LAFEW.
Do you hear, monsieur? A word with you.
PAROLLES.
Your pleasure, sir.
LAFEW.
Your lord and master did well to make his recantation.
PAROLLES.
Recantation! My lord! My master!
LAFEW.
Ay. Is it not a language I speak?
PAROLLES.
A most harsh one, and not to be understood without bloody succeeding. My master!
LAFEW.
Are you companion to the Count Rossillon?
PAROLLES.
To any count; to all counts; to what is man.
LAFEW.
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.
LAFEW.
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.
LAFEW.
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 burden. 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 art scarce worth.
PAROLLES.
Hadst thou not the privilege of antiquity upon thee—
LAFEW.
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.
LAFEW.
Ay, with all my heart; and thou art worthy of it.
PAROLLES.
I have not, my lord, deserv’d it.
LAFEW.
Yes, good faith, every dram of it; and I will not bate thee a scruple.
PAROLLES.
Well, I shall be wiser.
LAFEW.
Ev’n as soon as thou canst, for thou hast to pull at a smack o’ th’ contrary. If ever thou beest 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.
LAFEW.
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 have of—I’ll beat him, and if I could but meet him again.
Enter Lafew.
LAFEW.
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.
LAFEW.
Who? God?
PAROLLES.
Ay, sir.
LAFEW.
The devil it is that’s thy master. Why dost thou garter up thy arms o’ this fashion? Dost make hose of thy 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’d beat thee. Methink’st 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.
LAFEW.
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’d call you knave. I leave you.
[Exit.]
Enter Bertram.
PAROLLES.
Good, very good, it is so then. Good, very good; let it be conceal’d awhile.
BERTRAM.
Undone, and forfeited to cares for ever!
PAROLLES.
What’s the matter, sweetheart?
BERTRAM.
Although before the solemn priest I have sworn,
I will not bed her.
PAROLLES.
What, what, sweetheart?
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 th’ import is
I know not yet.
PAROLLES.
Ay, that would be known. To th’ wars, my boy, to th’ 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 th’ 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 caprichio hold in thee, art sure?
BERTRAM.
Go with me to my chamber and advise me.
I’ll send her straight away. Tomorrow
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 fortune.
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 art a knave.
CLOWN.
You should have said, sir, before a knave thou art a knave; that is before me thou art 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 tonight;
A very serious business calls on him.
The great prerogative and right 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 everything I wait upon his will.
PAROLLES.
I shall report it so.
HELENA.
I pray you. Come, sirrah.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE V. Another room in the same.
Enter Lafew and Bertram.
LAFEW.
But I hope your lordship thinks not him a soldier.
BERTRAM.
Yes, my lord, and of very valiant approof.
LAFEW.
You have it from his own deliverance.
BERTRAM.
And by other warranted testimony.
LAFEW.
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.
LAFEW.
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.
LAFEW.
Pray you, sir, who’s his tailor?
PAROLLES.
Sir!
LAFEW.
O, I know him well, I, sir; he, sir, is a good workman, a very good tailor.
BERTRAM.
[Aside to Parolles.] Is she gone to the king?
PAROLLES.
She is.
BERTRAM.
Will she away tonight?
PAROLLES.
As you’ll have her.
BERTRAM.
I have writ my letters, casketed my treasure,
Given order for our horses; and tonight,
When I should take possession of the bride,
End ere I do begin.
LAFEW.
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.
LAFEW.
You have made shift to run into ’t, boots and spurs and all, like him that leapt 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.
LAFEW.
And shall do so ever, though I took him at his prayers. Fare you well, my lord; and believe this of me, there can be no kernal 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 procur’d 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 your 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.
Where are my other men, monsieur?
Farewell,
[Exit Helena.]
BERTRAM.
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. A room in the Duke’s palace.
Flourish. Enter the Duke of Florence attended; two French Lords, and 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.
Tomorrow to the field.
[Flourish. Exeunt.]
SCENE II. Rossillon. A room in the Countess’s palace.
Enter Countess and Clown.
COUNTESS.
It hath happen’d 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 lings and our Isbels o’ th’ country are nothing like your old ling and your Isbels o’ th’ court. The brains of my Cupid’s knock’d 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 misprizing of a maid too virtuous
For the contempt of empire.
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 kill’d so soon as I thought he would.
COUNTESS.
Why should he be kill’d?
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 the 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 despatch in hand at court,
Thither we bend again.
HELENA.
Look on this 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 pains.
COUNTESS.
I pr’ythee, 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.
Return you thither?
FIRST GENTLEMAN.
Ay, madam, with the swiftest wing of speed.
HELENA.
[Reads.] Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France.
’Tis bitter.
COUNTESS.
Find you that there?
HELENA.
Ay, madam.
FIRST GENTLEMAN.
’Tis but the boldness of his hand haply, which his heart was not consenting to.
COUNTESS.
Nothing in France until he have no wife!
