Shall weigh thee to the beam; that wilt not know
It is in us to plant thine honour, where

We please to have it grow: Check thy contempt:
Obey our will, which travails in thy good:
Believe not thy disdain, but presently

Do thine own fortunes that obedient right
Which both thy duty owes and our power claims;
Or I will throw thee from my care for ever,
Into the staggers, and the careless lapse
Of youth and ignorance; both my revenge and hate
Loosing upon thee, in the name of justice,
Without all terms of pity: Speak! thine answer!
BER. Pardon, my gracious lord; for I submit
My fancy to your eyes: When I consider
What great creation, and what dole of honour,
Flies where you bid it, I find, that she, which late
Was in my nobler thoughts most base, is now
The praised of the king; who, so ennobled,
Is, as 't were, born so.

KING.

Take her by the hand,

[Exeunt KING, BERTRAM, HELENA, Lords, and Attendants".

LAF. Do you hear, monsieur? a word with you.

PAR. Your pleasure, sir?

LAF. Your lord and master did well to make his recantation.

PAR. Recantation ?-My lord? my master?

LAF. Ay: Is it not a language I speak?

PAR. A most harsh one: and not to be understood without bloody succeeding. My master?

LAF. Are you companion to the count Rousillon ?

• The staggers. Johnson supposes the allusion is to the disease so called in horses. Surely it is

a metaphorical expression for uncertainty, insecurity. In 'Cymbeline,' Posthumus says,

"Whence come these staggers on me?"

In the original, the following curious stage direction here occurs:-" Parolles and Lafeu stay behind, commenting of this wedding."

PAR To any count; to all counts; to what is man.

LAF. To what is count's man; count's master is of another style.

PAR. You are too old, sir: let it satisfy you, you are too old.

LAF. I must tell thee, sirrah, I write man; to which title age cannot bring thee. PAR. What I dare too well do I dare not do.

LAF. 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 burthen". 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.

PAR. Hadst thou not the privilege of antiquity upon thee,

LAF. 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.

PAR. My lord, you give me most egregious indignity.

LAF. Ay, with all my heart; and thou art worthy of it.

PAR. I have not, my lord, deserved it.

LAF. Yes, good faith, every dram of it: and I will not bate thee a scruple.
PAR. Well, I shall be wiser.

LAF. Even as soon as thou canst, for thou hast to pull at a smack o' the contrary.
If ever thou be'st 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.
PAR. My lord, you do me most insupportable vexation.
LAF. 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. PAR. 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, an if I could but meet him again.

Re-enter LAfeu.

LAF. Sirrah, your lord and master 's married; there 's news for you; you have a new mistress.

PAR. 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.

LAF. Who? God?

PAR. Ay, sir.

LAF. 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 "For two ordinaries-during two ordinaries at the same table.

VOL. I.

S

wert best set thy lower part where thy nose stands. By mine honour, if I were but two hours younger, I'd 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.

PAR. This is hard and undeserved measure, my lord.

LAF. 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.

Enter BERTRAM.

[Exit.

PAR. Good, very good; it is so then.-Good, very good; let it be concealed a while.

BER. Undone, and forfeited to cares for ever!

PAR. What's the matter, sweet heart?

BER. Although before the solemn priest I have sworn,

I will not bed her.

PAR. What? what, sweet heart?

BER. O my Parolles, they have married me:—

I'll to the Tuscan wars, and never bed her.

PAR. France is a dog-hole, and it no more merits
The tread of a man's foot: to the wars!

BER. There's letters from my mother; what the import is,

I know not yet.

PAR. Ay, that would be known: To the wars, my boy, to the wars!

He wears his honour in a box unseen

That hugs his kickie-wickie 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!

BER. 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 b.

• So the original. The passage is ordinarily printed thus: "than the heraldry of your birth and virtue gives you commission."

Bertram would say the strife of war is nothing, compared to that of the dark house, &c. We have the same idiom in 'Two Gentlemen of Verona,' Act II., Scene 4, "There is no woe to his correction." By the "dark house" we understand the house which is the seat of gloom and dis

content.

PAR. Will this capricio hold in thee, art sure?

BER. 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.

PAR. Why, these balls bound; there's noise in it. Tis hard:
A young man married is a man that's marr'd:

and leave her bravely; go: .

The king has done you wrong: but, hush! 't is so.

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV.-The same.

Another room in the same.

Enter HELENA and Clown.

HEL. My mother greets me kindly: Is she well?

CLO. 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.

HEL. If she be very well, what does she ail that she's not very well?

CLO. Truly, she 's very well, indeed, but for two things.

HEL. What two things?

CLO. 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.

PAR. Bless you, my fortunate lady!

HEL. I hope, sir, I have your good will to have mine own good fortunes". PAR. You had my prayers to lead them on: and to keep them on, have them still. O, my knave! How does my old lady?

CLO. So that you had her wrinkles, and I her money, I would she did as you say.

PAR. Why, I say nothing.

CLO. 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.

PAR. Away, thou 'rt a knave.

CLO. 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.

PAR. Go to, thou art a witty fool; I have found thee.

CLO. 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.

• Fortunes. The original, fortune. The use of them afterwards, by Parolles, renders the change

necessary.

PAR. 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 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.

HEL.

What's his will else?

PAR. 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.

LAF. But I hope your lordship thinks not him a soldier.

BER. Yes, my lord, and of very valiant approof.

LAF. You have it from his own deliverance.

BER. And by other warranted testimony.

LAF. Then my dial goes not true: I took this lark for a bunting a.

BER. I do assure you, my lord, he is very great in knowledge, and accordingly valiant.

LAF. 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; the amity.

I will pursue

Enter PAROLLES.

PAR. These things shall be done, sir.
LAF. Pray you, sir, who's his tailor?

[TO BERTRAM.

• Lafeu says that he has done injustice to Parolles if Bertram's commendation be right. By "warranted testimony" he must acknowledge him to be "a lark," but he took him "for a bunting." The lark and the common bunting greatly resemble each other, but the bunting has no song.