits”) reinforced by a loving and responsible upbringing (the “education” she has received first from her doctor father, then in the household of the countess).

Parallel to the question of nature and nurture is that of divine providence and individual responsibility. Helen believes that “Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, / Which we ascribe to heaven”: like Bertram, she is a voice of modernity in her belief that individuals can carve their own destiny. She does so by means of disguise and bold solo travel: from Roussillon in south-west France to Paris, where she gains access to the king, then to Florence in the dress of a pilgrim en route to Compostella. Like Julia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Rosalind in As You Like It, and Viola in Twelfth Night, she uses her disguised self as an opportunity to talk about her true feelings. The part is the longest in the play and it gives an actor great opportunities for the portrayal of an isolated young woman’s self-exploration through both soliloquy and dialogue in lucid and serpentine verse, not to mention passages of prose banter and some piercing asides.

As Dr. Johnson dryly noted, the geography seems somewhay awry when Helen undertakes her pilgrimage: in going from France to Spain via Italy, she is “somewhat out of the road.” Such details did not matter to Shakespeare. For him, the pilgrim motif—taken over from the story in Boccaccio that was his source for the main plot of the play—had symbolic importance in that it associated Helen with an older value structure of reverence and self-sacrifice even as she asserts her own will. Pilgrims are people who believe in miracles, so Helen’s adoption of the role allies her with the worldview voiced by the old courtier Lafew after she has cured the king: “They say miracles are past, and we have our philosophical persons to make modern and familiar, things supernatural and causeless. Hence is it that we make trifles of terrors, ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear.”

Yet Helen is only a pretended pilgrim and the king has been cured not by a miracle but by the medical knowledge she has inherited from her father. Again and again the play takes a fairy-tale motif and turns it into something tougher, more earthly, and open to philosophical debate. Lafew’s generalization sets up the key scene in which Bertram rejects Helen. The idea of unquestioning obedience to the king’s will is itself a thing “supernatural and causeless.” It depends upon an “unknown fear,” the mystique of monarchy, the idea that the king is God’s representative on earth, and that to challenge him will cause the entire fabric of the natural order to collapse. In a crucial rhyming couplet near the end of the play—often editorially reassigned to the Countess of Rossillion for no good textual reason—the king says that, since he has failed in his management of Bertram’s first marriage, the second had better be a success otherwise “nature” may as well “cesse” (cease).

Shakespeare’s instinctive conservatism tips the balance in favor of the old order. The king, the countess, and the old courtier are generous and ethically admirable, much more obviously sympathetic than Bertram, Parolles, and Lavatch. Bertram has to be tricked out of his sexual selfishness and Parolles out of his vainglory, but still Shakespeare the role-player and wordsmith invests huge dramatic energy in the darker characters. He uses them to open cracks in the established order. The king tells Bertram that Helen should be viewed for what she is within, not by way of the superficial trappings of wealth and rank: “The property by what it is should go, / Not by the title.” Yet his own authority depends on his title, and the “go by what it is” argument might be turned to say that if Bertram does not love Helen he should not marry her. The king moves swiftly from reasoning to the assertion of raw authority: “My honour’s at the stake, which to defeat, / I must produce my power.” Shakespeare’s intensely compacted writing style makes the point. By “which to defeat,” the king means “in order to defeat the threat to my honor,” but ironically the very need to produce his “power” itself defeats the code of honor. As so often in Shakespeare’s darker plays, the figure of Niccolò Machiavelli lurks in the shadows, whispering that fine old codes such as honor and duty can only be underwritten by raw power.

He who asserts the new code of the self must live by that code. Both Bertram and Parolles are found out. The two lords Dumaine are not only mechanics in the double plot of ambush and bed trick, but also commentators upon how their victims are brought to self-knowledge: “As we are ourselves, what things we are! / Merely our own traitors.” The Dumaines too are young and modern in their recognition that we cannot simply sort our kind into sheep and goats in the manner of authoritarian religious dispensations. They propose instead that human life is shaded gray: “The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair if they were not cherished by our virtues.” This could be the epigraph for Shakespeare’s dramatically mingled yarn of tragi-comedy.

Parolles comes to acknowledge his boastful tongue. “Simply the thing I am / Shall make me live,” he vows. What, though, can this mean, given that—as his name indicates—he is made of nothing but words? Bertram, meanwhile, only comes to realize how much Helen is to be valued when she has been lost. The fiction of comedy gives him a second chance to love her. But in the modern world where there are no miracles, “all’s well that ends well” is a fiction. Along the way, we have been promised on more than one occasion that all will end well, but when it comes to the climax the king says that “all yet seems well” and that “if it end so meet” then all bitterness will be past. Those little conditional qualifiers leave open the door to the tragic world.

 

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KEY FACTS

PLOT: Helen, orphaned daughter of a doctor, is under the protection of the widowed Countess of Rossillion. In love with Bertram, the countess’ son, Helen follows him to court, where she cures the sick French king of an apparently fatal illness. The king rewards her by offering her the husband of her choice. She names Bertram; he resists. When forced by the king to marry her, he refuses to sleep with her and, accompanied by the braggart Parolles, leaves for the Italian wars. He says that he will only accept Helen if she obtains a ring from his finger and becomes pregnant with his child. She goes to Italy disguised as a pilgrim and suggests a “bed trick” whereby she will take the place of Diana, a widow’s daughter whom Bertram is trying to seduce. A “kidnapping trick” humiliates the boastful Parolles, while the bed trick enables Helen to fulfill Bertram’s conditions, leaving him no option but to be a husband to her, to his mother’s delight.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentages of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Helen (16%/109/ 12), Parolles (13%/141/11), King of France (13%/87/4), Countess (10%/86/7), Bertram (9%102/10), Lafew (9%/97/7), Lavatch (7%/58/6), First Lord Dumaine (5%/70/7), Second Lord Dumaine (4%/47/6), Diana (4%/44/4), First Soldier/Interpreter (3%/37/2), Widow (2%/21/5).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 55% verse, 45% prose.

DATE: No external evidence to indicate when written or first performed; usually dated to early Jacobean years (1603–06) on stylistic grounds and because of similarity to Measure for Measure. Moments of antipuritan satire do not help in determining a specific date.

SOURCES: Main plot derived from Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron (Italian, fourteenth century) by way of William Painter’s English translation, The Palace of Pleasure (1566); Countess and Lafew are Shakespeare’s invention, as is Parolles, who is in the tradition of the braggart soldier of classical comedy—a character type of which the greatest Elizabethan examples were Falstaff in Henry IV and Captain Bobadil in Ben Jonson’s Every Man in his Humour.

TEXT: First Folio of 1623 is only early printed text. Many features such as misassigned speeches, repeated speech headings, inconsistent naming, and probably misplaced lines suggest that the manuscript was not neatly prepared and that it caused confusion to the printers. Apparent authorial first thoughts suggest influence of Shakespeare’s working manuscript, while music cues suggest that of the theatrical promptbook. Of the many textual problems, the most frustrating concerns the two lords/brothers Dumaine: they have several different designations, variants on “1 Lord G.” and “2 Lord E.,” “French E.” and “French G.,” “Captain G.” and “Captain E.” The initials are sometimes supposed to refer to actors’ names. Shakespeare sometimes seems to forget whether “G.” is “1” and “E.” is “2” or vice versa. This means, for instance, that there is confusion over which brother leads the ambush of Parolles and which accompanies Bertram as he sets off to seduce Diana. We have adopted a solution that is dramatically consistent while requiring only minimal alteration of Folio’s speech ascriptions.

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ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

BERTRAM, Count of Rossillion

COUNTESS of Rossillion, his mother

HELEN* (occasionally known as Helena), an orphan in the protection of the countess

REYNALDO, steward to the countess

LAVATCH, clown in the countess’ household

PAROLLES, a boastful follower of Bertram

KING of France

LAFEW, an old French lord

GENTLEMEN of the French court, including an Astringer

FIRST SOLDIER, who plays role of interpreter

DUKE of Florence

WIDOW, Capilet of Florence

DIANA, her daughter

MARIANA, her friend

LORDS, Attendants including a Page, Soldiers, people of Florence

Act 1 Scene 1^1.1

running scene 1

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       Enter young Bertram, [the] Count of Rossillion, his mother [the Countess], and Helena, Lord Lafew, all in black

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     In delivering¹ my son from me, I bury a second husband.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     And I in going, madam, weep o’er my father’s death anew; but I must attend³ his majesty’s command, to whom I am now in ward, evermore in subjection.⁴

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     You shall find of⁵ the king a husband, madam, you, sir, a father. He that so generally⁶ is at all times good must of necessity hold his virtue to you, whose worthiness would stir⁷ it up where it wanted rather than lack it where there is such abundance.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     What hope is there of his majesty’s amendment?⁹

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     He hath abandoned his physicians, madam, under whose practices¹⁰ he hath persecuted time¹¹ with hope, and finds no other advantage in the process but only the losing of hope by time.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     This young gentlewoman had a father — O, that ‘had’! How sad a passage¹⁴ ’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. Would¹⁶ for the king’s sake he were living! I think it would be the death of the king’s disease.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     How called you the man you speak of, madam?

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his great right to be so: Gerard de Narbon.²⁰

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     He was excellent indeed, madam. The king very lately spoke of him admiringly and mourningly: he was skilful enough to have lived still,²² if knowledge could be set up against mortality.

       

BERTRAM

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

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     A fistula,²⁵ my lord.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     I heard not of it before.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     I would it were not notorious.²⁷ Was this gentlewoman the daughter of Gerard de Narbon?

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     His sole child, my lord, and bequeathed to my overlooking.²⁹ I have those hopes³⁰ of her good that her education promises her dispositions she inherits, which makes fair gifts fairer. For where an unclean³¹ mind carries virtuous qualities, there commendations go with pity,³² they are virtues and traitors too. In her they are the better for their simpleness;³³ she derives her honesty and achieves her goodness.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Your commendations, madam, get from her tears.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     ’Tis the best brine a maiden can season³⁵ her praise in. The remembrance of her father never approaches her heart but the tyranny of her sorrows takes all livelihood³⁷ from her cheek. No more of this, Helena. Go to, no more, lest it be rather thought you affect³⁸ a sorrow than to have.

       

HELEN

HELEN     I do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have it too.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Moderate lamentation is the right of⁴⁰ the dead, excessive grief the enemy to the living.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     If⁴² the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Madam, I desire your holy⁴³ wishes.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     How⁴⁴ understand we that?

45

45   

COUNTESS

COUNTESS           Be thou blest, Bertram, and succeed thy father

               In manners⁴⁶ as in shape. Thy blood and virtue

               Contend for empire⁴⁷ in thee, and thy goodness

               Share with thy birthright.⁴⁸ Love all, trust a few,

               Do wrong to none. Be able⁴⁹ for thine enemy

50

50           Rather in power⁵⁰ than use, and keep thy friend

               Under thy own life’s key. Be checked⁵¹ for silence,

               But never taxed⁵² for speech. What heaven more will,

               That thee may furnish and my prayers pluck⁵³ down,

               Fall on thy head! Farewell.— My lord, To Lafew

55

55           ’Tis an unseasoned⁵⁵ courtier. Good my lord,

               Advise him.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     He cannot want⁵⁷ the best

               That shall attend his love.⁵⁸

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Heaven bless him.— Farewell, Bertram.

       [Exit]

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     The best wishes that can be forged⁶⁰ in your thoughts be servants to you! To Helen Be comfortable⁶¹ to my mother, your mistress, and make much of her.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Farewell, pretty lady. You must hold⁶² the credit of your father.

       [Exeunt Bertram and Lafew]

       

HELEN

HELEN     O, were that all! I think not on my father,

               And these⁶⁴ great tears grace his remembrance more

65

65           Than those I shed for him. What was he like?

               I have forgot him. My imagination

               Carries no favour⁶⁷ in’t but Bertram’s.

               I am undone.⁶⁸ There is no living, none,

               If Bertram be away. ’Twere⁶⁹ all one

70

70           That I should love a bright particular star

               And think to wed it, he is so above me.

               In his bright radiance and collateral⁷² light

               Must I be comforted, not in his sphere;⁷³

               Th’ambition in my love thus plagues itself:

75

75           The hind⁷⁵ that would be mated by the lion

               Must die for love. ’Twas pretty,⁷⁶ though a plague,

               To see him every hour, to sit and draw

               His archèd brows, his hawking⁷⁸ eye, his curls

               In our heart’s table⁷⁹ — heart too capable

80

80           Of every line and trick⁸⁰ of his sweet favour:

               But now he’s gone, and my idolatrous fancy⁸¹

               Must sanctify his relics.⁸² Who comes here?

       Enter Parolles

               One that goes with him: I love him for his⁸³ sake, Aside

               And yet I know him a notorious liar,

85

85           Think him a great way⁸⁵ fool, solely a coward.

               Yet these fixed⁸⁶ evils sit so fit in him

               That they take place⁸⁷ when virtue’s steely bones

               Looks⁸⁸ bleak i’th’cold wind. Withal, full oft we see

               Cold wisdom waiting on⁸⁹ superfluous folly.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Save⁹⁰ you, fair queen!

       

HELEN

HELEN     And you, monarch!

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     No.

       

HELEN

HELEN     And no.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Are you meditating on virginity?

       

HELEN

HELEN     Ay. You have some stain⁹⁵ of soldier in you. Let me ask you a question. Man is enemy to virginity: how may we barricado⁹⁶ it against him?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Keep⁹⁷ him out.

       

HELEN

HELEN     But he assails, and our virginity, though valiant, in the defence yet is weak. Unfold⁹⁹ to us some warlike resistance.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     There is none. Man setting¹⁰⁰ down before you will undermine you and blow you up.

       

HELEN

HELEN     Bless¹⁰² our poor virginity from underminers and blowers up! Is there no military policy¹⁰³ how virgins might blow up men?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Virginity being blown down, man will quicklier be blown up.¹⁰⁴ Marry, in blowing him down¹⁰⁵ again, with the breach yourselves made, you lose your city. It is not politic¹⁰⁶ in the commonwealth of nature to preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational increase,¹⁰⁷ and there was never virgin got till virginity was first lost. That¹⁰⁸ you were made of is mettle to make virgins. Virginity by being once lost may be ten times found.¹⁰⁹ By being ever kept, it is ever lost. ’Tis too cold a companion. Away with’t!

       

HELEN

HELEN     I will stand for’t¹¹¹ a little, though therefore I die a virgin.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     There’s little can be said in’t,¹¹² ’tis against the rule of nature. To speak on the part¹¹³ of virginity is to accuse your mothers, which is most infallible disobedience. He¹¹⁴ that hangs himself is a virgin: virginity murders itself and should be buried in highways¹¹⁵ out of all sanctified limit, as a desperate offendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites, much like a cheese, consumes itself to the very paring,¹¹⁷ and so dies with feeding his own stomach. Besides, virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made of self-love, which is the most inhibited¹¹⁸ sin in the canon. Keep it not, you cannot choose but lose¹¹⁹ by’t. Out with’t! Within ten year it will make itself two, which is a goodly increase, and the principal¹²⁰ itself not much the worse. Away with’t!

       

HELEN

HELEN     How¹²² might one do, sir, to lose it to her own liking?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Let me see. Marry, ill, to like him that ne’er it¹²³ likes. ’Tis a commodity will lose the gloss¹²⁴ with lying: the longer kept, the less worth. Off with’t while ’tis vendible.¹²⁵ Answer the time of request. Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of fashion: richly suited¹²⁶ but unsuitable, just like the brooch and the toothpick, which wear not¹²⁷ 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:¹²⁹ it looks ill, it eats dryly. Marry, ’tis a withered pear: it was formerly better: marry, yet ’tis a withered pear. Will you anything with it?

       

HELEN

HELEN     Not my virginity yet —

               There¹³² shall your master have a thousand loves,

               A mother¹³³ and a mistress and a friend,

               A phoenix,¹³⁴ captain and an enemy,

135

135         A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign,

               A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear.

               His humble ambition, proud humility,

               His jarring concord,¹³⁸ and his discord dulcet,

               His faith, his sweet disaster.¹³⁹ With a world

140

140         Of pretty, fond,¹⁴⁰ adoptious christendoms

               That blinking¹⁴¹ Cupid gossips. Now shall he —

               I know not what he shall. God send him well!¹⁴²

               The court’s a learning place, and he is one—

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     What one, i’faith?

145

145 

HELEN

HELEN             That I wish well. ’Tis pity—

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     What’s pity?

       

HELEN

HELEN     That wishing well had not a body¹⁴⁷ in’t,

               Which might be felt, that we, the poorer born,

               Whose baser stars¹⁴⁹ do shut us up in wishes,

150

150         Might with effects of them¹⁵⁰ follow our friends,

               And show what we alone must think,¹⁵¹ which never

               Returns us thanks.¹⁵²

       Enter Page

       

PAGE

PAGE     Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.

       [Exit]

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Little Helen, farewell. If I can remember thee, I will think of thee at court.

       

HELEN

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

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Under Mars,¹⁵⁶ ay.

       

HELEN

HELEN     I especially think, under Mars.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Why under Mars?

       

HELEN

HELEN     The wars hath so kept you under¹⁵⁹ that you must needs be born under Mars.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     When he was predominant.¹⁶⁰

       

HELEN

HELEN     When he was retrograde,¹⁶¹ I think rather.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Why think you so?

       

HELEN

HELEN     You go so much backward¹⁶³ when you fight.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     That’s for advantage.¹⁶⁴

       

HELEN

HELEN     So is running away, when fear proposes the safety. But the composition¹⁶⁵ that your valour and fear makes in you is a virtue of a good wing,¹⁶⁶ and I like the wear¹⁶⁷ well.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     I am so full of businesses, I cannot answer thee acutely. I will return perfect¹⁶⁹ courtier in the which, my instruction shall serve to naturalize thee, so thou wilt be capable of¹⁷⁰ a courtier’s counsel and understand what advice shall thrust¹⁷¹ upon thee. Else thou diest in thine unthankfulness, and thine ignorance makes thee away.¹⁷² Farewell. When thou hast leisure, say thy prayers. When thou hast none, remember thy friends. Get thee a good husband, and use¹⁷³ him as he uses thee. So, farewell.

       [Exit]

175

175 

HELEN

HELEN             Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,

               Which we ascribe to heaven. The fated¹⁷⁶ sky

               Gives us free scope, only doth backward pull

               Our slow designs¹⁷⁸ when we ourselves are dull.

               What power is it which mounts my love so high,

180

180         That makes me see, and cannot feed¹⁸⁰ mine eye?

               The¹⁸¹ mightiest space in fortune nature brings

               To join like likes¹⁸² and kiss like native things.

               Impossible be strange attempts¹⁸³ to those

               That weigh¹⁸⁴ their pains in sense and do suppose

185

185         What hath been cannot be. Who ever strove

               To show her merit that did miss¹⁸⁶ her love?

               The king’s disease — my project may deceive me,

               But my intents are fixed and will not leave me.

       Exit

[Act 1 Scene 2]^1.2

running scene 2

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       Flourish cornets. Enter the King of France, with letters, and divers Attendants

       

KING

KING     The Florentines¹ and Senoys are by th’ears,

               Have fought with equal fortune and continue

               A braving³ war.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     So ’tis reported, sir.

