The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 44
I have forgiven and forgotten all,
Though my revenges were high bent upon him
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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.