Re-enter Lafeu
Lafeu
Sirrah, your lord and master’s married; there’s news for you: you have a new mistress.
Parolles
I most unfeignedly beseech your lordship to make some reservation of your wrongs: he is my good lord: whom I serve above is my master.
Lafeu
Who? God?
Parolles
Ay, sir.
Lafeu
The devil it is that’s thy master. Why dost thou garter up thy arms o’ this fashion? dost make hose of sleeves? do other servants so? Thou wert best set thy lower part where thy nose stands. By mine honour, if I were but two hours younger, I’ld beat thee: methinks, thou art a general offence, and every man should beat thee: I think thou wast created for men to breathe themselves upon thee.
Parolles
This is hard and undeserved measure, my lord.
Lafeu
Go to, sir; you were beaten in Italy for picking a kernel out of a pomegranate; you are a vagabond and no true traveller: you are more saucy with lords and honourable personages than the commission of your birth and virtue gives you heraldry. You are not worth another word, else I’ld call you knave. I leave you.
Exit
Parolles
Good, very good; it is so then: good, very good; let it be concealed awhile.
Re-enter Bertram
Bertram
Undone, and forfeited to cares for ever!
Parolles
What’s the matter, sweet-heart?
Bertram
Although before the solemn priest I have sworn,
I will not bed her.
Parolles
What, what, sweet-heart?
Bertram
O my Parolles, they have married me!
I’ll to the Tuscan wars, and never bed her.
Parolles
France is a dog-hole, and it no more merits
The tread of a man’s foot: to the wars!
Bertram
There’s letters from my mother: what the import is, I know not yet.
Parolles
Ay, that would be known. To the wars, my boy, to the wars!
He wears his honour in a box unseen,
That hugs his kicky-wicky here at home,
Spending his manly marrow in her arms,
Which should sustain the bound and high curvet
Of Mars’s fiery steed. To other regions
France is a stable; we that dwell in’t jades;
Therefore, to the war!
Bertram
It shall be so: I’ll send her to my house,
Acquaint my mother with my hate to her,
And wherefore I am fled; write to the king
That which I durst not speak; his present gift
Shall furnish me to those Italian fields,
Where noble fellows strike: war is no strife
To the dark house and the detested wife.
Parolles
Will this capriccio hold in thee? art sure?
Bertram
Go with me to my chamber, and advise me.
I’ll send her straight away: to-morrow
I’ll to the wars, she to her single sorrow.
Parolles
Why, these balls bound; there’s noise in it. ’Tis hard:
A young man married is a man that’s marr’d:
Therefore away, and leave her bravely; go:
The king has done you wrong: but, hush, ’tis so.
Exeunt
SCENE IV. PARIS. THE KING’S PALACE.
Enter Helena and Clown
Helena
My mother greets me kindly; is she well?
Clown
She is not well; but yet she has her health: she’s very merry; but yet she is not well: but thanks be given, she’s very well and wants nothing i’, the world; but yet she is not well.
Helena
If she be very well, what does she ail, that she’s not very well?
Clown
Truly, she’s very well indeed, but for two things.
Helena
What two things?
Clown
One, that she’s not in heaven, whither God send her quickly! the other that she’s in earth, from whence God send her quickly!
Enter Parolles
Parolles
Bless you, my fortunate lady!
Helena
I hope, sir, I have your good will to have mine own good fortunes.
Parolles
You had my prayers to lead them on; and to keep them on, have them still. O, my knave, how does my old lady?
Clown
So that you had her wrinkles and I her money, I would she did as you say.
Parolles
Why, I say nothing.
Clown
Marry, you are the wiser man; for many a man’s tongue shakes out his master’s undoing: to say nothing, to do nothing, to know nothing, and to have nothing, is to be a great part of your title; which is within a very little of nothing.
Parolles
Away! thou’rt a knave.
Clown
You should have said, sir, before a knave thou’rt a knave; that’s, before me thou’rt a knave: this had been truth, sir.
Parolles
Go to, thou art a witty fool; I have found thee.
Clown
Did you find me in yourself, sir? or were you taught to find me? The search, sir, was profitable; and much fool may you find in you, even to the world’s pleasure and the increase of laughter.
Parolles
A good knave, i’ faith, and well fed.
Madam, my lord will go away to-night;
A very serious business calls on him.
The great prerogative and rite of love,
Which, as your due, time claims, he does acknowledge;
But puts it off to a compell’d restraint;
Whose want, and whose delay, is strew’d with sweets,
Which they distil now in the curbed time,
To make the coming hour o’erflow with joy
And pleasure drown the brim.
