My low and humble name to propagate
With any branch or image of thy state;
But such a one, thy vassal, whom I know
Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow.
King
Here is my hand; the premises observed,
Thy will by my performance shall be served:
So make the choice of thy own time, for I,
Thy resolved patient, on thee still rely.
More should I question thee, and more I must,
Though more to know could not be more to trust,
From whence thou camest, how tended on: but rest
Unquestion’d welcome and undoubted blest.
Give me some help here, ho! If thou proceed
As high as word, my deed shall match thy meed.
Flourish. Exeunt
SCENE II. ROUSILLON. THE COUNT’S PALACE.
Enter Countess and Clown
Countess
Come on, sir; I shall now put you to the height of your breeding.
Clown
I will show myself highly fed and lowly taught: I know my business is but to the court.
Countess
To the court! why, what place make you special, when you put off that with such contempt? But to the court!
Clown
Truly, madam, if God have lent a man any manners, he may easily put it off at court: he that cannot make a leg, put off’s cap, kiss his hand and say nothing, has neither leg, hands, lip, nor cap; and indeed such a fellow, to say precisely, were not for the court; but for me, I have an answer will serve all men.
Countess
Marry, that’s a bountiful answer that fits all questions.
Clown
It is like a barber’s chair that fits all buttocks, the pin-buttock, the quatch-buttock, the brawn buttock, or any buttock.
Countess
Will your answer serve fit to all questions?
Clown
As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, as your French crown for your taffeta punk, as Tib’s rush for Tom’s forefinger, as a pancake for Shrove Tuesday, a morris for May-day, as the nail to his hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding queen to a wrangling knave, as the nun’s lip to the friar’s mouth, nay, as the pudding to his skin.
Countess
Have you, I say, an answer of such fitness for all questions?
Clown
From below your duke to beneath your constable, it will fit any question.
Countess
It must be an answer of most monstrous size that must fit all demands.
Clown
But a trifle neither, in good faith, if the learned should speak truth of it: here it is, and all that belongs to’t. Ask me if I am a courtier: it shall do you no harm to learn.
Countess
To be young again, if we could: I will be a fool in question, hoping to be the wiser by your answer. I pray you, sir, are you a courtier?
Clown
O Lord, sir! There’s a simple putting off. More, more, a hundred of them.
Countess
Sir, I am a poor friend of yours, that loves you.
Clown
O Lord, sir! Thick, thick, spare not me.
Countess
I think, sir, you can eat none of this homely meat.
Clown
O Lord, sir! Nay, put me to’t, I warrant you.
Countess
You were lately whipped, sir, as I think.
Clown
O Lord, sir! spare not me.
Countess
Do you cry, ‘O Lord, sir!’ at your whipping, and ‘spare not me?’ Indeed your ‘O Lord, sir!’ is very sequent to your whipping: you would answer very well to a whipping, if you were but bound to’t.
Clown
I ne’er had worse luck in my life in my ‘O Lord, sir!’ I see things may serve long, but not serve ever.
Countess
I play the noble housewife with the time
To entertain’t so merrily with a fool.
Clown
O Lord, sir! why, there’t serves well again.
Countess
An end, sir; to your business. Give Helen this,
And urge her to a present answer back:
Commend me to my kinsmen and my son:
This is not much.
Clown
Not much commendation to them.
Countess
Not much employment for you: you understand me?
Clown
Most fruitfully: I am there before my legs.
Countess
Haste you again.
Exeunt severally
SCENE III. PARIS. THE KING’S PALACE.
Enter Bertram, Lafeu, and Parolles
Lafeu
They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons, to make modern and familiar, things supernatural and causeless. Hence is it that we make trifles of terrors, ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge, when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear.
Parolles
Why, ’tis the rarest argument of wonder that hath shot out in our latter times.
Bertram
And so ’tis.
Lafeu
To be relinquish’d of the artists,—
Parolles
So I say.
Lafeu
Both of Galen and Paracelsus.
Parolles
So I say.
Lafeu
Of all the learned and authentic fellows,—
Parolles
Right; so I say.
Lafeu
That gave him out incurable,—
Parolles
Why, there ’tis; so say I too.
Lafeu
Not to be helped,—
Parolles
Right; as ’twere, a man assured of a —
Lafeu
Uncertain life, and sure death.
Parolles
Just, you say well; so would I have said.
Lafeu
I may truly say, it is a novelty to the world.
Parolles
It is, indeed: if you will have it in showing, you shall read it in — what do you call there?
Lafeu
A showing of a heavenly effect in an earthly actor.
Parolles
That’s it; I would have said the very same.
