ALLS WELL THAT ENDS WELL by William Shakespeare Dramatis Personae KING OF FRANCE THE DUKE OF FLORENCE BERTRAM Count of Rousillon LAFEU an old lord PAROLLES a follower of Bertram TWO FRENCH LORDS serving with Bertram STEWARD Servant to the Countess of Rousillon LAVACHE a clown and Servant to the Countess of Rousillon A PAGE Servant to the Countess of Rousillon COUNTESS OF ROUSILLON mother to Bertram HELENA a gentlewoman protected by the Countess A WIDOW OF FLORENCE DIANA daughter to the Widow VIOLENTA neighbour and friend to the Widow MARIANA neighbour and friend to the Widow Lords Officers Soldiers etc French and Florentine SCENE Rousillon Paris Florence Marseilles ACT I SCENE 1 Rousillon The COUNT S palace Enter BERTRAM the COUNTESS OF ROUSILLON HELENA and LAFEU all in black COUNTESS In delivering my son from me I bury a second husband BERTRAM And I in going madam weep o er my father s death anew but I must attend his Majesty s command to whom I am now in ward evermore in subjection LAFEU You shall find of the King a husband madam you sir a father He that so generally is at all times good must of necessity hold his virtue to you whose worthiness would stir it up where it wanted rather than lack it where there is such abundance COUNTESS What hope is there of his Majesty s amendment LAFEU He hath abandon d his physicians madam under whose practices he hath persecuted time with hope and finds no other advantage in the process but only the losing of hope by time COUNTESS This young gentlewoman had a father O that had how sad a passage tis whose skill was almost as great as his honesty had it stretch d so far would have made nature immortal and death should have play for lack of work Would for the King s sake he were living I think it would be the death of the King s disease LAFEU How call d you the man you speak of madam COUNTESS He was famous sir in his profession and it was his great right to be so Gerard de Narbon LAFEU He was excellent indeed madam the King very lately spoke of him admiringly and mourningly he was skilful enough to have liv d still if knowledge could be set up against mortality BERTRAM What is it my good lord the King languishes of LAFEU A fistula my lord BERTRAM I heard not of it before LAFEU I would it were not notorious Was this gentlewoman the daughter of Gerard de Narbon COUNTESS His sole child my lord and bequeathed to my overlooking I have those hopes of her good that her education promises her dispositions she inherits which makes fair gifts fairer for where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities there commendations go with pity they are virtues and traitors too In her they are the better for their simpleness she derives her honesty and achieves her goodness LAFEU Your commendations madam get from her tears COUNTESS Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise in The remembrance of her father never approaches her heart but the tyranny of her sorrows takes all livelihood from her cheek No more of this Helena go to no more lest it be rather thought you affect a sorrow than to have HELENA I do affect a sorrow indeed but I have it too LAFEU Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead excessive grief the enemy to the living COUNTESS If the living be enemy to the grief the excess makes it soon mortal BERTRAM Madam I desire your holy wishes LAFEU How understand we that COUNTESS Be thou blest Bertram and succeed thy father In manners as in shape Thy blood and virtue Contend for empire in thee and thy goodness Share with thy birthright Love all trust a few Do wrong to none be able for thine enemy Rather in power than use and keep thy friend Under thy own life s key be check d for silence But never tax d for speech What heaven more will That thee may furnish and my prayers pluck down Fall on thy head Farewell My lord Tis an unseason d courtier good my lord Advise him LAFEU He cannot want the best That shall attend his love COUNTESS Heaven bless him Farewell Bertram Exit BERTRAM The best wishes that can be forg d in your thoughts be servants to you To HELENA Be comfortable to my mother your mistress and make much of her LAFEU Farewell pretty lady you must hold the credit of your father Exeunt BERTRAM and LAFEU HELENA O were that all I think not on my father And these great tears grace his remembrance more Than those I shed for him What was he like I have forgot him my imagination Carries no favour in t but Bertram s I am undone there is no living none If Bertram be away Twere all one That I should love a bright particular star And think to wed it he is so above me In his bright radiance and collateral light Must I be comforted not in his sphere Th ambition in my love thus plagues itself The hind that would be mated by the lion Must die for love Twas pretty though a plague To see him every hour to sit and draw His arched brows his hawking eye his curls In our heart s table heart too capable Of every line and trick of his sweet favour But now he s gone and my idolatrous fancy Must sanctify his relics Who comes here Enter PAROLLES Aside One that goes with him I love him for his sake And yet I know him a notorious liar Think him a great way fool solely a coward Yet these fix d evils sit so fit in him That they take place when virtue s steely bones Looks bleak i th cold wind withal full oft we see Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly PAROLLES Save you fair queen HELENA And you monarch PAROLLES No HELENA And no PAROLLES Are you meditating on virginity HELENA Ay You have some stain of soldier in you let me ask you a question Man is enemy to virginity how may we barricado it against him PAROLLES Keep him out HELENA But he assails and our virginity though valiant in the defence yet is weak Unfold to us some warlike resistance PAROLLES There is none Man setting down before you will undermine you and blow you up HELENA Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers up Is there no military policy how virgins might blow up men PAROLLES Virginity being blown down man will quicklier be blown up marry in blowing him down again with the breach yourselves made you lose your city It is not politic in the commonwealth of nature to preserve virginity Loss of virginity is rational increase and there was never virgin got till virginity was first lost That you were made of is metal to make virgins Virginity by being once lost may be ten times found by being ever kept it is ever lost Tis too cold a companion away with t HELENA I will stand for t a little though therefore I die a virgin PAROLLES There s little can be said in t tis against the rule of nature To speak on the part of virginity is to accuse your mothers which is most infallible disobedience He that hangs himself is a virgin virginity murders itself and should be buried in highways out of all sanctified limit as a desperate offendress against nature Virginity breeds mites much like a cheese consumes itself to the very paring and so dies with feeding his own stomach Besides virginity is peevish proud idle made of self love which is the most inhibited sin in the canon Keep it not you cannot choose but lose by t Out with t Within ten year it will make itself ten which is a goodly increase and the principal itself not much the worse Away with t HELENA How might one do sir to lose it to her own liking PAROLLES Let me see Marry ill to like him that ne er it likes Tis a commodity will lose the gloss with lying the longer kept the less worth Off with t while tis vendible answer the time of request Virginity like an old courtier wears her cap out of fashion richly suited but unsuitable just like the brooch and the toothpick which wear not now Your date is better in your pie and your porridge than in your cheek And your virginity your old virginity is like one of our French wither d pears it looks ill it eats drily marry tis a wither d pear it was formerly better marry yet tis a wither d pear Will you anything with it HELENA Not my virginity yet There shall your master have a thousand loves A mother and a mistress and a friend A phoenix captain and an enemy A guide a goddess and a sovereign A counsellor a traitress and a dear His humble ambition proud humility His jarring concord and his discord dulcet His faith his sweet disaster with a world Of pretty fond adoptious christendoms That blinking Cupid gossips Now shall he I know not what he shall God send him well The court s a learning place and he is one PAROLLES What one i faith HELENA That I wish well Tis pity PAROLLES What s pity HELENA That wishing well had not a body in t Which might be felt that we the poorer born Whose baser stars do shut us up in wishes Might with effects of them follow our friends And show what we alone must think which never Returns us thanks Enter PAGE PAGE Monsieur Parolles my lord calls for you Exit PAGE PAROLLES Little Helen farewell if I can remember thee I will think of thee at court HELENA Monsieur Parolles you were born under a charitable star PAROLLES Under Mars I HELENA I especially think under Mars PAROLLES Why under Man HELENA The wars hath so kept you under that you must needs be born under Mars PAROLLES When he was predominant HELENA When he was retrograde I think rather PAROLLES Why think you so HELENA You go so much backward when you fight PAROLLES That s for advantage HELENA So is running away when fear proposes the safety but the composition that your valour and fear makes in you is a virtue of a good wing and I like the wear well PAROLLES I am so full of business I cannot answer thee acutely I will return perfect courtier in the which my instruction shall serve to naturalize thee so thou wilt be capable of a courtier s counsel and understand what advice shall thrust upon thee else thou diest in thine unthankfulness and thine ignorance makes thee away Farewell When thou hast leisure say thy prayers when thou hast none remember thy friends Get thee a good husband and use him as he uses thee So farewell Exit HELENA Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie Which we ascribe to heaven The fated sky Gives us free scope only doth backward pull Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull What power is it which mounts my love so high That makes me see and cannot feed mine eye The mightiest space in fortune nature brings To join like likes and kiss like native things Impossible be strange attempts to those That weigh their pains in sense and do suppose What hath been cannot be Who ever strove To show her merit that did miss her love The King s disease my project may deceive me But my intents are fix d and will not leave me Exit ACT I SCENE 2 Paris The KING S palace Flourish of cornets Enter the KING OF FRANCE with letters and divers ATTENDANTS KING The Florentines and Senoys are by th ears Have fought with equal fortune and continue A braving war FIRST LORD So tis reported sir KING Nay tis most credible We here receive it A certainty vouch d from our cousin Austria With caution that the Florentine will move us For speedy aid wherein our dearest friend Prejudicates the business and would seem To have us make denial FIRST LORD His love and wisdom Approv d so to your Majesty may plead For amplest credence KING He hath arm d our answer And Florence is denied before he comes Yet for our gentlemen that mean to see The Tuscan service freely have they leave To stand on either part SECOND LORD It well may serve A nursery to our gentry who are sick For breathing and exploit KING What s he comes here Enter BERTRAM LAFEU and PAROLLES FIRST LORD It is the Count Rousillon my good lord Young Bertram KING Youth thou bear st thy father s face Frank nature rather curious than in haste Hath well compos d thee Thy father s moral parts Mayst thou inherit too Welcome to Paris BERTRAM My thanks and duty are your Majesty s KING I would I had that corporal soundness now As when thy father and myself in friendship First tried our soldiership He did look far Into the service of the time and was Discipled of the bravest He lasted long But on us both did haggish age steal on And wore us out of act It much repairs me To talk of your good father In his youth He had the wit which I can well observe To day in our young lords but they may jest Till their own scorn return to them unnoted Ere they can hide their levity in honour So like a courtier contempt nor bitterness Were in his pride or sharpness if they were His equal had awak d them and his honour Clock to itself knew the true minute when Exception bid him speak and at this time His tongue obey d his hand Who were below him He us d as creatures of another place And bow d his eminent top to their low ranks Making them proud of his humility In their poor praise he humbled Such a man Might be a copy to these younger times Which followed well would demonstrate them now But goers backward BERTRAM His good remembrance sir Lies richer in your thoughts than on his tomb So in approof lives not his epitaph As in your royal speech KING Would I were with him He would always say Methinks I hear him now his plausive words He scatter d not in ears but grafted them To grow there and to bear Let me not live This his good melancholy oft began On the catastrophe and heel of pastime When it was out Let me not live quoth he After my flame lacks oil to be the snuff Of younger spirits whose apprehensive senses All but new things disdain whose judgments are Mere fathers of their garments whose constancies Expire before their fashions This he wish d I after him do after him wish too Since I nor wax nor honey can bring home I quickly were dissolved from my hive To give some labourers room SECOND LORD You re loved sir They that least lend it you shall lack you first KING I fill a place I know t How long is t Count Since the physician at your father s died He was much fam d BERTRAM Some six months since my lord KING If he were living I would try him yet Lend me an arm the rest have worn me out With several applications Nature and sickness Debate it at their leisure Welcome Count My son s no dearer BERTRAM Thank your Majesty Exeunt Flourish ACT I SCENE 3 Rousillon The COUNT S palace Enter COUNTESS STEWARD and CLOWN COUNTESS I will now hear what say you of this gentlewoman STEWARD Madam the care I have had to even your content I wish might be found in the calendar of my past endeavours for then we wound our modesty and make foul the clearness of our deservings when of ourselves we publish them COUNTESS What does this knave here Get you gone sirrah The complaints I have heard of you I do not all believe tis my slowness that I do not for I know you lack not folly to commit them and have ability enough to make such knaveries yours CLOWN Tis not unknown to you madam I am a poor fellow COUNTESS Well sir CLOWN No madam tis not so well that I am poor though many of the