Helena
What’s his will else?
Parolles
That you will take your instant leave o’ the king
And make this haste as your own good proceeding,
Strengthen’d with what apology you think
May make it probable need.
Helena
What more commands he?
Parolles
That, having this obtain’d, you presently
Attend his further pleasure.
Helena
In every thing I wait upon his will.
Parolles
I shall report it so.
Helena
I pray you.
Exit Parolles
Come, sirrah.
Exeunt
SCENE V. PARIS. THE KING’S PALACE.
Enter Lafeu and Bertram
Lafeu
But I hope your lordship thinks not him a soldier.
Bertram
Yes, my lord, and of very valiant approof.
Lafeu
You have it from his own deliverance.
Bertram
And by other warranted testimony.
Lafeu
Then my dial goes not true: I took this lark for a bunting.
Bertram
I do assure you, my lord, he is very great in knowledge and accordingly valiant.
Lafeu
I have then sinned against his experience and transgressed against his valour; and my state that way is dangerous, since I cannot yet find in my heart to repent. Here he comes: I pray you, make us friends; I will pursue the amity.
Enter Parolles
Parolles
[To Bertram] These things shall be done, sir.
Lafeu
Pray you, sir, who’s his tailor?
Parolles
Sir?
Lafeu
O, I know him well, I,
sir; he, sir, ’s a good workman, a very good tailor.
Bertram
[Aside to Parolles] Is she gone to the king?
Parolles
She is.
Bertram
Will she away to-night?
Parolles
As you’ll have her.
Bertram
I have writ my letters, casketed my treasure,
Given order for our horses; and to-night,
When I should take possession of the bride,
End ere I do begin.
Lafeu
A good traveller is something at the latter end of a dinner; but one that lies three thirds and uses a known truth to pass a thousand nothings with, should be once heard and thrice beaten. God save you, captain.
Bertram
Is there any unkindness between my lord and you, monsieur?
Parolles
I know not how I have deserved to run into my lord’s displeasure.
Lafeu
You have made shift to run into ’t, boots and spurs and all, like him that leaped into the custard; and out of it you’ll run again, rather than suffer question for your residence.
Bertram
It may be you have mistaken him, my lord.
Lafeu
And shall do so ever, though I took him at ’s prayers. Fare you well, my lord; and believe this of me, there can be no kernel in this light nut; the soul of this man is his clothes. Trust him not in matter of heavy consequence; I have kept of them tame, and know their natures. Farewell, monsieur: I have spoken better of you than you have or will to deserve at my hand; but we must do good against evil.
Exit
Parolles
An idle lord. I swear.
Bertram
I think so.
Parolles
Why, do you not know him?
Bertram
Yes, I do know him well, and common speech
Gives him a worthy pass. Here comes my clog.
Enter Helena
Helena
I have, sir, as I was commanded from you,
Spoke with the king and have procured his leave
For present parting; only he desires
Some private speech with you.
Bertram
I shall obey his will.
You must not marvel, Helen, at my course,
Which holds not colour with the time, nor does
The ministration and required office
On my particular. Prepared I was not
For such a business; therefore am I found
So much unsettled: this drives me to entreat you
That presently you take our way for home;
And rather muse than ask why I entreat you,
For my respects are better than they seem
And my appointments have in them a need
Greater than shows itself at the first view
To you that know them not. This to my mother:
Giving a letter
’Twill be two days ere I shall see you, so I leave you to your wisdom.
Helena
Sir, I can nothing say,
But that I am your most obedient servant.
Bertram
Come, come, no more of that.
Helena
And ever shall
With true observance seek to eke out that
Wherein toward me my homely stars have fail’d
To equal my great fortune.
Bertram
Let that go:
My haste is very great: farewell; hie home.
Helena
Pray, sir, your pardon.
Bertram
Well, what would you say?
Helena
I am not worthy of the wealth I owe,
Nor dare I say ’tis mine, and yet it is;
But, like a timorous thief, most fain would steal
What law does vouch mine own.
Bertram
What would you have?
Helena
Something; and scarce so much: nothing, indeed.
I would not tell you what I would, my lord:
Faith yes;
Strangers and foes do sunder, and not kiss.
Bertram
I pray you, stay not, but in haste to horse.
Helena
I shall not break your bidding, good my lord.
Bertram
Where are my other men, monsieur? Farewell.
