Lafeu, all in black1 note.
Count.
In delivering my son from me, I bury a
second husband.
Ber.
And I, in going, madam, weep o'er my father's
death anew; but I must attend his majesty's command,
to whom I am now in ward2 note, evermore in subjection.
Laf.
You shall find of the king a husband, madam;
—you, sir, a father. He that so generally is at all
times good, must of necessity hold his virtue to you,
whose worthiness would stir it up where it wanted,
rather than lack it where there is such abundance.
Count.
What hope is there of his majesty's amendment?
Laf.
He hath abandoned 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.
-- 208 --
Count.
This young gentlewoman had a father,—O,
that had! how sad a passage 'tis!—whose skill was
almost as great as his honesty; had it stretched so far,
would have made nature immortal 11Q03963 note, and death should
have play for lack of work. Would, for the king's
sake, he were living! I think it would be the death of
the king's disease.
Laf.
How called you the man you speak of, madam?
Count.
He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it
was his great right to be so—Gerard de Narbon.
Laf.
He was excellent, indeed, madam: the king
very lately spoke of him, admiringly and mourningly.
He was skilful enough to have lived still, if knowledge
could be set up against mortality.
Ber.
What is it, my good lord, the king languishes of?
Laf.
A fistula, my lord4 note.
Ber.
I heard not of it before.
Laf.
I would it were not notorious.—Was this gentlewoman
the daughter of Gerard de Narbon?
Count.
His sole child, my lord; and bequeathed to
my overlooking. I have those hopes of her good that
her education promises: her dispositions she inherits,
which make fair gifts fairer; for where an unclean
mind carries virtuous qualities, there commendations go
with pity; they are virtues and traitors too: in her
they are the better for their simpleness; she derives
her honesty, and achieves her goodness.
Laf.
Your commendations, madam, get from her
tears.
Count.
'Tis the best brine a maiden can season her
praise in. The remembrance of her father never
-- 209 --
approaches her heart, but the tyranny of her sorrows
takes all livelihood from her cheek.—No more of this,
Helena: go to, no more; lest it be rather thought you
affect a sorrow, than to have.
Hel.
I do affect a sorrow, indeed; but I have it too.
Laf.
Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead,
excessive grief the enemy to the living.
Count.
If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess
makes it soon mortal.
Ber.
Madam, I desire your holy wishes.
Laf.
How understand we that?
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,
That thee may furnish, and my prayers pluck down,
Fall on thy head!—Farewell, my lord:
'Tis an unseason'd courtier: good my lord,
Advise him.
Laf.
He cannot want the best
That shall attend his love.
Count.
Heaven bless him!—
Farewell, Bertram.
[Exit Countess.
Ber. [To Helena.]
The best wishes that can be
forged in your thoughts be servants to you! Be comfortable
to my mother, your mistress, and make much
of her.
Laf.
Farewell, pretty lady: you must hold the credit
of your father.
[Exeunt Bertram and Lafeu.
Hel.
O, were that all!—I think not on my father;
And these great tears grace his remembrance more
-- 210 --
Than those I shed for him5 note
. What was he like?
I have forgot him: my imagination
Carries no favour in't but Bertram's. 11Q0397
I am undone: there is no living, none,
If Bertram be away. It were all one,
That I should love a bright particular star,
And think to wed it, he is so above me:
In his bright radiance and collateral light
Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.
Th' ambition in my love thus plagues itself:
The hind that would be mated by the lion
Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, though a plague,
To see him every hour; to sit and draw
His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,
In our heart's table6 note; 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.
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
Look bleak in the cold wind: withal, full oft we see
-- 211 --
Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.
Par.
Save you, fair queen.
Hel.
And you, monarch7 note.
Par.
No.
Hel.
And no.
Par.
Are you meditating on virginity?
Hel.
Ay. You have some stain of soldier8 note in you,
let me ask you a question: man is enemy to virginity;
how may we barricado it against him?
Par.
Keep him out.
Hel.
But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant
in the defence, yet is weak. Unfold to us some warlike
resistance.
Par.
There is none: man, sitting down before you,
will undermine you, and blow you up.
Hel.
Bless our poor virginity from underminers, and
blowers up!—Is there no military policy, how virgins
might blow up men?
Par.
Virginity being blown down, man will quicklier
be blown up: marry, in blowing him down again, with
the breach yourselves made you lose your city. It is
not politic in the commonwealth of nature to preserve
virginity. Loss of virginity is rational increase; and
there was never virgin got, till virginity was first lost.
That you were made of is metal to make virgins. Virginity,
by being once lost, may be ten times found: by
being ever kept, it is ever lost. 'Tis too cold a companion:
away with't.
Hel.
I will stand for't a little, though therefore I
die a virgin.
Par.
There's little can be said in't: 'tis against the
rule of nature. To speak on the part of virginity is to
-- 212 --
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 sin9 note in the canon. Keep it not: you cannot
choose but lose by't. Out with't: within ten years it
will make itself ten 11Q039810 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: marry, ill; to like him that ne'er
it likes1 note. 'Tis a commodity will lose the gloss with
lying; the longer kept, the less worth: off with't,
while 'tis vendible: answer the time of request. Virginity,
like an old courtier, wears her cap out of fashion;
richly suited, but unsuitable: just like the brooch and
the tooth-pick, which wear not now. Your date is better
in your pie and your porridge, than in your cheek:
and your virginity, your old virginity, is like one of
our French withered pears: it looks ill, it eats dryly;
marry, 'tis a withered pear; it was formerly better;
marry, yet, 'tis a withered pear. Will you any thing
with it?
Hel.
Not my virginity yet2 note.
-- 213 --
There shall your master have a thousand loves3 note,
A mother, and a mistress, and a friend,
A phœnix, 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, adoptions christendoms,
That blinking Cupid gossips. Now shall he—
I know not what he shall:—God send him well!—
The court's a learning-place;—and he is one—
Par.
What one, i'faith?
Hel.
That I wish well.—'Tis pity—
Par.
What's pity?
Hel.
That wishing well had not a body in't,
Which might be felt; that we, the poorer born,
Whose baser stars do shut us up in wishes,
Might with effects of them follow our friends,
And show what we alone must think; which never
Returns us thanks.
Enter a Page.
Page.
Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.
[Exit Page.
Par.
Little Helen, farewell: if I can remember thee,
I will think of thee at court.
Hel.
Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a
charitable star.
Par.
Under Mars, I.
-- 214 --
Hel.
I especially think, under Mars.
Par.
Why under Mars?
Hel.
The wars have so kept you 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 is a virtue of a good wing, and I like the
wear well.
Par.
I am so full of businesses, I cannot answer
thee acutely. I will return perfect courtier; in the
which my instruction shall serve to naturalize thee,
so thou wilt be capable of a courtier's counsel, and
understand what advice shall thrust upon thee; else
thou diest in thine unthankfulness, and thine ignorance
makes thee away: farewell. When thou hast leisure,
say thy prayers; when thou hast none, remember thy
friends. Get thee a good husband, and use him as he
uses thee: so farewell.
[Exit.
Hel.
Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky
Gives us free scope; only, doth backward pull
Our slow designs, when we ourselves are dull.
What power is 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. 11Q0399
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.
-- 215 --
J. Payne Collier [1842–1844], The works of William Shakespeare. The text formed from an entirely new collation of the old editions: with the various readings, notes, a life of the poet, and a history of the Early English stage. By J. Payne Collier, Esq. F.S.A. In eight volumes (Whittaker & Co. [etc.], London) [word count] [S10101].