rich are damn d but if I may have your ladyship s good will to go to the world Isbel the woman and I will do as we may COUNTESS Wilt thou needs be a beggar CLOWN I do beg your good will in this case COUNTESS In what case CLOWN In Isbel s case and mine own Service is no heritage and I think I shall never have the blessing of God till I have issue o my body for they say bames are blessings COUNTESS Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry CLOWN My poor body madam requires it I am driven on by the flesh and he must needs go that the devil drives COUNTESS Is this all your worship s reason CLOWN Faith madam I have other holy reasons such as they are COUNTESS May the world know them CLOWN I have been madam a wicked creature as you and all flesh and blood are and indeed I do marry that I may repent COUNTESS Thy marriage sooner than thy wickedness CLOWN I am out o friends madam and I hope to have friends for my wife s sake COUNTESS Such friends are thine enemies knave CLOWN Y are shallow madam in great friends for the knaves come to do that for me which I am aweary of He that ears my land spares my team and gives me leave to in the crop If I be his cuckold he s my drudge He that comforts my wife is the cherisher of my flesh and blood he that cherishes my flesh and blood loves my flesh and blood he that loves my flesh and blood is my friend ergo he that kisses my wife is my friend If men could be contented to be what they are there were no fear in marriage for young Charbon the puritan and old Poysam the papist howsome er their hearts are sever d in religion their heads are both one they may jowl horns together like any deer i th herd COUNTESS Wilt thou ever be a foul mouth d and calumnious knave CLOWN A prophet I madam and I speak the truth the next way For I the ballad will repeat Which men full true shall find Your marriage comes by destiny Your cuckoo sings by kind COUNTESS Get you gone sir I ll talk with you more anon STEWARD May it please you madam that he bid Helen come to you Of her I am to speak COUNTESS Sirrah tell my gentlewoman I would speak with her Helen I mean CLOWN Sings Was this fair face the cause quoth she Why the Grecians sacked Troy Fond done done fond Was this King Priam s joy With that she sighed as she stood With that she sighed as she stood And gave this sentence then Among nine bad if one be good Among nine bad if one be good There s yet one good in ten COUNTESS What one good in ten You corrupt the song sirrah CLOWN One good woman in ten madam which is a purifying o th song Would God would serve the world so all the year We d find no fault with the tithe woman if I were the parson One in ten quoth a An we might have a good woman born before every blazing star or at an earthquake twould mend the lottery well a man may draw his heart out ere a pluck one COUNTESS You ll be gone sir knave and do as I command you CLOWN That man should be at woman s command and yet no hurt done Though honesty be no puritan yet it will do no hurt it will wear the surplice of humility over the black gown of a big heart I am going forsooth The business is for Helen to come hither Exit COUNTESS Well now STEWARD I know madam you love your gentlewoman entirely COUNTESS Faith I do Her father bequeath d her to me and she herself without other advantage may lawfully make title to as much love as she finds There is more owing her than is paid and more shall be paid her than she ll demand STEWARD Madam I was very late more near her than I think she wish d me Alone she was and did communicate to herself her own words to her own ears she thought I dare vow for her they touch d not any stranger sense Her matter was she loved your son Fortune she said was no goddess that had put such difference betwixt their two estates Love no god that would not extend his might only where qualities were level Diana no queen of virgins that would suffer her poor knight surpris d without rescue in the first assault or ransom afterward This she deliver d in the most bitter touch of sorrow that e er I heard virgin exclaim in which I held my duty speedily to acquaint you withal sithence in the loss that may happen it concerns you something to know it COUNTESS YOU have discharg d this honestly keep it to yourself Many likelihoods inform d me of this before which hung so tott ring in the balance that I could neither believe nor misdoubt Pray you leave me Stall this in your bosom and I thank you for your honest care I will speak with you further anon Exit STEWARD Enter HELENA Even so it was with me when I was young If ever we are nature s these are ours this thorn Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong Our blood to us this to our blood is born It is the show and seal of nature s truth Where love s strong passion is impress d in youth By our remembrances of days foregone Such were our faults or then we thought them none Her eye is sick on t I observe her now HELENA What is your pleasure madam COUNTESS You know Helen I am a mother to you HELENA Mine honourable mistress COUNTESS Nay a mother Why not a mother When I said a mother Methought you saw a serpent What s in mother That you start at it I say I am your mother And put you in the catalogue of those That were enwombed mine Tis often seen Adoption strives with nature and choice breeds A native slip to us from foreign seeds You ne er oppress d me with a mother s groan Yet I express to you a mother s care God s mercy maiden does it curd thy blood To say I am thy mother What s the matter That this distempered messenger of wet The many colour d Iris rounds thine eye Why that you are my daughter HELENA That I am not COUNTESS I say I am your mother HELENA Pardon madam The Count Rousillon cannot be my brother I am from humble he from honoured name No note upon my parents his all noble My master my dear lord he is and I His servant live and will his vassal die He must not be my brother COUNTESS Nor I your mother HELENA You are my mother madam would you were So that my lord your son were not my brother Indeed my mother Or were you both our mothers I care no more for than I do for heaven So I were not his sister Can t no other But I your daughter he must be my brother COUNTESS Yes Helen you might be my daughter in law God shield you mean it not daughter and mother So strive upon your pulse What pale again My fear hath catch d your fondness Now I see The myst ry of your loneliness and find Your salt tears head Now to all sense tis gross You love my son invention is asham d Against the proclamation of thy passion To say thou dost not Therefore tell me true But tell me then tis so for look thy cheeks Confess it th one to th other and thine eyes See it so grossly shown in thy behaviours That in their kind they speak it only sin And hellish obstinacy tie thy tongue That truth should be suspected Speak is t so If it be so you have wound a goodly clew If it be not forswear t howe er I charge thee As heaven shall work in me for thine avail To tell me truly HELENA Good madam pardon me COUNTESS Do you love my son HELENA Your pardon noble mistress COUNTESS Love you my son HELENA Do not you love him madam COUNTESS Go not about my love hath in t a bond Whereof the world takes note Come come disclose The state of your affection for your passions Have to the full appeach d HELENA Then I confess Here on my knee before high heaven and you That before you and next unto high heaven I love your son My friends were poor but honest so s my love Be not offended for it hurts not him That he is lov d of me I follow him not By any token of presumptuous suit Nor would I have him till I do deserve him Yet never know how that desert should be I know I love in vain strive against hope Yet in this captious and intenible sieve I still pour in the waters of my love And lack not to lose still Thus Indian like Religious in mine error I adore The sun that looks upon his worshipper But knows of him no more My dearest madam Let not your hate encounter with my love For loving where you do but if yourself Whose aged honour cites a virtuous youth Did ever in so true a flame of liking Wish chastely and love dearly that your Dian Was both herself and Love O then give pity To her whose state is such that cannot choose But lend and give where she is sure to lose That seeks not to find that her search implies But riddle like lives sweetly where she dies COUNTESS Had you not lately an intent speak truly To go to Paris HELENA Madam I had COUNTESS Wherefore Tell true HELENA I will tell truth by grace itself I swear You know my father left me some prescriptions Of rare and prov d effects such as his reading And manifest experience had collected For general sovereignty and that he will d me In heedfull st reservation to bestow them As notes whose faculties inclusive were More than they were in note Amongst the rest There is a remedy approv d set down To cure the desperate languishings whereof The King is render d lost COUNTESS This was your motive For Paris was it Speak HELENA My lord your son made me to think of this Else Paris and the medicine and the King Had from the conversation of my thoughts Haply been absent then COUNTESS But think you Helen If you should tender your supposed aid He would receive it He and his physicians Are of a mind he that they cannot help him They that they cannot help How shall they credit A poor unlearned virgin when the schools Embowell d of their doctrine have let off The danger to itself HELENA There s something in t More than my father s skill which was the great st Of his profession that his good receipt Shall for my legacy be sanctified By th luckiest stars in heaven and would your honour But give me leave to try success I d venture The well lost life of mine on his Grace s cure By such a day and hour COUNTESS Dost thou believe t HELENA Ay madam knowingly COUNTESS Why Helen thou shalt have my leave 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 into thy attempt Be gone to morrow and be sure of this What I can help thee to thou shalt not miss Exeunt ACT II SCENE 1 Paris The KING S palace Flourish of cornets Enter the KING with divers young LORDS taking leave for the Florentine war BERTRAM and PAROLLES ATTENDANTS KING Farewell young lords these war like principles Do not throw from you And you my lords farewell Share the advice betwixt you if both gain all The gift doth stretch itself as tis receiv d And is enough for both FIRST LORD Tis our hope sir After well ent red soldiers to return And find your Grace in health KING No no it cannot be and yet my heart Will not confess he owes the malady That doth my life besiege Farewell young lords Whether I live or die be you the sons Of worthy Frenchmen let higher Italy Those bated that inherit but the fall Of the last monarchy see that you come Not to woo honour but to wed it when The bravest questant shrinks find what you seek That fame may cry you aloud I say farewell SECOND LORD Health at your bidding serve your Majesty KING Those girls of Italy take heed of them They say our French lack language to deny If they demand beware of being captives Before you serve BOTH Our hearts receive your warnings KING Farewell To ATTENDANTS Come hither to me The KING retires attended FIRST LORD O my sweet lord that you will stay behind us PAROLLES Tis not his fault the spark SECOND LORD O tis brave wars PAROLLES Most admirable I have seen those wars BERTRAM I am commanded here and kept a coil with Too young and next year and "Tis too early PAROLLES An thy mind stand to t boy steal away bravely BERTRAM I shall stay here the forehorse to a smock Creaking my shoes on the plain masonry Till honour be bought up and no sword worn But one to dance with By heaven I ll steal away FIRST LORD There s honour in the theft PAROLLES Commit it Count SECOND LORD I am your accessary and so farewell BERTRAM I grow to you and our parting is a tortur d body FIRST LORD Farewell Captain SECOND LORD Sweet Monsieur Parolles PAROLLES Noble heroes my sword and yours are kin Good sparks and lustrous a word good metals you shall find in the regiment of the Spinii one Captain Spurio with his cicatrice an emblem of war here on his sinister cheek it was this very sword entrench d it Say to him I live and observe his reports for me FIRST LORD We shall noble Captain PAROLLES Mars dote on you for his novices Exeunt LORDS What will ye do Re enter the KING BERTRAM Stay the King PAROLLES Use a more spacious ceremony to the noble lords you have restrain d yourself within the list of too cold an adieu Be more expressive to them for they wear themselves in the cap of the time there do muster true gait eat speak and move under the influence of the most receiv d star and though the devil lead the measure such are to be followed After them and take a more dilated farewell BERTRAM And I will do so PAROLLES Worthy fellows and like to prove most sinewy sword men Exeunt BERTRAM and PAROLLES Enter LAFEU LAFEU Kneeling Pardon my lord for me and for my tidings KING I ll fee thee to stand up LAFEU Then here s a man stands that has brought his pardon I would you had kneel d my lord to ask me mercy And that at my bidding you could so stand up KING I would I had so I had broke thy pate And ask d thee mercy for t LAFEU Good faith across But my good lord tis thus will you be cur d Of your infirmity KING No LAFEU O will you eat No grapes my royal fox Yes but you will My noble grapes an if my royal fox Could reach them I have seen a medicine That s able to breathe life into a stone Quicken a rock and make you dance canary With spritely fire and motion whose simple touch Is powerful to araise King Pepin nay To give great Charlemain a pen in s hand And write to her a love line KING What her is this LAFEU Why Doctor She My lord there s one arriv d If you will see her Now by my faith and honour If seriously I may convey my thoughts In this my light deliverance I have spoke With one that in her sex her years profession Wisdom and constancy hath amaz d me more Than I dare blame my weakness Will you see her For that is her demand and know her business That done laugh well at me KING Now good Lafeu Bring in the admiration that we with the May spend our wonder too or take off thine By wond ring how thou took st it LAFEU Nay I ll fit you And not be all day neither Exit LAFEU KING Thus he his special nothing ever prologues Re enter LAFEU with HELENA LAFEU Nay come your ways KING This haste hath wings indeed LAFEU 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 That dare leave two together Fare you well Exit KING Now fair one does your business follow us HELENA Ay my good lord Gerard de Narbon was my father In what he did profess well found KING I knew him HELENA The rather will I spare my praises towards him Knowing him is enough On s bed of death Many receipts he gave me chiefly one