Lafeu
Why, your dolphin is not lustier: ’fore me, I speak in respect —
Parolles
Nay, ’tis strange, ’tis very strange, that is the brief and the tedious of it; and he’s of a most facinerious spirit that will not acknowledge it to be the —
Lafeu
Very hand of heaven.
Parolles
Ay, so I say.
Lafeu
In a most weak —
pausing
and debile minister, great power, great transcendence: which should, indeed, give us a further use to be made than alone the recovery of the king, as to be —
pausing
generally thankful.
Parolles
I would have said it; you say well. Here comes the king.
Enter King, Helena, and Attendants. Lafeu and Parolles retire
Lafeu
Lustig, as the Dutchman says: I’ll like a maid the better, whilst I have a tooth in my head: why, he’s able to lead her a coranto.
Parolles
Mort du vinaigre! is not this Helen?
Lafeu
’Fore God, I think so.
King
Go, call before me all the lords in court.
Sit, my preserver, by thy patient’s side;
And with this healthful hand, whose banish’d sense
Thou hast repeal’d, a second time receive
The confirmation of my promised gift,
Which but attends thy naming.
Enter three or four Lords
Fair maid, send forth thine eye: this youthful parcel
Of noble bachelors stand at my bestowing,
O’er whom both sovereign power and father’s voice
I have to use: thy frank election make;
Thou hast power to choose, and they none to forsake.
Helena
To each of you one fair and virtuous mistress
Fall, when Love please! marry, to each, but one!
Lafeu
I’ld give bay Curtal and his furniture,
My mouth no more were broken than these boys’,
And writ as little beard.
King
Peruse them well:
Not one of those but had a noble father.
Helena
Gentlemen,
Heaven hath through me restored the king to health.
All
We understand it, and thank heaven for you.
Helena
I am a simple maid, and therein wealthiest,
That I protest I simply am a maid.
Please it your majesty, I have done already:
The blushes in my cheeks thus whisper me,
‘We blush that thou shouldst choose; but, be refused,
Let the white death sit on thy cheek for ever;
We’ll ne’er come there again.’
King
Make choice; and, see,
Who shuns thy love shuns all his love in me.
Helena
Now, Dian, from thy altar do I fly,
And to imperial Love, that god most high,
Do my sighs stream. Sir, will you hear my suit?
First Lord
And grant it.
Helena
Thanks, sir; all the rest is mute.
Lafeu
I had rather be in this choice than throw ames-ace for my life.
Helena
The honour, sir, that flames in your fair eyes,
Before I speak, too threateningly replies:
Love make your fortunes twenty times above
Her that so wishes and her humble love!
Second Lord
No better, if you please.
Helena
My wish receive,
Which great Love grant! and so, I take my leave.
Lafeu
Do all they deny her? An they were sons of mine,
I’d have them whipped; or I would send them to the
Turk, to make eunuchs of.
Helena
Be not afraid that I your hand should take;
I’ll never do you wrong for your own sake:
Blessing upon your vows! and in your bed
Find fairer fortune, if you ever wed!
Lafeu
These boys are boys of ice, they’ll none have her: sure, they are bastards to the English; the French ne’er got ’em.
Helena
You are too young, too happy, and too good,
To make yourself a son out of my blood.
Fourth Lord
Fair one, I think not so.
Lafeu
There’s one grape yet; I am sure thy father drunk wine: but if thou be’st not an ass, I am a youth of fourteen; I have known thee already.
Helena
[To Bertram] I dare not say I take you; but I give
Me and my service, ever whilst I live,
Into your guiding power. This is the man.
King
Why, then, young Bertram, take her; she’s thy wife.
Bertram
My wife, my liege! I shall beseech your highness,
In such a business give me leave to use
The help of mine own eyes.
King
Know’st thou not, Bertram,
What she has done for me?
Bertram
Yes, my good lord;
But never hope to know why I should marry her.
King
Thou know’st she has raised me from my sickly bed.
Bertram
But follows it, my lord, to bring me down
Must answer for your raising? I know her well:
She had her breeding at my father’s charge.
A poor physician’s daughter my wife! Disdain
Rather corrupt me ever!
King
’Tis only title thou disdain’st in her, the which
I can build up. Strange is it that our bloods,
Of colour, weight, and heat, pour’d all together,
Would quite confound distinction, yet stand off
In differences so mighty. If she be
All that is virtuous, save what thou dislikest,
A poor physician’s daughter, thou dislikest
Of virtue for the name: but do not so:
From lowest place when virtuous things proceed,
The place is dignified by the doer’s deed:
Where great additions swell’s, and virtue none,
It is a dropsied honour. Good alone
Is good without a name. Vileness is so:
The property by what it is should go,
Not by the title. She is young, wise, fair;
In these to nature she’s immediate heir,
And these breed honour: that is honour’s scorn,
Which challenges itself as honour’s born
And is not like the sire: honours thrive,
When rather from our acts we them derive
Than our foregoers: the mere word’s a slave
Debosh’d on every tomb, on every grave
A lying trophy, and as oft is dumb
Where dust and damn’d oblivion is the tomb
Of honour’d bones indeed. What should be said?