5

5     

KING

KING           Nay, ’tis most credible. We here receive it

               A certainty, vouched from our cousin⁶ Austria,

               With caution that the Florentine will move⁷ us

               For speedy aid, wherein our dearest friend⁸

               Prejudicates⁹ the business and would seem

10

10           To have us make denial.¹⁰

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     His love and wisdom,

               Approved¹² so to your majesty, may plead

               For amplest credence.¹³

       

KING

KING     He hath armed¹⁴ our answer,

15

15           And Florence¹⁵ is denied before he comes:

               Yet, for¹⁶ our gentlemen that mean to see

               The Tuscan service,¹⁷ freely have they leave

               To stand¹⁸ on either part.

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     It well may serve

20

20           A nursery²⁰ to our gentry, who are sick

               For breathing and exploit.²¹

       

KING

KING     What’s he comes here?

       Enter Bertram, Lafew and Parolles

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     It is the Count Rossillion, my good lord,

               Young Bertram.

25

25   

KING

KING           Youth, thou bear’st thy father’s face. To Bertram

               Frank²⁶ nature, rather curious than in haste,

               Hath well composed thee. Thy father’s moral parts²⁷

               Mayst thou inherit too! Welcome to Paris.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     My thanks and duty are your majesty’s.

30

30   

KING

KING           I would I had that corporal soundness³⁰ now,

               As when thy father and myself in friendship

               First tried³² our soldiership. He did look far

               Into the service of the time and was³³

               Discipled of the bravest.³⁴ He lasted long,

35

35           But on us both did haggish³⁵ age steal on

               And wore us out of act.³⁶ It much repairs me

               To talk of your good father; in his youth

               He had the wit which I can well observe

               Today in our young lords. But they may jest

40

40           Till their own scorn⁴⁰ return to them unnoted

               Ere⁴¹ they can hide their levity in honour.

               So like a courtier, contempt⁴² nor bitterness

               Were in his pride or sharpness; if they were,

               His equal⁴⁴ had awaked them, and his honour,

45

45           Clock to itself,⁴⁵ knew the true minute when

               Exception⁴⁶ bid him speak, and at this time

               His tongue obeyed his hand.⁴⁷ Who were below him

               He used⁴⁸ as creatures of another place

               And bowed his eminent top⁴⁹ to their low ranks,

50

50           Making them proud of his humility,

               In their poor praise he humbled.⁵¹ Such a man

               Might be a copy⁵² to these younger times;

               Which, followed well, would demonstrate them⁵³ now

               But goers backward.

55

55   

BERTRAM

BERTRAM           His good remembrance, sir,

               Lies richer in your thoughts than on his tomb,

               So⁵⁷ in approof lives not his epitaph

               As in your royal speech.

       

KING

KING     Would I were with him! He would always say —

60

60           Methinks I hear him now. His plausive⁶⁰ words

               He scattered not⁶¹ in ears, but grafted them,

               To grow there and to bear⁶² — ‘Let me not live’ —

               This his good melancholy oft began

               On⁶⁴ the catastrophe and heel of pastime,

65

65           When it was out⁶⁵ — ‘Let me not live,’ quoth he,

               ‘After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff⁶⁶

               Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive⁶⁷ senses

               All but new things disdain; whose judgements are

               Mere⁶⁹ fathers of their garments, whose constancies

70

70           Expire before their fashions.’ This he wished.

               I,⁷¹ after him, do after him wish too,

               Since I nor⁷² wax nor honey can bring home,

               I quickly were⁷³ dissolvèd from my hive

               To give some labourers⁷⁴ room.

75

75   

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD           You’re loved, sir.

               They that least lend⁷⁶ it you shall lack you first.

       

KING

KING     I fill a place, I know’t. How long is’t, count,

               Since the physician at your father’s died?

               He was much famed.

80

80   

BERTRAM

BERTRAM           Some six months since, my lord.

       

KING

KING     If he were living, I would try him yet.

               Lend me an arm: the rest⁸² have worn me out

               With several⁸³ applications. Nature and sickness

               Debate⁸⁴ it at their leisure. Welcome, count.

85

85           My son’s no dearer.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Thank your majesty.

       Exeunt. Flourish

[Act 1 Scene 3]^1.3

running scene 3

---

       Enter Countess, Steward [Reynaldo] and Clown [Lavatch]

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     I will now hear; what say you of this gentlewoman?¹

       

REYNALDO

REYNALDO     Madam, the care I have had to even your content,² I wish might be found in the calendar³ of my past endeavours, for then we wound our modesty, and make foul the clearness⁴ of our deservings, when of ourselves we publish them.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     What does this knave here? Get you gone, sirrah.⁵ 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.

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     ’Tis not unknown to you, madam, I am a poor⁹ fellow.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Well,¹⁰ sir.

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     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 go¹² to the world, Isbel the woman¹³ and I will do as we may.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Wilt thou needs¹⁴ be a beggar?

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     I do beg your good will in this case.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     In what case?

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     In Isbel’s case¹⁷ and mine own. Service is no heritage: and I think I shall never have the blessing of God till I have issue¹⁸ o’ my body, for they say bairns are blessings.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry.

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     My poor body, madam, requires it. I am driven on by the flesh, and he must needs go²² that the devil drives.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Is this all your worship’s²³ reason?

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     Faith, madam, I have other holy²⁴ reasons, such as they are.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     May the world²⁵ know them?

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     I have been, madam, a wicked creature, as you and all flesh and blood are, and indeed I do marry that I may repent.²⁷

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Thy marriage, sooner than thy wickedness.

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     I am out o’ friends, madam, and I hope to have friends for²⁹ my wife’s sake.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Such friends are thine enemies, knave.

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     You’re shallow,³¹ madam, in great friends, for the knaves come to do that for me which I am aweary of. He that ears³² my land spares my team and gives me leave to in³³ the crop. If I be his cuckold, he’s my drudge; he that comforts my wife is the cherisher³⁴ 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: ergo,³⁵ he that kisses my wife is my friend. If men could be contented to be what they are,³⁶ there were no fear in marriage, for young Charbon the Puritan³⁷ and old Poysam the Papist, howsome’er³⁸ their hearts are severed in religion, their heads are both one. They may jowl³⁹ horns together, like any deer i’th’herd.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Wilt thou ever⁴⁰ be a foul-mouthed and calumnious knave?

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     A prophet I, madam, and I speak the truth the next⁴¹ way.

                                    For I the ballad will repeat, Sings

                                    Which men full true shall find:

                                    Your marriage comes by destiny,

45

                                    Your cuckoo sings by kind.⁴⁵

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Get you gone, sir. I’ll talk with you more anon.⁴⁶

       

REYNALDO

REYNALDO     May it please you, madam, that he bid Helen come to you: of her I am to speak.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Sirrah, tell my gentlewoman I would speak with her — To Lavatch Helen, I mean.

50

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     Was this fair face⁵⁰ the cause,’ quoth she, Sings

                                    ‘Why the Grecians sackèd⁵¹ Troy?

                                    Fond⁵² done, done fond,

                                    Was this King Priam’s⁵³ joy?’

                                    With that she sighèd as she stood,

55

                                    With that she sighèd as she stood,

                                    And gave this sentence⁵⁶ then:

                                    ‘Among⁵⁷ nine bad if one be good,

                                    Among nine bad if one be good,

                                    There’s yet one good in ten.’

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     What, one good in ten? You corrupt the song,⁶⁰ sirrah.

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     One good woman in ten, madam; which is a purifying⁶¹ o’th’song. Would God would serve the world⁶² so all the year! We’d find no fault with the tithe-woman,⁶³ if I were the parson. One in ten, quoth a? An we might have a good woman born but⁶⁴ ere every blazing star, or at an earthquake, ’twould mend the lottery well. A man may draw⁶⁵ his heart out ere a pluck one.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     You’ll be gone, sir knave, and do as I command you?

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     That⁶⁷ man should be at woman’s command, and yet no hurt done! Though honesty⁶⁸ 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.⁶⁹ The business is for Helen to come hither.

       Exit

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Well, now.

       

REYNALDO

REYNALDO     I know, madam, you love your gentlewoman entirely.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Faith, I do. Her father bequeathed⁷³ her to me, and she herself, without other advantage,⁷⁴ 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.

       

REYNALDO

REYNALDO     Madam, I was very late⁷⁶ 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.⁷⁸ Her matter was, she loved your son. Fortune, she said, was no goddess, that had put such difference betwixt their two estates.⁸⁰ Love no god, that would not extend his might only where qualities⁸¹ were level. Dian no queen of virgins, that would suffer her poor knight surprised⁸² without rescue in the first assault or ransom afterward. This she delivered in the most bitter touch⁸³ of sorrow that e’er I heard virgin exclaim in, which I held my duty speedily to acquaint you withal,⁸⁴ sithence, in the loss⁸⁵ that may happen, it concerns you something to know it.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     You have discharged⁸⁶ this honestly. Keep it to yourself. Many likelihoods informed me of this before, which hung so tott’ring in the balance that I could neither believe nor misdoubt.⁸⁸ Pray you leave me. Stall this in your bosom, and I thank you for your honest care. I will speak with you further anon.

       Exit Steward [Reynaldo]

       Enter Helen

               Even so it was with me when I was young. Aside

               If ever we are nature’s, these⁹² are ours. This thorn

               Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong.

               Our blood⁹⁴ to us, this to our blood is born:

95

95           It is the show⁹⁵ and seal of nature’s truth,

               Where love’s strong passion is impressed⁹⁶ in youth.

               By our remembrances of days foregone,

               Such were our faults, or⁹⁸ then we thought them none.

               Her eye is sick on’t. I observe⁹⁹ her now.

100

100 

HELEN

HELEN             What is your pleasure, madam?

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     You know, Helen, I am a mother to you.

       

HELEN

HELEN     Mine honourable mistress.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Nay, a mother. Why not a mother? When I said ‘a mother,’

               Methought¹⁰⁴ you saw a serpent. What’s in ‘mother’

105

105         That you start¹⁰⁵ at it? I say I am your mother,

               And put you in the catalogue of those

               That were enwombèd mine.¹⁰⁷ ’Tis often seen

               Adoption¹⁰⁸ strives with nature, and choice breeds

               A native slip to us from foreign seeds.

110

110         You ne’er oppressed me with a mother’s groan,¹¹⁰

               Yet I express to you a mother’s care.

               God’s mercy, maiden! Does it curd¹¹² thy blood

               To say I am thy mother? What’s the matter,

               That this distempered¹¹⁴ messenger of wet,

115

115         The many-coloured Iris,¹¹⁵ rounds thine eye?

               — Why? That you are my daughter?

       

HELEN

HELEN     That I am not.¹¹⁷

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     I say I am your mother.

       

HELEN

HELEN     Pardon, madam.

120

120         The Count Rossillion cannot be my brother:

               I am from humble, he from honoured name,

               No note¹²² upon my parents, his all noble.

               My master, my dear lord he is, and I

               His servant live, and will his vassal¹²⁴ die.

125

125         He must not be my brother.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Nor I your mother.

       

HELEN

HELEN     You are my mother, madam, would you were —

               So¹²⁸ that my lord your son were not my brother —

               Indeed my mother! Or were you both our mothers,¹²⁹

130

130         I care no¹³⁰ more for than I do for heaven,

               So I were not his sister. Can’t no other¹³¹

               But, I your daughter, he must be my brother?

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Yes, Helen, you might be my daughter-in-law.

               God shield¹³⁴ you mean it not! Daughter and mother

135

135         So strive upon your pulse. What, pale again?

               My fear hath catched¹³⁶ your fondness. Now I see

               The mystery of your loveliness,¹³⁷ and find

               Your salt tears’ head.¹³⁸ Now to all sense ’tis gross:

               You love my son. Invention¹³⁹ is ashamed

140

140         Against¹⁴⁰ 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, t’one to th’other, and thine eyes

               See it so grossly shown in thy behaviours

145

145         That in their kind¹⁴⁵ they speak it. Only sin

               And hellish obstinacy tie thy tongue,

               That¹⁴⁷ truth should be suspected. Speak, is’t so?

               If it be so, you have wound a goodly clew.¹⁴⁸

               If it be not, forswear’t:¹⁴⁹ howe’er, I charge thee,

150

150         As heaven shall work in me for thine avail,¹⁵⁰

               To tell me truly.

       

HELEN

HELEN     Good madam, pardon me.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Do you love my son?

       

HELEN

HELEN     Your pardon, noble mistress.

155

155 

COUNTESS

COUNTESS             Love you my son?

       

HELEN

HELEN     Do not you love him, madam?

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Go not about;¹⁵⁷ my love hath in’t a bond

               Whereof the world takes note.¹⁵⁸ Come, come, disclose

               The state of your affection, for your passions

160

160         Have to the full appeached.¹⁶⁰

       

HELEN

HELEN     Then I confess, Kneels

               Here on my knee, before high heaven and you,

               That before¹⁶³ you, and next unto high heaven,

               I love your son.

165

165         My friends¹⁶⁵ were poor but honest, so’s my love.

               Be not offended, for it hurts not him

               That he is loved of me; I follow him not

               By any token¹⁶⁸ of presumptuous suit,

               Nor would I have him till I do deserve him,

170

170         Yet never know how that desert should be.

               I know I love in vain, strive against hope.

               Yet in this captious¹⁷² and intenible sieve

               I still¹⁷³ pour in the waters of my love

               And lack¹⁷⁴ not to lose still; thus, Indian-like,

175

175         Religious¹⁷⁵ in mine error, I adore

               The sun that looks upon his worshipper

               But knows of him no more.¹⁷⁷ My dearest madam,

               Let not your hate encounter with¹⁷⁸ my love,

               For loving where you do; but if yourself,

180

180         Whose agèd honour cites¹⁸⁰ a virtuous youth,

               Did ever in so true a flame of liking

               Wish chastely and love dearly, that your Dian

               Was both herself¹⁸³ and love — O, then, give pity

               To her whose state is such that cannot choose

185

185         But lend¹⁸⁵ and give where she is sure to lose;

               That¹⁸⁶ seeks not to find that her search implies,

               But riddle-like lives¹⁸⁷ sweetly where she dies.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Had you not lately an intent — speak truly —

               To go to Paris?

190

190 

HELEN

HELEN             Madam, I had.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Wherefore?¹⁹¹ Tell true.

       

HELEN

HELEN     I will tell truth, by grace¹⁹² itself I swear.

               You know my father left me some prescriptions¹⁹³

               Of rare and proved effects, such as his reading

195

195         And manifest¹⁹⁵ experience had collected

               For general sovereignty,¹⁹⁶ and that he willed me

               In¹⁹⁷ heedfull’st reservation to bestow them,

               As notes¹⁹⁸ whose faculties inclusive were

               More than they were in note.¹⁹⁹ Amongst the rest,

200

200         There is a remedy, approved,²⁰⁰ set down,

               To cure the desp’rate²⁰¹ languishings whereof

               The king is rendered lost.²⁰²

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     This was your motive for Paris, was it? Speak.

       

HELEN

HELEN     My lord your son made me to think of this;

205

205         Else Paris and the medicine and the king

               Had from the conversation²⁰⁶ of my thoughts

               Haply²⁰⁷ been absent then.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     But think you, Helen,

               If you should tender²⁰⁹ your supposèd aid,

210

               He would receive it? He and his physicians

               Are of a mind.²¹¹ He, that they cannot help him,

               They, that they cannot help. How shall they credit²¹²

               A poor unlearnèd virgin, when the schools,²¹³

               Embowelled²¹⁴ of their doctrine, have left off

215

215         The danger to itself?

       

HELEN

HELEN     There’s something in’t

               More than my father’s skill, which was the great’st

               Of his profession, that his good receipt²¹⁸

               Shall for my legacy be sanctified²¹⁹

220

220         By th’luckiest stars in heaven, and would your honour

               But give me leave to try success,²²¹ I’d venture

               The well-lost²²² life of mine on his grace’s cure

               By such a²²³ day and hour.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Dost thou believe’t?

225

225 

HELEN

HELEN             Ay, madam, knowingly.²²⁵

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Why, Helen, thou shalt have my leave²²⁶ and love,

               Means and attendants and my loving greetings

               To those of mine in court. I’ll stay at home

               And pray God’s blessing into²²⁹ thy attempt.

230

230         Be gone tomorrow. And be sure of this:

               What I can help thee to thou shalt not miss.²³¹

       Exeunt

Act 2 [Scene 1]^2.1

running scene 4

---

       Enter the King [carried in a chair] with divers young Lords taking leave for the Florentine war, Count Rossillion [Bertram] and Parolles. Flourish cornets

       

KING

KING     Farewell, young lords. These warlike principles¹

               Do not throw from you.² And you, my lords, farewell.

               Share the advice betwixt you. If both gain, all

               The gift⁴ doth stretch itself as ’tis received,

5

5             And is enough for both.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     ’Tis our hope, sir,

               After well-entered⁷ soldiers, to return

               And find your grace in health.

       

KING

KING     No, no, it cannot be; and yet my heart

10

10           Will not confess he owes¹⁰ the malady

               That doth my life besiege. Farewell, young lords.

               Whether I live or die, be you the sons

               Of worthy Frenchmen. Let higher Italy¹³ —

               Those¹⁴ bated that inherit but the fall

15

15           Of the last monarchy — see that you come

               Not to woo¹⁶ honour, but to wed it, when

               The bravest questant¹⁷ shrinks. Find what you seek,

               That fame may cry¹⁸ you loud. I say, farewell.

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     Health at your bidding serve your majesty!

20

20   

KING

KING           Those girls of Italy, take heed of them:

               They say our French lack²¹ language to deny

               If they demand. Beware of being captives²²

               Before you serve.²³

       

BOTH

BOTH     Our hearts receive your warnings.

25

25   

KING

KING           Farewell.— Come hither to me. King steps aside with some lords

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     O, my sweet lord, that you will stay behind us! To Bertram

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     ’Tis not his fault, the spark.²⁷

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     O, ’tis brave²⁸ wars!

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Most admirable. I have seen those wars.

30

30   

BERTRAM

BERTRAM           I am commanded here,³⁰ and kept a coil with

               ‘Too young’ and ‘the next year’ and “tis too early’.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     An thy mind stand to’t, boy, steal away bravely.³²

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     I shall stay here the forehorse³³ to a smock,

               Creaking my shoes on the plain masonry,³⁴

35

35           Till honour be bought up³⁵ and no sword worn

               But one³⁶ to dance with. By heaven, I’ll steal away.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     There’s honour in the theft.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Commit it, count.

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     I am your accessary, and so farewell.

40

40   

BERTRAM

BERTRAM           I grow to⁴⁰ you, and our parting is a tortured body.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     Farewell, captain.

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     Sweet Monsieur Parolles!

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Noble heroes, my sword and yours are kin. Good sparks and lustrous, a word,⁴³ good metals.⁴⁴ You shall find in the regiment of the Spinii one Captain Spurio,⁴⁵ with his cicatrice, an emblem of war, here on his sinister cheek; it was this very sword entrenched⁴⁶ it. Say to him I live, and observe his reports for me.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     We shall, noble captain.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Mars⁴⁸ dote on you for his novices!—

       [Exeunt Lords]

               What will ye do? To Bertram

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Stay⁵⁰ the king. Bertram and Parolles stand aside

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Use a more spacious ceremony⁵¹ to the noble lords. To Bertram You have restrained yourself within the list⁵² of too cold an adieu. Be more expressive to them, for they wear⁵³ themselves in the cap of the time, there do muster true gait, eat, speak, and move under the influence of the most received⁵⁴ star. And though the devil lead the measure,⁵⁵ such are to be followed. After them, and take a more dilated farewell.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     And I will do so.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Worthy fellows, and like⁵⁷ to prove most sinewy sword-men. The King comes forward

       Exeunt [Bertram and Parolles]

       Enter Lafew

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Pardon, my lord, for me and for my tidings.⁵⁸ Kneels

       

KING

KING     I’ll fee⁵⁹ thee to stand up.

