The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

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The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 44

by William Shakespeare


  I have forgiven and forgotten all,

  Though my revenges were high bent upon him

  10

  And watch’d the time to shoot.

  LAFEW This I must say –

  But first I beg my pardon – the young lord

  Did to his majesty, his mother and his lady

  Offence of mighty note, but to himself

  The greatest wrong of all. He lost a wife

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  Whose beauty did astonish the survey

  Of richest eyes; whose words all ears took captive;

  Whose dear perfection hearts that scorn’d to serve

  Humbly call’d mistress.

  KING Praising what is lost

  Makes the remembrance dear. Well, call him hither;

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  We are reconcil’d, and the first view shall kill

  All repetition. Let him not ask our pardon;

  The nature of his great offence is dead,

  And deeper than oblivion we do bury

  Th’incensing relics of it. Let him approach

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  A stranger, no offender; and inform him

  So ’tis our will he should.

  GENTLEMAN I shall, my liege. Exit.

  KING

  What says he to your daughter? Have you spoke?

  LAFEW All that he is hath reference to your highness.

  KING Then shall we have a match. I have letters sent me

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  That sets him high in fame.

  Enter BERTRAM.

  LAFEW He looks well on’t.

  KING I am not a day of season,

  For thou may’st see a sunshine and a hail

  In me at once. But to the brightest beams

  Distracted clouds give way; so stand thou forth;

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  The time is fair again.

  BERTRAM My high-repented blames

  Dear sovereign, pardon to me.

  KING All is whole.

  Not one word more of the consumed time;

  Let’s take the instant by the forward top;

  For we are old, and on our quick’st decrees

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  Th’inaudible and noiseless foot of time

  Steals ere we can effect them. You remember

  The daughter of this lord?

  BERTRAM Admiringly, my liege. At first

  I stuck my choice upon her, ere my heart

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  Durst make too bold a herald of my tongue;

  Where, the impression of mine eye infixing,

  Contempt his scornful perspective did lend me,

  Which warp’d the line of every other favour,

  Scorn’d a fair colour or express’d it stol’n,

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  Extended or contracted all proportions

  To a most hideous object. Thence it came

  That she whom all men prais’d, and whom myself

  Since I have lost, have lov’d, was in mine eye

  The dust that did offend it.

  KING Well excus’d.

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  That thou didst love her, strikes some scores away

  From the great compt; but love that comes too late,

  Like a remorseful pardon slowly carried,

  To the great sender turns a sour offence,

  Crying, ‘That’s good that’s gone’. Our rash faults

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  Make trivial price of serious things we have,

  Not knowing them until we know their grave.

  Oft our displeasures, to ourselves unjust,

  Destroy our friends and after weep their dust;

  Our own love waking cries to see what’s done,

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  While shameful hate sleeps out the afternoon.

  Be this sweet Helen’s knell, and now forget her.

  Send forth your amorous token for fair Maudlin.

  The main consents are had, and here we’ll stay

  To see our widower’s second marriage-day.

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  COUNTESS

  Which better than the first, O dear heaven, bless!

  Or, ere they meet, in me, O nature, cesse!

  LAFEW Come on, my son, in whom my house’s name

  Must be digested; give a favour from you

  To sparkle in the spirits of my daughter,

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  That she may quickly come. [Bertram gives a ring.]

  By my old beard

  And ev’ry hair that’s on’t, Helen that’s dead

  Was a sweet creature; such a ring as this,

  The last that e’er I took her leave at court,

  I saw upon her finger.

  BERTRAM Hers it was not.

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  KING Now pray you let me see it; for mine eye,

  While I was speaking, oft was fasten’d to’t.

  This ring was mine, and when I gave it Helen

  I bade her, if her fortunes ever stood

  Necessitied to help, that by this token

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  I would relieve her. Had you that craft to reave her

  Of what should stead her most?

  BERTRAM My gracious sovereign,

  Howe’er it pleases you to take it so,

  The ring was never hers.

  COUNTESS Son, on my life,

  I have seen her wear it, and she reckon’d it

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  At her life’s rate.

  LAFEW I am sure I saw her wear it.

  BERTRAM You are deceiv’d, my lord; she never saw it.

  In Florence was it from a casement thrown me,

  Wrapp’d in a paper which contain’d the name

  Of her that threw it. Noble she was, and thought

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  I stood ingag’d; but when I had subscrib’d

  To mine own fortune, and inform’d her fully

  I could not answer in that course of honour

  As she had made the overture, she ceas’d

  In heavy satisfaction, and would never

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  Receive the ring again.

