Par. Nay, you need not stop your nose, sir; spake but by a metaphor.

I

Clo. Indeed, sir, if your metaphor stink, I will stop my nose; or against any man's metaphor. Pr'ythee, get thee further.

paper.

Par. Pray you, sir, deliver me this Clo. Foh, pr'ythee, stand away; fortune's close-stool, to give to a nobleman! Look, A paper from here he comes himself.

Enter Lafeu.

-Here is a pur of fortune's, sir, or of fortune's cat, (but not a musk-cai.) that has fallen into the unclean fishpoud of her displeasure, and, as he says, is muddied withal: Pray you, sir, use the carp as you may; for be looks like a poor, decayed, ingenious, foolish, rascalvy knave. I do pity his distress in my smiles of comfort, and leave him to your lordship. [Exit Clown.

Par. My lord, I am a man whom fortune hath cruelly scratched.

Laf. And what would you have me to do? 'tis too late to pare her nails now. Wherein have you played the knave with fortune, that she should scratch you, who of herself is a good lady, and would not have knaves thrive long under her? There's a quart d'ecu for you: Let the justices make you and fortune friends; I am for other business.

153

Of richest eyes; whose words all ears took captive;
Whose dear perfection, hearts that scorn'd to serve,
Humbly cail'd mistress.
King.
Praising what is lost,
Makes the remembrance dear.-Well, call him hither.
-We are reconcil'd, and the first view shall kill
All repetition;-Let him not ask our pardon;
The nature of his great offence is dead,
And deeper than oblivion do we bury
The incensing relies of it: let him approach,
A stranger, no offender; and inform him,
So 'tis our will he should.
Gent.

I shail, my liege.
[Exit Gentleman.
King. What says he to your daughter? have you
spoke ?

Laf. All that he is hath reference to your highness.
King. Then shall we have a match. I have letters

sent me,

He looks well on't.
King. I am not a day of season,

For thou may'st see a sun-shine and a bail
In me at once: but to the brightest beams
Distracted clouds give way; so stand thou forth,

Par. I beseech your honour, to hear me one single The time is fair again. word.

Laf. You beg a single penny more: come, you shall ba't; save your word.

Par. My name, my good lord, is Parolles.

Laf. You beg more than one word then.-Cox' my passion! give me your hand: How does your drum? Par. O my good lord, you were the first that found

Per. It lies in you, my lord, to bring me in some grace, for you did bring me out.

Laf. Out upon thee, knave! dost thou put upon me at once both the office of God and the devil? one brings thee in grace, and the other brings thee out. [Trumpets sound] The king's coming, I know by his trumpets. Sirrah, inquire further after me; I had talk of you last night: though you are a fool and a knave, you shall eat; go to, follow.

Par. I praise God for you.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III-The same. A Room in the Countess's
Palace. Flourish. Enter King, Countess, Lafeu,
Lerde, Gentlemen, Guards, &c.

King. We lost a jewel of her; and our esteem
Was made much poorer by it: but your son,
As mad in folly, lack'd the sense to know
Her estimation home.

Count.

"Tis past, my liege :
And I beseech your majesty to make it
Natural rebellion, done i' the blaze of youth;
When oil and fire, too strong for reason's force,
Gerbears it, and burns on.

King.

My honour'd lady,

I have forgiven and forgotten all;
Though my revenges were high bent upon him,
And watch'd the time to shoot.
Laf.
This I must say,→
But first I beg my pardon,-The young lord
Did to his majesty, his mother, and his lady,
Offer of mighty note; but to himself
The greatest wrong of all: he lost a wife,
Whose beauty did astonish the survey

20

Ber.

All is whole;

My high-repented blames,
Dear sovereign, pardon to me.
King.
Not one wordd more of the consumed time.
Let's take the instant by the forward top;
For we are old, and on our quick'st decrees
The inaudible and noiseless foot of time
Steals ere we can effect them: You remember
The daughter of this lord?

Ber.

Admiringly, my liege: at first
I stuck my choice upon her, ere my heart
Durst make too bold a herald of my tougue:
Where the impression of mine eye enfixing,
Contempt his scornful perspective did lend me.
Which warp'd the line of every other favour;
Scorn'd a fair colour, or expressed it stol'n;
Extended or contracted all proportions,
To a most hideous object: Thence it came,
That she, whom all men prais'd, and whom myself,
Since I have lost, have lov'd, was in mine eye
The dust that did offend it.