60

60   

LAFEW

LAFEW           Then here’s a man stands that has brought his pardon.⁶⁰ Rises

               I would you had kneeled, my lord, to ask me mercy,

               And that at my bidding you could so stand up.

       

KING

KING     I would I had, so I had broke thy pate,⁶³

               And asked thee mercy for’t.

65

65   

LAFEW

LAFEW           Good faith, across.⁶⁵ But, my good lord, ’tis thus:

               Will you be cured of your infirmity?

       

KING

KING     No.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     O, will⁶⁸ you eat no grapes, my royal fox?

               Yes, but you will⁶⁹ my noble grapes, an if

70

70           My royal fox could reach them. I have seen a medicine⁷⁰

               That’s able to breathe life into a stone,

               Quicken⁷² a rock, and make you dance canary

               With sprightly fire and motion, whose simple⁷³ touch,

               Is powerful to araise⁷⁴ King Pippin, nay,

75

75           To give great Charlemain a pen⁷⁵ in’s hand

               And write to her a love-line.

       

KING

KING     What ‘her’ is this?

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Why, Doctor She: my lord, there’s one arrived,

               If you will see her. Now, by my faith and honour,

80

80           If seriously I may convey my thoughts

               In this my light⁸¹ deliverance, I have spoke

               With one that, in her sex, her years, profession,⁸²

               Wisdom and constancy, hath amazed me more

               Than I dare blame⁸⁴ my weakness. Will you see her,

85

85           For that is her demand, and know her business?

               That done, laugh well at me.

       

KING

KING     Now, good Lafew,

               Bring in the admiration⁸⁸ that we with thee

               May spend⁸⁹ our wonder too, or take off thine

90

90           By wondering how thou took’st⁹⁰ it.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Nay, I’ll fit⁹¹ you,

               And not be all day neither.

       

KING

KING     Thus he his special nothing⁹³ ever prologues. Lafew goes to the door or exits and re-enters

       Enter Helen

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Nay, come your ways.⁹⁴ To Helen

95

95   

KING

KING           This haste hath wings indeed.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Nay, come your ways.

               This is his majesty, say your mind to him.

               A traitor you do look like, but such traitors

               His majesty seldom fears. I am Cressid’s uncle,⁹⁹

100

100         That dare leave two together. Fare you well.

       Exit

       

KING

KING     Now, fair one, does your business follow¹⁰¹ us?

       

HELEN

HELEN     Ay, my good lord.

               Gerard de Narbon was my father,

               In what he did profess,¹⁰⁴ well found.

105

105 

KING

KING             I knew him.

       

HELEN

HELEN     The rather will I spare my praises towards him.

               Knowing him is enough. On’s bed of death

               Many receipts¹⁰⁸ he gave me, chiefly one

               Which, as the dearest issue¹⁰⁹ of his practice,

110

110         And of his old experience th’only¹¹⁰ darling,

               He bade me store up, as a triple¹¹¹ eye,

               Safer¹¹² than mine own two. More dear I have so,

               And hearing your high majesty is touched

               With that malignant cause¹¹⁴ wherein the honour

115

               Of my dear father’s gift stands chief in power,

               I come to tender¹¹⁶ it and my appliance

               With all bound¹¹⁷ humbleness.

       

KING

KING     We thank you, maiden,

               But may not be so credulous¹¹⁹ of cure,

120

120         When our most learnèd doctors leave us, and

               The congregated college¹²¹ have concluded

               That labouring art¹²² can never ransom nature

               From her inaidible¹²³ estate. I say we must not

               So stain our judgement, or corrupt our hope,

125

125         To prostitute¹²⁵ our past-cure malady

               To empirics,¹²⁶ or to dissever so

               Our great self¹²⁷ and our credit, to esteem

               A senseless¹²⁸ help when help past sense we deem.

       

HELEN

HELEN     My duty¹²⁹ then shall pay me for my pains:

130

130         I will no more enforce mine office¹³⁰ on you,

               Humbly entreating from your royal thoughts

               A modest one¹³² to bear me back again.

       

KING

KING     I cannot give thee less, to¹³³ be called grateful.

               Thou thought’st to help me, and such thanks I give

135

135         As one near death to those that wish him live.

               But what at full¹³⁶ I know, thou know’st no part,

               I knowing all my peril, thou no art.¹³⁷

       

HELEN

HELEN     What I can do can do no hurt to try,

               Since you set¹³⁹ up your rest gainst remedy.

140

140         He¹⁴⁰ that of greatest works is finisher

               Oft does them by the weakest minister:

               So holy writ¹⁴² in babes hath judgement shown,

               When judges have been babes; great¹⁴³ floods have flown

               From simple¹⁴⁴ sources, and great seas have dried

145

145         When miracles have by the great’st¹⁴⁵ been denied.

               Oft expectation fails, and most oft there

               Where most it promises, and oft it hits¹⁴⁷

               Where hope is coldest and despair most shifts.¹⁴⁸

       

KING

KING     I must not hear thee. Fare thee well, kind maid.

150

150         Thy pains not used must by¹⁵⁰ thyself be paid:

               Proffers¹⁵¹ not took reap thanks for their reward.

       

HELEN

HELEN     Inspirèd¹⁵² merit so by breath is barred.

               It is not so with him that all things knows

               As ’tis with us that square¹⁵⁴ our guess by shows.

155

155         But most it is presumption in us when

               The help of heaven we count¹⁵⁶ the act of men.

               Dear sir, to my endeavours give consent.

               Of heaven, not me, make an experiment.¹⁵⁸

               I am not an impostor¹⁵⁹ that proclaim

160

160         Myself against the level of mine aim,

               But know I think, and think I know most sure,

               My art is not past power, nor you past cure.

       

KING

KING     Art thou so confident? Within what space¹⁶³

               Hop’st thou my cure?

165

165 

HELEN

HELEN             The greatest¹⁶⁵ grace lending grace

               Ere twice the horses of the sun shall bring

               Their fiery torcher¹⁶⁷ his diurnal ring,

               Ere twice in murk and occidental¹⁶⁸ damp

               Moist Hesperus¹⁶⁹ hath quenched her sleepy lamp,

170

170         Or four and twenty times the pilot’s glass¹⁷⁰

               Hath told the thievish minutes how they pass,

               What is infirm from your sound parts shall fly,

               Health shall live free and sickness freely die.

       

KING

KING     Upon thy certainty and confidence

175

175         What dar’st thou venture?¹⁷⁵

       

HELEN

HELEN     Tax¹⁷⁶ of impudence,

               A strumpet’s¹⁷⁷ boldness, a divulgèd shame

               Traduced¹⁷⁸ by odious ballads: my maiden’s name

               Seared¹⁷⁹ otherwise, nay, worse of worst, extended

180

180         With vilest torture, let my life be ended.

       

KING

KING     Methinks in thee some blessèd spirit doth speak

               His powerful sound within an organ weak:

               And what impossibility would slay¹⁸³

               In common sense,¹⁸⁴ sense saves another way.

185

185         Thy life is dear, for all that life can rate¹⁸⁵

               Worth name of life in thee hath estimate:¹⁸⁶

               Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, all

               That happiness and prime¹⁸⁸ can happy call.

               Thou¹⁸⁹ this to hazard needs must intimate

190

190         Skill infinite or monstrous desperate.¹⁹⁰

               Sweet practicer,¹⁹¹ thy physic I will try,

               That ministers¹⁹² thine own death if I die.

       

HELEN

HELEN     If I break time,¹⁹³ or flinch in property

               Of what I spoke, unpitied let me die,

195

195         And well deserved. Not¹⁹⁵ helping, death’s my fee.

               But if I help, what do you promise me?

       

KING

KING     Make thy demand.

       

HELEN

HELEN     But will you make it even?¹⁹⁸

       

KING

KING     Ay, by my sceptre and my hopes of heaven.

200

200 

HELEN

HELEN             Then shalt thou give me with thy kingly hand

               What²⁰¹ husband in thy power I will command:

               Exempted²⁰² be from me the arrogance

               To choose from forth the royal blood of France,

               My low and humble name to propagate

205

205         With any branch or image of thy state.

               But such a one, thy vassal, whom I know

               Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow.

       

KING

KING     Here is my hand. The premises observed,²⁰⁸

               Thy will by my performance²⁰⁹ shall be served.

210

210         So make the choice of²¹⁰ thy own time, for I,

               Thy resolved²¹¹ patient, on thee still rely.

               More should I question thee, and more I must —

               Though more to know could not be more to trust —

               From whence thou cam’st, how tended on.²¹⁴ But rest

215

215         Unquestioned²¹⁵ welcome and undoubted blest.—

               Give me some help here, ho!— If thou proceed

               As high as word,²¹⁷ my deed shall match thy deed.

       Flourish. Exeunt [the King is carried out]

[Act 2 Scene 2]^2.2

running scene 5

---

       Enter Countess and Clown [Lavatch]

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Come on, sir, I shall now put¹ you to the height of your breeding.

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     I will show myself highly fed² and lowly taught. I know my business is but to the court.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     To the court! Why, what place make you⁴ special, when you put off that with such contempt? But to the court!

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     Truly, madam, if God have lent a man any manners, he may easily put⁶ it off at court: he that cannot make a leg,⁷ put off’s cap, kiss his hand and say nothing, has neither leg, hands, lip, nor cap; and indeed such a fellow, to say precisely, were not for the court. But for me, I have an answer⁹ will serve all men.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Marry, that’s a bountiful answer that fits all questions.

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     It is like a barber’s chair that fits all buttocks: the pin-buttock,¹¹ the quatch-buttock, the brawn-buttock,¹² or any buttock.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Will your answer serve fit¹³ to all questions?

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     As fit as ten groats¹⁴ is for the hand of an attorney, as your French crown for your taffety punk,¹⁵ as Tib’s rush for Tom’s forefinger, as a pancake for Shrove Tuesday, a morris¹⁶ for May Day, as the nail to his hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding quean¹⁷ to a wrangling knave, as the nun’s lip to the friar’s mouth, nay, as the pudding¹⁸ to his skin.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Have you, I say, an answer of such fitness for all questions?

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     From below your duke to beneath your constable, it will fit any question.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     It must be an answer of most monstrous size that must fit all demands.

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     But a trifle neither,²² in good faith, if the learned should speak truth of it. Here it is, and all that belongs to’t. Ask me if I am a courtier, it shall do you no harm to learn.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     To be young again, if we could. I will be a fool in question,²⁵ hoping to be the wiser by your answer. I pray you, sir, are you a courtier?

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     O lord, sir! There’s a simple putting off.²⁷ More, more, a hundred of them.

       

COUNTESS

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

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     O lord, sir!²⁹ Thick, thick, spare not me.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     I think, sir, you can eat none of this homely meat.³⁰

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     O lord, sir! Nay, put me to’t, I warrant you.

       

COUNTESS

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

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     O lord, sir! Spare not me.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Do you cry, ‘O lord, sir!’ at your whipping, and ‘Spare not me’? Indeed your ‘O lord, sir!’ is very sequent³⁵ to your whipping: you would answer very well to a whipping, if you were but bound to’t.³⁶

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     I ne’er had worse luck in my life in my ‘O lord, sir!’ I see things may serve long, but not serve ever.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     I play the noble³⁹ housewife with the time

       To entertain it so merrily with a fool.

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     O lord, sir! Why, there’t serves well again.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     An end, sir. To your business. Give Helen this, Gives a letter

       And urge her to a present⁴³ answer back. Commend me to my kinsmen and my son. This is not much.

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     Not much commendation to them.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Not much employment for you. You understand me?

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     Most fruitfully.⁴⁷ I am there before my legs.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Haste you again.⁴⁸

       Exeunt [separately]

[Act 2 Scene 3]^2.3

running scene 6

---

       Enter Count [Bertram], Lafew and Parolles

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     They say miracles are past, and we have our philosophical persons¹ to make modern² and familiar, things supernatural and causeless. Hence is it that we make trifles of terrors, ensconcing ourselves into³ seeming knowledge when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear.⁴

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Why, ’tis the rarest⁵ argument of wonder that hath shot out in our latter times.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     And so ’tis.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     To be relinquished of⁸ the artists—

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     So I say, both of Galen⁹ and Paracelsus.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Of all the learnèd and authentic fellows¹⁰—

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Right, so I say.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     That gave him out¹² incurable—

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Why, there ’tis. So say I too.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Not to be helped —

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Right. As ’twere a man assured of a—

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Uncertain life and sure death.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Just,¹⁷ you say well. So would I have said.

       

LAFEW

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

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     It is, indeed: if you will have it in showing,¹⁹ you shall read it in— what-do-ye-call there? Points to the ballad Lafew holds

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     ‘A showing of a heavenly effect in an earthly actor.’ Reads

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     That’s it. I would have said the very same.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Why, your dolphin²³ is not lustier. ’Fore me, I speak in respect—

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Nay, ’tis strange, ’tis very strange. That is the brief²⁴ and the tedious of it, and he’s of a most facinerious²⁵ spirit that will not acknowledge it to be the—

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Very hand of heaven.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Ay, so I say.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     In a most weak—

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     And debile minister,²⁹ 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—

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Generally³² thankful.

       Enter King, Helen and Attendants

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     I would have said it; you say well. Here comes the king. Lafew and Parolles stand aside

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Lustigue,³⁴ as the Dutchman says. I’ll like a maid the better whilst I have a tooth³⁵ in my head. Why, he’s able to lead her a coranto.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Mor du vinager!³⁶ Is not this Helen?

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     ’Fore God, I think so.

       

KING

KING     Go, call before me all the lords in court.

       [Exit Attendant]

               Sit, my preserver, by thy patient’s side, Helen sits

40

40           And with this healthful hand, whose banished sense⁴⁰

               Thou hast repealed,⁴¹ a second time receive

               The confirmation of my promised gift,

               Which but attends⁴³ thy naming.

       Enter three or four Lords

               Fair maid, send forth thine eye: this youthful parcel⁴⁴

45

45           Of noble bachelors stand at my bestowing,⁴⁵

               O’er whom both sovereign power and father’s voice

               I have to use. Thy frank election⁴⁷ make.

               Thou hast power to choose, and they none to forsake.⁴⁸

       

HELEN

HELEN     To each of you one fair and virtuous mistress

50

50           Fall, when love please! Marry, to each, but one!

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     I’d give bay⁵¹ curtal and his furniture

               My⁵² mouth no more were broken than these boys’,

               And writ⁵³ as little beard.

       

KING

KING     Peruse them well:

55

55           Not one of those but had a noble father.

       

HELEN

HELEN     Gentlemen, heaven hath through me restored the king to health.

       She addresses her to a Lord

       

ALL

ALL     We understand it, and thank heaven for you.

       

HELEN

HELEN     I am a simple maid, and therein wealthiest

               That I protest⁵⁹ I simply am a maid.

60

60           Please it your majesty, I have done already.

               The blushes in my cheeks thus whisper⁶¹ me,

               ‘We blush that thou shouldst choose. But be refused,

               Let the white death⁶³ sit on thy cheek for ever,

               We’ll ne’er come there again.’

65

65   

KING

KING           Make choice and see,

               Who⁶⁶ shuns thy love shuns all his love in me.

       

HELEN

HELEN     Now, Dian,⁶⁷ from thy altar do I fly,

               And to imperial Love,⁶⁸ that god most high,

               Do my sighs stream.— Sir, will you hear my suit? To First Lord

70

70   

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD           And grant it.

       

HELEN

HELEN     Thanks, sir. All⁷¹ the rest is mute.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     I had rather be in this choice than throw ames-ace⁷² for my life. Aside

       

HELEN

HELEN     The honour,⁷³ sir, that flames in your fair eyes To Second Lord

               Before I speak, too threat’ningly replies.

75

               Love⁷⁵ make your fortunes twenty times above

               Her⁷⁶ that so wishes, and her humble love.

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     No better,⁷⁷ if you please.

       

HELEN

HELEN     My wish receive,

               Which great love grant! And so I take my leave.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Do all they deny her? Aside An they were sons of mine, I’d have them whipped, or I would send them to th’Turk⁸¹ to make eunuchs of.

       

HELEN

HELEN     Be not afraid that I your hand should take. To Third Lord

               I’ll never do you wrong for your own sake.

               Blessing upon your vows, and in your bed

85

85           Find fairer fortune, if you ever wed!

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     These boys are boys of ice, they’ll none have her. Aside Sure⁸⁶ they are bastards to the English, the French ne’er got⁸⁷ ’em.

       

HELEN

HELEN     You are too young, too happy,⁸⁸ and too good, To Fourth Lord

               To make yourself a son out of my blood.

90

90   

FOURTH LORD

FOURTH LORD           Fair one, I think not so.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     There’s one grape⁹¹ yet. Aside I am sure thy father drunk wine. But if thou be’st not an ass, I am a youth of fourteen. I have known⁹² thee already.

       

HELEN

HELEN     I dare not say I take you, but I give To Bertram

               Me and my service, ever whilst I live,

95

95           Into your guiding power. This is the man.

       

KING

KING     Why, then, young Bertram, take her: she’s thy wife.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     My wife, my liege? I shall beseech your highness,

               In such a business give me leave to use

               The help of mine own eyes.

100

100 

KING

KING             Know’st thou not, Bertram, what she has done for me?

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Yes, my good lord,

               But never hope to know why I should marry her.

       

KING

KING     Thou know’st she has raised me from my sickly bed.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     But follows it, my lord, to bring me down¹⁰⁴

105

105         Must answer for your raising? I know her well:

               She had her breeding¹⁰⁶ at my father’s charge.

               A poor physician’s daughter my wife? Disdain

               Rather corrupt¹⁰⁸ me ever!

       

KING

KING     ’Tis only title¹⁰⁹ thou disdain’st in her, the which

110

110         I can build up. Strange is it that our bloods,

               Of colour, weight and heat, poured all together,

               Would quite confound distinction,¹¹² yet stands off

               In differences so mighty. If she be

               All that is virtuous, save what thou dislik’st,

115

115         A poor physician’s daughter, thou dislik’st

               Of virtue for the name. But do not so.

               From lowest place whence virtuous things proceed,¹¹⁷

               The place is dignified by th’doer’s deed.

               Where great¹¹⁹ additions swell’s, and virtue none,

120

120         It is a dropsied¹²⁰ honour. Good alone

               Is good without a name. Vileness is so:

               The property¹²² by what it is should go,

               Not by the title. She is young, wise, fair.

               In these to nature she’s immediate heir,¹²⁴

125

               And these breed honour. That¹²⁵ 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 foregoers.¹²⁹ The mere word’s a slave,

130

130         Deboshed¹³⁰ on every tomb, on every grave

               A lying trophy,¹³¹ and as oft is dumb,

               Where dust and damned oblivion is the tomb

               Of honoured bones indeed.¹³³ What should be said?

               If thou canst like this creature as a maid,

135

135         I can create the rest: virtue and she

               Is her own dower,¹³⁶ honour and wealth from me.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     I cannot love her, nor will strive¹³⁷ to do’t

       

KING

KING     Thou wrong’st thyself if thou shouldst strive to choose.¹³⁸

       

HELEN

HELEN     That you are well restored,¹³⁹ my lord, I’m glad.