Which as the dearest issue of his practice And of his old experience th only darling He bade me store up as a triple eye Safer than mine own two more dear I have so And hearing your high Majesty is touch d With that malignant cause wherein the honour Of my dear father s gift stands chief in power I come to tender it and my appliance With all bound humbleness KING We thank you maiden But may not be so credulous of cure When our most learned doctors leave us and The congregated college have concluded That labouring art can never ransom nature From her inaidable estate I say we must not So stain our judgment or corrupt our hope To prostitute our past cure malady To empirics or to dissever so Our great self and our credit to esteem A senseless help when help past sense we deem HELENA My duty then shall pay me for my pains I will no more enforce mine office on you Humbly entreating from your royal thoughts A modest one to bear me back again KING I cannot give thee less to be call d grateful Thou thought st to help me and such thanks I give As one near death to those that wish him live But what at full I know thou know st no part I knowing all my peril thou no art HELENA What I can do can do no hurt to try Since you set up your rest gainst remedy He that of greatest works is finisher Oft does them by the weakest minister So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown When judges have been babes Great floods have flown From simple sources and great seas have dried When miracles have by the greatest been denied Oft expectation fails and most oft there Where most it promises and oft it hits Where hope is coldest and despair most fits KING I must not hear thee Fare thee well kind maid Thy pains not us d must by thyself be paid Proffers not took reap thanks for their reward HELENA Inspired merit so by breath is barr d It is not so with Him that all things knows As tis with us that square our guess by shows But most it is presumption in us when The help of heaven we count the act of men Dear sir to my endeavours give consent Of heaven not me make an experiment I am not an impostor that proclaim 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 Art thou so confident Within what space Hop st thou my cure HELENA The greatest Grace lending grace Ere twice the horses of the sun shall bring Their fiery torcher his diurnal ring Ere twice in murk and occidental damp Moist Hesperus hath quench d his sleepy lamp Or four and twenty times the pilot s glass 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 Upon thy certainty and confidence What dar st thou venture HELENA Tax of impudence A strumpet s boldness a divulged shame Traduc d by odious ballads my maiden s name Sear d otherwise ne worse of worst extended With vilest torture let my life be ended KING Methinks in thee some blessed spirit doth speak His powerful sound within an organ weak And what impossibility would slay In common sense sense saves another way Thy life is dear for all that life can rate Worth name of life in thee hath estimate Youth beauty wisdom courage all That happiness and prime can happy call Thou this to hazard needs must intimate Skill infinite or monstrous desperate Sweet practiser thy physic I will try That ministers thine own death if I die HELENA If I break time or flinch in property Of what I spoke unpitied let me die And well deserv d Not helping death s my fee But if I help what do you promise me KING Make thy demand HELENA But will you make it even KING Ay by my sceptre and my hopes of heaven HELENA Then shalt thou give me with thy kingly hand What husband in thy power I will command Exempted be from me the arrogance To choose from forth the royal blood of France My low and humble name to propagate 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 Here is my hand the premises observ d Thy will by my performance shall be serv d So make the choice of thy own time for I Thy resolv d 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 But rest Unquestion d welcome and undoubted blest Give me some help here ho If thou proceed As high as word my deed shall match thy deed Flourish Exeunt ACT II SCENE 2 Rousillon The COUNT S palace Enter COUNTESS and CLOWN COUNTESS Come on sir I shall now put you to the height of your breeding CLOWN I will show myself highly fed and lowly taught I know my business is but to the court COUNTESS To the court Why what place make you special when you put off that with such contempt But to the court CLOWN Truly madam if God have lent a man any manners he may easily put it off at court He that cannot make a leg 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 answer will serve all men COUNTESS Marry that s a bountiful answer that fits all questions CLOWN It is like a barber s chair that fits all buttocks the pin buttock the quatch buttock the brawn buttock or any buttock COUNTESS Will your answer serve fit to all questions CLOWN As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney as your French crown for your taffety punk as Tib s rush for Tom s forefinger as a pancake for Shrove Tuesday a morris for Mayday as the nail to his hole the cuckold to his horn as a scolding quean to a wrangling knave as the nun s lip to the friar s mouth nay as the pudding to his skin COUNTESS Have you I say an answer of such fitness for all questions CLOWN From below your duke to beneath your constable it will fit any question COUNTESS It must be an answer of most monstrous size that must fit all demands CLOWN But a trifle neither 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 To be young again if we could I will be a fool in question hoping to be the wiser by your answer I pray you sir are you a courtier CLOWN O Lord sir There s a simple putting off More more a hundred of them COUNTESS Sir I am a poor friend of yours that loves you CLOWN O Lord sir Thick thick spare not me COUNTESS I think sir you can eat none of this homely meat CLOWN O Lord sir Nay put me to t I warrant you COUNTESS You were lately whipp d sir as I think CLOWN O Lord sir Spare not me COUNTESS Do you cry O Lord sir at your whipping and spare not me Indeed your O Lord sir is very sequent to your whipping You would answer very well to a whipping if you were but bound to t CLOWN I ne er had worse luck in my life in my O Lord sir I see thing s may serve long but not serve ever COUNTESS I play the noble housewife with the time To entertain it so merrily with a fool CLOWN O Lord sir Why there t serves well again COUNTESS An end sir To your business give Helen this And urge her to a present answer back Commend me to my kinsmen and my son This is not much CLOWN Not much commendation to them COUNTESS Not much employment for you You understand me CLOWN Most fruitfully I am there before my legs COUNTESS Haste you again Exeunt ACT II SCENE 3 Paris The KING S palace Enter BERTRAM LAFEU and PAROLLES LAFEU 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 PAROLLES Why tis the rarest argument of wonder that hath shot out in our latter times BERTRAM And so tis LAFEU To be relinquish d of the artists PAROLLES So I say both of Galen and Paracelsus LAFEU Of all the learned and authentic fellows PAROLLES Right so I say LAFEU That gave him out incurable PAROLLES Why there tis so say I too LAFEU Not to be help d PAROLLES Right as twere a man assur d of a LAFEU Uncertain life and sure death PAROLLES Just you say well so would I have said LAFEU I may truly say it is a novelty to the world PAROLLES It is indeed If you will have it in showing you shall read it in what do ye call t here LAFEU Reading the ballad title A Showing of a Heavenly Effect in an Earthly Actor PAROLLES That s it I would have said the very same LAFEU Why your dolphin is not lustier Fore me I speak in respect PAROLLES Nay tis strange tis very strange that is the brief and the tedious of it and he s of a most facinerious spirit that will not acknowledge it to be the LAFEU Very hand of heaven PAROLLES Ay so I say LAFEU In a most weak PAROLLES And debile minister great power great transcendence which should indeed give us a further use to be made than alone the recov ry of the King as to be LAFEU Generally thankful Enter KING HELENA and ATTENDANTS PAROLLES I would have said it you say well Here comes the King LAFEU Lustig as the Dutchman says I ll like a maid the better whilst I have a tooth in my head Why he s able to lead her a coranto PAROLLES Mort du vinaigre Is not this Helen LAFEU Fore God I think so KING Go call before me all the lords in court Exit an ATTENDANT Sit my preserver by thy patient s side And with this healthful hand whose banish d sense Thou has repeal d a second time receive The confirmation of my promis d gift Which but attends thy naming Enter three or four LORDS Fair maid send forth thine eye This youthful parcel Of noble bachelors stand at my bestowing O er whom both sovereign power and father s voice I have to use Thy frank election make Thou hast power to choose and they none to forsake HELENA To each of you one fair and virtuous mistress Fall when love please Marry to each but one LAFEU I d give bay Curtal and his furniture My mouth no more were broken than these boys And writ as little beard KING Peruse them well Not one of those but had a noble father HELENA Gentlemen Heaven hath through me restor d the King to health ALL We understand it and thank heaven for you HELENA I am a simple maid and therein wealthiest That I protest I simply am a maid Please it your Majesty I have done already The blushes in my cheeks thus whisper me We blush that thou shouldst choose but be refused Let the white death sit on thy cheek for ever We ll ne er come there again KING Make choice and see Who shuns thy love shuns all his love in me HELENA Now Dian from thy altar do I fly And to imperial Love that god most high Do my sighs stream Sir will you hear my suit FIRST LORD And grant it HELENA Thanks sir all the rest is mute LAFEU I had rather be in this choice than throw ames ace for my life HELENA The honour sir that flames in your fair eyes Before I speak too threat ningly replies Love make your fortunes twenty times above Her that so wishes and her humble love SECOND LORD No better if you please HELENA My wish receive Which great Love grant and so I take my leave LAFEU Do all they deny her An they were sons of mine I d have them whipt or I would send them to th Turk to make eunuchs of HELENA Be not afraid that I your hand should take I ll never do you wrong for your own sake Blessing upon your vows and in your bed Find fairer fortune if you ever wed LAFEU These boys are boys of ice they ll none have her Sure they are bastards to the English the French ne er got em HELENA You are too young too happy and too good To make yourself a son out of my blood FOURTH LORD Fair one I think not so LAFEU There s one grape yet I am sure thy father drunk wine but if thou be st not an ass I am a youth of fourteen I have known thee already HELENA To BERTRAM I dare not say I take you but I give Me and my service ever whilst I live Into your guiding power This is the man KING Why then young Bertram take her she s thy wife 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 KING Know st thou not Bertram What she has done for me BERTRAM Yes my good lord But never hope to know why I should marry her KING Thou know st she has rais d me from my sickly bed BERTRAM But follows it my lord to bring me down Must answer for your raising I know her well She had her breeding at my father s charge A poor physician s daughter my wife Disdain Rather corrupt me ever KING Tis only title thou disdain st in her the which I can build up Strange is it that our bloods Of colour weight and heat pour d all together Would quite confound distinction yet stand off In differences so mighty If she be All that is virtuous save what thou dislik st A poor physician s daughter thou dislik st Of virtue for the name but do not so From lowest place when virtuous things proceed The place is dignified by the doer s deed Where great additions swell s and virtue none It is a dropsied honour Good alone Is good without a name Vileness is so The property by what it is should go Not by the title She is young wise fair In these to nature she s immediate heir And these breed honour That is honour s scorn Which challenges itself as honour s born And is not like the sire Honours thrive When rather from our acts we them derive Than our fore goers The mere word s a slave Debauch d on every tomb on every grave A lying trophy and as oft is dumb Where dust and damn d oblivion is the tomb Of honour d bones indeed What should be said If thou canst like this creature as a maid I can create the rest Virtue and she Is her own dower honour and wealth from me BERTRAM I cannot love her nor will strive to do t KING Thou wrong st thyself if thou shouldst strive to choose HELENA That you are well restor d my lord I m glad Let the rest go KING My honour s at the stake which to defeat I must produce my power Here take her hand Proud scornful boy unworthy this good gift That dost in vile misprision shackle up My love and her desert that canst not dream We poising us in her defective scale Shall weigh thee to the beam that wilt not know It is in us to plant thine honour where We please to have it grow Check thy contempt Obey our will which travails in thy good Believe not thy disdain but presently Do thine own fortunes that obedient right Which both thy duty owes and our power claims Or I will throw thee from my care for ever Into the staggers and the careless lapse Of youth and ignorance both my revenge and hate Loosing upon thee in the name of justice Without all terms of pity Speak thine answer BERTRAM Pardon my gracious lord for I submit My fancy to your eyes When I consider What great creation and what dole of honour Flies where you bid it I find that she which late Was in my nobler thoughts most base is now The praised of the King who so ennobled Is as twere born so KING Take her by the hand And tell her she is thine to whom I promise A counterpoise if not to thy estate A balance more replete BERTRAM I take her hand KING Good fortune and the favour of the King Smile upon this contract whose ceremony Shall seem expedient on the now born brief And be perform d to night The solemn feast Shall more attend upon the coming space Expecting absent friends As thou lov st her Thy love s to me religious else does err Exeunt all but LAFEU and PAROLLES who stay behind commenting of this wedding LAFEU Do you hear monsieur A word with you PAROLLES Your pleasure sir LAFEU Your lord and master did well to make his recantation PAROLLES Recantation My Lord my master LAFEU Ay is it not a language I speak PAROLLES A most harsh one and not to be understood without bloody succeeding My master LAFEU Are you companion to the Count Rousillon PAROLLES