Act I · Scene I
Rousillon. The COUNT's palace.
Hover a speech to translate it — or press play to hear it performed.
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 deathanew: but I must attend his majesty's command, towhom 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 timesgood must of necessity hold his virtue to you; whoseworthiness would stir it up where it wanted ratherthan lack it where there is such abundance.
COUNTESS
What hope is there of his majesty's amendment?
LAFEU
He hath abandoned his physicians, madam; under whosepractises he hath persecuted time with hope, andfinds no other advantage in the process but only thelosing of hope by time.
COUNTESS
This young gentlewoman had a father,--O, that'had'! how sad a passage 'tis!--whose skill wasalmost as great as his honesty; had it stretched sofar, would have made nature immortal, and deathshould have play for lack of work. Would, for theking's sake, he were living! I think it would bethe death of the king's disease.
LAFEU
How called you the man you speak of, madam?
COUNTESS
He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it washis great right to be so: Gerard de Narbon.
LAFEU
He was excellent indeed, madam: the king verylately spoke of him admiringly and mourningly: hewas skilful enough to have lived still, if knowledgecould 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 gentlewomanthe daughter of Gerard de Narbon?
COUNTESS
His sole child, my lord, and bequeathed to myoverlooking. I have those hopes of her good thather education promises; her dispositions sheinherits, which makes fair gifts fairer; for wherean unclean mind carries virtuous qualities, therecommendations go with pity; they are virtues andtraitors too; in her they are the better for theirsimpleness; 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 praisein. The remembrance of her father never approachesher heart but the tyranny of her sorrows takes alllivelihood from her cheek. No more of this, Helena;go to, no more; lest it be rather thought you affecta sorrow than have it.
HELENA
I do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have it too.
LAFEU
Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead,excessive grief the enemy to the living.
COUNTESS
If the living be enemy to the grief, the excessmakes it soon mortal.
BERTRAM
Madam, I desire your holy wishes.
LAFEU
How understand we that?
COUNTESS
Be thou blest, Bertram, and succeed thy fatherIn manners, as in shape! thy blood and virtueContend for empire in thee, and thy goodnessShare with thy birthright! Love all, trust a few,Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemyRather in power than use, and keep thy friendUnder thy own life's key: be cheque'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 bestThat shall attend his love.
COUNTESS
Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram.
Exit
BERTRAM
[To HELENA] The best wishes that can be forged inyour thoughts be servants to you! Be comfortableto my mother, your mistress, and make much of her.
LAFEU
Farewell, pretty lady: you must hold the credit ofyour father.
Exeunt BERTRAM and LAFEU
HELENA
O, were that all! I think not on my father;And these great tears grace his remembrance moreThan those I shed for him. What was he like?I have forgot him: my imaginationCarries no favour in't but Bertram's.I am undone: there is no living, none,If Bertram be away. 'Twere all oneThat I should love a bright particular starAnd think to wed it, he is so above me:In his bright radiance and collateral lightMust I be comforted, not in his sphere.The ambition in my love thus plagues itself:The hind that would be mated by the lionMust die for love. 'Twas pretty, though plague,To see him every hour; to sit and drawHis arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,In our heart's table; heart too capableOf every line and trick of his sweet favour:But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancyMust sanctify his reliques. Who comes here?
Enter PAROLLES
Aside
HELENA
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 fixed evils sit so fit in him,That they take place, when virtue's steely bonesLook bleak i' the cold wind: withal, full oft we seeCold 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 meask you a question. Man is enemy to virginity; howmay 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 somewarlike resistance.
PAROLLES
There is none: man, sitting down before you, willundermine you and blow you up.
HELENA
Bless our poor virginity from underminers andblowers up! Is there no military policy, howvirgins might blow up men?
PAROLLES
Virginity being blown down, man will quicklier beblown up: marry, in blowing him down again, withthe breach yourselves made, you lose your city. Itis not politic in the commonwealth of nature topreserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rationalincrease and there was never virgin got tillvirginity was first lost. That you were made of ismetal to make virgins. Virginity by being once lostmay be ten times found; by being ever kept, it isever 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 therule of nature. To speak on the part of virginity,is to accuse your mothers; which is most infallibledisobedience. He that hangs himself is a virgin:virginity murders itself and should be buried inhighways out of all sanctified limit, as a desperateoffendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites,much like a cheese; consumes itself to the veryparing, and so dies with feeding his own stomach.Besides, virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made ofself-love, which is the most inhibited sin in thecanon. Keep it not; you cannot choose but looseby't: out with 't! within ten year it will makeitself ten, which is a goodly increase; and theprincipal 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 itlikes. 'Tis a commodity will lose the gloss withlying; the longer kept, the less worth: off with 'twhile 'tis vendible; answer the time of request.Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap outof fashion: richly suited, but unsuitable: justlike the brooch and the tooth-pick, which wear notnow. Your date is better in your pie and yourporridge than in your cheek; and your virginity,your old virginity, is like one of our Frenchwithered pears, it looks ill, it eats drily; marry,'tis a withered pear; it was formerly better;marry, yet 'tis a withered pear: will you anything with it?
HELENA
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 worldOf 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 neverReturn us thanks.
Enter Page
Page
Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.
Exit
PAROLLES
Little Helen, farewell; if I can remember thee, Iwill think of thee at court.
HELENA
Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable star.
PAROLLES
Under Mars, I.
HELENA
I especially think, under Mars.
PAROLLES
Why under Mars?
HELENA
The wars have so kept you under that you must needsbe 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 makesin you is a virtue of a good wing, and I like the wear well.
PAROLLES
I am so full of businesses, I cannot answer theeacutely. I will return perfect courtier; in thewhich, my instruction shall serve to naturalizethee, so thou wilt be capable of a courtier'scounsel and understand what advice shall thrust uponthee; else thou diest in thine unthankfulness, andthine ignorance makes thee away: farewell. Whenthou hast leisure, say thy prayers; when thou hastnone, 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 skyGives us free scope, only doth backward pullOur 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 bringsTo join like likes and kiss like native things.Impossible be strange attempts to thoseThat weigh their pains in sense and do supposeWhat hath been cannot be: who ever stroveSo 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