140

140         Let the rest go.

       

KING

KING     My honour’s at the stake,¹⁴¹ which to defeat,

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

               Proud scornful boy, unworthy this¹⁴³ good gift,

               That dost in vile misprision¹⁴⁴ shackle up

145

145         My love and her desert.¹⁴⁵ That canst not dream,

               We,¹⁴⁶ poising us in her defective scale,

               Shall weigh¹⁴⁷ thee to the beam. That wilt not know,

               It is in us¹⁴⁸ to plant thine honour where

               We please to have it grow. Check¹⁴⁹ thy contempt:

150

150         Obey our will, which travails in¹⁵⁰ thy good.

               Believe not¹⁵¹ 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 forever

155

155         Into the staggers¹⁵⁵ and the careless lapse

               Of youth and ignorance, both my revenge and hate

               Loosing¹⁵⁷ upon thee, in the name of justice,

               Without all terms¹⁵⁸ of pity. Speak. Thine answer.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Pardon, my gracious lord, for I submit

160

160         My fancy¹⁶⁰ to your eyes. When I consider

               What great creation¹⁶¹ and what dole of honour

               Flies where you bid it, I find that she, which late¹⁶²

               Was in my nobler thoughts most base, is now

               The praisèd of the king, who,¹⁶⁴ so ennobled,

165

165         Is as ’twere born so.

       

KING

KING     Take her by the hand,

               And tell her she is thine, to whom I promise

               A counterpoise,¹⁶⁸ if not to thy estate,

               A balance more replete.¹⁶⁹

170

170 

BERTRAM

BERTRAM             I take her hand.

       

KING

KING     Good fortune and the favour of the king

               Smile upon this contract, whose¹⁷² ceremony

               Shall seem expedient on the now-born brief,

               And be performed tonight. The solemn feast

175

175         Shall more¹⁷⁵ attend upon the coming space,

               Expecting¹⁷⁶ absent friends. As thou lov’st her,

               Thy love’s to me religious,¹⁷⁷ else, does err.

       Exeunt. Parolles and Lafew stay behind commenting of this wedding

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Do you hear, monsieur? A word with you.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Your pleasure, sir.

       

LAFEW

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

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Recantation? My lord? My master?

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Ay. Is it not a language I speak?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     A most harsh one, and not to be understood without bloody succeeding.¹⁸³ My master?

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Are you companion¹⁸⁵ to the Count Rossillion?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     To any count, to all counts, to what is man.¹⁸⁶

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     To what is count’s man. Count’s master is of another style.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     You are too old,¹⁸⁸ sir. Let it satisfy you, you are too old.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     I must tell thee, sirrah, I write¹⁸⁹ man, to which title age cannot bring thee.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     What I dare¹⁹⁰ too well do, I dare not do.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     I did think thee, for two ordinaries,¹⁹¹ to be a pretty wise fellow. Thou didst make tolerable vent¹⁹² of thy travel, it might pass. Yet the scarfs and the bannerets about thee did manifoldly dissuade me from believing thee a vessel¹⁹³ of too great a burden.¹⁹⁴ I have now found thee. When I lose thee again, I care not. Yet art thou good for nothing but taking up,¹⁹⁵ and that thou’rt scarce worth.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Hadst thou not the privilege of antiquity¹⁹⁶ upon thee—

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Do not plunge thyself too far in anger, lest thou hasten thy trial,¹⁹⁷ which if—lord have mercy on thee for a hen!¹⁹⁸ So, my good window of lattice, fare thee well. Thy casement¹⁹⁹ I need not open, for I look through thee. Give me thy hand.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     My lord, you give me most egregious²⁰⁰ indignity.

       

LAFEW

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

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     I have not, my lord, deserved it.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Yes, good faith, every dram²⁰³ of it, and I will not bate thee a scruple.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Well, I shall be wiser.²⁰⁴

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Even as soon as thou canst, for thou hast to pull²⁰⁵ at a smack o’th’contrary. If ever thou be’st bound in thy scarf and beaten, thou shall find what it is to be proud of thy bondage.²⁰⁷ I have a desire to hold my acquaintance with thee, or rather my knowledge, that I may say in the default,²⁰⁸ he is a man I know.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     My lord, you do me most insupportable vexation.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     I would it were hell-pains for thy sake, and my poor doing²¹⁰ eternal. For doing I am past, as I will²¹¹ by thee, in what motion age will give me leave.

       Exit

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Well, thou hast a son shall²¹² take this disgrace off me; scurvy, old, filthy, scurvy lord! Well, I must be patient. There is no fettering²¹³ of authority. I’ll beat him, by my life, if I can meet him with any convenience,²¹⁴ 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.

       Enter Lafew

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Sirrah, your lord and master’s married. There’s news for you: you have a new mistress.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     I most unfeignedly beseech your lordship to make some reservation²¹⁹ of your wrongs.²²⁰ He is my good lord. Whom I serve above is my master.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Who? God?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Ay, sir.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     The devil it is that’s thy master. Why dost thou garter²²³ up thy arms o’ this fashion? Dost make hose²²⁴ 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. Methink’st thou art a general offence, and every man should beat thee. I think thou wast created for men to breathe²²⁷ themselves upon thee.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     This is hard and undeserved measure,²²⁹ my lord.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Go to,²³⁰ sir. You were beaten in Italy for picking a kernel out of a pomegranate. You are a vagabond²³¹ and no true traveller. You are more saucy with lords and honourable personages than the commission²³² of your birth and virtue gives you heraldry.²³³ You are not worth another word, else I’d call you knave. I leave you.

       Exit

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Good, very good, it is so then. Good, very good, let it be concealed awhile.

       Enter Count Rossillion [Bertram]

235

235 

BERTRAM

BERTRAM             Undone,²³⁵ and forfeited to cares forever!

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     What’s the matter, sweet heart?

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Although before the solemn priest I have sworn,

               I will not bed her.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     What, what, sweetheart?

240

240 

BERTRAM

BERTRAM             O my Parolles, they have married me!

               I’ll to the Tuscan wars and never bed her.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     France is a dog-hole, and it no more merits

               The tread of a man’s foot: to th’wars!

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     There’s letters from my mother. What th’import²⁴⁴ is,

245

245         I know not yet.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Ay, that would be known. To th’wars, my boy, to th’wars!

               He wears his honour in a box²⁴⁷ unseen

               That hugs his kicky-wicky²⁴⁸ here at home,

               Spending²⁴⁹ his manly marrow in her arms,

250

250         Which should sustain the bound and high curvet²⁵⁰

               Of Mars’ fiery steed. To other regions,

               France is a stable, we that dwell in’t jades:²⁵²

               Therefore, to th’war!

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     It shall be so. I’ll send her to my house,

255

255         Acquaint my mother with my hate to her,

               And wherefore I am fled, write to the king

               That which I durst not speak. His present gift

               Shall furnish me to²⁵⁸ those Italian fields

               Where noble fellows strike. War is no strife

260

260         To²⁶⁰ the dark house and the detested wife.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Will this capriccio²⁶¹ hold in thee? Art sure?

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Go with me to my chamber, and advise me.

               I’ll send her straight²⁶³ away. Tomorrow

               I’ll to the wars, she to her single sorrow.

265

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Why, these balls bound,²⁶⁵ there’s noise in it. ’Tis hard.

               A young man married is a man that’s marred:²⁶⁶

               Therefore away, and leave her bravely, go.

               The king has done you wrong, but hush, ’tis so.

       Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 4]

running scene 6 continues

---

       Enter Helena and Clown [Lavatch] Helen reading a letter

       

HELEN

HELEN     My mother greets me kindly.¹ Is she well?

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     She is not well,² but yet she has her health: she’s very merry, but yet she is not well: but thanks be given, she’s very well and wants³ nothing i’th’world; but yet she is not well.

       

HELEN

HELEN     If she be very well, what does she ail, that she’s not very well?

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     Truly, she’s very well indeed, but for two things.

       

HELEN

HELEN     What two things?

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     One, that she’s not in heaven, whither God send her quickly. The other, that she’s in earth, from whence God send her quickly.

       Enter Parolles

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Bless you, my fortunate lady.

       

HELEN

HELEN     I hope, sir, I have your good will to have mine own good fortune.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     You had my prayers to lead them¹² on, and to keep them on, have them still. O, my knave, how does my old lady?

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     So¹⁴ that you had her wrinkles and I her money, I would she did as you say.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Why, I say nothing.

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     Marry, you are the wiser man, for many a man’s¹⁶ 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,¹⁸ which is within a very little of nothing.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Away! Thou’rt a knave.

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     You should have said, sir, ‘Before²⁰ a knave thou’rt a knave.’ That’s, ‘Before me thou’rt a knave.’ This had been truth, sir.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Go to,²² thou art a witty fool. I have found thee.

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     Did you find me²³ in yourself, sir? Or were you taught to find me? The search, sir, was profitable. And much fool may you find in you, even to²⁴ the world’s pleasure and the increase of laughter.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     A good knave, i’faith, and well fed.²⁶

               Madam, my lord will go away tonight.

               A very serious business calls on him.

               The great prerogative and rite of love,²⁹

30

30           Which, as your due, time claims, he does acknowledge,

               But puts it off to³¹ a compelled restraint,

               Whose³² want, and whose delay, is strewed with sweets,

               Which they³³ distil now in the curbèd time,

               To make the coming hour o’erflow with joy

35

35           And pleasure drown³⁵ the brim.

       

HELEN

HELEN     What’s his will else?³⁶

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     That you will take your instant leave o’th’king

               And make³⁸ this haste as your own good proceeding,

               Strength’ned with what apology³⁹ you think

40

40           May make it probable need.⁴⁰

       

HELEN

HELEN     What more commands he?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     That, having this obtained, you presently

               Attend⁴³ his further pleasure.

       

HELEN

HELEN     In everything I wait upon his will.

45

45   

PAROLLES

PAROLLES           I shall report it so.

       Exit

       

HELEN

HELEN     I pray you.— Come, sirrah. To Parolles/To Lavatch

       Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 5]

running scene 6 continues

---

       Enter Lafew and Bertram

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     But I hope your lordship thinks not him a soldier.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Yes, my lord, and of very valiant approof.²

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     You have it from his own deliverance.³

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     And by other warranted testimony.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Then my dial⁵ goes not true. I took this lark for a bunting.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     I do assure you, my lord, he is very great in knowledge and accordingly⁶ valiant.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     I have then sinned against his experience and transgressed against his valour, and my state⁹ that way is dangerous, since I cannot yet find in my heart to repent. Here he comes. I pray you make us friends. I will pursue the amity.

       Enter Parolles

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     These things shall be done, sir. To Bertram

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Pray you, sir, who’s his tailor?¹² To Bertram

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Sir?

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     O, I know him well. Ay, ‘sir’, he. ‘Sir’ ’s a good workman, a very good tailor.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Is she gone to the king? Aside to Parolles

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     She is.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Will she away tonight?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     As you’ll have¹⁸ her.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     I have writ my letters, casketed my treasure,

20

20           Given order for our horses, and tonight,

               When I should take possession of the bride,

               End ere I do begin.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Aside A good traveller is something²³ at the latter end of a dinner, but one that lies three thirds²⁴ and uses a known truth to pass a thousand nothings with, should be once heard and thrice beaten.— God save you, captain.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Is there any unkindness²⁶ between my lord and you, monsieur? To Parolles

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     I know not how I have deserved to run into my lord’s displeasure.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     You have made shift²⁸ to run into’t, boots and spurs and all, like him that leapt into the custard. And out of it you’ll run again, rather than suffer question²⁹ for your residence.³⁰

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     It may be you have mistaken³¹ him, my lord.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     And shall do so ever, though I took him at’s prayers. Fare you well, my lord, and believe this of me: there can be no kernel in this light nut. The soul of this man is his clothes. Trust him not in matter of heavy³⁴ consequence. I have kept of them tame,³⁵ and know their natures. Farewell, monsieur. I have spoken better of you than you have or will to deserve³⁶ at my hand, but we must do good against evil.

       [Exit]

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     An idle³⁸ lord, I swear.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     I think so.

40

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Why, do you not know⁴⁰ him?

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Yes, I do know him well, and common speech

               Gives him a worthy pass.⁴² Here comes my clog.

       Enter Helena [with an attendant]

       

HELEN

HELEN     I have, sir, as I was commanded from you,

               Spoke with the king and have procured his leave

45

45           For present parting,⁴⁵ only he desires

               Some private speech with you.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     I shall obey his will.

               You must not marvel, Helen, at my course,

               Which holds not colour⁴⁹ with the time, nor does

50

50           The ministration⁵⁰ and requirèd office

               On my particular. Prepared I was not

               For such a business: therefore am I found

               So much unsettled. This drives me to entreat you

               That presently you take your way for home,

55

55           And rather muse⁵⁵ than ask why I entreat you,

               For my respects⁵⁶ are better than they seem

               And my appointments⁵⁷ have in them a need

               Greater than shows itself at the first view

               To you that know them not. This to my mother. Gives a letter

60

60           ’Twill be two days ere I shall see you, so

               I leave you to your wisdom.

       

HELEN

HELEN     Sir, I can nothing say,

               But that I am your most obedient servant.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Come, come, no more of that.

65

65   

HELEN

HELEN           And ever shall

               With true observance⁶⁶ seek to eke out that

               Wherein toward me my homely stars⁶⁷ have failed

               To equal my great fortune.⁶⁸

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Let that go. My haste is very great. Farewell. Hie⁶⁹ home.

70

70   

HELEN

HELEN           Pray, sir, your pardon.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Well, what would you say?

       

HELEN

HELEN     I am not worthy of the wealth I owe,⁷²

               Nor dare I say ’tis mine, and yet it is.

               But, like a timorous thief, most fain⁷⁴ would steal

75

75           What law does vouch⁷⁵ mine own.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     What would you have?

       

HELEN

HELEN     Something, and scarce so much: nothing, indeed.

               I would⁷⁸ not tell you what I would, my lord.

               Faith yes:

80

80           Strangers and foes do sunder,⁸⁰ and not kiss.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     I pray you stay⁸¹ not, but in haste to horse.

       

HELEN

HELEN     I shall not break your bidding, good my lord.—

               Where are my other men?— Monsieur, farewell. To Attendant

       Exit

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Go thou toward home, where I will never come

85

85           Whilst I can shake my sword or hear the drum.

               Away, and for our flight.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Bravely, corragio!⁸⁷

       [Exeunt]

Act 3 [Scene 1]^3.1

running scene 7

---

       Flourish. Enter the Duke of Florence, the two Frenchmen [First and Second Lords Dumaine] with a troop of Soldiers

       

DUKE

DUKE     So that from¹ point to point now have you heard

               The fundamental reasons of this war,

               Whose great decision³ hath much blood let forth

               And more thirsts after.

5

5     

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD           Holy seems the quarrel

               Upon your grace’s part, black⁶ and fearful

               On the opposer.⁷

       

DUKE

DUKE     Therefore we marvel much our cousin⁸ France

               Would in so just a business shut his bosom⁹

10

10           Against our borrowing prayers.¹⁰

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     Good my lord,

               The reasons of our state I cannot yield,¹²

               But¹³ like a common and an outward man

               That the great figure¹⁴ of a council frames

15

15           By self-unable motion:¹⁵ therefore dare not

               Say what I think of it, since I have found

               Myself in my incertain grounds to fail

               As often as I guessed.

       

DUKE

DUKE     Be it his pleasure.¹⁹

20

20   

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD           But I am sure the younger²⁰ of our nature,

               That surfeit²¹ on their ease, will day by day

               Come here for physic.²²

       

DUKE

DUKE     Welcome shall they be,

               And all the honours that can fly from²⁴ us

25

25           Shall on them settle. You know your places well.

               When better fall,²⁶ for your avails they fell.

               Tomorrow to th’field.

       Flourish [Exeunt]

[Act 3 Scene 2]^3.2

running scene 8

---

       Enter Countess and Clown [Lavatch]

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     It hath happened all as I would have had it, save that he comes not along with her.

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     By my troth,³ I take my young lord to be a very melancholy man.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     By what observance,⁴ I pray you?

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     Why, he will look upon his boot and sing: mend⁵ the ruff and sing: ask questions and sing: pick his teeth and sing. I know a man that had this trick of melancholy sold⁷ a goodly manor for a song.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Let me see what he writes, and when he means to come. Opens a letter

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     I have no mind to⁹ Isbel since I was at court. Our old lings and our Isbels o’th’country are nothing like your old ling and your Isbels o’th’court. The brains¹⁰ of my Cupid’s knocked out, and I begin to love, as an old man loves money, with no stomach.¹²

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     What have we here?

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     E’en¹⁴ that you have there.

       Exit

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     ‘I have sent you a daughter-in-law. She hath recovered¹⁵ the king, and undone me. I have wedded her, not¹⁶ bedded her, and sworn to make the “not” eternal. You shall hear I am run away: know it before the report come. If there be breadth enough in the world, I will hold¹⁸ a long distance. My duty to you. Your unfortunate son, Bertram.’

       [Reads] a letter

20

                                    This is not well, rash and unbridled boy.

                                    To fly²¹ the favours of so good a king,

                                    To pluck his indignation on thy head

                                    By the misprizing²³ of a maid too virtuous

                                    For the contempt of empire.²⁴

       Enter Clown [Lavatch]

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     O, madam, yonder is heavy²⁵ news within, between two soldiers and my young lady!

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     What is the matter?

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     Nay, there is some comfort in the news, some comfort. Your son will not be killed so soon as I thought he would.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Why should he be killed?

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     So say I, madam, if he run away, as I hear he does. The danger is in standing to’t.³² That’s the loss of men, though it be the getting of children. Here they come will tell you more. For my part, I only hear your son was run away.

       [He may exit]

       Enter Helen and two Gentlemen [First and Second Lords Dumaine]

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     Save³⁴ you, good madam.

35

35   

HELEN

HELEN           Madam, my lord is gone, forever gone.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     Do not say so.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Think upon patience. Pray you, gentlemen,

               I have felt so many quirks³⁸ of joy and grief

               That the first face³⁹ of neither, on the start

40

40           Can woman⁴⁰ me unto’t. Where is my son, I pray you?

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     Madam, he’s gone to serve the Duke of Florence:

               We met him thitherward,⁴² for thence we came,

               And after some dispatch in hand⁴³ at court,

               Thither we bend⁴⁴ again.

45

45   

HELEN

HELEN           Look on his letter, madam, here’s my passport.⁴⁵ Shows a letter

       Reads ‘When thou canst get the ring upon my finger, which never shall come off, and show me a child begotten of thy body that I am father to, then call me husband. But in such a “then” I write a “never”.’ This is a dreadful sentence.⁴⁸

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Brought you this letter, gentlemen?

50

50   

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD           Ay, madam, and for the contents’ sake are sorry for our pains.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     I prithee, lady, have⁵¹ a better cheer.

               If thou engrossest⁵² all the griefs are thine,

               Thou robb’st me of a moiety:⁵³ he was my son,

               But I do wash his name out of my blood,

55

55           And thou art all my⁵⁵ child. Towards Florence is he?

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     Ay, madam.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     And to be a soldier?

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     Such is his noble purpose, and believe’t,

               The duke will lay upon him all the honour

60

60           That good convenience⁶⁰ claims.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Return you thither?

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     Ay, madam, with the swiftest wing of speed.

       

HELEN

HELEN     ‘Till I have no wife I have nothing in France.’ Reads

               ’Tis bitter.

65

65   

COUNTESS

COUNTESS           Find you that there?

       

HELEN

HELEN     Ay, madam.

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     ’Tis but the boldness of his hand, haply,⁶⁷ which his heart was not

               consenting to.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Nothing in France, until he have no wife!

70

70           There’s nothing here that is too good for him

               But only she, and she deserves a lord

               That twenty such rude⁷² boys might tend upon

               And call her hourly mistress. Who was with him?