Well excus'd:

King.
That thou didst love her, strikes some scores away
From the great 'compt: but love, that comes too late,
Like a remorseful pardon slowly carried,

To the great sender turns a sour offence,

Crying, That's good that's gone: our rash faults
Make trivial price of serious things we have,
Not knowing them, until we know their grave:
Oft our displeasures, to ourselves unjust,
Destroy our friends, and after weep their dust:
Our own love waking cries to see what's done,
While shameful hate sleeps out the afternoon.
Be this sweet Helen's knell, and now forget her.
Send forth your amorous token for fair Maudlin:
The main consents are had; and here we'll stay
To see our widower's second marriage-day.

Count. Which better than the first, O doar heaven,
bless!

Or, ere they meet, in me, O nature, cease!

Laf. Come on, my son, in whom my house's name
Must be digested, give a favour from you,
To sparkle in the spirits of my daughter,

Methought, you said,
You saw one here in court could witness it?
Dia. I did, my lord, but loath am to produce
So bad an instrument; his name's Parolles.
Laf. I saw the man to-day, if man he be.
King. Find him, and bring him hither.
Ber.

What of him?

He's quoted for a most perfidious slave,
With all the spots o' the world tax'd and debosh'd;
Whose nature sickens, but to speak a truth:

Am I or that, or this, for what he'll utter,

That will speak any thing?

King.
She hath that ring of yours.
Ber. I think, she has: certain it is, I lik'd her,
And boarded her i' the wanton way of youth:
She knew her distance, and did angle for me,
Madding my eagerness with her restraint,
As all impediments in fancy's course
Are motives of more fancy; and, in fine,
Her insuit coming with her modern grace,
Subdued me to her rate: she got the ring;
And I had that, which any inferior might
At market-price have bought.

I must be patient;

Dia.
You, that turn'd off a first so noble wife,

May justly diet me. I pray you yet,

(Since you lack virtue, I will lose a husband,)

Send for your ring, I will return it home,

And give me mine again,

Ber.

I have it not.

King. What ring was yours, I pray you

Dia.

The same upon your finger.

?

Sir, much like

King. Know you this ring? this ring was his of late.
Dia. And this was it I gave him, being a-bed.
King. The story then goes false, you threw it him
Out of a casement.

Dia.

I have spoke the truth.
Enter Parolles.

Ber. My lord, I do confess, the ring was hers.
King. You boggle shrewdly, every feather starts

you

Ay, my lord.

King. Tell me, sirrah, but, tell me true, I charge you, Not fearing the displeasure of your master, Which, on your just proceeding, I'll keep off;) By him, and by this woman here, what know you? Par. So please your majesty, my master hath been an honourable gentleman; tricks he hath had in him, which gentlemen have.

King. Come, come, to the purpose: Did he love this Woman?

Par. 'Faith, sir, he did love her: But how?

King. How, I pray you?

Par. 'Faith, I know more than I'll speak. King. But wilt thou not speak all thou know'st? Par. Yes, so please your majesty; I did go between them, as I said; but more than that, he loved her,-for, indeed, he was mad for her, and talked of Satan, and of fimbo, and of furies, and I know not what: yet I was in that credit with them at that time, that I knew of their going to bed; and of other motions, as promising her marriage, and things that would derive me ill-will to speak of, therefore I will not speak what I

Dia.
I'll put in bail, my liege.
King. I think thee now some common customer.
Dia. By Jove, if ever I knew man, 'twas you.
King. Wherefore hast thou accus'd him all this
while?

Dia. Because he's guilty, and he is not guilty;
He knows I am no maid, and he'll swear to't:
I'll swear, I am a maid, and he knows not.
Great king, I am no strumpet, by my life;

I am either maid, or else this old man's wife.
[Pointing to Lafeu,
King. She does abuse our ears; to prison with her.
Dia. Good mother, fetch my bail.-Stay, royal sir;
[Exit Widow.