There’s nothing here that is too good for him
But only she, and she deserves a lord
That twenty such rude boys might tend upon,
And call her hourly mistress. Who was with him?
FIRST GENTLEMAN.
A servant only, and a gentleman which I have sometime known.
COUNTESS.
Parolles, was it not?
FIRST GENTLEMAN.
Ay, my good lady, he.
COUNTESS.
A very tainted fellow, and full of wickedness.
My son corrupts a well-derived nature
With his inducement.
FIRST GENTLEMAN.
Indeed, good lady,
The fellow has a deal of that too much,
Which holds him much to have.
COUNTESS.
Y’are welcome, gentlemen.
I will entreat you, when you see my son,
To tell him that his sword can never win
The honour that he loses: more I’ll entreat you
Written to bear along.
SECOND GENTLEMAN.
We serve you, madam,
In that and all your worthiest affairs.
COUNTESS.
Not so, but as we change our courtesies.
Will you draw near?
[Exeunt Countess and Gentlemen.]
HELENA.
“Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France.”
Nothing in France until he has no wife!
Thou shalt have none, Rossillon, none in France;
Then hast thou all again. Poor lord, is’t I
That chase thee from thy country, and expose
Those tender limbs of thine to the event
Of the none-sparing war? And is it I
That drive thee from the sportive court, where thou
Wast shot at with fair eyes, to be the mark
Of smoky muskets? O you leaden messengers,
That ride upon the violent speed of fire,
Fly with false aim; move the still-peering air,
That sings with piercing; do not touch my lord.
Whoever shoots at him, I set him there;
Whoever charges on his forward breast,
I am the caitiff that do hold him to’t;
And though I kill him not, I am the cause
His death was so effected. Better ’twere
I met the ravin lion when he roar’d
With sharp constraint of hunger; better ’twere
That all the miseries which nature owes
Were mine at once. No; come thou home, Rossillon,
Whence honour but of danger wins a scar,
As oft it loses all. I will be gone;
My being here it is that holds thee hence.
Shall I stay here to do’t? No, no, although
The air of paradise did fan the house,
And angels offic’d all. I will be gone,
That pitiful rumour may report my flight
To consolate thine ear. Come, night; end, day;
For with the dark, poor thief, I’ll steal away.
[Exit.]
SCENE III. Florence. Before the Duke’s palace.
Flourish. Enter the Duke of Florence, Bertram, drum and trumpets, Soldiers, Parolles.
DUKE.
The general of our horse thou art, and we,
Great in our hope, lay our best love and credence
Upon thy promising fortune.
BERTRAM.
Sir, it is
A charge too heavy for my strength; but yet
We’ll strive to bear it for your worthy sake
To th’extreme edge of hazard.
DUKE.
Then go thou forth;
And fortune play upon thy prosperous helm,
As thy auspicious mistress!
BERTRAM.
This very day,
Great Mars, I put myself into thy file;
Make me but like my thoughts, and I shall prove
A lover of thy drum, hater of love.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE IV. Rossillon. A room in the Countess’s palace.
Enter Countess and Steward.
COUNTESS.
Alas! and would you take the letter of her?
Might you not know she would do as she has done,
By sending me a letter? Read it again.
STEWARD.
[Reads.] I am Saint Jaques’ pilgrim, thither gone.
Ambitious love hath so in me offended
That barefoot plod I the cold ground upon,
With sainted vow my faults to have amended.
Write, write, that from the bloody course of war
My dearest master, your dear son, may hie.
Bless him at home in peace, whilst I from far
His name with zealous fervour sanctify.
His taken labours bid him me forgive;
I, his despiteful Juno, sent him forth
From courtly friends, with camping foes to live,
Where death and danger dog the heels of worth.
He is too good and fair for death and me;
Whom I myself embrace to set him free.
COUNTESS.
Ah, what sharp stings are in her mildest words!
Rynaldo, you did never lack advice so much
As letting her pass so; had I spoke with her,
I could have well diverted her intents,
Which thus she hath prevented.
STEWARD.
Pardon me, madam;
If I had given you this at over-night,
She might have been o’erta’en; and yet she writes
Pursuit would be but vain.
COUNTESS.
What angel shall
Bless this unworthy husband? He cannot thrive,
Unless her prayers, whom heaven delights to hear
And loves to grant, reprieve him from the wrath
Of greatest justice. Write, write, Rynaldo,
To this unworthy husband of his wife;
Let every word weigh heavy of her worth,
That he does weigh too light; my greatest grief,
Though little he do feel it, set down sharply.
Dispatch the most convenient messenger.
When haply he shall hear that she is gone
He will return; and hope I may that she,
Hearing so much, will speed her foot again,
Led hither by pure love. Which of them both
Is dearest to me I have no skill in sense
To make distinction. Provide this messenger.
My heart is heavy, and mine age is weak;
Grief would have tears, and sorrow bids me speak.
[Exeunt.]