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     A servant only, and a gentleman

75

75           Which I have sometime known.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Parolles, was it not?

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     Ay, my good lady, he.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     A very tainted fellow, and full of wickedness.

               My son corrupts a well-derivèd⁷⁹ nature

80

80           With his inducement.⁸⁰

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     Indeed, good lady,

               The fellow has a deal⁸² of that too much,

               Which holds⁸³ him much to have.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     You’re welcome, gentlemen.

85

85           I will entreat you, when you see my son,

               To tell him that his sword can never win

               The honour that he loses: more I’ll entreat you

               Written⁸⁸ to bear along.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     We serve you, madam,

90

90           In that and all your worthiest affairs.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Not so, but⁹¹ as we change our courtesies.

               Will you draw near?⁹²

       Exeunt [all but Helen]

       

HELEN

HELEN     ‘Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France.’

               Nothing in France, until he has no wife!

95

95           Thou shalt have none, Rossillion,⁹⁵ none in France.

               Then hast thou all again. Poor lord, is’t I

               That chase thee from thy country and expose

               Those tender limbs of thine to the event⁹⁸

               Of the none-sparing war? And is it I

100

100         That drive thee from the sportive¹⁰⁰ court, where thou

               Wast shot at with fair eyes, to be the mark¹⁰¹

               Of smoky muskets? O you leaden messengers¹⁰²

               That ride upon the violent speed of fire,

               Fly with false aim, move¹⁰⁴ the still-peering air

105

105         That sings¹⁰⁵ with piercing. Do not touch my lord.

               Whoever shoots at him, I set him there.¹⁰⁶

               Whoever charges on his forward¹⁰⁷ breast,

               I am the caitiff¹⁰⁸ that do hold him to’t,

               And though I kill him not, I am the cause

110

110         His death was so effected. Better ’twere

               I met the ravin¹¹¹ lion when he roared

               With sharp constraint¹¹² of hunger: better ‘twere

               That all the miseries which nature owes¹¹³

               Were mine at once. No, come thou home, Rossillion,

115

               Whence¹¹⁵ honour but of danger wins a scar,

               As oft¹¹⁶ it loses all. I will be gone:

               My being here it is that holds thee hence.

               Shall I stay here to do’t?¹¹⁸ No, no, although

               The air of paradise did fan the house

120

120         And angels officed all.¹²⁰ I will be gone,

               That pitiful¹²¹ rumour may report my flight,

               To consolate¹²² thine ear. Come night, end day!

               For with the dark, poor thief, I’ll steal¹²³ away.

       Exit

[Act 3 Scene 3]^3.3

running scene 9

---

       Flourish. Enter the Duke of Florence, Rossillion [Bertram], Drum and Trumpets, soldiers, Parolles

       

DUKE

DUKE     The general of our horse thou art, and we,

               Great² in our hope, lay our best love and credence

               Upon thy promising fortune.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Sir, it is

5

5             A charge too heavy for my strength, but yet

               We’ll strive to bear it for your worthy sake

               To th’extreme edge⁷ of hazard.

       

DUKE

DUKE     Then go thou forth,

               And fortune play upon thy prosperous helm⁹

10

10           As thy auspicious mistress!

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     This very day,

               Great Mars, I put myself into thy file.¹²

               Make me but like my thoughts,¹³ and I shall prove

               A lover of thy drum, hater of love.

       Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 4]^3.4

running scene 10

---

       Enter Countess and Steward [Reynaldo]

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Alas! And would you take the letter of¹ her?

               Might you not know she would do as she has done,

               By sending me a letter? Read it again.

       

REYNALDO

REYNALDO     ‘I⁴ am Saint Jaques’ pilgrim, thither gone.

       [Reads the] letter

5

5             Ambitious love hath so in me offended,

               That barefoot plod I the cold ground upon,

               With sainted⁷ vow my faults to have amended.

               Write, write, that from the bloody course of war

               My dearest master, your dear son, may hie.⁹

10

10           Bless him at home in peace, whilst I from far

               His name with zealous fervour sanctify.

               His taken¹² labours bid him me forgive.

               I, his despiteful¹³ Juno, sent him forth

               From courtly friends, with camping¹⁴ foes to live

15

15           Where death and danger dogs the heels of worth.

               He is too good and fair for death and me,

               Whom¹⁷ I myself embrace, to set him free.’

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Ah, what sharp stings are in her mildest words!

               Reynaldo, you did never lack advice¹⁹ so much,

20

20           As letting her pass so: had I spoke with her,

               I could have well diverted her intents,

               Which thus she hath prevented.²²

       

REYNALDO

REYNALDO     Pardon me, madam.

               If I had given you this at overnight,²⁴

25

25           She might have been o’erta’en, and yet she writes

               Pursuit would be but vain.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     What angel shall

               Bless this unworthy husband? He cannot thrive,

               Unless her prayers, whom²⁹ heaven delights to hear

30

30           And loves to grant, reprieve him from the wrath

               Of greatest justice. Write, write, Reynaldo,

               To this unworthy husband³² of his wife.

               Let every word weigh heavy of³³ her worth

               That he does weigh too light. My greatest grief,

35

35           Though little he do feel it, set down sharply.

               Dispatch the most convenient messenger.

               When haply³⁷ he shall hear that she is gone,

               He will return, and hope I may that she,

               Hearing so much, will speed her foot again,

40

40           Led hither by pure love. Which of them both

               Is dearest to me, I have no skill in sense⁴¹

               To make distinction. Provide⁴² this messenger.

               My heart is heavy and mine age is weak.

               Grief would have tears, and sorrow bids me speak.

       Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 5]^3.5

running scene 11

---

       A tucket afar off. Enter old Widow of Florence, her daughter [Diana], and Mariana with other Citizens

       

WIDOW

WIDOW     Nay, come, for if they do approach the city, we shall lose all¹ the sight.

       

DIANA

DIANA     They say the French count has done most honourable service.

       

WIDOW

WIDOW     It is reported that he has taken their³ greatest commander, and that with his own hand he slew the duke’s brother.

       We have lost our labour. Tucket They are gone a contrary way. Hark! You may know by their trumpets.

       

MARIANA

MARIANA     Come, let’s return again, and suffice⁷ ourselves with the report of it. Well, Diana, take heed of this French earl.⁸ The honour of a maid is her name, and no legacy is so rich as honesty.⁹

       

WIDOW

WIDOW     I have told my neighbour how you have been solicited¹⁰ by a gentleman his companion.

       

MARIANA

MARIANA     I know that knave, hang him! One Parolles: a filthy officer¹² he is in those suggestions¹³ for the young earl. Beware of them, Diana; their promises, enticements, oaths, tokens and all these engines¹⁴ of lust, are not the things they go under. Many a maid hath been seduced by them, and the misery is example that so terrible shows in the wreck of maidenhood,¹⁶ cannot for all that dissuade succession,¹⁷ but that they are limed with the twigs that threatens them. I hope I need not to advise you further, but I hope your own grace¹⁸ will keep you where you are, though¹⁹ there were no further danger known but the modesty which is so lost.

       

DIANA

DIANA     You shall not need to fear²⁰ me.

       Enter Helen [disguised as a pilgrim]

       

WIDOW

WIDOW     I hope so. Look, here comes a pilgrim. I know she will lie²¹ at my house: thither they send one another. I’ll question her.— God save you, pilgrim! Whither are you bound?

       

HELEN

HELEN     To Saint Jaques le Grand.

25

25           Where do the palmers²⁵ lodge, I do beseech you?

       

WIDOW

WIDOW     At the Saint Francis²⁶ here beside the port.

       

HELEN

HELEN     Is this the way? A march afar

       

WIDOW

WIDOW     Ay, marry, is’t.

               Hark you! They come this way.

30

30           If you will tarry,³⁰ holy pilgrim,

               But till the troops come by,

               I will conduct you where you shall be lodged,

               The rather for³³ I think I know your hostess

               As ample³⁴ as myself.

35

35   

HELEN

HELEN           Is it yourself?

       

WIDOW

WIDOW     If you shall please so, pilgrim.

       

HELEN

HELEN     I thank you, and will stay upon³⁷ your leisure.

       

WIDOW

WIDOW     You came, I think, from France?

       

HELEN

HELEN     I did so.

40

40   

WIDOW

WIDOW           Here you shall see a countryman of yours

               That has done worthy service.

       

HELEN

HELEN     His name, I pray you.

       

DIANA

DIANA     The Count Rossillion. Know you such a one?

       

HELEN

HELEN     But by the ear, that hears most nobly of him:

45

45           His face I know not.

       

DIANA

DIANA     Whatsome’er⁴⁶ he is,

               He’s bravely taken⁴⁷ here. He stole from France,

               As ’tis reported, for⁴⁸ the king had married him

               Against his liking. Think you it is so?

50

50   

HELEN

HELEN           Ay, surely, mere⁵⁰ the truth. I know his lady.

       

DIANA

DIANA     There is a gentleman that serves the count

               Reports but coarsely of her.

       

HELEN

HELEN     What’s his name?

       

DIANA

DIANA     Monsieur Parolles.

55

55   

HELEN

HELEN           O, I believe⁵⁵ with him,

               In argument⁵⁶ of praise, or to the worth

               Of the great count himself, she is too mean⁵⁷

               To have her name repeated. All her deserving⁵⁸

               Is a reservèd honesty,⁵⁹ and that

60

60           I have not heard examined.⁶⁰

       

DIANA

DIANA     Alas, poor lady!

               ’Tis a hard bondage to become the wife

               Of a detesting lord.

       

WIDOW

WIDOW     I write⁶⁴ good creature: wheresoe’er she is,

65

65           Her heart weighs sadly. This young maid might do her

               A shrewd⁶⁶ turn if she pleased.

       

HELEN

HELEN     How do you mean?

               Maybe the amorous count solicits her

               In the unlawful purpose?

70

70   

WIDOW

WIDOW           He does indeed,

               And brokes⁷¹ with all that can in such a suit

               Corrupt the tender honour of a maid.

               But she is armed for him and keeps her guard

               In honestest⁷⁴ defence.

       Drum and colours. Enter Count Rossillion [Bertram], Parolles and the whole army

75

75   

MARIANA

MARIANA           The gods forbid else!⁷⁵

       

WIDOW

WIDOW     So, now they come:

               That is Antonio, the duke’s eldest son.

               That, Escalus.

       

HELEN

HELEN     Which is the Frenchman?

80

80   

DIANA

DIANA           He,

               That with the plume. ’Tis a most gallant fellow.

               I would he loved his wife: if he were honester⁸²

               He were much goodlier. Is’t not a handsome gentleman?

       

HELEN

HELEN     I like him well.

85

85   

DIANA

DIANA           ’Tis pity he is not honest. Yond’s that same knave

               That leads him to these places. Were I his lady,

               I would poison that vile rascal.

       

HELEN

HELEN     Which is he?

       

DIANA

DIANA     That jackanapes⁸⁹ with scarves. Why is he melancholy?

90

90   

HELEN

HELEN           Perchance he’s hurt i’th’battle.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Lose our drum! Well.

       

MARIANA

MARIANA     He’s shrewdly⁹² vexed at something. Look, he has spied us.

       

WIDOW

WIDOW     Marry, hang you!

       

MARIANA

MARIANA     And your courtesy,⁹⁴ for a ring-carrier!

       Exeunt [Bertram, Parolles and army]

95

95   

WIDOW

WIDOW           The troop is past. Come, pilgrim, I will bring you

               Where you shall host.⁹⁶ Of enjoined penitents

               There’s four or five, to great Saint Jaques bound,

               Already at my house.

       

HELEN

HELEN     I humbly thank you:

100

100         Please it¹⁰⁰ this matron and this gentle maid

               To eat with us tonight, the charge¹⁰¹ and thanking

               Shall be for me.¹⁰² And, to requite you further,

               I will bestow some precepts of¹⁰³ this virgin Worthy the note.

105

105 

BOTH

BOTH             we’ll take your offer kindly.¹⁰⁵

       Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 6]^3.6

running scene 12

---

       Enter Count Rossillion [Bertram] and the [two] Frenchmen, as at first

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     Nay, good my lord, put him to’t,¹ let him have his way.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     If your lordship find him not a hilding,² hold me no more in your respect.

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     On my life, my lord, a bubble.³

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Do you think I am so far deceived in him?

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     Believe it, my lord, in mine own direct knowledge, without any malice, but to speak of him as⁶ my kinsman, he’s a most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise-breaker, the owner of no one good quality worthy your lordship’s entertainment.⁸

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     It were fit you knew him, lest reposing⁹ too far in his virtue, which he hath not, he might at some great and trusty¹⁰ business in a main danger fail you.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     I would I knew in what particular action to try¹¹ him.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     None better than to let him fetch off¹² his drum, which you hear him so confidently undertake to do.

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     I, with a troop of Florentines, will suddenly surprise¹⁴ him; such I will have whom I am sure he knows not¹⁵ from the enemy: we will bind and hoodwink him so, that he shall suppose no other but that he is carried into the leaguer¹⁶ of the adversaries, when we bring him to our own tents. Be but your lordship present at his examination. If he do not, for the promise of his life and in the highest compulsion of base fear, offer to betray you and deliver all the intelligence¹⁹ in his power against you, and that with the divine forfeit of his soul upon oath,²⁰ never trust my judgement in anything.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     O, for the love of laughter, let him fetch his drum. He says he has a stratagem for’t. When your lordship sees the bottom²³ of his success in’t, and to what metal this counterfeit lump of ore²⁴ will be melted, if you give him not John Drum’s entertainment, your inclining²⁵ cannot be removed. Here he comes.

       Enter Parolles

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     O, for the love of laughter, hinder not the honour of his design. Aside to Bertram Let him fetch off his drum in any hand.²⁷

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     How now, monsieur? This drum sticks²⁸ sorely in your disposition.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     A pox²⁹ on’t! Let it go, ’tis but a drum.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     ‘But a drum’? Is’t ‘but a drum’? A drum so lost? There was excellent command: to charge in with our horse upon our own wings,³¹ and to rend our own soldiers!

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     That was not to be blamed in³³ the command of the service: it was a disaster of war that Caesar himself could not have prevented if he had been there to command.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Well, we cannot greatly condemn our success. Some dishonour we had in the loss of that drum, but it is not to be recovered.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     It might have been recovered.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     It might, but it is not now.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     It is to be recovered. But⁴⁰ that the merit of service is seldom attributed to the true and exact performer, I would have that drum or another, or hic jacet.⁴¹

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Why, if you have a stomach,⁴² to’t, monsieur: if you think your mystery in stratagem can bring this⁴³ instrument of honour again into his native quarter, be magnanimous in the enterprise and go on. I will grace⁴⁴ the attempt for a worthy exploit. If you speed⁴⁵ well in it, the duke shall both speak of it and extend to you what further becomes⁴⁶ his greatness, even to the utmost syllable of your worthiness.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     By the hand of a soldier, I will undertake it.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     But you must not now slumber in it.⁴⁹

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     I’ll about it this evening, and I will presently⁵⁰ pen down my dilemmas, encourage myself in my certainty, put myself into my mortal preparation,⁵¹ and by midnight look to hear further from me.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     May I be bold to acquaint his grace you are gone about it?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     I know not what the success will be, my lord, but the attempt I vow.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     I know thou’rt valiant, and to the possibility⁵⁵ of thy soldiership will subscribe⁵⁶ for thee. Farewell.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     I love not many words.

       Exit

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     No more than a fish loves water. Is not this a strange fellow, my lord, that so confidently seems to undertake this business, which he knows is not to be done, damns himself⁶⁰ to do and dares better be damned than to do’t?

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     You do not know him, my lord, as we do. Certain it is that he will steal himself into a man’s favour and for a week escape a great deal of discoveries, but when you find him out, you have⁶³ him ever after.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Why, do you think he will make no deed⁶⁴ at all of this that so seriously he does address himself unto?

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     None in the world. But return with an invention and clap upon you two or three probable⁶⁷ lies. But we have almost embossed him. You shall see his fall tonight; for⁶⁸ indeed he is not for your lordship’s respect.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     We’ll make you some sport with the fox ere we case⁶⁹ him. He was first smoked⁷⁰ by the old lord Lafew. When his disguise and he is parted, tell me what a sprat⁷¹ you shall find him, which you shall see this very night.

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     I must go look my twigs.⁷² He shall be caught.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Your⁷³ brother he shall go along with me. To First Lord

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     As’t please your lordship. I’ll leave you.

       [Exit]

75

75   

BERTRAM

BERTRAM           Now will I lead you to the house, and show you

               The lass I spoke of.

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     But you say she’s honest.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     That’s all the fault. I spoke with her but once

               And found her wondrous cold, but I sent to her

80

80           By this same coxcomb⁸⁰ that we have i’th’wind

               Tokens and letters which she did re-send.

               And this is all I have done. She’s a fair creature.

               Will you go see her?

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     With all my heart, my lord.

       Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 7]^3.7

running scene 13

---

       Enter Helen and Widow

       

HELEN

HELEN     If you misdoubt¹ me that I am not she,

               I know not how I shall assure you further,

               But³ I shall lose the grounds I work upon.

       

WIDOW

WIDOW     Though my estate⁴ be fall’n, I was well born,

5

5             Nothing acquainted with these businesses,

               And would not put my reputation now

               In any staining act.

       

HELEN

HELEN     Nor would I wish you.

               First, give me trust, the count he is my husband,

10

10           And what to your sworn counsel¹⁰ I have spoken

               Is so¹¹ from word to word. And then you cannot,

               By¹² the good aid that I of you shall borrow,

               Err in bestowing it.

       

WIDOW

WIDOW     I should believe you,

15

15           For you have showed me that which well approves¹⁵

               You’re great in fortune.

       

HELEN

HELEN     Take this purse of gold, Gives a purse

               And let me buy your friendly help thus far,

               Which I will over-pay and pay again

20

20           When I have found it.²⁰ The count he woos your daughter,

               Lays down his wanton²¹ siege before her beauty,

               Resolves to carry²² her: let her in fine consent,

               As we’ll direct her how ’tis best to bear²³ it.

               Now his important blood²⁴ will naught deny

25

25           That she’ll demand: a ring the county²⁵ wears,

               That downward hath succeeded in his house

               From son to son, some four or five descents

               Since the first father wore it. This ring he holds

               In most rich choice,²⁹ yet in his idle fire,

30

30           To buy his will,³⁰ it would not seem too dear,

               Howe’er repented after.

       

WIDOW

WIDOW     Now I see

               The bottom³³ of your purpose.

       

HELEN

HELEN     You see it lawful,³⁴ then: it is no more,

35

35           But that your daughter, ere she seems as won,

               Desires this ring; appoints³⁶ him an encounter;

               In fine, delivers me to fill the time,

               Herself most chastely absent. After,

               To marry her,³⁹ I’ll add three thousand crowns

40

40           To what is passed⁴⁰ already.

       

WIDOW

WIDOW     I have yielded:

               Instruct my daughter how she shall persever,⁴²

               That time and place with this deceit so lawful

               May prove coherent.⁴⁴ Every night he comes

45

45           With musics⁴⁵ of all sorts and songs composed

               To her unworthiness.⁴⁶ It nothing steads us

               To chide⁴⁷ him from our eaves, for he persists

               As if his life lay⁴⁸ on’t.

       

HELEN

HELEN     Why then tonight

50

50           Let us assay⁵⁰ our plot, which, if it speed,

               Is wicked meaning⁵¹ in a lawful deed,

               And lawful meaning in a lawful act,

               Where both not sin, and yet a sinful fact.⁵³

               But let’s about it.

