my overlooking. I have those hopes of her good that
her education promises her dispositions she inherits –
which makes fair gifts fairer; for where an unclean
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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.
LAFEW Your commendations, madam, get from her
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tears.
COUNTESS ’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,
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Helena; go to, no more; lest it be rather thought you
affect a sorrow than to have –
HELENA I do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have it too.
LAFEW Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead;
excessive grief the enemy to the living.
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COUNTESS If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess
makes it soon mortal.
BERTRAM Madam, I desire your holy wishes.
LAFEW How understand we that?
COUNTESS
Be thou bless’d, Bertram, and succeed thy father
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In manners as in shape! Thy blood and virtue
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
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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,
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Advise him.
LAFEW He cannot want the best
That shall attend his love.
COUNTESS Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram. Exit.
BERTRAM The best wishes that can be forg’d in your
thoughts be servants to you! [to Helena] Be comfortable
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to my mother, your mistress, and make much of
her.
LAFEW Farewell, pretty lady; you must hold the credit
of your father. Exeunt Bertram and Lafew.
HELENA O, were that all! I think not on my father,
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And 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’t but Bertram’s.
I am undone; there is no living, none,
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If Bertram be away; ’twere 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.
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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,
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In our heart’s table – 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,
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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
Looks bleak i’th’ cold wind; withal, full oft we see
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Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.
PAROLLES Save you, fair queen!
HELENA And you, monarch!
PAROLLES No.
HELENA And no.
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PAROLLES Are you meditating on virginity?
HELENA 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?
PAROLLES Keep him out.
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HELENA But he assails; and our virginity, though
valiant, in the defence yet is weak. Unfold to us some
warlike resistance.
PAROLLES There is none. Man setting down before you
will undermine you and blow you up.
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HELENA Bless our poor virginity from underminers and
blowers-up! Is there no military policy how virgins
might blow up men?
PAROLLES Virginity being blown down man will
quicklier be blown up; marry, in blowing him down
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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 mettle to make
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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!
HELENA I will stand for’t a little, though therefore I die
a virgin.
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PAROLLES 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. He that hangs himself is a virgin;
virginity murthers itself, and should be buried in
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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
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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!
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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
it likes. ’Tis a commodity will lose the gloss with lying;
the longer kept, the less worth. Off with’t while ’tis
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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
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virginity, your old virginity, is like one of our French
wither’d pears: it looks ill, it eats drily; marry, ’tis a
wither’d pear; it was formerly better; marry, yet ’tis a
wither’d pear. Will you anything with it?
HELENA Not my virginity; yet …
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There shall your master have a thousand lo
ves,
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;
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His humble ambition, proud humility,
His jarring-concord, and his discord-dulcet,
His faith, his sweet disaster; with a world
Of pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms
That blinking Cupid gossips. Now shall he –
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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?
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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 never
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Returns us thanks.
Enter Page.
PAGE Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you. Exit.
PAROLLES Little Helen, farewell. If I can remember
thee I will think of thee at court.
HELENA Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a
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charitable star.
PAROLLES Under Mars, I.
HELENA I especially think under Mars.
PAROLLES Why under Mars?
HELENA The wars hath so kept you under, that you
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must needs be 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.
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PAROLLES That’s for advantage.
HELENA 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.
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PAROLLES 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
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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.
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HELENA 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,
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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.
Impossible be strange attempts to those
That weigh their pains in sense, and do suppose
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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.
1.2 Flourish cornets. Enter the KING of France with letters, and divers attendants.
KING The Florentines and Senoys are by th’ears;
Have fought with equal fortune, and continue
A braving war.
1 LORD So ’tis reported, sir.
KING Nay, ’tis most credible. We here receive it
A certainty, vouch’d from our cousin Austria,
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With caution that the Florentine will move us
For speedy aid; wherein our dearest friend
Prejudicates the business, and would seem
To have us make denial.
1 LORD His love and wisdom,
Approv’d so to your majesty, may plead
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For amplest credence.
KING He hath arm’d our answer,
And Florence is denied before he comes;
Yet, for our gentlemen that mean to see
The Tuscan service, freely have they leave
To stand on either part.
2 LORD It well may serve
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A nursery to our gentry, who are sick
For breathing and exploit.
KING What’s he comes here?
Enter BERTRAM, LAFEW and PAROLLES.
1 LORD It is the Count Rossillion, my good lord,
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