Ber. His good remembrance, sir, Lies richer in your thoughts, than on his tomb; 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,- On the catastrophe and heel of pastime, Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses Since I nor wax, nor honey, can bring home, 2 Lord. You are lov'd, 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 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 With several applications :-nature and sickness Debate it at their leisure. Welcome, count; My son's no dearer. Ber. Thank your majesty. [Exeunt. Flourish. SCENE III. Rousillon. A Room in the Countess's Palace. Enter Countess, Steward, and Clown.8 Count. I will now hear what say you of this gentlewoman? [7] Who have no other use of their faculties, than to invent new modes of dress. JOHNSON. [8] A Clown in Shakespeare is commonly taken for a licensed jester, or domestic fool. We are not to wonder that we find this character often in his plays, since fools were at that time maintained in all great families, to keep up merriment in the house. In the picture of Sir Thomas More's family, by Hans Holbien, the only servant represented is Patison the fool This is a proof of the familiarity to VOL. IV. 2 Stew. 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. Count. 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." Clo. 'Tis not unknown to you, madam, I am a poor fellow. Count. Well, sir. Clo. No, madam, 'tis not so well, that I am poor; though many of the rich are damned:' 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. Count. Wilt thou needs be a beggar? Clo. I do beg your good-will in this case. Count. In what case? .2 Clo. In Isbel's case, and mine own. Service is no heritage and, I think, I shall never have the blessing of God, till have issue of my body; for, they say, bearns are blessings. Count. Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry. Clo. My poor body, madam, requires it: I am driven on by the flesh; and he must needs go, that the devil drives. Count. Is this all your worship's reason? Clo. Faith, madam, I have other holy reasons, such as they are. Count. May the world know them? Clo. I have been, madam, a wicked creature, as you and all flesh and blood are; and, indeed, I do marry, that I may repent. Count. Thy marriage, sooner than thy wickedness. Clo. I am out of friends, madam; and I hope to have friends for my wife's sake. which they were admitted, not by the great only, but the wise. In some plays, a servant, or a rustic, of a remarkable petulance and freedom of speech, is likewise called a clown, JOHNSON. [9] It appears to me that the accusative them refers to knaveries, and the natural sense of the passage seems to be this: "You have folly enough to desire to commit these knaveries, and ability enough to accomplish them." M. MASON. [1] See St. Mark, x. 25; St. Luke, xviii. 25. GREY. [2] This is a proverbial expression. Needs must when the devil drives, is another. RITSON. Count. Such friends are thine enemies, knave. Clo. You are shallow, madam; e'en great friends; for the knaves come to do that for me, which I am a-weary of. He, that ears my land,' spares my team, and gives me leave to inn 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, howsoe'er their hearts are severed in religion, their heads are both one; they may joll horns together, like any deer i' th' herd. Count. Wilt thou ever be a foul-mouthed and calumnious knave? Clo. A prophet I, madam; and I speak the truth the next way: For I the ballad will repeat, Which men full true shall find; Count. Get you gone, sir; I'll talk with you more anon. Stew. May it please you, madam, that he bid Helen come to you; of her I am to speak. Count. Sirrah, tell my gentlewoman, I would speak with her; Helen I mean. Clo. Was this fair face the cause, quoth she, [Singing. Fond done, done fond, Was this king Priam's joy? With that she sighed as she stood, With that she sighed as she stood, this sentence then; Among nine bad if one be good, [3] To ear is to plough. STEEVENS. See 1 Sam. viii. 12. Isaiah xxx. 24 Deut. xxi. 4. Gen. xlv. 6. Exod. xxxiv. 21. for the use of this verb. HENLEY. [4] It is a superstition, which has run through all ages and people, that natural fools have something in them of divinity. On which account they were esteemed sacred travellers tell us in what esteem the Turks now hold them; nor had they less honour paid them heretofore in France, as appears from the old word benet, for a natural foul. Hence it was that Pantagruel, in Rabelais, advised Panurge to go and consult the fool Triboulet as an oracle; which gives occasion to a satirical stroke upon the privy council of Francis the First, Par l'avis, conseil, prediction des fols, vos scaves quants princes, &c. ont este conserves." &c. WARBURTON. Among nine bad if one be good, There's yet one good in ten.3 Count. What, one good in ten? you corrupt the song, sirrah. Clo. 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 tythe-woman, if I were the parson: One in ten, quoth a'! an we might have a good woman born but every blazing star, or at an earthquake, 'twould mend the lottery well; a man may draw his heart out, ere he pluck one. Count. You'll be gone, sir knave, and do as I command you? Clo. 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. Count. Well, now. [Exit. Stew. I know, madam, you love your gentlewoman entirely. Count. Faith, I do her father bequeathed 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. Stew. Madam, I was very late more near her than, I think, she wished me alone she was, and did communicate to herself, her own words to her own ears; she thought, I dare vow for her, they touched 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; [5] This second stanza of the ballad is turned to a joke upon the women; a confession that there was one good in ten. Whereon the countess observed, that he corrupted the song, which shews the song said, Nine good in ten. If one be bad amongst nine good, There's but one bad in ten. This relates to the ten sons of Priam, who all behaved themselves well but Paris. For though he once had fifty, yet, at this unfortunate period of his reign, he had but ten; Agathon, Antiphon, Deiphobus, Dius, Hector, Helenus, Hippothous, Pammon. Paris, and Polites. WARBURTON. [6] Here is an allusion violently enough forced in, to satirize the obstinacy with which the puritans refused the use of the ecclesiastical babits, which was, at that time, one principal cause of the breach of union, and, perhaps, to insinuate, that the modest purity of the surplice was sometimes a cover for pride. JOHNSON. Diana, no queen of virgins, that would suffer her poor, knight to be surprised, without rescue, in the first assault, or ransome afterward: This she delivered 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. : Count. You have discharged this honestly; keep it to yourself: many likelihoods informed me of this before, which hung so tottering 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. Count. Even so it was with me, when I was young: If 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 forgone, Such were our faults;-or then we thought them none. Her eye is sick on't; I observe her now. Hel. What is your pleasure, madam? I am a mother to you. Hel. Mine honourable mistress. Count. Nay, a mother; Why not a mother? When I said, a mother, Methought you saw a serpent: What's in mother, You ne'er oppress'd me with a mother's groan, [7] Sithence,-i e. since. Chaucer frequently uses sith, and silhen, in the same sense- STEEVENS. [8] There is something exquisitely beautiful in this representation of that suffusion of colours which glimmers around the sight when the eye-lashes are wet with tears. The poet has described the same appearance in his Rape of Lucrece: |