       [Exeunt]

Act 4 [Scene 1]^4.1

running scene 14

---

       Enter one of the Frenchmen [the First Lord Dumaine], with five or six other Soldiers in ambush

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     He can come no other way but by this hedge-corner. When you sally¹ upon him, speak what terrible² language you will: though you understand it not yourselves, no matter, for we must not seem to understand him, unless³ some one among us, whom we must produce for an interpreter.

       

FIRST SOLDIER

FIRST SOLDIER     Good captain, let me be th’interpreter.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     Art not acquainted with him? Knows he not thy voice?

       

FIRST SOLDIER

FIRST SOLDIER     No, sir, I warrant you.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     But what linsey-woolsey⁸ hast thou to speak to us again?

       

FIRST SOLDIER

FIRST SOLDIER     E’en such as you speak to me.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     He must think us some band of strangers¹⁰ i’th’adversary’s entertainment. Now he hath a smack¹¹ of all neighbouring languages: therefore we must every one be a man of his own fancy,¹² not to know what we speak one to another, so we seem to know, is to know straight¹³ our purpose: choughs’ language, gabble enough and good enough. As for you, interpreter, you must seem very politic.¹⁴ But couch,¹⁵ ho! Here he comes, to beguile two hours in a sleep, and then to return and swear the lies he forges. They hide

       Enter Parolles

       

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 plausive¹⁸ invention that carries it. They begin to smoke¹⁹ 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,²¹ not daring the reports of my tongue.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     This is the first truth that e’er thine own tongue was guilty of. Speaks aside to the others throughout

       

PAROLLES

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,²⁵ 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?²⁷ Tongue, I must put you into a butter-woman’s mouth and buy myself another of²⁸ Bajazet’s mule, if you prattle me into these perils.

       

FIRST LORD

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

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     I would the cutting of my garments would serve the turn,³¹ or the breaking of my Spanish sword.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     We cannot afford³³ you so.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Or the baring³⁴ of my beard, and to say it was in stratagem.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     ’Twould not do.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Or to drown my clothes, and say I was stripped.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     Hardly serve.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Though I swore I leaped from the window of the citadel.³⁸

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     How deep?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Thirty fathom.⁴⁰

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     Three great oaths would scarce make that be believed.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     I would I had any drum of the enemy’s. I would swear I recovered it.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     You shall hear one anon.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     A drum now of the enemy’s—

       Alarum within The Lord and Soldiers come out of hiding

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     Throca movousus, cargo, cargo, cargo. First Soldier will act as Interpreter

       

ALL

ALL     Cargo, cargo, cargo, villianda par corbo, cargo. They seize and blindfold Parolles

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     O, ransom, ransom! Do not hide mine eyes.

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     Boskos thromuldo boskos.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     I know you are the Muskos’⁴⁹ regiment,

50

50           And I shall lose my life for want of language.

               If there be here German, or Dane, low Dutch,⁵¹

               Italian, or French, let him speak to me,

               I’ll discover⁵³ that which shall undo the Florentine.

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     Boskos vauvado. I understand thee, and can speak thy tongue. Kerelybonto. Sir, betake thee⁵⁵ to thy faith, for seventeen poniards are at thy bosom.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     O!

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     O, pray, pray, pray! Manka revania dulche.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     Oscorbidulchos volivorco.

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     The general is content to spare thee yet,

60

60           And, hoodwinked⁶⁰ as thou art, will lead thee on

               To gather⁶¹ from thee. Haply thou mayst inform

               Something to save thy life.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     O, let me live,

               And all the secrets of our camp I’ll show,

65

65           Their force, their purposes. Nay, I’ll speak that

               Which you will wonder at.

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     But wilt thou faithfully?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     If I do not, damn me.

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     Acordo linta.

70

70           Come on, thou art granted space.⁷⁰

       Exeunt [with Parolles guarded]

       A short alarum within

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     Go tell the Count Rossillion and my brother

               We have caught the woodcock,⁷² and will keep him muffled

               Till we do hear from them.

       

SECOND SOLDIER

SECOND SOLDIER     Captain, I will.

75

75   

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD           A⁷⁵ will betray us all unto ourselves:

               Inform on⁷⁶ that.

       

SECOND SOLDIER

SECOND SOLDIER     So I will, sir.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     Till then I’ll keep him dark and safely locked.

       Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 2]^4.2

running scene 15

---

       Enter Bertram and the maid called Diana

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     They told me that your name was Fontybell.¹

       

DIANA

DIANA     No, my good lord, Diana.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Titled goddess,³

               And worth⁴ it, with addition! But, fair soul,

5

5             In your fine frame⁵ hath love no quality?

               If the quick⁶ fire of youth light not your mind,

               You are no maiden, but a monument.⁷

               When you are dead, you should be such a one

               As you are now, for you are cold and stern,

10

10           And now you should be as your mother was

               When your sweet self was got.¹¹

       

DIANA

DIANA     She then was honest.¹²

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     So should you be.

       

DIANA

DIANA     No:

15

15           My mother did but duty, such, my lord,

               As you owe to your wife.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     No more o’that.

               I prithee do not strive against my vows:¹⁸

               I was compelled to her, but I love thee

20

20           By love’s own sweet constraint,²⁰ and will forever

               Do thee all rights²¹ of service.

       

DIANA

DIANA     Ay, so you serve us

               Till we serve²³ you, but when you have our roses,

               You barely²⁴ leave our thorns to prick ourselves

25

25           And mock us with our bareness.²⁵

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     How have I sworn!

       

DIANA

DIANA     ’Tis not the many oaths that makes the truth,

               But the plain single vow that is vowed true.

               What is not holy, that we swear not by,

30

30           But take the high’st³⁰ to witness. Then, pray you tell me:

               If I should swear by Jove’s³¹ great attributes,

               I loved you dearly, would you believe my oaths

               When I did love you ill?³³ This has no holding,

               To swear by him whom I protest³⁴ to love

35

35           That I will work against him: therefore your oaths

               Are words³⁶ and poor conditions but unsealed,

               At least in my opinion.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Change it,³⁸ change it.

               Be not so holy-cruel:³⁹ love is holy,

40

40           And my integrity ne’er knew the crafts⁴⁰

               That you do charge men with. Stand no more off,

               But give thyself unto my sick⁴² desires,

               Who⁴³ then recovers. Say thou art mine, and ever

               My love as it begins shall so persèver.

45

45   

DIANA

DIANA           I see that men make ropes in such a scarre⁴⁵

               That we’ll forsake ourselves. Give me that ring.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM      I’ll lend it thee, my dear, but have no power

               To give it from me.

       

DIANA

DIANA     Will you not, my lord?

50

50   

BERTRAM

BERTRAM           It is an honour⁵⁰ ’longing to our house,

               Bequeathèd down from many ancestors,

               Which were the greatest obloquy⁵² i’th’world

               In me to lose.

       

DIANA

DIANA     Mine honour’s⁵⁴ such a ring:

55

55           My chastity’s the jewel of our house,

               Bequeathèd down from many ancestors,

               Which were the greatest obloquy i’th’world

               In me to lose. Thus your own proper⁵⁸ wisdom

               Brings in the champion honour on my part

60

60           Against your vain assault.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Here, take my ring. Gives her a ring

               My house, mine honour, yea, my life, be thine,

               And I’ll be bid⁶³ by thee.

       

DIANA

DIANA     When midnight comes, knock at my chamber-window:

65

65           I’ll order take⁶⁵ my mother shall not hear.

               Now will I charge you in the band⁶⁶ of truth,

               When you have conquered my yet maiden⁶⁷ bed,

               Remain there but an hour, nor speak to me.

               My reasons are most strong and you shall know them

70

70           When back again this ring shall be delivered:

               And on your finger in the night I’ll put

               Another ring, that what in time proceeds⁷²

               May token⁷³ to the future our past deeds.

               Adieu, till then. Then, fail not. You have won

75

75           A wife⁷⁵ of me, though there my hope be done.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     A heaven on earth I have won by wooing thee.

       [Exit]

       

DIANA

DIANA     For which live long to thank both heaven and me.

               You may so in the end.

               My mother told me just how he would woo,

80

80           As if she sat in’s heart. She says all men

               Have the like⁸¹ oaths. He had sworn to marry me

               When his wife’s dead: therefore I’ll lie with him

               When I am buried. Since Frenchmen are so braid,⁸³

               Marry⁸⁴ that will, I live and die a maid.

85

85           Only in this disguise⁸⁵ I think’t no sin

               To cozen⁸⁶ him that would unjustly win.

       Exit

[Act 4 Scene 3]^4.3

running scene 16

---

       Enter the two French Captains [the Lords Dumaine] and some two or three Soldiers

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     You have not given him his mother’s letter?

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     I have delivered it an hour since:² there is something in’t that stings his nature, for on the reading it he changed almost into another man.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     He has much worthy⁴ blame laid upon him for shaking off so good a wife and so sweet a lady.

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     Especially he hath incurred the everlasting displeasure of the king, who had even tuned his bounty⁷ to sing happiness to him. I will tell you a thing, but you shall let it dwell darkly⁸ with you.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     When you have spoken it, ’tis dead, and I am the grave of it.

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     He hath perverted¹⁰ a young gentlewoman here in Florence, of a most chaste renown, and this night he fleshes¹¹ his will in the spoil of her honour. He hath given her his monumental¹² ring, and thinks himself made in the unchaste composition.¹³

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     Now, God delay¹⁴ our rebellion! As we are ourselves, what things are we!

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     Merely¹⁵ our own traitors. And as in the common course of all treasons, we still¹⁶ see them reveal themselves, till they attain to their abhorred ends, so he that in this action contrives¹⁷ against his own nobility, in his proper stream o’erflows himself.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     Is¹⁹ it not meant damnable in us, to be trumpeters of our unlawful intents? We shall not then have his company tonight?

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     Not till after midnight, for he is dieted²¹ to his hour.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     That approaches apace.²² I would gladly have him see his company anatomized,²³ that he might take a measure of his own judgements, wherein so curiously²⁴ he had set this counterfeit.

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     We will not meddle with him²⁵ till he come, for his presence must be the whip of the other.²⁶

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     In the meantime, what hear you of these wars?

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     I hear there is an overture²⁸ of peace.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     Nay, I assure you, a peace concluded.

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     What will Count Rossillion do then? Will he travel higher,³⁰ or return again into France?

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     I perceive by this demand,³² you are not altogether of his council.

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     Let it be forbid, sir! So should I be a great deal³³ of his act.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     Sir, his wife some two months since fled from his house. Her pretence³⁴ is a pilgrimage to Saint Jaques le Grand; which holy undertaking with most austere sanctimony³⁶ she accomplished. And there residing, the tenderness of her nature became as a prey to her grief; in fine, made a groan of her last breath, and now she sings in heaven.

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     How is this justified?³⁹

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     The stronger part of it by her own letters, which makes her story true, even to the point of her death. Her death itself, which could not be her office⁴¹ to say is come, was faithfully confirmed by the rector⁴² of the place.

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     Hath the count all this intelligence?

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     Ay, and the particular confirmations, point from point, to the full arming⁴⁴ of the verity.⁴⁵

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     I am heartily sorry that he’ll be glad of this.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     How mightily sometimes we make⁴⁷ us comforts of our losses!

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     And how mightily some other times we drown our gain in tears! The great dignity that his valour hath here acquired for him shall at home be encountered⁵⁰ with a shame as ample.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair if they were not cherished⁵³ by our virtues.

       Enter a [Servant as a] Messenger

       How now! Where’s your master?

       

SERVANT

SERVANT     He met the duke in the street, sir, of whom he hath taken a solemn⁵⁵ leave: his lordship will next morning for⁵⁶ France. The duke hath offered him letters of commendations to the king.

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     They shall be no more than needful⁵⁸ there, if they were more than they can commend.

       Enter Count Rossillion [Bertram]

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     They cannot be too sweet for the king’s tartness. Here’s his lordship now.— How now, my lord! Is’t not after midnight?

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     I have tonight dispatched⁶² sixteen businesses, a month’s length apiece, by an abstract of success: I have congied with⁶³ the duke, done my adieu with his nearest,⁶⁴ buried a wife, mourned for her, writ to my lady mother I am returning, entertained my convoy⁶⁵ and between these main parcels of dispatch effected many nicer⁶⁶ needs. The last was the greatest, but that I have not ended yet.

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     If the business be of any difficulty, and this morning your departure hence, it requires haste of your lordship.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     I mean, the business is not ended, as fearing to hear of it⁶⁹ hereafter. But shall we have this dialogue between the fool and the soldier? Come, bring forth this counterfeit module,⁷¹ h’as deceived me like a double-meaning prophesier.

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     Bring him forth. To Soldiers

               H’as sat i’th’stocks⁷³ all night, poor gallant knave.

       [Exit some Soldiers]

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     No matter. His heels have deserved it in usurping⁷⁴ his spurs so long. How does he carry⁷⁵ himself?

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     I have told your lordship already, the stocks carry him. But to answer you as you would be understood: he weeps like a wench that had shed⁷⁷ her milk, he hath confessed himself to Morgan, whom he supposes to be a friar, from the time⁷⁹ of his remembrance to this very instant disaster of his setting i’th’stocks. And what think you he hath confessed?

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Nothing of me, has a?⁸¹

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     His confession is taken, and it shall be read to his face: if your lordship be in’t, as I believe you are, you must have the patience to hear it.

       Enter Parolles [blindfolded] with his Interpreter

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     A plague upon him! Muffled? He can say nothing of me. Hush, hush.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     Hoodman⁸⁵ comes! Portotartarossa.

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     He calls for the tortures. What will you say without ’em?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     I will confess what I know without constraint.⁸⁷ If ye pinch me like a pasty, I can say no more.

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     Bosko chimurcho.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     Boblibindo chicurmurco.

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     You are a merciful general. Our general bids you answer to what I shall ask you out of a note.⁹²

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     And truly, as I hope to live.

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     ‘First demand of him how many horse⁹⁴ the duke is strong.’ Pretends to read What say you to that?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Five or six thousand, but very weak and unserviceable. The troops are all scattered, and the commanders very poor rogues, upon my reputation and credit and as I hope to live.

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     Shall I set down your answer so?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Do. I’ll take the sacrament¹⁰⁰ on’t, how and which way you will. Bertram and the Lords speak aside throughout

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     All’s one¹⁰¹ to him. What a past-saving slave is this?

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     You’re deceived, my lord: this is Monsieur Parolles, the gallant militarist — that was his own phrase — that had the whole theoric¹⁰³ of war in the knot of his scarf, and the practice in the chape¹⁰⁴ of his dagger.

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     I will never trust a man again for keeping his sword clean,¹⁰⁵ nor believe he can have everything in him by wearing his apparel neatly.

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     Well, that’s set down. To Parolles

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     ‘Five or six thousand horse,’ I said — I will say true — ‘or thereabouts’, set down, for I’ll speak truth.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     He’s very near the truth in this.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     But I con¹¹¹ him no thanks for’t, in the nature he delivers it.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     ‘Poor rogues’, I pray you say.

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     Well, that’s set down.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     I humbly thank you, sir. A truth’s a truth, the rogues are marvellous¹¹⁴ poor.

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     ‘Demand of him, of what strength they are a-foot.¹¹⁵’ Pretends to read What say you to that?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     By my troth, sir, if I were to live¹¹⁷ this present hour, I will tell true. Let me see: Spurio, a hundred and fifty: Sebastian, so¹¹⁸ many: Corambus, so many: Jaques, so many: Guiltian, Cosmo, Lodowick and Gratii, two hundred fifty each: mine own company, Chitopher, Vaumond, Bentii, two hundred fifty each. So that the muster-file,¹²¹ rotten and sound, upon my life, amounts not to fifteen thousand poll, half of the which dare not shake the snow from off their cassocks,¹²² lest they shake themselves to pieces.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     What shall be done to him?

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     Nothing, but let him have thanks. Demand of him my condition,¹²⁵ and what credit I have with the duke.

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     Well, that’s set down. Pretends to read ‘You shall demand of him, whether one Captain Dumaine be i’th’camp, a Frenchman, what his reputation is with the duke, what his valour, honesty, and expertness in wars, or whether he thinks it were not possible, with well-weighing¹³⁰ sums of gold, to corrupt him to a revolt.’ What say you to this? What do you know of it?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     I beseech you let me answer to the particular¹³² of the inter’gatories: demand them singly.

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     Do you know this Captain Dumaine?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     I know him: a was a botcher’s¹³⁵ ’prentice in Paris, from whence he was whipped for getting the shrieve’s fool¹³⁶ with child — a dumb innocent that could not say him nay.¹³⁷ First Lord attempts to hit Parolles

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Nay, by your leave, hold your hands, though I know his¹³⁸ brains are forfeit to the next tile that falls.

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     Well, is this captain in the Duke of Florence’s camp?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Upon my knowledge he is, and lousy.¹⁴¹

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     Nay look not so upon me. We shall hear of your lord anon.

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     What is his reputation with the duke?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     The duke knows him for no other but a poor officer of mine, and writ to me this other day to turn him out o’th’band.¹⁴⁵ I think I have his letter in my pocket.

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     Marry, we’ll search. They search his pockets

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     In good sadness,¹⁴⁷ I do not know. Either it is there, or it is upon a file with the duke’s other letters in my tent.

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     Here ’tis. Here’s a paper. Shall I read it to you?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     I do not know if it be it or no.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Our interpreter does it well.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     Excellently.

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     ‘Dian, the count’s a fool, and full of gold’— Reads

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     That is not the duke’s letter, sir. That is an advertisement¹⁵⁴ to a proper maid in Florence, one Diana, to take heed of the allurement of one Count Rossillion, a foolish idle boy, but for all that very ruttish.¹⁵⁶ I pray you, sir, put it up again.

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     Nay, I’ll read it first, by your favour.¹⁵⁷

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     My meaning in’t, I protest, was very honest in the behalf of the maid, for I knew the young count to be a dangerous and lascivious boy, who is a whale to virginity and devours up all the fry¹⁶⁰ it finds.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Damnable both-sides¹⁶¹ rogue!

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     ‘When he swears oaths, bid him drop¹⁶² gold, and take it.

       [Reads the] letter

               After he scores,¹⁶³ he never pays the score.

               Half¹⁶⁴ won is match well made, match and well make it;

165

165         He ne’er pays after-debts,¹⁶⁵ take it before.

               And say a soldier, Dian, told thee this:

               Men are to mell¹⁶⁷ with, boys are not to kiss.

               For count¹⁶⁸ of this, the count’s a fool, I know it,

               Who pays before,¹⁶⁹ but not when he does owe it.

170

170         Thine, as he vowed to thee in thine ear, Parolles.’

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     He shall be whipped through the army with this rhyme in’s¹⁷¹ forehead.

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     This is your devoted friend, sir, the manifold linguist¹⁷² and the armipotent¹⁷³ soldier.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     I could endure anything before but a cat, and now he’s a cat to me.

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     I perceive, sir, by the general’s looks, we shall be fain¹⁷⁵ to hang you.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     My life, sir, in any case. Not that I am afraid to die, but that, my offences being many, I would repent out the remainder of nature.¹⁷⁷ Let me live, sir, in a dungeon, i’th’stocks, or anywhere, so I may live.