To any count to all counts to what is man LAFEU To what is count s man count s master is of another style PAROLLES You are too old sir let it satisfy you you are too old LAFEU I must tell thee sirrah I write man to which title age cannot bring thee PAROLLES What I dare too well do I dare not do LAFEU I did think thee for two ordinaries to be a pretty wise fellow thou didst make tolerable vent of thy travel it might pass Yet the scarfs and the bannerets about thee did manifoldly dissuade me from believing thee a vessel of too great a burden I have now found thee when I lose thee again I care not yet art thou good for nothing but taking up and that thou rt scarce worth PAROLLES Hadst thou not the privilege of antiquity upon thee LAFEU Do not plunge thyself too far in anger lest thou hasten thy trial which if Lord have mercy on thee for a hen So my good window of lattice fare thee well thy casement I need not open for I look through thee Give me thy hand PAROLLES My lord you give me most egregious indignity LAFEU Ay with all my heart and thou art worthy of it PAROLLES I have not my lord deserv d it LAFEU Yes good faith ev ry dram of it and I will not bate thee a scruple PAROLLES Well I shall be wiser LAFEU Ev n as soon as thou canst for thou hast to pull at a smack o th contrary If ever thou be st bound in thy scarf and beaten thou shalt find what it is to be proud of thy bondage I have a desire to hold my acquaintance with thee or rather my knowledge that I may say in the default He is a man I know PAROLLES My lord you do me most insupportable vexation LAFEU I would it were hell pains for thy sake and my poor doing eternal for doing I am past as I will by thee in what motion age will give me leave Exit PAROLLES Well thou hast a son shall take this disgrace off me scurvy old filthy scurvy lord Well I must be patient there is no fettering of authority I ll beat him by my life if I can meet him with any convenience an he were double and double a lord I ll have no more pity of his age than I would have of I ll beat him and if I could but meet him again Re enter LAFEU LAFEU Sirrah your lord and master s married there s news for you you have a new mistress PAROLLES I most unfeignedly beseech your lordship to make some reservation of your wrongs He is my good lord whom I serve above is my master LAFEU Who God PAROLLES Ay sir LAFEU The devil it is that s thy master Why dost thou garter up thy arms o this fashion Dost make hose of thy sleeves Do other servants so Thou wert best set thy lower part where thy nose stands By mine honour if I were but two hours younger I d beat thee Methink st thou art a general offence and every man should beat thee I think thou wast created for men to breathe themselves upon thee PAROLLES This is hard and undeserved measure my lord LAFEU Go to sir you were beaten in Italy for picking a kernel out of a pomegranate you are a vagabond and no true traveller you are more saucy with lords and honourable personages than the commission of your birth and virtue gives you heraldry You are not worth another word else I d call you knave I leave you Exit Enter BERTRAM PAROLLES Good very good it is so then Good very good let it be conceal d awhile BERTRAM Undone and forfeited to cares for ever PAROLLES What s the matter sweetheart BERTRAM Although before the solemn priest I have sworn I will not bed her PAROLLES What what sweetheart BERTRAM O my Parolles they have married me I ll to the Tuscan wars and never bed her PAROLLES France is a dog hole and it no more merits The tread of a man s foot To th wars BERTRAM There s letters from my mother what th import is I know not yet PAROLLES Ay that would be known 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 s fiery steed To other regions France is a stable we that dwell in t jades Therefore to th war BERTRAM It shall be so I ll send her to my house 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 to those Italian fields Where noble fellows strike War is no strife To the dark house and the detested wife PAROLLES Will this capriccio hold in thee art sure BERTRAM Go with me to my chamber and advise me I ll send her straight away To morrow I ll to the wars she to her single sorrow PAROLLES Why these balls bound there s noise in it Tis hard A young man married is a man that s marr d Therefore away and leave her bravely go The King has done you wrong but hush tis so Exeunt ACT II SCENE 4 Paris The KING S palace Enter HELENA and CLOWN HELENA My mother greets me kindly is she well CLOWN She is not well 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 wants nothing i th world but yet she is not well HELENA If she be very well what does she ail that she s not very well CLOWN Truly she s very well indeed but for two things HELENA What two things CLOWN 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 Bless you my fortunate lady HELENA I hope sir I have your good will to have mine own good fortunes PAROLLES You had my prayers to lead them on and to keep them on have them still O my knave how does my old lady CLOWN So that you had her wrinkles and I her money I would she did as you say PAROLLES Why I say nothing CLOWN Marry you are the wiser man for many a man s tongue shakes out his master s undoing To say nothing to do nothing to know nothing and to have nothing is to be a great part of your title which is within a very little of nothing PAROLLES Away th art a knave CLOWN You should have said sir Before a knave th art a knave that s Before me th art a knave This had been truth sir PAROLLES Go to thou art a witty fool I have found thee CLOWN Did you find me in yourself sir or were you taught to find me The search sir was profitable and much fool may you find in you even to the world s pleasure and the increase of laughter PAROLLES A good knave i faith and well fed Madam my lord will go away to night A very serious business calls on him The great prerogative and rite of love Which as your due time claims he does acknowledge But puts it off to a compell d restraint Whose want and whose delay is strew d with sweets Which they distil now in the curbed time To make the coming hour o erflow with joy And pleasure drown the brim HELENA What s his else PAROLLES That you will take your instant leave o th King And make this haste as your own good proceeding Strength ned with what apology you think May make it probable need HELENA What more commands he PAROLLES That having this obtain d you presently Attend his further pleasure HELENA In everything I wait upon his will PAROLLES I shall report it so HELENA I pray you Exit PAROLLES Come sirrah Exeunt ACT II SCENE 5 Paris The KING S palace Enter LAFEU and BERTRAM LAFEU But I hope your lordship thinks not him a soldier BERTRAM Yes my lord and of very valiant approof LAFEU You have it from his own deliverance BERTRAM And by other warranted testimony LAFEU Then my dial goes not true I took this lark for a bunting BERTRAM I do assure you my lord he is very great in knowledge and accordingly valiant LAFEU I have then sinn d against his experience and transgress d against his valour and my state 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 To BERTRAM These things shall be done sir LAFEU Pray you sir who s his tailor PAROLLES Sir LAFEU O I know him well Ay sir he sir s a good workman a very good tailor BERTRAM Aside to PAROLLES Is she gone to the King PAROLLES She is BERTRAM Will she away to night PAROLLES As you ll have her BERTRAM I have writ my letters casketed my treasure Given order for our horses and to night When I should take possession of the bride End ere I do begin LAFEU A good traveller is something at the latter end of a dinner but one that lies three thirds and uses a known truth to pass a thousand nothings with should be once heard and thrice beaten God save you Captain BERTRAM Is there any unkindness between my lord and you monsieur PAROLLES I know not how I have deserved to run into my lord s displeasure LAFEU You have made shift 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 question for your residence BERTRAM It may be you have mistaken him my lord LAFEU 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 kernal in this light nut the soul of this man is his clothes trust him not in matter of heavy consequence I have kept of them tame and know their natures Farewell monsieur I have spoken better of you than you have or will to deserve at my hand but we must do good against evil Exit PAROLLES An idle lord I swear BERTRAM I think so PAROLLES Why do you not know him BERTRAM Yes I do know him well and common speech Gives him a worthy pass Here comes my clog Enter HELENA HELENA I have sir as I was commanded from you Spoke with the King and have procur d his leave For present parting only he desires Some private speech with you BERTRAM I shall obey his will You must not marvel Helen at my course Which holds not colour with the time nor does The ministration and required office On my particular Prepar d 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 And rather muse than ask why I entreat you For my respects are better than they seem And my appointments have in them a need Greater than shows itself at the first view To you that know them not This to my mother Giving a letter Twill be two days ere I shall see you so I leave you to your wisdom HELENA Sir I can nothing say But that I am your most obedient servant BERTRAM Come come no more of that HELENA And ever shall With true observance seek to eke out that Wherein toward me my homely stars have fail d To equal my great fortune BERTRAM Let that go My haste is very great Farewell hie home HELENA Pray sir your pardon BERTRAM Well what would you say HELENA I am not worthy of the wealth I owe Nor dare I say tis mine and yet it is But like a timorous thief most fain would steal What law does vouch mine own BERTRAM What would you have HELENA Something and scarce so much nothing indeed I would not tell you what I would my lord Faith yes Strangers and foes do sunder and not kiss BERTRAM I pray you stay not but in haste to horse HELENA I shall not break your bidding good my lord BERTRAM Where are my other men monsieur Farewell Exit HELENA Go thou toward home where I will never come Whilst I can shake my sword or hear the drum Away and for our flight PAROLLES Bravely coragio Exeunt ACT III SCENE 1 Florence The DUKE s palace Flourish Enter the DUKE OF FLORENCE attended two FRENCH LORDS with a TROOP OF SOLDIERS DUKE So that from point to point now have you hear The fundamental reasons of this war Whose great decision hath much blood let forth And more thirsts after FIRST LORD Holy seems the quarrel Upon your Grace s part black and fearful On the opposer DUKE Therefore we marvel much our cousin France Would in so just a business shut his bosom Against our borrowing prayers SECOND LORD Good my lord The reasons of our state I cannot yield But like a common and an outward man That the great figure of a council frames By self unable motion therefore dare not Say what I think of it since I have found Myself in my incertain grounds to fail As often as I guess d DUKE Be it his pleasure FIRST LORD But I am sure the younger of our nature That surfeit on their ease will day by day Come here for physic DUKE Welcome shall they be And all the honours that can fly from us Shall on them settle You know your places well When better fall for your avails they fell To morrow to th field Flourish Exeunt ACT III SCENE 2 Rousillon The COUNT S palace Enter COUNTESS and CLOWN COUNTESS It hath happen d all as I would have had it save that he comes not along with her CLOWN By my troth I take my young lord to be a very melancholy man COUNTESS By what observance I pray you CLOWN Why he will look upon his boot and sing mend the ruff and sing ask questions and sing pick his teeth and sing I know a man that had this trick of melancholy sold a goodly manor for a song COUNTESS Let me see what he writes and when he means to come Opening a letter CLOWN I have no mind to Isbel since I was at court Our old ling and our Isbels o th country are nothing like your old ling and your Isbels o th court The brains of my Cupid s knock d out and I begin to love as an old man loves money with no stomach COUNTESS What have we here CLOWN E en that you have there Exit COUNTESS Reads I have sent you a daughter in law she hath recovered the King and undone me I have wedded her not 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 hold a long distance My duty to you Your unfortunate son BERTRAM This is not well rash and unbridled boy To fly the favours of so good a king To pluck his indignation on thy head By the misprizing of a maid too virtuous For the contempt of empire Re enter CLOWN CLOWN O madam yonder is heavy news within between two soldiers and my young lady COUNTESS What is the matter CLOWN Nay there is some comfort in the news some comfort your son will not be kill d so soon as I thought he would COUNTESS Why should he be kill d CLOWN So say I madam if he run away as I hear he does the danger is in standing to t 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 Exit Enter HELENA and the two FRENCH GENTLEMEN SECOND GENTLEMAN Save you good madam HELENA Madam my lord is gone for ever gone FIRST GENTLEMAN Do not say so COUNTESS Think upon patience Pray you gentlemen I have felt so many quirks of joy and grief That the first face of neither on the start Can woman me unto t Where is my son I pray you FIRST GENTLEMAN Madam he s gone to serve the Duke of Florence We met him thitherward for thence we came And after some dispatch in hand at court Thither we bend again HELENA Look on this letter madam here s my passport 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 COUNTESS Brought you this letter gentlemen FIRST GENTLEMAN Ay madam And for the contents sake are sorry for our pains COUNTESS I prithee lady have a better cheer If thou engrossest all the griefs are thine Thou robb st me of a moiety He was my son But I do wash his name out of my blood And thou art all my child Towards Florence is he FIRST GENTLEMAN Ay madam COUNTESS And to be a soldier FIRST GENTLEMAN Such is his noble purpose and believe t The Duke will lay upon him all the honour That good convenience claims COUNTESS Return you thither SECOND GENTLEMAN Ay madam with the swiftest wing of speed HELENA Reads Till I have no wife I have nothing in France Tis bitter COUNTESS Find you that there HELENA Ay madam SECOND GENTLEMAN Tis but the boldness of his hand haply which his heart was not consenting to COUNTESS Nothing in France until he have no wife There s nothing here that is too good for him But only she and she deserves a lord That twenty such rude boys might tend upon And call her hourly mistress Who was with him SECOND GENTLEMAN A servant only and a gentleman Which I have sometime known