  KING Plutus himself,

  That knows the tinct and multiplying med’cine,

  Hath not in nature’s mystery more science

  Than I have in this ring. ’Twas mine, ’twas Helen’s,

  Whoever gave it you; then if you know

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  That you are well acquainted with yourself,

  Confess ’twas hers, and by what rough enforcement

  You got it from her. She call’d the saints to surety

  That she would never put it from her finger

  Unless she gave it to yourself in bed,

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  Where you have never come, or sent it us

  Upon her great disaster.

  BERTRAM She never saw it.

  KING Thou speak’st it falsely, as I love mine honour,

  And mak’st conjectural fears to come into me

  Which I would fain shut out. If it should prove

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  That thou art so inhuman – ’twill not prove so,

  And yet I know not; thou didst hate her deadly,

  And she is dead; which nothing but to close

  Her eyes myself could win me to believe,

  More than to see this ring. Take him away.

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  My fore-past proofs, howe’er the matter fall,

  Shall tax my fears of little vanity,

  Having vainly fear’d too little. Away with him.

  We’ll sift this matter further.

  BERTRAM If you shall prove

  This ring was ever hers, you shall as easy

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  Prove that I husbanded her bed in Florence,

  Where yet she never was. Exit, guarded.

  KING I am wrapp’d in dismal thinkings.

  Enter the Gentleman stranger.

  GENTLEMAN Gracious sovereign,

  Whether I have been to blame or no, I know not:

  Here’s a petition from a Florentine


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  Who hath for four or five removes come short

  To tender it herself. I undertook it,

  Vanquish’d thereto by the fair grace and speech

  Of the poor suppliant, who, by this, I know,

  Is here attending; her business looks in her

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  With an importing visage, and she told me,

  In a sweet verbal brief, it did concern

  Your highness with herself.

  KING [Reads the letter.] Upon his many protestations to

  marry me when his wife was dead, I blush to say it, he won

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  me. Now is the Count Rossillion a widower; his vows are

  forfeited to me and my honour’s paid to him. He stole

  from Florence, taking no leave, and I follow him to his

  country for justice. Grant it me, O king! In you it best

  lies; otherwise a seducer flourishes, and a poor maid is

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  undone.

  DIANA CAPILET.

  LAFEW I will buy me a son-in-law in a fair, and toll for

  this. I’ll none of him.

  KING The heavens have thought well on thee, Lafew,

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  To bring forth this discov’ry. Seek these suitors.

  Go speedily, and bring again the count.

  Exeunt attendants.

  I am afear’d the life of Helen, lady,

  Was foully snatch’d.

  COUNTESS Now justice on the doers!

  Re-enter BERTRAM guarded.

  KING I wonder, sir, since wives are monsters to you,

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  And that you fly them as you swear them lordship,

  Yet you desire to marry.

  Enter Widow and DIANA.

  What woman’s that?

  DIANA I am, my lord, a wretched Florentine,

  Derived from the ancient Capilet;

  My suit, as I do understand, you know,

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  And therefore know how far I may be pitied.

  WIDOW I am her mother, sir, whose age and honour

  Both suffer under this complaint we bring,

  And both shall cease, without your remedy.

  KING Come hither, count; do you know these women?

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  BERTRAM My lord, I neither can nor will deny

  But that I know them. Do they charge me further?

  DIANA Why do you look so strange upon your wife?

  BERTRAM She’s none of mine, my lord.

  DIANA If you shall marry

  You give away this hand and that is mine,

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  You give away heaven’s vows and those are mine,

  You give away myself which is known mine;

  For I by vow am so embodied yours

  That she which marries you must marry me –

  Either both or none.

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  LAFEW

  Your reputation comes too short for my daughter;

  You are no husband for her.

  BERTRAM

  My lord, this is a fond and desp’rate creature

  Whom sometime I have laugh’d with. Let your

  highness

  Lay a more noble thought upon mine honour

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  Than for to think that I would sink it here.

  KING

  Sir, for my thoughts, you have them ill to friend

  Till your deeds gain them; fairer prove your honour

  Than in my thought it lies!

  DIANA Good my lord,

  Ask him upon his oath if he does think

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  He had not my virginity.

  KING What say’st thou to her?

  BERTRAM She’s impudent, my lord,

  And was a common gamester to the camp.

  DIANA He does me wrong, my lord; if I were so

  He might have bought me at a common price.

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  Do not believe him. O behold this ring

  Whose high respect and rich validity

  Did lack a parallel; yet for all that

  He gave it to a commoner a’th’ camp –

  If I be one.

  COUNTESS He blushes and ’tis hit.

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  Of six preceding ancestors, that gem

  Conferr’d by testament to th’ sequent issue,

  Hath it been owed and worn. This is his wife:

  That ring’s a thousand proofs.

  KING Methought you said

  You saw one here in court could witness it.

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  DIANA I did, my lord, but loath am to produce

  So bad an instrument; his name’s Parolles.

  LAFEW I saw the man today, if man he be.

 

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