Vin. 'Tis a good hearing when children are toward. Luc. But a harsh hearing when women are froward. Pet. Come, Kate, we'll to bed. We three are married, but you two are sped. [To Luc.] 'Twas I won the wager, though you hit the white; And, being a winner, God give you good night! [Exeunt Petruchio and Katharina. Hor. Now, go thy ways; thou hast tamed a curst shrew. Luc. 'Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tamed so. [Exeunt. ACT I. SCENE I. Rousillon. The COUNT's palace. Enter BERTRAM, the COUNTESS of ROUSILLON, HELENA, and LAFEU, all in black. Count. In delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband. Ber. 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. Laf. 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. Count. What hope is there of his majesty's amendment? Laf. He hath abandoned 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. Count. 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 stretched 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. Laf. How called you the man you speak of, madam? Count. He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his great right to be so: Gerard de Narbon. 31 Laf. He was excellent indeed, madam: the king very lately spoke of him admiringly and mourningly: he was skilful enough to have lived still, if knowledge could be set up against mortality. Ber. What is it, my good lord, the king languishes of? Laf. A fistula, my lord. Ber. I heard not of it before. Laf. I would it were not notorious. Was this gentlewoman the daughter of Gerard de Narbon? Count. 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. Laf. Your commendations, madam, get from her tears. Count. '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 have it. 61 Hel. I do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have it too. Laf. Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead, excessive grief the enemy to the living. Count. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal. Ber. Madam, I desire your holy wishes. 70 That thee may furnish and my prayers pluck Fall on thy head! Farewell, my lord; Laf. He cannot want the best Count. Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram. [Exit. Ber. [To Helena] The best wishes that can be forged in your thoughts be servants to you! Be comfortable to my mother, your mistress, and make much of her. Laf. Farewell, pretty lady: you must hold the credit of your father. [Exeunt Bertram and Lafeu. Hel. O, were that all! I think not on my father; 90 And these great tears grace his remembrance more 100 Than those I shed for him. What was he like? Hel. I will stand for 't a little, though therefore I die a virgin. Par. 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! Hel. How might one do, sir, to lose it to her own liking? Par. 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 tooth-pick, 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 withered pears, it looks ill, it eats drily; marry, 'tis a withered it was formerly pear; better; marry, yet 'tis a withered pear: will you [Aside] One that goes with him: I love him for any thing with it? his sake; And yet I know him a notorious liar, That they take place, when virtue's steely bones Hel. And you, monarch! Par. No. Par. Are you meditating on virginity? Hel. 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? Par. Keep him out. Hel. But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant, in the defence yet is weak: unfold to us some warlike resistance. Par. There is none: man, sitting down before you, will undermine you and blow you up. 130 Hel. Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers up! Is there no military policy, how virgins might blow up men? Par. 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! 181 Hel. Not my virginity yet...... Hel. That I wish well. 'Tis pity- Hel. That wishing well had not a body in't, Enter Page. 200 Par. When he was predominant. Hel. You go so much backward when you fight. Hel. 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. 219 Par. I am so full of businesses, 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. 230 Hel. 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. 239 [Exit. Sec. Lord. It well may serve A nursery to our gentry, who are sick For breathing and exploit. King. now, .30 As when thy father and myself in friendship 40 50 King. Would I were with him! He would always say Methinks I hear him now; his plausive words Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses 60 Since the physician at your father's died? He was much famed. Ber. 70 Some six months since, my lord. King. If he were living, I would try him yet. What's he comes here? Lend me an arm; the rest have worn me out Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES. With several applications: nature and sickness Debate it at their leisure. Welcome, count; My son's no dearer. Ber. Thank your majesty. [Exeunt. Flourish. SCENE III. Rousillon. The COUNT's palace. Enter COUNTESS, Steward, and Clown. Count. I will now hear; what say you of this gentlewoman? Stew. Madam, the care I have had to even your content, I wish might be found in the calen: dar of my past endeavours; for then we wound our modesty and make foul the clearness of our deservings, when of ourselves we publish them. Count. What does this knave here? Get you gone, sirrah: the complaints I have heard of you I do not all believe: 'tis my slowness that I do not; for I know you lack not folly to commit them, and have ability enough to make such knaveries yours. Clo. 