COUNTESS Parolles was it not SECOND GENTLEMAN Ay my good lady he COUNTESS A very tainted fellow and full of wickedness My son corrupts a well derived nature With his inducement SECOND GENTLEMAN Indeed good lady The fellow has a deal of that too much Which holds him much to have COUNTESS Y are welcome gentlemen 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 Written to bear along FIRST GENTLEMAN We serve you madam In that and all your worthiest affairs COUNTESS Not so but as we change our courtesies Will you draw near Exeunt COUNTESS and GENTLEMEN HELENA Till I have no wife I have nothing in France Nothing in France until he has no wife Thou shalt have none Rousillon none in France Then hast thou all again Poor lord is t That chase thee from thy country and expose Those tender limbs of thine to the event Of the non sparing war And is it I That drive thee from the sportive court where thou Wast shot at with fair eyes to be the mark Of smoky muskets O you leaden messengers That ride upon the violent speed of fire Fly with false aim move the still piecing air That sings with piercing do not touch my lord Whoever shoots at him I set him there Whoever charges on his forward breast I am the caitiff that do hold him to t And though I kill him not I am the cause His death was so effected Better twere I met the ravin lion when he roar d With sharp constraint of hunger better twere That all the miseries which nature owes Were mine at once No come thou home Rousillon Whence honour but of danger wins a scar As oft it loses all I will be gone My being here it is that holds thee hence Shall I stay here to do t No no although The air of paradise did fan the house And angels offic d all I will be gone That pitiful rumour may report my flight To consolate thine ear Come night end day For with the dark poor thief I ll steal away Exit ACT III SCENE 3 Florence Before the DUKE s palace Flourish Enter the DUKE OF FLORENCE BERTRAM PAROLLES SOLDIERS drum and trumpets DUKE The General of our Horse thou art and we Great in our hope lay our best love and credence Upon thy promising fortune BERTRAM Sir it is A charge too heavy for my strength but yet We ll strive to bear it for your worthy sake To th extreme edge of hazard DUKE Then go thou forth And Fortune play upon thy prosperous helm As thy auspicious mistress BERTRAM This very day Great Mars I put myself into thy file Make me but like my thoughts and I shall prove A lover of thy drum hater of love Exeunt ACT III SCENE 4 Rousillon The COUNT S palace Enter COUNTESS and STEWARD COUNTESS Alas and would you take the letter of her Might you not know she would do as she has done By sending me a letter Read it again STEWARD Reads I am Saint Jaques pilgrim thither gone Ambitious love hath so in me offended That barefoot plod I the cold ground upon With sainted vow my faults to have amended Write write that from the bloody course of war My dearest master your dear son may hie Bless him at home in peace whilst I from far His name with zealous fervour sanctify His taken labours bid him me forgive I his despiteful Juno sent him forth From courtly friends with camping foes to live Where death and danger dogs the heels of worth He is too good and fair for death and me Whom I myself embrace to set him free COUNTESS Ah what sharp stings are in her mildest words Rinaldo you did never lack advice so much As letting her pass so had I spoke with her I could have well diverted her intents Which thus she hath prevented STEWARD Pardon me madam If I had given you this at over night She might have been o er ta en and yet she writes Pursuit would be but vain COUNTESS What angel shall Bless this unworthy husband He cannot thrive Unless her prayers whom heaven delights to hear And loves to grant reprieve him from the wrath Of greatest justice Write write Rinaldo To this unworthy husband of his wife Let every word weigh heavy of her worth That he does weigh too light My greatest grief Though little he do feel it set down sharply Dispatch the most convenient messenger When haply he shall hear that she is gone He will return and hope I may that she Hearing so much will speed her foot again Led hither by pure love Which of them both Is dearest to me I have no skill in sense To make distinction Provide this messenger My heart is heavy and mine age is weak Grief would have tears and sorrow bids me speak Exeunt ACT III SCENE 5 Without the walls of Florence A tucket afar off Enter an old WIDOW OF FLORENCE her daughter DIANA VIOLENTA and MARIANA with other CITIZENS WIDOW Nay come for if they do approach the city we shall lose all the sight DIANA They say the French count has done most honourable service WIDOW It is reported that he has taken their great st commander and that with his own hand he slew the Duke s brother Tucket We have lost our labour they are gone a contrary way Hark you may know by their trumpets MARIANA Come let s return again and suffice ourselves with the report of it Well Diana take heed of this French earl the honour of a maid is her name and no legacy is so rich as honesty WIDOW I have told my neighbour how you have been solicited by a gentleman his companion MARIANA I know that knave hang him one Parolles a filthy officer he is in those suggestions for the young earl Beware of them Diana their promises enticements oaths tokens and all these engines 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 cannot for all that dissuade succession 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 grace will keep you where you are though there were no further danger known but the modesty which is so lost DIANA You shall not need to fear me Enter HELENA in the dress of a pilgrim WIDOW I hope so Look here comes a pilgrim I know she will lie at my house thither they send one another I ll question her God save you pilgrim Whither are bound HELENA To Saint Jaques le Grand Where do the palmers lodge I do beseech you WIDOW At the Saint Francis here beside the port HELENA Is this the way A march afar WIDOW Ay marry is t Hark you They come this way If you will tarry holy pilgrim But till the troops come by I will conduct you where you shall be lodg d The rather for I think I know your hostess As ample as myself HELENA Is it yourself WIDOW If you shall please so pilgrim HELENA I thank you and will stay upon your leisure WIDOW You came I think from France HELENA I did so WIDOW Here you shall see a countryman of yours That has done worthy service HELENA His name I pray you DIANA The Count Rousillon Know you such a one HELENA But by the ear that hears most nobly of him His face I know not DIANA What some er he is He s bravely taken here He stole from France As tis reported for the King had married him Against his liking Think you it is so HELENA Ay surely mere the truth I know his lady DIANA There is a gentleman that serves the Count Reports but coarsely of her HELENA What s his name DIANA Monsieur Parolles HELENA O I believe with him In argument of praise or to the worth Of the great Count himself she is too mean To have her name repeated all her deserving Is a reserved honesty and that I have not heard examin d DIANA Alas poor lady Tis a hard bondage to become the wife Of a detesting lord WIDOW I sweet good creature wheresoe er she is Her heart weighs sadly This young maid might do her A shrewd turn if she pleas d HELENA How do you mean May be the amorous Count solicits her In the unlawful purpose WIDOW He does indeed And brokes with all that can in such a suit Corrupt the tender honour of a maid But she is arm d for him and keeps her guard In honestest defence Enter with drum and colours BERTRAM PAROLLES and the whole ARMY MARIANA The gods forbid else WIDOW So now they come That is Antonio the Duke s eldest son That Escalus HELENA Which is the Frenchman DIANA He That with the plume tis a most gallant fellow I would he lov d his wife if he were honester He were much goodlier Is t not a handsome gentleman HELENA I like him well 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 HELENA Which is he DIANA That jack an apes with scarfs Why is he melancholy HELENA Perchance he s hurt i th battle PAROLLES Lose our drum well MARIANA He s shrewdly vex d at something Look he has spied us WIDOW Marry hang you MARIANA And your courtesy for a ring carrier Exeunt BERTRAM PAROLLES and ARMY WIDOW The troop is past Come pilgrim I will bring you Where you shall host Of enjoin d penitents There s four or five to great Saint Jaques bound Already at my house HELENA I humbly thank you Please it this matron and this gentle maid To eat with us to night the charge and thanking Shall be for me and to requite you further I will bestow some precepts of this virgin Worthy the note BOTH We ll take your offer kindly Exeunt ACT III SCENE 6 Camp before Florence Enter BERTRAM and the two FRENCH LORDS SECOND LORD Nay good my lord put him to t let him have his way FIRST LORD If your lordship find him not a hiding hold me no more in your respect SECOND LORD On my life my lord a bubble BERTRAM Do you think I am so far deceived in him SECOND LORD Believe it my lord in mine own direct knowledge without any malice but to speak of him as 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 FIRST LORD It were fit you knew him lest reposing too far in his virtue which he hath not he might at some great and trusty business in a main danger fail you BERTRAM I would I knew in what particular action to try him FIRST LORD None better than to let him fetch off his drum which you hear him so confidently undertake to do SECOND LORD I with a troop of Florentines will suddenly surprise him such I will have whom I am sure he knows not from the enemy We will bind and hoodwink him so that he shall suppose no other but that he is carried into the leaguer 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 intelligence in his power against you and that with the divine forfeit of his soul upon oath never trust my judgment in anything 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 bottom of his success in t and to what metal this counterfeit lump of ore will be melted if you give him not John Drum s entertainment your inclining cannot be removed Here he comes Enter PAROLLES SECOND LORD O for the love of laughter hinder not the honour of his design let him fetch off his drum in any hand BERTRAM How now monsieur This drum sticks sorely in your disposition FIRST LORD A pox on t let it go tis but a drum 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 and to rend our own soldiers FIRST LORD That was not to be blam d in 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 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 It might have been recovered BERTRAM It might but it is not now PAROLLES It is to be recovered But that the merit of service is seldom attributed to the true and exact performer I would have that drum or another or hic jacet BERTRAM Why if you have a stomach to t monsieur If you think your mystery in stratagem can bring this instrument of honour again into his native quarter be magnanimous in the enterprise and go on I will grace the attempt for a worthy exploit If you speed well in it the Duke shall both speak of it and extend to you what further becomes his greatness even to the utmost syllable of our worthiness PAROLLES By the hand of a soldier I will undertake it BERTRAM But you must not now slumber in it PAROLLES I ll about it this evening and I will presently pen down my dilemmas encourage myself in my certainty put myself into my mortal preparation and by midnight look to hear further from me BERTRAM May I be bold to acquaint his Grace you are gone about it PAROLLES I know not what the success will be my lord but the attempt I vow BERTRAM I know th art valiant and to the of thy soldiership will subscribe for thee Farewell PAROLLES I love not many words Exit 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 himself to do and dares better be damn d than to do t 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 have him ever after BERTRAM Why do you think he will make no deed at all of this that so seriously he does address himself unto SECOND LORD None in the world but return with an invention and clap upon you two or three probable lies But we have almost emboss d him You shall see his fall to night for indeed he is not for your lordship s respect FIRST LORD We ll make you some sport with the fox ere we case him He was first smok d by the old Lord Lafeu When his disguise and he is parted tell me what a sprat you shall find him which you shall see this very night SECOND LORD I must go look my twigs he shall be caught BERTRAM Your brother he shall go along with me SECOND LORD As t please your lordship I ll leave you Exit BERTRAM Now will I lead you to the house and show you The lass I spoke of FIRST LORD But you say she s honest BERTRAM That s all the fault I spoke with her but once And found her wondrous cold but I sent to her By this same coxcomb 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 FIRST LORD With all my heart my lord Exeunt ACT III SCENE 7 Florence The WIDOW S house Enter HELENA and WIDOW HELENA If you misdoubt me that I am not she I know not how I shall assure you further But I shall lose the grounds I work upon WIDOW Though my estate be fall n I was well born Nothing acquainted with these businesses And would not put my reputation now In any staining act HELENA Nor would I wish you FIRST give me trust the Count he is my husband And what to your sworn counsel I have spoken Is so from word to word and then you cannot By the good aid that I of you shall borrow Err in bestowing it WIDOW I should believe you For you have show d me that which well approves Y are great in fortune HELENA Take this purse of gold And let me buy your friendly help thus far Which I will over pay and pay again When I have found it The Count he woos your daughter Lays down his wanton siege before her beauty Resolv d to carry her Let her in fine consent As we ll direct her how tis best to bear it Now his important blood will nought deny That she ll demand A ring the County 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 yet in his idle fire To buy his will it would not seem too dear Howe er repented after WIDOW Now I see The bottom of your purpose HELENA You see it lawful then It is no more But that your daughter ere she seems as won Desires this ring appoints him an encounter In fine delivers me to fill the time Herself most chastely absent After this To marry her I ll add three thousand crowns To what is pass d already WIDOW I have yielded Instruct my daughter how she shall persever That time and place with this deceit so lawful May prove coherent Every night he comes With musics of all sorts and songs compos d To her unworthiness It nothing steads us To chide him from our eaves for