SCENE I.
The Countess of Rousillon's house in France.
Enter Bertram, the Countess of Rousillon, Helena, and Lafeu, all in black.
Count.
5 note
In delivering my son from me, I bury a
second husband.
Ber.
And I, in going, madam, weep o'er my father's
death anew: but I must attend his majesty's
-- 4 --
command, to whom I am now 6 note
in ward, evermore
in subjection.
Laf.
You shall find of the king a husband, madam;
—you, sir, a father: He that so generally is at
all times good, must of necessity hold his virtue to
you; 7 notewhose worthiness would stir it up where it
wanted, rather than lack it where there is such abundance.
Count.
What hope is there of his majesty's amendment?
Laf.
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.
Count.
8 note
This young gentlewoman had a father,
(O, that had! how sad a passage 'tis) 9Q0393 whose skill
-- 5 --
was almost as great as his honesty; had it stretch'd
so far, it would have made nature immortal, and death
should have play'd for lack of work. 'Would, for
the king's sake, he were living! I think, it would be
the death of the king's disease.
Laf.
How call'd you the man you speak of, madam?
Count.
He was famous, sir, in his profession, and
it was his great right to be so: Gerard de Narbon.
Laf.
He was excellent, indeed, madam; the king
very lately spoke of him, admiringly, and mourningly:
-- 6 --
he was skilful enough to have liv'd still, if
knowledge could have been set up against mortality.
Ber.
What is it, my good lord, the king languishes
of?
Laf.
A fistula, my lord.
Ber.
I heard not of it before.
Laf.
I would, it were not notorious.—Was this
gentlewoman the daughter of Gerard de Narbon?
Count.
His sole child, my lord; and bequeathed to
my overlooking. I have those hopes of her good,
that her education promises: her dispositions she inherits,
which makes fair gifts fairer: for 9 note
where an
unclean mind carries virtuous qualities, there commendations
go with pity, they are virtues and traitors
-- 7 --
too; in her they are the better for their simpleness;
she derives her honesty, and atchieves her goodness.
Laf.
Your commendations, madam, get from her
tears.
Count.
'Tis the best brine a maiden can season her
praise in. The remembrance of her father never approaches
her heart, but the tyranny of her sorrows
takes 1 noteall livelihood from her cheek. No more of
this, Helena, go to, no more; lest it be rather
thought you affect a sorrow, than to have.
Hel.
I do affect a sorrow, indeed, but I have it too.
Laf.
Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead,
excessive grief the enemy to the living.
Count.
2 note
If the living be enemy to the grief, the
excess makes it soon mortal.
-- 8 --
Ber.
Madam, I desire your holy wishes.
Laf.
How understand we that?
Count.
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 birth-right! Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy
Rather in power, than use; and keep thy friend
Under thy own life's key: be check'd for silence,
But never tax'd for speech. What heaven more will,
3 noteThat thee may furnish, and my prayers pluck down,
Fall on thy head! Farewell. My lord,
'Tis an unseason'd courtier, good my lord,
Advise him.
Laf.
He cannot want the best,
That shall attend his love.
Count.
Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram.
[Exit Countess.
Ber. [To Helena.]
4 noteThe best wishes, that can be forg'd
in your thoughts, be servants to you! Be comfortable
to my mother, your mistress, and make much of her.
Laf.
Farewell, pretty lady: You must hold the
credit of your father.
[Exeunt Bertram and Lafeu.
-- 9 --
Hel.
Oh, were that all!—I think not on my father;
5 noteAnd 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 it, but Bertram's.
I am undone; there is no living, none,
If Bertram be away. It were all one,
That I should love a bright particular star,
And think to wed it, he is so above me:
6 note
In his bright radiance and collateral light
Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.
The 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 7 note
trick of his sweet favour,
But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
Must sanctify his relicks. Who comes here?
Enter Parolles.
One that goes with him: I love him for his sake;
And yet I know him a notorious liar,
-- 10 --
Think him a great way fool, solely a coward;
Yet these fix'd evils sit so fit in him,
That they take place, when virtue's steely bones
Look bleak in the cold wind: withal, full oft we see
8 noteCold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.
Par.
Save you, fair queen.
Hel.
And you, monarch9 note.
Par.
No.
Hel.
And no.
Par.
Are you meditating on virginity?
Hel.
Ay. You have some 1 note
stain of soldier in you;
let me ask you a question: Man is enemy to virginity;
how may we barricado it against him?
Par.
Keep him out.