If thou canst like this creature as a maid,
I can create the rest: virtue and she
Is her own dower; honour and wealth from me.
Bertram
I cannot love her, nor will strive to do’t.
King
Thou wrong’st thyself, if thou shouldst strive to choose.
Helena
That you are well restored, my lord, I’m glad:
Let the rest go.
King
My honour’s at the stake; which to defeat,
I must produce my power. Here, take her hand,
Proud scornful boy, unworthy this good gift;
That dost in vile misprision shackle up
My love and her desert; that canst not dream,
We, poising us in her defective scale,
Shall weigh thee to the beam; that wilt not know,
It is in us to plant thine honour where
We please to have it grow. Cheque thy contempt:
Obey our will, which travails in thy good:
Believe not thy disdain, but presently
Do thine own fortunes that obedient right
Which both thy duty owes and our power claims;
Or I will throw thee from my care for ever
Into the staggers and the careless lapse
Of youth and ignorance; both my revenge and hate
Loosing upon thee, in the name of justice,
Without all terms of pity. Speak; thine answer.
Bertram
Pardon, my gracious lord; for I submit
My fancy to your eyes: when I consider
What great creation and what dole of honour
Flies where you bid it, I find that she, which late
Was in my nobler thoughts most base, is now
The praised of the king; who, so ennobled,
Is as ’twere born so.
King
Take her by the hand,
And tell her she is thine: to whom I promise
A counterpoise, if not to thy estate
A balance more replete.
Bertram
I take her hand.
King
Good fortune and the favour of the king
Smile upon this contract; whose ceremony
Shall seem expedient on the now-born brief,
And be perform’d to-night: the solemn feast<
br />
Shall more attend upon the coming space,
Expecting absent friends. As thou lovest her,
Thy love’s to me religious; else, does err.
Exeunt all but Lafeu and Parolles
Lafeu
[Advancing] Do you hear, monsieur? a word with you.
Parolles
Your pleasure, sir?
Lafeu
Your lord and master did well to make his recantation.
Parolles
Recantation! My lord! my master!
Lafeu
Ay; is it not a language I speak?
Parolles
A most harsh one, and not to be understood without bloody succeeding. My master!
Lafeu
Are you companion to the Count Rousillon?
Parolles
To any count, to all counts, to what is man.
Lafeu
To what is count’s man: count’s master is of another style.
Parolles
You are too old, sir; let it satisfy you, you are too old.
Lafeu
I must tell thee, sirrah, I write man; to which title age cannot bring thee.
Parolles
What I dare too well do, I dare not do.
Lafeu
I did think thee, for two ordinaries, to be a pretty wise fellow; thou didst make tolerable vent of thy travel; it might pass: yet the scarfs and the bannerets about thee did manifoldly dissuade me from believing thee a vessel of too great a burthen. I have now found thee; when I lose thee again, I care not: yet art thou good for nothing but taking up; and that thou’t scarce worth.
Parolles
Hadst thou not the privilege of antiquity upon thee,—
Lafeu
Do not plunge thyself too far in anger, lest thou hasten thy trial; which if — Lord have mercy on thee for a hen! So, my good window of lattice, fare thee well: thy casement I need not open, for I look through thee. Give me thy hand.
Parolles
My lord, you give me most egregious indignity.
Lafeu
Ay, with all my heart; and thou art worthy of it.
Parolles
I have not, my lord, deserved it.
Lafeu
Yes, good faith, every dram of it; and I will not bate thee a scruple.
Parolles
Well, I shall be wiser.
Lafeu
Even as soon as thou canst, for thou hast to pull at a smack o’ the contrary. If ever thou be’st bound in thy scarf and beaten, thou shalt find what it is to be proud of thy bondage. I have a desire to hold my acquaintance with thee, or rather my knowledge, that I may say in the default, he is a man I know.
Parolles
My lord, you do me most insupportable vexation.
Lafeu
I would it were hell-pains for thy sake, and my poor doing eternal: for doing I am past: as I will by thee, in what motion age will give me leave.
Exit
Parolles
Well, thou hast a son shall take this disgrace off me; scurvy, old, filthy, scurvy lord! Well, I must be patient; there is no fettering of authority. I’ll beat him, by my life, if I can meet him with any convenience, an he were double and double a lord. I’ll have no more pity of his age than I would of — I’ll beat him, an if I could but meet him again.
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