he persists As if his life lay on t HELENA Why then to night Let us assay our plot which if it speed Is wicked meaning in a lawful deed And lawful meaning in a lawful act Where both not sin and yet a sinful fact But let s about it Exeunt ACT IV SCENE 1 Without the Florentine camp Enter SECOND FRENCH LORD with five or six other SOLDIERS in ambush SECOND LORD He can come no other way but by this hedge corner When you sally upon him speak what terrible language you will though you understand it not yourselves no matter for we must not seem to understand him unless some one among us whom we must produce for an interpreter FIRST SOLDIER Good captain let me be th interpreter SECOND LORD Art not acquainted with him Knows he not thy voice FIRST SOLDIER No sir I warrant you SECOND LORD But what linsey woolsey has thou to speak to us again FIRST SOLDIER E en such as you speak to me SECOND LORD He must think us some band of strangers i th adversary s entertainment Now he hath a smack of all neighbouring languages therefore we must every one be a man of his own fancy not to know what we speak one to another so we seem to know is to know straight our purpose choughs language gabble enough and good enough As for you interpreter you must seem very politic But couch ho here he comes to beguile two hours in a sleep and then to return and swear the lies he forges Enter 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 plausive invention that carries it They begin to smoke me and disgraces have of late knock d to 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 not daring the reports of my tongue SECOND LORD This is the first truth that e er thine own tongue was guilty of 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 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 Tongue I must put you into a butterwoman s mouth and buy myself another of Bajazet s mule if you prattle me into these perils SECOND LORD Is it possible he should know what he is and be that he is PAROLLES I would the cutting of my garments would serve the turn or the breaking of my Spanish sword SECOND LORD We cannot afford you so PAROLLES Or the baring of my beard and to say it was in stratagem SECOND LORD Twould not do PAROLLES Or to drown my clothes and say I was stripp d SECOND LORD Hardly serve PAROLLES Though I swore I leap d from the window of the citadel SECOND LORD How deep PAROLLES Thirty fathom SECOND LORD Three great oaths would scarce make that be believed PAROLLES I would I had any drum of the enemy s I would swear I recover d it SECOND LORD You shall hear one anon Alarum within PAROLLES A drum now of the enemy s SECOND LORD Throca movousus cargo cargo cargo ALL Cargo cargo cargo villianda par corbo cargo PAROLLES O ransom ransom Do not hide mine eyes They blindfold him FIRST SOLDIER Boskos thromuldo boskos PAROLLES I know you are the Muskos regiment And I shall lose my life for want of language If there be here German or Dane Low Dutch Italian or French let him speak to me I ll discover that which shall undo the Florentine FIRST SOLDIER Boskos vauvado I understand thee and can speak thy tongue Kerely bonto sir betake thee to thy faith for seventeen poniards are at thy bosom PAROLLES O FIRST SOLDIER O pray pray pray Manka revania dulche SECOND LORD Oscorbidulchos volivorco FIRST SOLDIER The General is content to spare thee yet And hoodwink d as thou art will lead thee on To gather from thee Haply thou mayst inform Something to save thy life PAROLLES O let me live And all the secrets of our camp I ll show Their force their purposes Nay I ll speak that Which you will wonder at FIRST SOLDIER But wilt thou faithfully PAROLLES If I do not damn me FIRST SOLDIER Acordo linta Come on thou art granted space Exit PAROLLES guarded A short alarum within SECOND LORD Go tell the Count Rousillon and my brother We have caught the woodcock and will keep him muffled Till we do hear from them SECOND SOLDIER Captain I will SECOND LORD A will betray us all unto ourselves Inform on that SECOND SOLDIER So I will sir SECOND LORD Till then I ll keep him dark and safely lock d Exeunt ACT IV SCENE 2 Florence The WIDOW S house Enter BERTRAM and DIANA BERTRAM They told me that your name was Fontibell DIANA No my good lord Diana BERTRAM Titled goddess And worth it with addition But fair soul In your fine frame hath love no quality If the quick fire of youth light not your mind You are no maiden but a monument When you are dead you should be such a one As you are now for you are cold and stern And now you should be as your mother was When your sweet self was got DIANA She then was honest BERTRAM So should you be DIANA No My mother did but duty such my lord As you owe to your wife BERTRAM No more o that I prithee do not strive against my vows I was compell d to her but I love the By love s own sweet constraint and will for ever Do thee all rights of service DIANA Ay so you serve us Till we serve you but when you have our roses You barely leave our thorns to prick ourselves And mock us with our bareness BERTRAM How have I sworn DIANA Tis not the many oaths that makes the truth But the plain single vow that is vow d true What is not holy that we swear not by But take the High st to witness Then pray you tell me If I should swear by Jove s great attributes I lov d you dearly would you believe my oaths When I did love you ill This has no holding To swear by him whom I protest to love That I will work against him Therefore your oaths Are words and poor conditions but unseal d At least in my opinion BERTRAM Change it change it Be not so holy cruel Love is holy And my integrity ne er knew the crafts That you do charge men with Stand no more off But give thyself unto my sick desires Who then recovers Say thou art mine and ever My love as it begins shall so persever DIANA I see that men make ropes in such a scarre That we ll forsake ourselves Give me that ring BERTRAM I ll lend it thee my dear but have no power To give it from me DIANA Will you not my lord BERTRAM It is an honour longing to our house Bequeathed down from many ancestors Which were the greatest obloquy i th world In me to lose DIANA Mine honour s such a ring My chastity s the jewel of our house Bequeathed down from many ancestors Which were the greatest obloquy i th world In me to lose Thus your own proper wisdom Brings in the champion Honour on my part Against your vain assault BERTRAM Here take my ring My house mine honour yea my life be thine And I ll be bid by thee DIANA When midnight comes knock at my chamber window I ll order take my mother shall not hear Now will I charge you in the band of truth When you have conquer d my yet maiden bed Remain there but an hour nor speak to me My reasons are most strong and you shall know them When back again this ring shall be deliver d And on your finger in the night I ll put Another ring that what in time proceeds May token to the future our past deeds Adieu till then then fail not You have won A wife of me though there my hope be done BERTRAM A heaven on earth I have won by wooing thee Exit 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 As if she sat in s heart she says all men Have the like 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 Marry that will I live and die a maid Only in this disguise I think t no sin To cozen him that would unjustly win Exit ACT IV SCENE 3 The Florentine camp Enter the two FRENCH LORDS and two or three SOLDIERS SECOND LORD You have not given him his mother s letter FIRST LORD I have deliv red it an hour since There is something in t that stings his nature for on the reading it he chang d almost into another man SECOND LORD He has much worthy blame laid upon him for shaking off so good a wife and so sweet a lady FIRST LORD Especially he hath incurred the everlasting displeasure of the King who had even tun d his bounty to sing happiness to him I will tell you a thing but you shall let it dwell darkly with you SECOND LORD When you have spoken it tis dead and I am the grave of it FIRST LORD He hath perverted a young gentlewoman here in Florence of a most chaste renown and this night he fleshes his will in the spoil of her honour He hath given her his monumental ring and thinks himself made in the unchaste composition SECOND LORD Now God delay our rebellion As we are ourselves what things are we FIRST LORD Merely our own traitors And as in the common course of all treasons we still see them reveal themselves till they attain to their abhorr d ends so he that in this action contrives against his own nobility in his proper stream o erflows himself SECOND LORD Is it not meant damnable in us to be trumpeters of our unlawful intents We shall not then have his company to night FIRST LORD Not till after midnight for he is dieted to his hour SECOND LORD That approaches apace I would gladly have him see his company anatomiz d that he might take a measure of his own judgments wherein so curiously he had set this counterfeit FIRST LORD We will not meddle with him till he come for his presence must be the whip of the other SECOND LORD In the meantime what hear you of these wars FIRST LORD I hear there is an overture of peace SECOND LORD Nay I assure you a peace concluded FIRST LORD What will Count Rousillon do then Will he travel higher or return again into France SECOND LORD I perceive by this demand you are not altogether of his counsel FIRST LORD Let it be forbid sir So should I be a great deal of his act SECOND LORD Sir his wife some two months since fled from his house Her pretence is a pilgrimage to Saint Jaques le Grand which holy undertaking with most austere sanctimony she accomplish d 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 FIRST LORD How is this justified SECOND 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 office to say is come was faithfully confirm d by the rector of the place FIRST LORD Hath the Count all this intelligence SECOND LORD Ay and the particular confirmations point from point to the full arming of the verity FIRST LORD I am heartily sorry that he ll be glad of this SECOND LORD How mightily sometimes we make us comforts of our losses FIRST LORD And how mightily some other times we drown our gain in tears The great dignity that his valour hath here acquir d for him shall at home be encount red with a shame as ample SECOND LORD The web of our life is of a mingled yarn good and ill together Our virtues would be proud if our faults whipt them not and our crimes would despair if they were not cherish d by our virtues Enter a MESSENGER How now Where s your master SERVANT He met the Duke in the street sir of whom he hath taken a solemn leave His lordship will next morning for France The Duke hath offered him letters of commendations to the King SECOND LORD They shall be no more than needful there if they were more than they can commend FIRST LORD They cannot be too sweet for the King s tartness Here s his lordship now Enter BERTRAM How now my lord is t not after midnight BERTRAM I have to night dispatch d sixteen businesses a month s length apiece by an abstract of success I have congied with the Duke done my adieu with his nearest buried a wife mourn d for her writ to my lady mother I am returning entertain d my convoy and between these main parcels of dispatch effected many nicer needs The last was the greatest but that I have not ended yet SECOND LORD If the business be of any difficulty and this morning your departure hence it requires haste of your lordship BERTRAM I mean the business is not ended as fearing to hear of it hereafter But shall we have this dialogue between the Fool and the Soldier Come bring forth this counterfeit module has deceiv d me like a double meaning prophesier SECOND LORD Bring him forth Exeunt SOLDIERS Has sat i th stocks all night poor gallant knave BERTRAM No matter his heels have deserv d it in usurping his spurs so long How does he carry himself 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 shed her milk he hath confess d himself to Morgan whom he supposes to be a friar from the time of his remembrance to this very instant disaster of his setting i th stocks And what think you he hath confess d BERTRAM Nothing of me has a 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 guarded and FIRST SOLDIER as interpreter BERTRAM A plague upon him muffled He can say nothing of me SECOND LORD Hush hush Hoodman comes Portotartarossa FIRST SOLDIER He calls for the tortures What will you say without em PAROLLES I will confess what I know without constraint if ye pinch me like a pasty I can say no more FIRST SOLDIER Bosko chimurcho SECOND LORD Boblibindo chicurmurco FIRST SOLDIER YOU are a merciful general Our General bids you answer to what I shall ask you out of a note PAROLLES And truly as I hope to live FIRST SOLDIER First demand of him how many horse the Duke is strong What say you to that 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 FIRST SOLDIER Shall I set down your answer so PAROLLES Do I ll take the sacrament on t how and which way you will BERTRAM All s one to him What a past saving slave is this SECOND LORD Y are deceiv d my lord this is Monsieur Parolles the gallant militarist that was his own phrase that had the whole theoric of war in the knot of his scarf and the practice in the chape of his dagger FIRST LORD I will never trust a man again for keeping his sword clean nor believe he can have everything in him by wearing his apparel neatly FIRST SOLDIER Well that s set down PAROLLES Five or six thousand horse I said I will say true or thereabouts set down for I ll speak truth SECOND LORD He s very near the truth in this BERTRAM But I con him no thanks for t in the nature he delivers it PAROLLES Poor rogues I pray you say FIRST SOLDIER Well that s set down PAROLLES I humbly thank you sir A truth s a truth the rogues are marvellous poor FIRST SOLDIER Demand of him of what strength they are a foot What say you to that PAROLLES By my troth sir if I were to live this present hour I will tell true Let me see Spurio a hundred and fifty Sebastian so 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 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 lest they shake themselves to pieces BERTRAM What shall be done to him SECOND LORD Nothing but let him have thanks Demand of him my condition and what credit I have with the Duke FIRST SOLDIER Well that s set down You shall demand of him whether one Captain Dumain be i th camp a Frenchman what his reputation is with the Duke what his valour honesty expertness in wars or whether he thinks it were not possible with well weighing sums of gold to corrupt him to a revolt What say you to this What do you know of it PAROLLES I beseech you let me answer to the particular of the inter gatories Demand them singly FIRST SOLDIER Do you know this Captain Dumain PAROLLES I know