The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

Chapter 1

SCENE: Rousillon; Paris; Florence; Marseilles ACT I. SCENE 1. Rousillon. The COUNT'S palaceEnter BERTRAM, the COUNTESS OF ROUSILLON, HELENA, and LAFEU, all in black

COUNTESS. In delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband.

BERTRAM. And I in going, madam, weep o'er my father's death anew;

but I must attend his Majesty's command, to whom I am now in

ward, evermore in subjection.

LAFEU. You shall find of the King a husband, madam; you, sir, a

father. He that so generally is at all times good must of

necessity hold his virtue to you, whose worthiness would stir it

up where it wanted, rather than lack it where there is such

abundance.

COUNTESS. What hope is there of his Majesty's amendment?

LAFEU. He hath abandon'd his physicians, madam; under whose

practices he hath persecuted time with hope, and finds no other

advantage in the process but only the losing of hope by time.

COUNTESS. This young gentlewoman had a father- O, that 'had,' how

sad a passage 'tis!-whose skill was almost as great as his

honesty; had it stretch'd so far, would have made nature

immortal, and death should have play for lack of work. Would, for

the King's sake, he were living! I think it would be the death of

the King's disease.

LAFEU. How call'd you the man you speak of, madam?

COUNTESS. He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his

great right to be so- Gerard de Narbon.

LAFEU. He was excellent indeed, madam; the King very lately spoke

of him admiringly and mourningly; he was skilful enough to have

liv'd still, if knowledge could be set up against mortality.

BERTRAM. What is it, my good lord, the King languishes of?

LAFEU. A fistula, my lord.

BERTRAM. I heard not of it before.

LAFEU. I would it were not notorious. Was this gentlewoman the

daughter of Gerard de Narbon?

COUNTESS. His sole child, my lord, and bequeathed to my

overlooking. I have those hopes of her good that her education

promises; her dispositions she inherits, which makes fair gifts

fairer; for where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities,

there commendations go with pity-they are virtues and traitors

too. In her they are the better for their simpleness; she derives

her honesty, and achieves her goodness.

LAFEU. Your commendations, madam, get from her tears.

COUNTESS. 'Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise in.

The remembrance of her father never approaches her heart but the

tyranny of her sorrows takes all livelihood from her cheek. No

more of this, Helena; go to, no more, lest it be rather thought

you affect a sorrow than to have-

HELENA. I do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have it too.

LAFEU. Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead: excessive

grief the enemy to the living.

COUNTESS. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it

soon mortal.

BERTRAM. Madam, I desire your holy wishes.

LAFEU. How understand we that?

COUNTESS. Be thou blest, Bertram, and succeed thy father

In manners, as in shape! Thy blood and virtue

Contend for empire in thee, and thy goodness

Share with thy birthright! Love all, trust a few,

Do wrong to none; be able for thine enemy

Rather in power than use, and keep thy friend

Under thy own life's key; be check'd for silence,

But never tax'd for speech. What heaven more will,

That thee may furnish, and my prayers pluck down,

Fall on thy head! Farewell. My lord,

'Tis an unseason'd courtier; good my lord,

Advise him.

LAFEU. He cannot want the best

That shall attend his love.

COUNTESS. Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram. Exit

BERTRAM. The best wishes that can be forg'd in your thoughts be

servants to you! [To HELENA] Be comfortable to my mother, your

mistress, and make much of her.

LAFEU. Farewell, pretty lady; you must hold the credit of your

father. Exeunt BERTRAM and LAFEU

HELENA. O, were that all! I think not on my father;

And these great tears grace his remembrance more

Than those I shed for him. What was he like?

I have forgot him; my imagination

Carries no favour in't but Bertram's.

I am undone; there is no living, none,

If Bertram be away. 'Twere all one

That I should love a bright particular star

And think to wed it, he is so above me.

In his bright radiance and collateral light

Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.

Th' ambition in my love thus plagues itself:

The hind that would be mated by the lion

Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, though a plague,

To see him every hour; to sit and draw

His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,

In our heart's table-heart too capable

Of every line and trick of his sweet favour.

But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy

Must sanctify his relics. Who comes here?

Enter PAROLLES

[Aside] One that goes with him. I love him for his sake;

And yet I know him a notorious liar,

Think him a great way fool, solely a coward;

Yet these fix'd evils sit so fit in him

That they take place when virtue's steely bones

Looks bleak i' th' cold wind; withal, full oft we see

Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.

PAROLLES. Save you, fair queen!

HELENA. And you, monarch!

PAROLLES. No.

HELENA. And no.

PAROLLES. Are you meditating on virginity?