'Tis not unknown to you, madam; I am a poor fellow.. Count. Well, sir. Clo. No, madam, 'tis not so well that I am poor, though many of the rich are damned: but, if I may have your ladyship's good will to go to the world, Isbel the woman and I will do as we may. Čount. Wilt thou needs be a beggar? : 21 Clo. In Isbel's case and mine own. Service is no heritage and I think I shall never have the blessing of God till I have issue o' my body; for they say barnes are blessings. Count. Teltme thy reason why thou wilt marry. Clo. My poor body, madam, requires it: I am driven on by the flesh; and he must needs go that the devil drives. Count. Is this all your worship's reason? Clo. Faith, madam, I have other holy reasons, such as they are. Count. May the world know them? Clo. I have been, madam, a wicked creature, as you and all flesh and blood are; and, indeed, I do marry that I may repent. Count. Thy marriage, sooner than thy wick edness. 41 Clo. I am out o' friends, madam; and I hope to have friends for my wife's sake. Count. Such friends are thine enemies, knave. Clo. You're shallow, madam, in great friends for the knaves come to do that for me which I am aweary of. He that ears my land spares my team and gives me leave to in the crop; if I be his cuckold, he's my drudge: he that comforts my wife is the cherisher of my flesh and blood; he that cherishes my flesh and blood loves my flesh and-blood; he that loves my flesh and blood is my friend: ergo, he that kisses my wife is my friend. If men could be contented to be what they are, there were no fear in marriage; for young Charbon the puritan and old Poysam the papist, howsome'er their hearts are severed in religion, their heads are both one; they may joul horns together, like any deer i' the herd. Count. Wilt thou ever be a foul-mouthed and calumnious knave? 61 Clo. A prophet I, madam; and I speak the truth the next way: For I the ballad will repeat, Your marriage comes by destiny, Your cuckoo sings by kind. Count. Get you gone, sir; I'll talk with you more anon. 71 Stew. May it please you, madam, that he bid Clo. Was this fair face the cause, quoth she, Was this King Priam's joy? And gave this sentence then; 80 Count. What, one good in ten? you corrupt the song, sirrah. Clo. One good woman in ten, madam; which is a purifying o' the song: would God would serve the world so all the year! we'ld find no fault with the tithe-woman, if I were the parson. One in ten, quoth a'! An we might have a good woman born but one every blazing star, or at an earthquake, 'twould mend the lottery well: a man may draw his heart out, ere:a' pluck one. Count. You'll be gone, sir knave, and do as I command you Clo. That man should be at woman's command, and yet no hurt done! Though honesty be no puritan, yet it will do no hurt; it will wear the surplice of humility over the black gown of a big heart. I am going, forsooth: the business is for Helen to come hither. [Exit. 101 Count. Well, now. Stew. I know, madam, you love your gentlewoman entirely. Count. Faith, I do: her father bequeathed her to me; and she herself, without other advantage, may lawfully make title to as much love as she finds: there is more owing her than is paid; and more shall be paid her than she 'll.demand. Stew. Madam, I was very late more near her than I think she wished me: alone she was, and did communicate to herself her own words to her own ears; she thought, I dare vow for her, they touched not any stranger. sense. Her matter was, she loved your son: Fortune, she said, was no goddess, that had put such difference betwixt their two estates; Love no god, that would not extend his might, only where qualities were level; Dian no queen of virgins, that would suffer her poor knight surprised, without rescue in the first assault or ransom afterward. This she delivered in the most bitter touch of sorrow that e'er I heard virgin exclaim in: which I held my duty speedily to acquaint you withal; sithence, in the loss that may happen, it concerns you something to know it. Count. You have discharged this honestly; keep it to yourself: many likelihoods informed me of this before, which hung so tottering in the balance that I could neither believe nor misdoubt. Pray you, leave me: stall this in your bosom; and I thank you for your honest care: I will speak with you further anon. [Exit Steward. |