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     We’ll see what may be done, so you confess freely: therefore, once more to this Captain Dumaine. You have answered to his reputation with the duke and to his valour. What is his honesty?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     He will steal, sir, an egg¹⁸² out of a cloister, for rapes and ravishments he parallels Nessus.¹⁸³ He professes not keeping of oaths, in breaking ’em he is stronger than Hercules.¹⁸⁴ He will lie, sir, with such volubility that you would think truth were a fool. Drunkenness is his best virtue, for he will be swine-drunk,¹⁸⁵ and in his sleep he does little harm, save to his bed-clothes about him. But they¹⁸⁶ know his conditions¹⁸⁷ and lay him in straw. I have but little more to say, sir, of his honesty: he has everything that an honest man should not have; what an honest man should have, he has nothing.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     I begin to love him for this.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     For this description of thine honesty? A pox upon him for me. He’s more and more a cat.

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     What say you to his expertness in war?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Faith, sir, h’as led¹⁹⁴ the drum before the English tragedians — to belie him, I will not — and more of his soldiership I know not, except, in that country he had the honour to be the officer at a place there called Mile-end,¹⁹⁶ to instruct for the doubling of files.¹⁹⁷ I would do the man what honour I can, but of this I am not certain.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     He hath out-villained villainy so far that the rarity redeems him.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     A pox on him, he’s a cat still.

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     His qualities being at this poor price, I need not to ask you if gold will corrupt him to revolt.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Sir, for a cardecue²⁰³ he will sell the fee-simple of his salvation, the inheritance of it, and cut²⁰⁴ th’entail from all remainders, and a perpetual succession for it perpetually.

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     What’s his brother, the other Captain Dumaine?

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     Why does he ask him of me?

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     What’s he?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     E’en a crow o’th’same nest: not altogether so great as the first in goodness, but greater a great deal in evil. He excels his brother for²¹⁰ a coward, yet his brother is reputed one of the best that is. In a retreat he outruns any lackey;²¹¹ marry, in coming on²¹² he has the cramp.

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     If your life be saved, will you undertake to betray the Florentine?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Ay, and the captain²¹⁴ of his horse, Count Rossillion.

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     I’ll whisper with the general, and know his pleasure.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     I’ll no more²¹⁶ drumming. Aside A plague of all drums! Only to seem to deserve well, and to beguile the supposition²¹⁷ of that lascivious young boy, the count, have I run into this danger. Yet who would have suspected an ambush where I was taken?

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     There is no remedy, sir, but you must die. The general says, you that have so traitorously discovered²²¹ the secrets of your army and made such pestiferous²²² reports of men very nobly held, can serve the world for no honest use: therefore you must die. Come, headsman, off with his head.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     O lord, sir, let me live, or let me see my death!

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     That shall you, and take your leave of all your friends. Unblindfolds him So, look about you: know you any here?

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Good morrow, noble captain.

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     God bless you, Captain Parolles.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     God save you, noble captain.

       

SECOND LORD

SECOND LORD     Captain, what greeting will you²³⁰ to my Lord Lafew? I am for France.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     Good captain,²³¹ will you give me a copy of the sonnet you writ to Diana in behalf of the Count Rossillion? An I were not a very²³² coward, I’d compel it of you. But fare you well.

       Exeunt [Bertram and Lords]

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     You are undone,²³⁴ captain — all but your scarf that has a knot on’t yet.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Who cannot be crushed with a plot?

       

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER     If you could find out a country where but²³⁶ women were that had received so much shame, you might begin an impudent²³⁷ nation. Fare ye well, sir. I am for France too. We shall speak of you there.

       Exeunt [Interpreter and Soldiers]

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Yet am I thankful. If my heart were great²³⁹

240

240         ’Twould burst at this. Captain I’ll be no more,

               But I will eat and drink, and sleep as soft

               As captain shall. Simply the thing I am

               Shall make me live. Who²⁴³ knows himself a braggart,

               Let him fear this; for it will come to pass

245

245         That every braggart shall be found an ass.

               Rust, sword. Cool, blushes. And, Parolles, live

               Safest in shame. Being fooled,²⁴⁷ by fool’ry thrive;

               There’s place and means for every man alive.

               I’ll after them.

       Exit

[Act 4 Scene 4]^4.4

running scene 17

---

       Enter Helen, Widow and Diana

       

HELEN

HELEN     That you may well perceive I have not wronged you,

               One² of the greatest in the Christian world

               Shall be my surety,³ ’fore whose throne ’tis needful,

               Ere I can perfect mine intents, to kneel.

5

5             Time was, I did him a desirèd office,

               Dear almost as his life, which gratitude⁶

               Through⁷ flinty Tartar’s bosom would peep forth,

               And answer thanks. I duly am informed

               His grace is at Marseilles, to which place

10

10           We have convenient convoy.¹⁰ You must know

               I am supposèd dead. The army breaking,¹¹

               My husband hies him¹² home, where, heaven aiding,

               And by the leave of my good lord the king,

               We’ll be before our welcome.¹⁴

15

15   

WIDOW

WIDOW           Gentle madam,

               You never had a servant to whose trust

               Your business was more welcome.

       

HELEN

HELEN     Nor you, mistress,

               Ever a friend whose thoughts more truly labour

20

20           To recompense your love. Doubt not but heaven

               Hath brought me up to be²¹ your daughter’s dower,

               As it hath fated her to be my motive²²

               And helper to a husband. But, O strange men,

               That can such sweet use make of what they hate,

25

25           When saucy trusting²⁵ of the cozened thoughts

               Defiles²⁶ the pitchy night, so lust doth play

               With what it loathes²⁷ for that which is away.

               But more of this hereafter. You, Diana,

               Under my poor instructions yet²⁹ must suffer

30

30           Something in my behalf.

       

DIANA

DIANA     Let death and honesty³¹

               Go with³² your impositions, I am yours,

               Upon³³ your will to suffer.

       

HELEN

HELEN     Yet,³⁴ I pray you:

35

35           But with the word³⁵ the time will bring on summer,

               When briars shall have leaves as well as thorns,

               And be as sweet as sharp. We must away.

               Our wagon is prepared, and time revives³⁸ us:

               All’s well that ends well, still the fine’s³⁹ the crown;

40

40           Whate’er the course, the end is the renown.⁴⁰

       Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 5]^4.5

running scene 18

---

       Enter Clown [Lavatch], Old Lady [Countess] and Lafew

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     No, no, no, your son was misled with¹ a snipt-taffeta fellow there, whose villainous saffron² would have made all the unbaked and doughy youth of a nation in his colour. Your³ daughter-in-law had been alive at this hour, and your son here at home, more advanced by the king than by that red-tailed humble-bee⁴ I speak of.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     I would I had not known him. It was the death of the most virtuous gentlewoman that ever nature had praise for creating. If she had partaken of my flesh, and cost me the dearest⁸ groans of a mother, I could not have owed her a more rooted⁹ love.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     ’Twas a good lady, ’twas a good lady. We may pick a thousand salads ere we light on¹¹ such another herb.

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     Indeed, sir, she was the sweet marjoram¹² of the salad, or rather, the herb of grace.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     They are not herbs,¹⁴ you knave, they are nose-herbs.

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     I am no great Nebuchadnezzar,¹⁵ sir. I have not much skill in grace.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Whether¹⁶ dost thou profess thyself, a knave or a fool?

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     A fool,¹⁷ sir, at a woman’s service, and a knave at a man’s.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Your distinction?

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     I would cozen¹⁹ the man of his wife and do his service.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     So you were a knave at his service, indeed.

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     And I would give his wife my bauble,²¹ sir, to do her service.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     I will subscribe²² for thee, thou art both knave and fool.

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     At your service.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     No, no, no.

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     Why, sir, if I cannot serve you, I can serve as great a prince as you are.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Who’s that? A Frenchman?

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     Faith, sir, a has an English maine,²⁷ but his fisnomy is more hotter in France than there.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     What prince is that?

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     The black prince,³⁰ sir, alias the prince of darkness, alias the devil.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Hold thee,³¹ there’s my purse: Gives a purse I give thee not this to suggest thee from thy master thou talkest of. Serve him still.

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     I am a woodland³³ fellow, sir, that always loved a great fire, and the master I speak of ever keeps a good fire. But sure he is the prince³⁴ of the world. Let his nobility remain in’s court. I am for the house with the narrow gate,³⁵ which I take to be too little for pomp³⁶ to enter. Some that humble themselves may, but the many³⁷ will be too chill and tender, and they’ll be for the flowery way that leads to the broad gate and the great fire.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Go thy ways,³⁹ I begin to be aweary of thee, and I tell thee so before, because I would not fall out with thee. Go thy ways. Let my horses be well looked to, without any tricks.⁴¹

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     If I put any tricks upon ’em, sir, they shall be jades’ tricks,⁴² which are their own right by the law of nature.

       Exit

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     A shrewd⁴⁴ knave and an unhappy.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     So a is. My lord that’s gone⁴⁵ made himself much sport out of him. By his authority he remains here, which he thinks is a patent for his sauciness, and indeed he has no pace,⁴⁷ but runs where he will.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     I like him well, ’tis not amiss. And I was about to tell you, since I heard of the good lady’s⁴⁹ death and that my lord your son was upon his return home, I moved the king my master to speak in the behalf of my daughter, which, in the minority⁵⁰ of them both, his majesty, out of a self-gracious remembrance⁵¹ did first propose. His highness hath promised me to do it, and to stop up the displeasure he hath conceived against your son, there is no fitter matter. How does your ladyship like it?

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     With very much content, my lord, and I wish it happily effected.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     His highness comes post⁵⁶ from Marseilles, of as able body as when he numbered⁵⁷ thirty. A will be here tomorrow, or I am deceived by him that in such intelligence⁵⁸ hath seldom failed.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     It rejoices me that I hope I shall see him ere I die. I have letters that my son will be here tonight. I shall beseech your lordship to remain with me till they meet together.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Madam, I was thinking with⁶² what manners I might safely be admitted.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     You need but⁶³ plead your honourable privilege.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Lady, of that I have made a bold charter,⁶⁴ but I thank my God it holds yet.

       Enter Clown [Lavatch]

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     O madam, yonder’s my lord your son with a patch of velvet⁶⁵ on’s face. Whether there be a scar under’t or no, the velvet knows,⁶⁶ but ’tis a goodly patch of velvet: his left cheek is a cheek of two⁶⁷ pile and a half, but his right cheek is worn bare.⁶⁸

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     A scar nobly got, or a noble scar, is a good liv’ry⁶⁹ of honour, so belike is that.

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     But it is your carbonadoed⁷⁰ face.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Let us go see your son, I pray you. I long to talk with the young noble soldier.

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     Faith, there’s a dozen of ’em, with delicate fine hats and most courteous feathers, which bow the head and nod at every man.

       Exeunt

Act 5 [Scene 1]^5.1

running scene 19

---

       Enter Helen, Widow and Diana, with two Attendants

       

HELEN

HELEN     But this exceeding posting¹ day and night

               Must wear² your spirits low. We cannot help it:

               But since you have made the days and nights as one,

               To wear your gentle limbs in my affairs,

5

5             Be bold⁵ you do so grow in my requital

               As nothing can unroot you. In happy time.⁶

       Enter a Gentle Astringer Perhaps with a hawk

               This man may help me to his majesty’s ear,

               If he would spend⁸ his power. God save you, sir.

       

GENTLEMAN

GENTLEMAN     And you.

10

10   

HELEN

HELEN           Sir, I have seen you in the court of France.

       

GENTLEMAN

GENTLEMAN     I have been sometimes there.

       

HELEN

HELEN     I do presume, sir, that you are not fall’n¹²

               From the report that goes upon your goodness,

               And therefore, goaded with most sharp¹⁴ occasions

15

15           Which lay nice¹⁵ manners by, I put you to

               The use of your own virtues, for the which

               I shall continue thankful.

       

GENTLEMAN

GENTLEMAN     What’s your will?

       

HELEN

HELEN     That it will please you

20

20           To give this poor petition²⁰ to the king, Shows a petition

               And aid me with that store of power you have

               To come into his presence.

       

GENTLEMAN

GENTLEMAN     The king’s not here.

       

HELEN

HELEN     Not here, sir?

25

25   

GENTLEMAN

GENTLEMAN           Not, indeed.

               He hence removed²⁶ last night, and with more haste

               Than is his use.²⁷

       

WIDOW

WIDOW     Lord, how we lose our pains!²⁸

       

HELEN

HELEN     All’s well that ends well yet,

30

30           Though time seem so adverse and means unfit.

               I do beseech you, whither is he gone?

       

GENTLEMAN

GENTLEMAN     Marry, as I take it, to Rossillion,

               Whither I am going.

       

HELEN

HELEN     I do beseech you, sir,

35

35           Since you are like³⁵ to see the king before me,

               Commend³⁶ the paper to his gracious hand, Gives petition

               Which I presume³⁷ shall render you no blame,

               But rather make you thank your pains for it.

               I will come after you with what good speed

40

40           Our means⁴⁰ will make us means.

       

GENTLEMAN

GENTLEMAN     This I’ll do for you.

       

HELEN

HELEN     And you shall find yourself to be well thanked,

               Whate’er falls more.⁴³ We must to horse again.

               Go, go, provide.⁴⁴

       [Exeunt, separately]

[Act 5 Scene 2]^5.2

running scene 20

---

       Enter Clown [Lavatch] and Parolles

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES      Good Monsieur Lavache,¹ give my lord Lafew this letter. Gives Lavatch a letter I have ere now, sir, been better known to you, when I have held familiarity with fresher clothes. But I am now, sir, muddied in Fortune’s mood,³ and smell somewhat strong of her strong displeasure.

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     Truly, Fortune’s displeasure is but sluttish⁵ if it smell so strongly as thou speakest of. I will henceforth eat no fish of Fortune’s butt’ring.⁶ Prithee allow the wind.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Nay, you need not to stop⁸ your nose, sir. I spake but by a metaphor.

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     Indeed, sir, if your metaphor stink, I will stop my nose, or against any man’s metaphor. Prithee get thee further.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Pray you, sir, deliver me¹¹ this paper.

       

LAVATCH

LAVATCH     Foh! Prithee stand away. A paper¹² from Fortune’s close-stool to give to a nobleman! Look, here he comes himself.

       Enter Lafew

               Here is a purr¹⁴ of Fortune’s, sir, or of Fortune’s cat — but not a musk-cat — that has fallen into the unclean fishpond of her displeasure, and as he says, is muddied withal.¹⁶ Pray you, sir, use the carp as you may, for he looks like a poor, decayed, ingenious,¹⁷ foolish, rascally knave. I do pity his distress in my smiles of comfort and leave him to your lordship.

       Exit

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     My lord, I am a man whom Fortune hath cruelly scratched.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     And what would you have me to do? ’Tis too late to pare²⁰ her nails now. Wherein have you played the knave with Fortune that she should scratch you, who of herself is a good lady and would not have knaves thrive long under her? There’s a cardecue²³ for you. Gives coin Let the justices make you and Fortune friends; I am for other business. Starts to leave

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     I beseech your honour to hear me one single word.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     You beg a single penny more. Gives another coin Come, you shall ha’t, save your word.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     My name, my good lord, is Parolles.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     You beg more than ‘word’²⁸ then. Cox my passion! Give me your hand. How does your drum?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     O my good lord, you were the first that found me.³⁰

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Was I, in sooth?³¹ And I was the first that lost thee.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     It lies in³² you, my lord, to bring me in some grace, for you did bring me out.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Out upon thee,³³ knave! Dost thou put upon me at once both the office of God and the devil? One brings thee in grace and the other brings thee out. Trumpets sound The king’s coming. I know by his trumpets. Sirrah, inquire³⁵ further after me. I had talk of you last night. Though you are a fool and a knave, you shall eat. Go to, follow.

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     I praise God for you.

       [Exeunt]

[Act 5 Scene 3]

running scene 20 continues

---

       Flourish. Enter King, Old Lady [Countess], Lafew, the two French Lords, with Attendants

       

KING

KING     We lost a jewel of¹ her, and our esteem

               Was made much poorer by it: but your son,

               As mad in folly, lacked the sense to know

               Her estimation home.⁴

5

5     

COUNTESS

COUNTESS           ’Tis past, my liege,

               And I beseech your majesty to make⁶ it

               Natural⁷ rebellion, done i’th’blade of youth,

               When oil and fire, too strong for reason’s force,

               O’erbears it and burns on.

10

10   

KING

KING           My honoured lady,

               I have forgiven and forgotten all,

               Though my revenges were high bent¹² upon him,

               And watched¹³ the time to shoot.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     This I must say,

15

15           But first I beg my pardon,¹⁵ the young lord

               Did to his majesty, his mother and his lady

               Offence of mighty note; but to himself

               The greatest wrong of all. He lost a wife

               Whose beauty did astonish¹⁹ the survey

20

20           Of richest²⁰ eyes, whose words all ears took captive,

               Whose dear perfection hearts that scorned to serve

               Humbly called mistress.

       

KING

KING     Praising what is lost

               Makes the remembrance dear. Well, call him hither.

25

25           We are reconciled, and the first view²⁵ shall kill

               All repetition. Let him not ask our pardon.

               The nature of his great offence is dead,²⁷

               And deeper than oblivion we do bury

               Th’incensing relics²⁹ of it. Let him approach

30

30           A stranger,³⁰ no offender; and inform him

               So ’tis our will he should.

       

GENTLEMAN³²

GENTLEMAN     I shall, my liege.

       [Exit]

       

KING

KING     What says he to your daughter? Have you spoke? To Lafew

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     All that he is hath reference to³⁴ your highness.

35

35   

KING

KING           Then shall we have a match. I have letters sent me

               That sets him high in fame.

       Enter Count Bertram With a patch of velvet on his left cheek

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     He looks well on’t.

       

KING

KING     I am not a day of season,³⁸

               For thou mayst see a sunshine and a hail

40

40           In me at once. But to the brightest beams

               Distracted⁴¹ clouds give way, so stand thou forth.

               The time is fair again.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     My high-repented blames,⁴³

               Dear sovereign, pardon to⁴⁴ me.

45

45   

KING

KING           All is whole.⁴⁵

               Not one word more of the consumèd⁴⁶ time.

               Let’s take⁴⁷ the instant by the forward top,

               For we are old, and on our quick’st⁴⁸ decrees

               Th’inaudible and noiseless foot of time

50

50           Steals ere we can effect them. You remember

               The daughter of this lord?

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Admiringly, my liege. At first

               I stuck⁵³ my choice upon her, ere my heart

               Durst⁵⁴ make too bold a herald of my tongue,

55

55           Where⁵⁵ the impression of mine eye infixing,

               Contempt his scornful perspective⁵⁶ did lend me,

               Which warped the line of every other favour,⁵⁷

               Scorned a fair colour,⁵⁸ or expressed it stol’n,

               Extended or contracted⁵⁹ all proportions

60

60           To a most hideous object.⁶⁰ Thence it came

               That she⁶¹ whom all men praised and whom myself,

               Since I have lost, have loved, was in mine eye

               The dust that did offend it.

       

KING

KING     Well excused.

65

65           That thou didst love her, strikes some scores⁶⁵ away

               From the great count.⁶⁶ But love that comes too late,

               Like a remorseful⁶⁷ pardon slowly carried,

               To the great sender turns⁶⁸ a sour offence,

               Crying, ‘That’s good that’s gone.’ Our rash faults

70

70           Make trivial price⁷⁰ of serious things we have,

               Not knowing⁷¹ them until we know their grave.

               Oft our displeasures,⁷² to ourselves unjust,

               Destroy our friends and after weep⁷³ their dust.

               Our own love waking cries to see what’s done,

75

75           While shameful hate sleeps out⁷⁵ the afternoon.

               Be this sweet Helen’s knell,⁷⁶ and now forget her.

               Send forth your amorous token for fair Maudlin.⁷⁷

               The main consents⁷⁸ are had, and here we’ll stay

               To see our widower’s second marriage day,

80

80           Which better than the first, O dear heaven, bless!

               Or, ere they meet,⁸¹ in me, O nature, cesse!