The jeweller, that owes the ring, is sent for,
And he shall surety me. But for this lord,
Who hath abus'd me, as he knows himself,
Though yet he never harm'd me, here I quit him:
He knows himself, my bed he hath defil'd;
And at that time he got his wife with child:
Dead though she be, she feels her young one kick ;
So there's my riddle, One, that's dead, is quick :
And now behold the meaning.

Re-enter Widow, with Helena,

King. Is there no exorcist
Beguiles the truer office of mine eyes?
Is't real, that I see?

Hel.
No, my good lord;
"Tis but the shadow of a wife you see,
The name, and not the thing.
Ber.
Both, both; O, pardon!
Hel. O, my good lord, when I was like this maid,
I found you wondrous kind. There is your ring,
And, look you, here's your letter; This it says,
When from my finger you can get this ring,

ACT I.

SCENE L-A Hall in the Duke's Palace. Enter Duke
Egeon, Gasier, Officers, and other Attendants.
Egeon.

PROCEED, Solinus, to procure my fall,

And, by the doom of death, end woes and all.
Duke. Merchant of Syracusa, plead no more;
I am not partial, to infringe our laws:
The enmity and discord, which of late
Sprung from the rancorous outrage of your duke
To inerchants, our well-dealing countrymen,—
Who, wanting guilders to redeem their lives,
Have seal'd his rigorous statutes with their bloods,-
Excludes all pity from our threat'ning looks.
For, since the mortal and intestine jars
Twixt thy seditious countrymen and us,
It hath in solemn synods been decreed,
Both by the Syracusans and ourselves,

To admit no traffic to our adverse towns:
Nay, more,

If any, born at Ephesus, be seen
At any Syracusan marts and fairs,
Again, If any Syracusan born,
Come to the bay of Ephesus, he dies,
His goods confiscate to the duke's dispose;
Unless a thousand marks be levied,

To quit the penalty, and to ransome him.
Thy substance, valued at the highest rate,
Cannot amount unto a hundred marks;
Therefore, by law thou art condemn'd to die.

With her I liv'd in joy; our wealth increas'd
By prosperous voyages I often made
To Epidamnum, till my factor's death;
And he (great care of goods at random left)
Drew me from kind embracements of my spouse:
From whom my absence was not six months old,
Before herself (almost at fainting, under
The pleasing punishment that women bear)
Had made provision for her following me,
And soon, and safe, arrived where I was.
There she had not been long, but she became
A joyful mother of two goodly sons;
And, which was strange, the one so like the other,
As could not be distinguish'd but by names.
That very hour, and in the self-same inn,
A poor mean woman was delivered
Of such a burden, male-twins, both alike:
Those, for their parents were exceeding poor,
I bought, and brought up to attend my sons.
My wife, not meanly proud of two such boys,
Made daily motions for our home return:
Unwilling I agreed; alas, too soon.
We came aboard:

A league from Epidamnum had we sail'd,
Before the always-wind-obeying deep
Gave any tragic instance of our harm:
But longer did we not retain much hope;
For what obscured light the heavens did grant
Did but convey unto our fearful minds

A doubtful warrant of immediate death;
Which, though myself would gladly have embracd,

Egeon. Yet this my comfort; when your words are Yet the incessant weepings of my wife,
done,

My woes end likewise with the evening sun.
Duke. Well, Syracusan, say, in brief, the cause
Why thou departedst from thy native home;
And for what cause thou cam'st to Ephesus.
Egeon. A heavier task could not have been impos'd,
Then I to speak my griefs unspeakable:
Yet, that the world may witness that my end
Was wrought by nature, not by vile offence,
I'll utter what my sorrow gives me leave.
In Syracusa was I born; and wed
Unto a woman, happy but for me,
And by me too, had not our hap been bad,

Weeping before, for what she saw must come,
And piteous plainings of the pretty babes,
That mourn'd for fashion, ignorant what to fear,
Fore'd me to seek delays for them and me.
And this it was,-for other means was none.-
The sailors sought for safety by our boat,
And left the ship, then sinking-ripe, to us:
My wife, more careful for the latter-born,
Had fasten'd him unto a small spare mast,
Such as sea-faring men provide for storms;
To him one of the other twins was bound,
Whilst I had been like heedful of the other.
The children thus dispos'd, my wife and I,