HELENA. Ay. You have some stain of soldier in you; let me ask you a

question. Man is enemy to virginity; how may we barricado it

against him?

PAROLLES. Keep him out.

HELENA. But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant in the

defence, yet is weak. Unfold to us some warlike resistance.

PAROLLES. There is none. Man, setting down before you, will

undermine you and blow you up.

HELENA. Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers-up!

Is there no military policy how virgins might blow up men?

PAROLLES. Virginity being blown down, man will quicklier be blown

up; marry, in blowing him down again, with the breach yourselves

made, you lose your city. It is not politic in the commonwealth

of nature to preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational

increase; and there was never virgin got till virginity was first

lost. That you were made of is metal to make virgins. Virginity

by being once lost may be ten times found; by being ever kept, it

is ever lost. 'Tis too cold a companion; away with't.

HELENA. I will stand for 't a little, though therefore I die a

virgin.

PAROLLES. There's little can be said in 't; 'tis against the rule

of nature. To speak on the part of virginity is to accuse your

mothers; which is most infallible disobedience. He that hangs

himself is a virgin; virginity murders itself, and should be

buried in highways, out of all sanctified limit, as a desperate

offendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites, much like a

cheese; consumes itself to the very paring, and so dies with

feeding his own stomach. Besides, virginity is peevish, proud,

idle, made of self-love, which is the most inhibited sin in the

canon. Keep it not; you cannot choose but lose by't. Out with't.

Within ten year it will make itself ten, which is a goodly

increase; and the principal itself not much the worse. Away

with't.

HELENA. How might one do, sir, to lose it to her own liking?

PAROLLES. Let me see. Marry, ill to like him that ne'er it likes.

'Tis a commodity will lose the gloss with lying; the longer kept,

the less worth. Off with't while 'tis vendible; answer the time

of request. Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of

fashion, richly suited but unsuitable; just like the brooch and

the toothpick, which wear not now. Your date is better in your

pie and your porridge than in your cheek. And your virginity,

your old virginity, is like one of our French wither'd pears: it

looks ill, it eats drily; marry, 'tis a wither'd pear; it was

formerly better; marry, yet 'tis a wither'd pear. Will you

anything with it?

HELENA. Not my virginity yet.

There shall your master have a thousand loves,

A mother, and a mistress, and a friend,

A phoenix, captain, and an enemy,

A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign,

A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear;

His humble ambition, proud humility,

His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet,

His faith, his sweet disaster; with a world

Of pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms

That blinking Cupid gossips. Now shall he-

I know not what he shall. God send him well!

The court's a learning-place, and he is one-

PAROLLES. What one, i' faith?

HELENA. That I wish well. 'Tis pity-

PAROLLES. What's pity?

HELENA. That wishing well had not a body in't

Which might be felt; that we, the poorer born,

Whose baser stars do shut us up in wishes,

Might with effects of them follow our friends

And show what we alone must think, which never

Returns us thanks.

Enter PAGE

PAGE. Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you. Exit PAGE

PAROLLES. Little Helen, farewell; if I can remember thee, I will

think of thee at court.

HELENA. Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable star.

PAROLLES. Under Mars, I.

HELENA. I especially think, under Mars.

PAROLLES. Why under Man?

HELENA. The wars hath so kept you under that you must needs be born

under Mars.

PAROLLES. When he was predominant.

HELENA. When he was retrograde, I think, rather.

PAROLLES. Why think you so?

HELENA. You go so much backward when you fight.

PAROLLES. That's for advantage.

HELENA. So is running away, when fear proposes the safety: but the

composition that your valour and fear makes in you is a virtue of

a good wing, and I like the wear well.

PAROLLES. I am so full of business I cannot answer thee acutely. I

will return perfect courtier; in the which my instruction shall

serve to naturalize thee, so thou wilt be capable of a courtier's

counsel, and understand what advice shall thrust upon thee; else

thou diest in thine unthankfulness, and thine ignorance makes

thee away. Farewell. When thou hast leisure, say thy prayers;

when thou hast none, remember thy friends. Get thee a good

husband and use him as he uses thee. So, farewell.

Exit

HELENA. Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,

Which we ascribe to heaven. The fated sky

Gives us free scope; only doth backward pull

Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull.

What power is it which mounts my love so high,

That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?

The mightiest space in fortune nature brings

To join like likes, and kiss like native things.

Impossible be strange attempts to those

That weigh their pains in sense, and do suppose

What hath been cannot be. Who ever strove

To show her merit that did miss her love?

The King's disease-my project may deceive me,

But my intents are fix'd, and will not leave me. Exit