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Come on, my son, in whom my house’s name

               Must be digested,⁸³ give a favour from you

               To sparkle in the spirits of my daughter,

85

85           That she may quickly come.⁸⁵ Bertram gives Lafew a ring

               By my old beard,

               And every hair that’s on’t, Helen, that’s dead,

               Was a sweet creature: such a ring as this,

               The last⁸⁹ that e’er I took her leave at court,

90

90           I saw upon her finger.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Hers it was not.

       

KING

KING     Now, pray you let me see it. For mine eye, Lafew gives it to him

               While I was speaking, oft was fastened to’t.

               This ring was mine, and when I gave it Helen,

95

95           I bade⁹⁵ her, if her fortunes ever stood

               Necessitied to⁹⁶ help, that by this token

               I would relieve her. Had you that craft, to reave⁹⁷ her

               Of what should stead⁹⁸ her most?

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     My gracious sovereign,

100

100         Howe’er it pleases you to take it so,

               The ring was never hers.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Son, on my life,

               I have seen her wear it, and she reckoned¹⁰³ it

               At¹⁰⁴ her life’s rate.

105

105 

LAFEW

LAFEW             I am sure I saw her wear it.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     You are deceived, my lord. She never saw it.

               In Florence was it from a casement¹⁰⁷ thrown me,

               Wrapped in a paper, which contained the name

               Of her that threw it. Noble she was, and thought

110

110         I stood engaged,¹¹⁰ but when I had subscribed

               To mine own fortune and informed her fully

               I could not answer¹¹² in that course of honour

               As she had made the overture, she ceased

               In heavy satisfaction¹¹⁴ and would never

115

115         Receive the ring again.

       

KING

KING     Plutus¹¹⁶ himself,

               That knows the tinct¹¹⁷ and multiplying med’cine,

               Hath not in nature’s mystery more science¹¹⁸

               Than I have in this ring. ’Twas mine, ’twas Helen’s,

120

120         Whoever gave it you. Then, if you know

               That you are well acquainted with yourself,

               Confess ’twas hers, and by what rough enforcement

               You got it from her. She called the saints to surety¹²³

               That she would never put it from her finger,

125

125         Unless she gave it to yourself in bed,

               Where you have never come, or sent it us

               Upon¹²⁷ her great disaster.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     She never saw it.

       

KING

KING     Thou speak’st it falsely, as I love mine honour,

130

130         And mak’st conjectural¹³⁰ fears to come into me

               Which I would fain¹³¹ shut out. If it should prove

               That thou art so inhuman — ’twill not prove so —

               And yet I know not. Thou didst hate her deadly,

               And she is dead, which nothing but to close

135

135         Her eyes myself could win me to believe,

               More than to see this ring. Take him away. ↓↑Puts ring on his own finger↓↑

               My fore-past¹³⁷ proofs, howe’er the matter fall,

               Shall¹³⁸ tax my fears of little vanity,

               Having vainly¹³⁹ feared too little. Away with him.

140

140         We’ll sift¹⁴⁰ this matter further.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     If you shall prove

               This ring was ever hers, you shall as easy

               Prove that I husbanded her bed in Florence,

               Where yet she never was.

       [Exit, guarded]

       Enter a Gentleman [the Astringer]

145

145 

KING

KING             I am wrapped in dismal thinkings.

       

GENTLEMAN

GENTLEMAN     Gracious sovereign,

               Whether I have been to blame or no, I know not:

               Here’s a petition from a Florentine,

               Who hath for¹⁴⁹ four or five removes come short

150

150         To tender¹⁵⁰ it herself. I undertook it,

               Vanquished¹⁵¹ thereto by the fair grace and speech

               Of the poor suppliant, who by this¹⁵² I know

               Is here attending. Her business looks¹⁵³ in her

               With an importing visage,¹⁵⁴ and she told me,

155

155         In a sweet verbal brief,¹⁵⁵ it did concern

               Your highness with herself.

       

KING

KING     

       [Reads a] letter

               ‘Upon his many protestations to marry me when his wife was dead, I blush to say it, he won me. Now is the Count Rossillion a widower. His vows are forfeited to me, and my honour’s paid¹⁵⁹ to him. He stole from Florence, taking no leave, and I follow him to his country for justice. Grant it me, O king! In you it best lies, otherwise a seducer flourishes and a poor maid is undone. Diana Capilet.’

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     I will buy me a son-in-law in¹⁶³ a fair, and toll for this. I’ll none of him.

       

KING

KING     The heavens have thought well on thee, Lafew,

165

165         To bring forth this discov’ry. Seek these suitors.¹⁶⁵

               Go speedily and bring again the count.

       Enter Bertram [guarded]

               I am afeard¹⁶⁷ the life of Helen, lady,

               Was foully snatched.¹⁶⁸

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     Now, justice on the doers!

170

170 

KING

KING             I wonder, sir, sith¹⁷⁰ wives are monsters to you,

               And that¹⁷¹ you fly them as you swear them lordship,

               Yet you desire to marry.— What woman’s that?

       Enter Widow [and] Diana

       

DIANA

DIANA     I am, my lord, a wretched Florentine,

               Derivèd¹⁷⁴ from the ancient Capilet.

175

175         My suit, as I do understand, you know,

               And therefore know how far I may be pitied.

       

WIDOW

WIDOW     I am her mother, sir, whose age and honour

               Both suffer under this complaint we bring,

               And both shall cease,¹⁷⁹ without your remedy.

180

180 

KING

KING             Come hither, count. Do you know these women?

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     My lord, I neither can nor will deny

               But that I know them. Do they charge me further?

       

DIANA

DIANA     Why do you look so strange¹⁸³ upon your wife?

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     She’s none of mine, my lord.

185

185 

DIANA

DIANA             If you shall marry,

               You give away this hand,¹⁸⁶ and that is mine,

               You give away heaven’s vows, and those are mine,

               You give away myself, which is known mine,

               For I by vow am so embodied yours,¹⁸⁹

190

190         That she which marries you must marry me,

               Either both or none.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Your reputation comes too short for my daughter. To Bertram You are no husband for her.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     My lord, this is a fond¹⁹⁴ and desp’rate creature,

195

195         Whom sometime I have laughed with. Let your highness

               Lay a more noble thought upon mine honour

               Than for to think that I would sink it here.

       

KING

KING     Sir, for my thoughts, you¹⁹⁸ have them ill to friend

               Till your deeds gain them:¹⁹⁹ fairer prove your honour

200

200         Than in my thought it lies.

       

DIANA

DIANA     Good my lord,

               Ask him upon his oath, if he does think

               He had not my virginity.

       

KING

KING     What say’st thou to her?

205

205 

BERTRAM

BERTRAM             She’s impudent,²⁰⁵ my lord,

               And was a common gamester²⁰⁶ to the camp.

       

DIANA

DIANA     He does me wrong, my lord. If I were so,

               He might have bought me at a common price.

               Do not believe him. O, behold this ring, Shows a ring

210

210         Whose high respect and rich validity²¹⁰

               Did lack a parallel.²¹¹ Yet for all that

               He gave it to a commoner²¹² o’th’camp,

               If I be one.

       

COUNTESS

COUNTESS     He blushes, and ’tis hit.²¹⁴

215

215         Of²¹⁵ six preceding ancestors, that gem,

               Conferred by testament²¹⁶ to th’sequent issue,

               Hath it been owed²¹⁷ and worn. This is his wife,

               That ring’s a thousand proofs.

       

KING

KING     Methought you said

220

220         You saw one here in court could witness it.

       

DIANA

DIANA     I did, my lord, but loath am to produce

               So bad an instrument:²²² his name’s Parolles.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     I saw the man today, if man he be.

       

KING

KING     Find him, and bring him hither.

       [Exit an Attendant]

225

225 

BERTRAM

BERTRAM             What of him?

               He’s quoted for²²⁶ a most perfidious slave

               With²²⁷ all the spots o’th’world taxed and deboshed,

               Whose nature sickens but²²⁸ to speak a truth.

               Am I or²²⁹ that or this for what he’ll utter,

230

230         That will speak anything?

       

KING

KING     She hath that ring of yours.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     I think she has; certain it is I liked her,

               And boarded²³³ her i’th’wanton way of youth.

               She knew her distance²³⁴ and did angle for me,

235

235         Madding²³⁵ my eagerness with her restraint,

               As all impediments in fancy’s²³⁶ course

               Are motives of more fancy. And in fine,

               Her insuite²³⁸ cunning, with her modern grace,

               Subdued me²³⁹ to her rate: she got the ring,

240

240         And I had that which any inferior might

               At market-price have bought.

       

DIANA

DIANA     I must be patient.

               You, that have turned²⁴³ off a first so noble wife,

               May justly diet²⁴⁴ me. I pray you yet —

245

245         Since you lack virtue, I will lose a husband —

               Send for your ring, I will return it home,

               And give me mine again.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     I have it not.

       

KING

KING     What ring was yours, I pray you?

250

250 

DIANA

DIANA             Sir, much like the same upon your finger.

       

KING

KING     Know you this ring? This ring was his of late.

       

DIANA

DIANA     And this was it I gave him, being abed.

       

KING

KING     The story then goes²⁵³ false, you threw it him

               Out of a casement.

255

255 

DIANA

DIANA             I have spoke the truth.

       Enter Parolles

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     My lord, I do confess the ring was hers.

       

KING

KING     You boggle²⁵⁷ shrewdly, every feather starts you.

               Is this the man you speak of?

       

DIANA

DIANA     Ay, my lord.

260

260 

KING

KING             Tell me, sirrah — but tell me true, I charge you, To Parolles

               Not fearing the displeasure of your master,

               Which on your just proceeding²⁶² I’ll keep off —

               By²⁶³ him and by this woman here what know you?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     So please your majesty, my master hath been an honourable gentleman. Tricks²⁶⁵ he hath had in him, which gentlemen have.

       

KING

KING     Come, come, to th’purpose: did he love this woman?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Faith, sir, he did love her, but how?

       

KING

KING     How, I pray you?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     He did love her, sir, as a gentleman loves a woman.

       

KING

KING     How is that?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     He²⁷¹ loved her, sir, and loved her not.

       

KING

KING     As thou art a knave, and no knave. What an equivocal companion²⁷² is this!

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     I am a poor man, and at your majesty’s command.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     He’s a good drum,²⁷⁴ my lord, but a naughty orator.

       

DIANA

DIANA     Do you know he promised me marriage?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Faith, I know more than I’ll speak.

       

KING

KING     But wilt thou not speak all thou knowest?

       

PAROLLES

PAROLLES     Yes, so please your majesty. I did go between them, as I said. But more than that, he loved her, for indeed he was mad for her and talked of Satan and of Limbo²⁸⁰ and of Furies and I know not what. Yet I was in that credit with them at that time that I knew of their going to bed, and of other motions,²⁸¹ as promising her marriage, and things which would derive²⁸² me ill will to speak of: therefore I will not speak what I know.

       

KING

KING     Thou hast spoken all already, unless thou canst say they are married. But thou art too fine²⁸⁵ in thy evidence: therefore stand aside. This ring, you say, was yours?

       

DIANA

DIANA     Ay, my good lord.

       

KING

KING     Where did you buy it? Or who gave it you?

       

DIANA

DIANA     It was not given me, nor I did not buy it.

       

KING

KING     Who lent it you?

       

DIANA

DIANA     It was not lent me neither.

       

KING

KING     Where did you find it, then?

       

DIANA

DIANA     I found it not.

       

KING

KING     If it were yours by none of all these ways,

                  How could you give it him?

       

DIANA

DIANA     I never gave it him.

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     This woman’s an easy²⁹⁷ glove, my lord: she goes off and on at pleasure.

       

KING

KING     This ring was mine, I gave it his first wife.

       

DIANA

DIANA     It might be yours or hers, for aught²⁹⁹ I know.

300

300 

KING

KING             Take her away. I do not like her now.

               To prison with her, and away with him.

               Unless thou tell’st me where thou hadst this ring,

               Thou diest within this hour.

       

DIANA

DIANA     I’ll never tell you.

305

305 

KING

KING             Take her away.

       

DIANA

DIANA     I’ll put in³⁰⁶ bail, my liege.

       

KING

KING     I think thee now some common customer.³⁰⁷

       

DIANA

DIANA     By Jove, if³⁰⁸ ever I knew man, ’twas you.

       

KING

KING     Wherefore hast thou accused him all this while?

310

310 

DIANA

DIANA             Because he’s guilty, and he is not guilty.

               He knows I am no maid, and he’ll swear to’t.

               I’ll swear I am a maid, and he knows not.

               Great king, I am no strumpet, by my life.

               I am either maid, or else this old man’s wife. Points to Lafew

315

315 

KING

KING             She does abuse our ears. To prison with her.

       

DIANA

DIANA     Good mother, fetch my bail.— Stay, royal sir.

       [Exit Widow]

               The jeweller that owes³¹⁷ the ring is sent for,

               And he shall surety³¹⁸ me. But for this lord

               Who hath abused me, as he knows himself,

320

320         Though yet he never harmed me, here I quit³²⁰ him.

               He knows himself my bed he hath defiled,

               And at that time he got his wife with child.

               Dead though she be, she feels her young one kick.

               So there’s my riddle: one that’s dead is quick,³²⁴

325

325         And now behold the meaning.

       Enter Helen and Widow

       

KING

KING     Is there no exorcist

               Beguiles³²⁷ the truer office of mine eyes?

               Is’t real that I see?

       

HELEN

HELEN     No, my good lord,

330

330         ’Tis but the shadow³³⁰ of a wife you see,

               The name and not the thing.

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     Both, both. O, pardon!

       

HELEN

HELEN     O my good lord, when I was like³³³ this maid,

               I found you wondrous kind. There is your ring,

335

335         And, look you, here’s your letter. This it says: Shows letter

               ‘When from my finger you can get this ring

               And are by me with child’, etc. This is done:

               Will you be mine, now you are doubly won?

       

BERTRAM

BERTRAM     If she, my liege, can make me know³³⁹ this clearly,

340

340         I’ll love her dearly, ever, ever dearly.

       

HELEN

HELEN     If it appear not plain and prove untrue,

               Deadly divorce³⁴² step between me and you!

               O my dear mother, do I see you living?

       

LAFEW

LAFEW     Mine eyes smell onions. I shall weep anon:

345

345         Good Tom Drum, lend me a handkercher.³⁴⁵ To Parolles

               So. I thank thee. Wait on³⁴⁶ me home, I’ll make sport with thee.

               Let thy court’sies³⁴⁷ alone, they are scurvy ones.

       

KING

KING     Let us from point to point this story know,

               To make the even³⁴⁹ truth in pleasure flow.—

350

350         If thou be’st yet a fresh uncroppèd flower, To Diana

               Choose thou thy husband, and I’ll pay thy dower,

               For I can guess that by thy honest aid

               Thou kept’st a wife herself, thyself a maid.—

               Of that and all the progress³⁵⁴ more and less

355

355         Resolvedly³⁵⁵ more leisure shall express.

               All yet seems well, and if it end so meet,³⁵⁶

               The bitter past,³⁵⁷ more welcome is the sweet.

       Flourish

       [Epilogue]

               The king’s a beggar now the play is done.

               All is well ended if this suit be won,

360

360         That you express content,³⁶⁰ which we will pay

               With strife³⁶¹ to please you, day exceeding day.

               Ours³⁶² be your patience then, and yours our parts,

               Your³⁶³ gentle hands lend us, and take our hearts.

       Exeunt

Textual Notes

F = First Folio text of 1623, the only authority for the play

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

F3 = a correction introduced in the Third Folio text of 1663–4

F4 = a correction introduced in the Fourth Folio text of 1685

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SD = stage direction

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

List of parts = Ed

1.1.1 SHCOUNTESS = Ed. F = Mother 2 SH BERTRAM = Ed. F = Ros. 107 got = F2. F = goe 127 wear = Ed. F = were 136 traitress = F2. F = Traitoresse

1.2.4 SH FIRST LORD = Ed. F = 1.Lo.G. 19 SH SECOND LORD = Ed. F = 2.Lo.E 23 Rossillion = F2. F = Rosignoll

1.3.2 SH REYNALDO = Ed. F = Ste. 9 SH LAVATCH = Ed. F = Clo. 13 I = F2. F = w 18 bairns spelled barnes in F 55 F omits this line, but prints “bis” (Latin for “twice”) at the end of the preceding line 64 ere = Ed. F = ore 81 Dian no queen = Ed. F = Queene 93 rightly = Ed. F = righlie 143 t’one = F2. F = ’ton tooth 172 intenible = F2. F = intemible 207 Haply spelled Happily in F 223 and = F2. F = an

2.1.6 SH FIRST LORD = Ed. F = Lord. G. 19 SH SECOND LORD = Ed. F = L.G. 28 SH SECOND LORD = Ed. F = 2.Lo.E. 45 with his cicatrice = Ed. F = his sicatrice, with 59 fee = Ed. F = see 93 SD Enter Helen = Ed. One line later in F 159 impostor = F3. F = Impostrue 179 nay = Ed. F = ne 199 heaven = Ed. F = helpe

2.2.1 SH COUNTESS = Ed. F = Lady. (F also uses Count., Lad., Old La. and La.) 42 An = Ed. F = And 47 legs = F2. F = legegs

2.3.1 SH LAFEW = Ed. F = Ol. Laf. 86 her = F2. F = heere 122 it is = F2. F = is is 195 thou’rt = F3.F = th’ourt 234 SD Enter Count Rossillion = Ed. One line earlier in F 260 detested = Ed. F = detected

2.5.14 Ay, “sir,” he “Sir” ‘s = Ed. F = I sir, hee sirs 22 End = Ed. F = And 23 one = Ed. F = on 25 heard = F2. F = hard

3.1.11 SH SECOND LORD = Ed. F = French E. 20 SH FIRST LORD = Ed. F = Fren.G. 27 th’field = F2. F = th the field

3.2.7 sold = F3.F = hold 14 E’en = Ed. F = In

3.4.1 SH COUNTESS = Ed. Not in F 4 SH REYNALDO = Ed. Not in F 7 have = F2. F = hane 18 SH COUNTESS = Ed. Not in F 23 SH REYNALDO = Ed. F = Ste.

3.5.0 SD Diana = Ed. F = Violenta 22–3 are you = F2. F = are 24 le = Ed. F = la

3.6.1 SH SECOND LORD = Ed. F = Cap. E. 2 SH FIRST LORD = Ed. F = Cap. G. 23 his = Ed. F = this 24 ore = Ed. F = ours

3.7.22 Resolves = F2. F = Resolve 38 After = F. F2 = After this 46 steads = F4. F = steeds

4.1.1 SH FIRST LORD = F (1 Lord E.). Lo.E for remainder of scene, perhaps because Shakespeare has forgotten that elsewhere first lord is G and second is E 5 captain = F3. F = Captaiue 70 art = F3. F = are

4.3.101 All’s…him assigned to Parolles in F 175 the = F2. F = your 203 cardecue = F2. F = Cardceue

4.4.18 you = F4. F = your

5.2.1 Monsieur = Ed. F = M^r 22 under her = F2. F = vnder

5.3.66 count spelled compt in F 116 Plutus = Ed. F = Platus 138 tax = F2. F = taze 157 SH KING = Ed. Not in F 170 sith = Ed. F = sir 172 SD Diana = Ed. F = Diana, and Parrolles 238 cunning = Ed. F = comming 337 are = Ed. F = is 361 strife = F2. F = strift