him a was a botcher s prentice in Paris from whence he was whipt for getting the shrieve s fool with child a dumb innocent that could not say him nay BERTRAM Nay by your leave hold your hands though I know his brains are forfeit to the next tile that falls FIRST SOLDIER Well is this captain in the Duke of Florence s camp PAROLLES Upon my knowledge he is and lousy SECOND LORD Nay look not so upon me we shall hear of your lordship anon FIRST SOLDIER What is his reputation with the Duke 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 I think I have his letter in my pocket FIRST SOLDIER Marry we ll search PAROLLES In good sadness I do not know either it is there or it is upon a file with the Duke s other letters in my tent FIRST SOLDIER Here tis here s a paper Shall I read it to you PAROLLES I do not know if it be it or no BERTRAM Our interpreter does it well SECOND LORD Excellently FIRST SOLDIER Reads Dian the Count s a fool and full of gold PAROLLES That is not the Duke s letter sir that is an advertisement to a proper maid in Florence one Diana to take heed of the allurement of one Count Rousillon a foolish idle boy but for all that very ruttish I pray you sir put it up again FIRST SOLDIER Nay I ll read it first by your favour 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 fry it finds BERTRAM Damnable both sides rogue FIRST SOLDIER Reads When he swears oaths bid him drop gold and take it After he scores he never pays the score Half won is match well made match and well make it He ne er pays after debts take it before And say a soldier Dian told thee this Men are to mell with boys are not to kiss For count of this the Count s a fool I know it Who pays before but not when he does owe it Thine as he vow d to thee in thine ear PAROLLES BERTRAM He shall be whipt through the army with this rhyme in s forehead FIRST LORD This is your devoted friend sir the manifold linguist and the amnipotent soldier BERTRAM I could endure anything before but a cat and now he s a cat to me FIRST SOLDIER I perceive sir by our General s looks we shall be fain to hang you 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 Let me live sir in a dungeon i th stocks or anywhere so I may live FIRST SOLDIER We ll see what may be done so you confess freely therefore once more to this Captain Dumain you have answer d to his reputation with the Duke and to his valour what is his honesty PAROLLES He will steal sir an egg out of a cloister for rapes and ravishments he parallels Nessus He professes not keeping of oaths in breaking em he is stronger than Hercules 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 and in his sleep he does little harm save to his bedclothes about him but they know his conditions 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 SECOND LORD I begin to love him for this BERTRAM For this description of thine honesty A pox upon him For me he s more and more a cat FIRST SOLDIER What say you to his expertness in war PAROLLES Faith sir has led the drum before the English tragedians to belie him I will not and more of his soldier ship I know not except in that country he had the honour to be the officer at a place there called Mile end to instruct for the doubling of files I would do the man what honour I can but of this I am not certain SECOND LORD He hath out villain d villainy so far that the rarity redeems him BERTRAM A pox on him he s a cat still FIRST SOLDIER His qualities being at this poor price I need not to ask you if gold will corrupt him to revolt PAROLLES Sir for a cardecue he will sell the fee simple of his salvation the inheritance of it and cut th entail from all remainders and a perpetual succession for it perpetually FIRST SOLDIER What s his brother the other Captain Dumain FIRST LORD Why does he ask him of me FIRST SOLDIER What s he 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 for a coward yet his brother is reputed one of the best that is In a retreat he outruns any lackey marry in coming on he has the cramp FIRST SOLDIER If your life be saved will you undertake to betray the Florentine PAROLLES Ay and the Captain of his Horse Count Rousillon FIRST SOLDIER I ll whisper with the General and know his pleasure PAROLLES Aside I ll no more drumming A plague of all drums Only to seem to deserve well and to beguile the supposition of that lascivious young boy the Count have I run into this danger Yet who would have suspected an ambush where I was taken FIRST SOLDIER There is no remedy sir but you must die The General says you that have so traitorously discover d the secrets of your army and made such pestiferous reports of men very nobly held can serve the world for no honest use therefore you must die Come headsman of with his head PAROLLES O Lord sir let me live or let me see my death FIRST SOLDIER That shall you and take your leave of all your friends Unmuffling him So look about you know you any here BERTRAM Good morrow noble Captain FIRST LORD God bless you Captain Parolles SECOND LORD God save you noble Captain FIRST LORD Captain what greeting will you to my Lord Lafeu I am for France SECOND LORD Good Captain will you give me a copy of the sonnet you writ to Diana in behalf of the Count Rousillon An I were not a very coward I d compel it of you but fare you well Exeunt BERTRAM and LORDS FIRST SOLDIER You are undone Captain all but your scarf that has a knot on t yet PAROLLES Who cannot be crush d with a plot FIRST SOLDIER If you could find out a country where but women were that had received so much shame you might begin an impudent nation Fare ye well sir I am for France too we shall speak of you there Exit with SOLDIERS PAROLLES Yet am I thankful If my heart were great 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 Who knows himself a braggart Let him fear this for it will come to pass That every braggart shall be found an ass Rust sword cool blushes and Parolles live Safest in shame Being fool d by fool ry thrive There s place and means for every man alive I ll after them Exit ACT IV SCENE 4 The WIDOW S house Enter HELENA WIDOW and DIANA HELENA That you may well perceive I have not wrong d you One of the greatest in the Christian world Shall be my surety fore whose throne tis needful Ere I can perfect mine intents to kneel Time was I did him a desired office Dear almost as his life which gratitude Through flinty Tartar s bosom would peep forth And answer Thanks I duly am inform d His Grace is at Marseilles to which place We have convenient convoy You must know I am supposed dead The army breaking My husband hies him home where heaven aiding And by the leave of my good lord the King We ll be before our welcome WIDOW Gentle madam You never had a servant to whose trust Your business was more welcome HELENA Nor you mistress Ever a friend whose thoughts more truly labour To recompense your love Doubt not but heaven Hath brought me up to be your daughter s dower As it hath fated her to be my motive And helper to a husband But O strange men That can such sweet use make of what they hate When saucy trusting of the cozen d thoughts Defiles the pitchy night So lust doth play With what it loathes for that which is away But more of this hereafter You Diana Under my poor instructions yet must suffer Something in my behalf DIANA Let death and honesty Go with your impositions I am yours Upon your will to suffer HELENA Yet I pray you But with the word the time will bring on summer When briers shall have leaves as well as thorns And be as sweet as sharp We must away Our waggon is prepar d and time revives us All s Well that Ends Well Still the fine s the crown Whate er the course the end is the renown Exeunt ACT IV SCENE 5 Rousillon The COUNT S palace Enter COUNTESS LAFEU and CLOWN LAFEU No no no son was misled with a snipt taffeta fellow there whose villainous saffron would have made all the unbak d and doughy youth of a nation in his colour Your daughter in law had been alive at this hour and your son here at home more advanc d by the King than by that red tail d humble bee I speak of 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 dearest groans of a mother I could not have owed her a more rooted love LAFEU Twas a good lady twas a good lady We may pick a thousand sallets ere we light on such another herb CLOWN Indeed sir she was the sweet marjoram of the sallet or rather the herb of grace LAFEU They are not sallet herbs you knave they are nose herbs CLOWN I am no great Nebuchadnezzar sir I have not much skill in grass LAFEU Whether dost thou profess thyself a knave or a fool CLOWN A fool sir at a woman s service and a knave at a man s LAFEU Your distinction CLOWN I would cozen the man of his wife and do his service LAFEU So you were a knave at his service indeed CLOWN And I would give his wife my bauble sir to do her service LAFEU I will subscribe for thee thou art both knave and fool CLOWN At your service LAFEU No no no CLOWN Why sir if I cannot serve you I can serve as great a prince as you are LAFEU Who s that A Frenchman CLOWN Faith sir a has an English name but his fisnomy is more hotter in France than there LAFEU What prince is that CLOWN The Black Prince sir alias the Prince of Darkness alias the devil LAFEU Hold thee there s my purse I give thee not this to suggest thee from thy master thou talk st of serve him still CLOWN I am a woodland fellow sir that always loved a great fire and the master I speak of ever keeps a good fire But sure he is the prince of the world let his nobility remain in s court I am for the house with the narrow gate which I take to be too little for pomp to enter Some that humble themselves may but the many will be too chill and tender and they ll be for the flow ry way that leads to the broad gate and the great fire LAFEU Go thy ways 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 look d to without any tricks CLOWN If I put any tricks upon em sir they shall be jades tricks which are their own right by the law of nature Exit LAFEU A shrewd knave and an unhappy COUNTESS So a is My lord that s gone 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 but runs where he will LAFEU I like him well tis not amiss And I was about to tell you since I heard of the good lady s 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 minority of them both his Majesty out of a self gracious remembrance did first propose His Highness hath promis d 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 With very much content my lord and I wish it happily effected LAFEU His Highness comes post from Marseilles of as able body as when he number d thirty a will be here to morrow or I am deceiv d by him that in such intelligence hath seldom fail d COUNTESS It rejoices me that I hope I shall see him ere I die I have letters that my son will be here to night I shall beseech your lordship to remain with me tal they meet together LAFEU Madam I was thinking with what manners I might safely be admitted COUNTESS You need but plead your honourable privilege LAFEU Lady of that I have made a bold charter but I thank my God it holds yet Re enter CLOWN CLOWN O madam yonder s my lord your son with a patch of velvet on s face whether there be a scar under t or no the velvet knows but tis a goodly patch of velvet His left cheek is a cheek of two pile and a half but his right cheek is worn bare LAFEU A scar nobly got or a noble scar is a good liv ry of honour so belike is that CLOWN But it is your carbonado d face LAFEU Let us go see your son I pray you I long to talk with the young noble soldier CLOWN 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 THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE IS COPYRIGHT 1990 1993 BY WORLD LIBRARY INC AND IS PROVIDED BY PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT OF ILLINOIS BENEDICTINE COLLEGE WITH PERMISSION ELECTRONIC AND MACHINE READABLE COPIES MAY BE DISTRIBUTED SO LONG AS SUCH COPIES 1 ARE FOR YOUR OR OTHERS PERSONAL USE ONLY AND 2 ARE NOT DISTRIBUTED OR USED COMMERCIALLY PROHIBITED COMMERCIAL DISTRIBUTION INCLUDES BY ANY SERVICE THAT CHARGES FOR DOWNLOAD TIME OR FOR ACT V SCENE 1 Marseilles A street Enter HELENA WIDOW and DIANA with two ATTENDANTS HELENA But this exceeding posting day and night Must wear 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 Be bold you do so grow in my requital As nothing can unroot you Enter a GENTLEMAN In happy time This man may help me to his Majesty s ear If he would spend his power God save you sir GENTLEMAN And you HELENA Sir I have seen you in the court of France GENTLEMAN I have been sometimes there HELENA I do presume sir that you are not fall n From the report that goes upon your goodness And therefore goaded with most sharp occasions Which lay nice manners by I put you to The use of your own virtues for the which I shall continue thankful GENTLEMAN What s your will HELENA That it will please you To give this poor petition to the King And aid me with that store of power you have To come into his presence GENTLEMAN The King s not here HELENA Not here sir GENTLEMAN Not indeed He hence remov d last night and with more haste Than is his use WIDOW Lord how we lose our pains HELENA All s Well That Ends Well yet Though time seem so adverse and means unfit I do beseech you whither is he gone GENTLEMAN Marry as I take it to Rousillon Whither I am going HELENA I do beseech you sir Since you are like to see the King before me Commend the paper to his gracious hand Which I presume shall render you no blame But rather make you thank your pains for it I will come after you with what good speed Our means will make us means GENTLEMAN This I ll do for you HELENA And you shall find yourself to be well thank d Whate er falls more We must to horse again Go go provide Exeunt ACT V SCENE 2 Rousillon The inner court of the COUNT S palace Enter CLOWN and PAROLLES PAROLLES Good Monsieur Lavache give my Lord Lafeu this 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 and smell somewhat strong of her strong displeasure CLOWN Truly Fortune s displeasure is but sluttish if it smell so strongly as thou speak st of I will henceforth eat no fish of Fortune s butt ring Prithee allow the wind PAROLLES Nay you need not to stop your nose sir I spake but by a metaphor CLOWN Indeed sir if your metaphor stink I will stop my nose or against any man s metaphor Prithee get thee further PAROLLES Pray you sir deliver me this paper CLOWN Foh prithee stand away A paper from Fortune s close stool to give to a nobleman Look here he comes himself Enter LAFEU Here is a pur of Fortune s sir or of Fortune s cat but not a musk cat that has fall n into the unclean fishpond of her displeasure and as he says is muddied withal Pray you sir use the carp as you may for he looks like a poor decayed ingenious foolish rascally knave I do pity his distress in my similes of comfort