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Vin. 'Tis a good hearing when children are toward.

Luc. 'Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will

be tam'd so.

[Exeunt.

Luc. Well, go thy ways, old lad, for thou shalt ha't.

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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.

12

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.

19

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, 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.

madam?

27

Laf. How called you the man you speak of, Count. He was famous, sir, in his profession,

and it was his great right to be so: Gerard de Narbon.

32

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.

37

Ber. What is it, my good lord, the king

languishes of?

Laf. A fistula, my lord.

Ber. I heard not of it before.

40

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

44

Count. His sole child, my lord; and bequeathed to my overlooking. I have those hopes of her good that her education promises: her dispositions itions 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. 53 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 all livelihood from her cheek. No more of this, Helena, go to, no more; lest it be rather thought you affect a sorrow, than have it.

62

Hel. I do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have

it too.

64

Laf. Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead, excessive grief the enemy to the living.

Hel. If the living be enemy to the grief, the Look bleak in the cold wind: withal, full oft we excess makes it soon mortal.

68

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 72
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 76
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.

80

Count. Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram. [Exit.

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.

88

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;

more

100

And these great tears grace his remembrance
92
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. 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.
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 trick of his sweet favour: 108
But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
Must sanctify his reliques. Who comes here?
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;
Vet these fix'd evils sit so fit in him,
That they take place, when virtue's steely bones

see

Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.

Enter PAROLLES.

Par. Save you, fair queen!
Hel. And you, monarch!
Par. No.

Hel. And no.

Par. Are you meditating on virginity?

116

120

Hel. 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?

Par. Keep him out.

126

Hel. But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant in the defence, yet is weak. Unfold to us some war-like resistance.

Par. There is none: man, sitting down before you, will undermine you and blow you up. 132 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. 148

Par. There's little can be said in't; 'tis 96 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 the year it will make itself two, 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 112 own liking? Par. Let me see: marry, ill, to like him that ne'er it likes. 'Tis a commodity that will lose the gloss with lying; the longer kept, the less

105

164

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 withered 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?

180

Hel. 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 faith, his sweet disaster; with a world

Of pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms,

184

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 236 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 241

His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet, 188 To join like likes, and kiss like native things.

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- 193
Par. What one, i' faith?

Impossible be strange attempts to those

That weigh their pains in sense, and do suppose
What hath been cannot be: who ever strove 245
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.

Hel. That I wish well. 'Tis pity-
Par. What's pity?

196

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, 200 And show what we alone must think, which

SCENE II.- Paris. A Room in the KING'S
Palace.

Flourish of Cornets. Enter the KING OF FRANCE, with letters; Lords and Others attending.

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223 King.

What's he comes here?

Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES.

Since I nor wax nor honey can bring home,
I quickly were dissolved from my hive,

First Lord. It is the Count Rousillon, my To give some labourers room.

good lord,

Young Bertram.

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Sec. Lord.
You are lov'd, sir;
They that least lend it you shall lack you first. 68
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.
Ber.

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 73 With several applications: nature and sickness Debate it at their leisure. Welcome, count; My son's no dearer. Ber.

Thank your majesty. 76 [Exeunt. Flourish.

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56

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Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses 60 All but new things disdain; whose judgments are Mere fathers of their garments; whose con

stancies

Expire before their fashions.' This he wish'd: I, after him, do after him wish too,

Clo. My poor body, madam, requires it: I am driven on by the flesh; and he must needs go that the devil drives.

33

64

Count. Is this all your worship's reason?

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