Exit Helena
Go thou toward home; where I will never come
Whilst I can shake my sword or hear the drum.
Away, and for our flight.
Parolles
Bravely, coragio!
Exeunt
ACT III
SCENE I. FLORENCE. THE DUKE’S PALACE.
Flourish. Enter the Duke of Florence attended; the two Frenchmen, with a troop of soldiers.
Duke
So that from point to point now have you heard
The fundamental reasons of this war,
Whose great decision hath much blood let forth
And more thirsts after.
First Lord
Holy seems the quarrel
Upon your grace’s part; black and fearful
On the opposer.
Duke
Therefore we marvel much our cousin France
Would in so just a business shut his bosom
Against our borrowing prayers.
Second Lord
Good my lord,
The reasons of our state I cannot yield,
But like a common and an outward man,
That the great figure of a council frames
By self-unable motion: therefore dare not
Say what I think of it, since I have found
Myself in my incertain grounds to fail
As often as I guess’d.
Duke
Be it his pleasure.
First Lord
But I am sure the younger of our nature,
That surfeit on their ease, will day by day
Come here for physic.
Duke
Welcome shall they be;
And all the honours that can fly from us
Shall on them settle. You know your places well;
When better fall, for your avails they fell:
To-morrow to the field.
Flourish. Exeunt
SCENE II. ROUSILLON. THE COUNT’S PALACE.
Enter Countess and Clown
Countess
It hath happened all as I would have had it, save that he comes not along with her.
Clown
By my troth, I take my young lord to be a very melancholy man.
Countess
By what observance, I pray you?
Clown
Why, he will look upon his boot and sing; mend the ruff and sing; ask questions and sing; pick his teeth and sing. I know a man that had this trick of melancholy sold a goodly manor for a song.
Countess
Let me see what he writes, and when he means to come.
Opening a letter
Clown
I have no mind to Isbel since I was at court: our old ling and our Isbels o’ the country are nothing like your old ling and your Isbels o’ the court: the brains of my Cupid’s knocked out, and I begin to love, as an old man loves money, with no stomach.
Countess
What have we here?
Clown
E’en that you have there.
Exit
Countess
[Reads] I have sent you a daughter-in-law: she hath recovered the king, and undone me. I have wedded her, not bedded her; and sworn to make the ‘not’ eternal. You shall hear I am run away: know it before the report come. If there be breadth enough in the world, I will hold a long distance. My duty to you. Your unfortunate son, Bertram.
This is not well, rash and unbridled boy.
To fly the favours of so good a king;
To pluck his indignation on thy head
By the misprising of a maid too virtuous
For the contempt of empire.
Re-enter Clown
Clown
O madam, yonder is heavy news within between two soldiers and my young lady!
Countess
What is the matter?
Clown
Nay, there is some comfort in the news, some comfort; your son will not be killed so soon as I thought he would.
Countess
Why should he be killed?
Clown
So say I, madam, if he run away, as I hear he does: the danger is in standing to’t; that’s the loss of men, though it be the getting of children. Here they come will tell you more: for my part, I only hear your son was run away.
Exit
Enter Helena, and two Gentlemen
First Gentleman
Save you, good madam.
Helena
Madam, my lord is gone, for ever gone.
Second Gentleman
Do not say so.
Countess
Think upon patience. Pray you, gentlemen,
I have felt so many quirks of joy and grief,
That the first face of neither, on the start,
Can woman me unto’t: where is my son, I pray you?
Second Gentleman
Madam, he’s gone to serve the duke of Florence:
We met him thitherward; for thence we came,
And, after some dispatch in hand at court,
Thither we bend again.
Helena
Look on his letter, madam; here’s my passport.
[Reads] When thou canst get the ring upon my finger which never shall come off, and show me a child begotten of thy body that I am father to, then call me husband: but in such a ‘then’ I write a ‘never.’
This is a dreadful sentence.
Countess
Brought you this letter, gentlemen?
First Gentleman
Ay, madam;
And for the contents’ sake are sorry for our pain.
Countess
I prithee, lady, have a better cheer;
If thou engrossest all the griefs are thine,
Thou robb’st me of a moiety: he was my son;
But I do wash his name out of my blood,
And thou art all my child. Towards Florence is he?
Second Gentleman
Ay, madam.
Countess
And to be a soldier?
Second Gentleman
Such is his noble purpose; and believe ’t,
The duke will lay upon him all the honour
That good convenience claims.
Countess
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