and leave him to your lordship Exit PAROLLES My lord I am a man whom Fortune hath cruelly scratch d LAFEU And what would you have me to do Tis too late to pare 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 cardecue for you Let the justices make you and Fortune friends I am for other business PAROLLES I beseech your honour to hear me one single word LAFEU You beg a single penny more come you shall ha t save your word PAROLLES My name my good lord is Parolles LAFEU You beg more than word then Cox my passion give me your hand How does your drum PAROLLES O my good lord you were the first that found me LAFEU Was I in sooth And I was the first that lost thee PAROLLES It lies in you my lord to bring me in some grace for you did bring me out LAFEU Out upon thee knave Dost thou put upon me at once both the office of God and the devil One brings the in grace and the other brings thee out Trumpets sound The King s coming I know by his trumpets Sirrah inquire 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 I praise God for you Exeunt ACT V SCENE 3 Rousillon The COUNT S palace Flourish Enter KING COUNTESS LAFEU the two FRENCH LORDS with ATTENDANTS KING We lost a jewel of her and our esteem Was made much poorer by it but your son As mad in folly lack d the sense to know Her estimation home COUNTESS Tis past my liege And I beseech your Majesty to make it Natural rebellion done i th blaze of youth When oil and fire too strong for reason s force O erbears it and burns on KING My honour d lady I have forgiven and forgotten all Though my revenges were high bent upon him And watch d the time to shoot LAFEU This I must say But first I beg my pardon 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 astonish the survey Of richest eyes whose words all ears took captive Whose dear perfection hearts that scorn d to serve Humbly call d mistress KING Praising what is lost Makes the remembrance dear Well call him hither We are reconcil d and the first view shall kill All repetition Let him not ask our pardon The nature of his great offence is dead And deeper than oblivion do we bury Th incensing relics of it let him approach A stranger no offender and inform him So tis our will he should GENTLEMAN I shall my liege Exit GENTLEMAN KING What says he to your daughter Have you spoke LAFEU All that he is hath reference to your Highness KING Then shall we have a match I have letters sent me That sets him high in fame Enter BERTRAM LAFEU He looks well on t KING I am not a day of season For thou mayst see a sunshine and a hail In me at once But to the brightest beams Distracted clouds give way so stand thou forth The time is fair again BERTRAM My high repented blames Dear sovereign pardon to me KING All is whole Not one word more of the consumed time Let s take the instant by the forward top For we are old and on our quick st decrees Th inaudible and noiseless foot of Time Steals ere we can effect them You remember The daughter of this lord BERTRAM Admiringly my liege At first I stuck my choice upon her ere my heart Durst make too bold herald of my tongue Where the impression of mine eye infixing Contempt his scornful perspective did lend me Which warp d the line of every other favour Scorn d a fair colour or express d it stol n Extended or contracted all proportions To a most hideous object Thence it came That she whom all men prais d and whom myself Since I have lost have lov d was in mine eye The dust that did offend it KING Well excus d That thou didst love her strikes some scores away From the great compt but love that comes too late Like a remorseful pardon slowly carried To the great sender turns a sour offence Crying That s good that s gone Our rash faults Make trivial price of serious things we have Not knowing them until we know their grave Oft our displeasures to ourselves unjust Destroy our friends and after weep their dust Our own love waking cries to see what s done While shameful hate sleeps out the afternoon Be this sweet Helen s knell And now forget her Send forth your amorous token for fair Maudlin The main consents are had and here we ll stay To see our widower s second marriage day COUNTESS Which better than the first O dear heaven bless Or ere they meet in me O nature cesse LAFEU Come on my son in whom my house s name Must be digested give a favour from you To sparkle in the spirits of my daughter That she may quickly come BERTRAM gives a ring By my old beard And ev ry hair that s on t Helen that s dead Was a sweet creature such a ring as this The last that e er I took her leave at court I saw upon her finger BERTRAM Hers it was not KING Now pray you let me see it for mine eye While I was speaking oft was fasten d to t This ring was mine and when I gave it Helen I bade her if her fortunes ever stood Necessitied to help that by this token I would relieve her Had you that craft to reave her Of what should stead her most BERTRAM My gracious sovereign Howe er it pleases you to take it so The ring was never hers COUNTESS Son on my life I have seen her wear it and she reckon d it At her life s rate LAFEU I am sure I saw her wear it BERTRAM You are deceiv d my lord she never saw it In Florence was it from a casement thrown me Wrapp d in a paper which contain d the name Of her that threw it Noble she was and thought I stood engag d but when I had subscrib d To mine own fortune and inform d her fully I could not answer in that course of honour As she had made the overture she ceas d In heavy satisfaction and would never Receive the ring again KING Plutus himself That knows the tinct and multiplying med cine Hath not in nature s mystery more science Than I have in this ring Twas mine twas Helen s 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 call d the saints to surety That she would never put it from her finger Unless she gave it to yourself in bed Where you have never come or sent it us Upon her great disaster BERTRAM She never saw it KING Thou speak st it falsely as I love mine honour And mak st conjectural fears to come into me Which I would fain 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 Her eyes myself could win me to believe More than to see this ring Take him away GUARDS seize BERTRAM My fore past proofs howe er the matter fall Shall tax my fears of little vanity Having vainly fear d too little Away with him We ll sift this matter further BERTRAM If you shall prove This ring was ever hers you shall as easy Prove that I husbanded her bed in Florence Where she yet never was Exit guarded KING I am wrapp d in dismal thinkings Enter a GENTLEMAN GENTLEMAN Gracious sovereign Whether I have been to blame or no I know not Here s a petition from a Florentine Who hath for four or five removes come short To tender it herself I undertook it Vanquish d thereto by the fair grace and speech Of the poor suppliant who by this I know Is here attending her business looks in her With an importing visage and she told me In a sweet verbal brief it did concern Your Highness with herself KING Reads the 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 Rousillon a widower his vows are forfeited to me and my honour s paid 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 LAFEU I will buy me a son in law in a fair and toll for this I ll none of him KING The heavens have thought well on thee Lafeu To bring forth this discov ry Seek these suitors Go speedily and bring again the Count Exeunt ATTENDANTS I am afeard the life of Helen lady Was foully snatch d COUNTESS Now justice on the doers Enter BERTRAM guarded KING I wonder sir sith wives are monsters to you And that you fly them as you swear them lordship Yet you desire to marry Enter WIDOW and DIANA What woman s that DIANA I am my lord a wretched Florentine Derived from the ancient Capilet My suit as I do understand you know And therefore know how far I may be pitied WIDOW I am her mother sir whose age and honour Both suffer under this complaint we bring And both shall cease without your remedy KING Come hither Count do you know these women BERTRAM My lord I neither can nor will deny But that I know them Do they charge me further DIANA Why do you look so strange upon your wife BERTRAM She s none of mine my lord DIANA If you shall marry You give away this hand 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 That she which marries you must marry me Either both or none LAFEU To BERTRAM Your reputation comes too short for my daughter you are no husband for her BERTRAM My lord this is a fond and desp rate creature Whom sometime I have laugh d with Let your Highness Lay a more noble thought upon mine honour Than for to think that I would sink it here KING Sir for my thoughts you have them ill to friend Till your deeds gain them Fairer prove your honour Than in my thought it lies DIANA Good my lord Ask him upon his oath if he does think He had not my virginity KING What say st thou to her BERTRAM She s impudent my lord And was a common gamester to the camp 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 Whose high respect and rich validity Did lack a parallel yet for all that He gave it to a commoner o th camp If I be one COUNTESS He blushes and tis it Of six preceding ancestors that gem Conferr d by testament to th sequent issue Hath it been ow d and worn This is his wife That ring s a thousand proofs KING Methought you said You saw one here in court could witness it DIANA I did my lord but loath am to produce So bad an instrument his name s Parolles LAFEU I saw the man to day if man he be KING Find him and bring him hither Exit an ATTENDANT BERTRAM What of him He s quoted for a most perfidious slave With all the spots o th world tax d and debauch d Whose nature sickens but to speak a truth Am I or that or this for what he ll utter That will speak anything KING She hath that ring of yours BERTRAM I think she has Certain it is I lik d her And boarded her i th wanton way of youth She knew her distance and did angle for me Madding my eagerness with her restraint As all impediments in fancy s course Are motives of more fancy and in fine Her infinite cunning with her modern grace Subdu d me to her rate She got the ring And I had that which any inferior might At market price have bought DIANA I must be patient You that have turn d off a first so noble wife May justly diet me I pray you yet Since you lack virtue I will lose a husband Send for your ring I will return it home And give me mine again BERTRAM I have it not KING What ring was yours I pray you DIANA Sir much like The same upon your finger KING Know you this ring This ring was his of late DIANA And this was it I gave him being abed KING The story then goes false you threw it him Out of a casement DIANA I have spoke the truth Enter PAROLLES BERTRAM My lord I do confess the ring was hers KING You boggle shrewdly every feather starts you Is this the man you speak of DIANA Ay my lord KING Tell me sirrah but tell me true I charge you Not fearing the displeasure of your master Which on your just proceeding I ll keep off By him and by this woman here what know you PAROLLES So please your Majesty my master hath been an honourable gentleman tricks he hath had in him which gentlemen have KING Come come to th purpose Did he love this woman PAROLLES Faith sir he did love her but how KING How I pray you PAROLLES He did love her sir as a gentleman loves a woman KING How is that PAROLLES He lov d her sir and lov d her not KING As thou art a knave and no knave What an equivocal companion is this PAROLLES I am a poor man and at your Majesty s command LAFEU He s a good drum my lord but a naughty orator DIANA Do you know he promis d me marriage PAROLLES Faith I know more than I ll speak KING But wilt thou not speak all thou know st 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 talk d of Satan and of Limbo 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 as promising her marriage and things which would derive me ill will to speak of therefore I will not speak what I know KING Thou hast spoken all already unless thou canst say they are married but thou art too fine in thy evidence therefore stand aside This ring you say was yours DIANA Ay my good lord KING Where did you buy it Or who gave it you DIANA It was not given me nor I did not buy it KING Who lent it you DIANA It was not lent me neither KING Where did you find it then DIANA I found it not KING If it were yours by none of all these ways How could you give it him DIANA I never gave it him LAFEU This woman s an easy glove my lord she goes of and on at pleasure KING This ring was mine I gave it his first wife DIANA It might be yours or hers for aught I know 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 I ll never tell you KING Take her away DIANA I ll put in bail my liege KING I think thee now some common customer DIANA By Jove if ever I knew man twas you KING Wherefore hast thou accus d him all this while 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 Pointing to LAFEU KING She does abuse our ears to prison with her DIANA Good mother fetch my bail Stay royal sir Exit WIDOW The jeweller that owes the ring is sent for And he shall surety me But for this lord Who hath abus d me as he knows himself Though yet he never harm d me here I quit him He knows himself my bed he hath defil d 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 And now behold the meaning Re enter WIDOW with HELENA KING Is there no exorcist Beguiles the truer office of mine eyes Is t real that I see HELENA No my good lord Tis but the shadow of a wife you see The name and not the thing BERTRAM Both both o pardon HELENA O my good lord when I was like this maid I found you wondrous kind There is your ring And look you here s your letter This it says 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 If she my liege can make me know this clearly I ll love her dearly ever ever dearly HELENA If it appear not plain and prove untrue Deadly divorce step between me and you O my dear mother do I see you living LAFEU Mine eyes smell onions I shall weep anon To PAROLLES Good Tom Drum lend me a handkercher So I thank thee Wait on me home I ll make sport with thee let thy curtsies alone they are scurvy ones KING Let us from point to point this story know To make the even truth in pleasure flow To DIANA If thou beest yet a fresh uncropped flower 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 progress more and less Resolvedly more leisure shall express All yet seems well and if it end so meet The bitter past more welcome is the sweet Flourish EPILOGUE EPILOGUE KING The King s a beggar now the play is done All is well ended if this suit be won That you express content which we will pay With strife to please you day exceeding day Ours be your patience then and yours our parts Your gentle hands lend us and take our hearts Exeunt omnes THE END