Hel.
But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant,
in the defence yet is weak: unfold to us some
warlike resistance.
Par.
There is none; man, sitting down before you,
will undermine you, and blow you up.
Hel.
Bless our poor virginity from underminers, and
-- 11 --
blowers up!—Is there no military policy, how virgins
might blow up men?
Par.
Virginity being blown down, man will quicklier
be blown up: marry, in blowing him down again,
with the breach yourselves made, you lose your city.
It is not politick in the commonwealth of nature, to
preserve virginity. 2 note
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, is ever lost:
'tis too cold a companion; away with it.
Hel.
I will stand for't a little, though therefore I
die a virgin.
Par.
There's little can be said in't; 'tis against the
rule of nature. To speak on the part of virginity, is
to accuse your mothers; which is most infallible disobedience.
3 note
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
-- 12 --
so dies with feeding its own stomach. Besides, virginity
is peevish, proud, idle, made of self-love, which
is the most inhibited sin4 note
in the canon. Keep it not;
you cannot chuse but lose by't: Out with't: within
ten years it will make itself two5 note, which is a goodly increase;
and the principal itself not much the worse:
Away with't.
Hel.
How might one do, sir, to lose it to her own
liking?
Par.
Let me see: 6 noteMarry, ill, to like him that
ne'er it likes. 'Tis a commodity will lose the gloss with
lying; the longer kept, the less worth: off with't,
while 'tis vendible: answer the time of request.
Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of
fashion; richly suited, but unsuitable: just like the
brooch and the tooth-pick, which7 note wear not now: Your
date8 note
is better in your pye and your porridge, than
in your cheek: And your virginity, your old virginity,
-- 13 --
is like one of our French wither'd pears: it looks ill,
it eats dryly; marry, 'tis a wither'd pear: it was formerly
better; marry, 9 noteyet, 'tis a wither'd pear:
Will you any thing with it?
Hel.
1 note
Not my virginity yet.
There shall your master have a thousand loves,
A mother, and a mistress, and a friend,
-- 14 --
2 note
A phœnix, captain, and an enemy,
A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign,
A counsellor, a 3 note
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 christendoms4 note,
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—
-- 15 --
Par.
What one, i'faith?
Hel.
That I wish well.—'Tis pity—
Par.
What's pity?
Hel.
That wishing well had not a body in't,
Which might be felt: that we, the poorer born,
Whose baser stars do shut us up in wishes,
Might with effects of them follow our friends,
5 noteAnd shew what we alone must think; which never
Returns us thanks.
Enter Page.
Page.
Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.
[Exit page.
Par.
Little Helen, farewel: if I can remember
thee, I will think of thee at court.
Hel.
Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a
charitable star.
Par.
Under Mars, I.
Hel.
I especially think, under Mars.
Par.
Why under Mars?
Hel.
The wars have kept you so under, that you
must needs be born under Mars.
Par.
When he was predominant.
Hel.
When he was retrograde, I think, rather.
Par.
Why think you so?
Hel.
You go so much backward, when you fight.
Par.
That's for advantage.
Hel.
So is running away, when fear proposes the
safety: But the composition, that your valour and
fear makes in you, 6 note
is a virtue of a good wing, and
I like the wear well.
-- 16 --
Par.
I am so full of businesses, I cannot answer
thee acutely: I will return perfect courtier; in the
which, my instruction shall serve to naturalize thee,
so thou wilt be capable of courtier's counsel, and understand
what advice shall thrust upon thee; else thou
diest in thine unthankfulness, and thine ignorance
makes thee away; farewel. When thou hast leisure,
say thy prayers; when thou hast none, remember
-- 17 --
thy friends: get thee a good husband, and use him
as he uses thee: so farewel.
[Exit.
Hel.
Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky
Gives us free scope; only, doth backward pull
Our slow designs, when we ourselves are dull.
7 note
What power is it, which mounts my love so high;
That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?
8 note
The mightiest space 9Q0397 in fortune nature brings
To join like likes, and kiss like native things.
-- 18 --
Impossible be strange attempts, to those
That weigh their pain in sense; and do suppose,
What hath been cannot be: Whoever strove
To shew 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.
Samuel Johnson [1778], The plays of William Shakspeare. In ten volumes. With the corrections and illustrations of various commentators; to which are added notes by Samuel Johnson and George Steevens. The second edition, Revised and Augmented (Printed for C. Bathurst [and] W. Strahan [etc.], London) [word count] [S10901].
