Laf. He cannot want the best

That shall attend his love.

Count. Heaven bless him!-Farewell, Bertram.

[Exit COUNTESS.

Ber. The best wishes, that can be forged in your thoughts [To HELENA], 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; 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 it, but Bertram's. I am undone; there is no living, none, If Bertram be away. It were 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. The 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.

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 to fit in him,

That they take place, when virtue's steely bones

Look bleak in the cold wind: withal, full oft we see

Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.

Par. Save you, fair queen.

Hel. And you, monarch.

Par. No.

Hel. And 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.

* I. e. may you be mistress of your wishes, and have power to bring

them to effect.

+ Picture-canvass.

Countenance.

Peculiarity of feature.

I. e. no monarch, no queen.

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.

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 it.

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 years 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 tooth-pick, which wear not now: Your dater 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 dryly; marry, 'tis a withered pear; it was formerly better; marry, yet 'tis a withered pear: Will you anything with it?

Hel. 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 ́

*Forbidden.

† A quibble on date, which means age, and candied fruit.

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-
Par. What one, i' faith?

Hel. That I wish well.-'Tis pity

Par. What's pity?

Hel. 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 a PAGE.

Page. Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.

[Exit PAGE. Par. Little Helen, farewell: if I can remember thee, I will think of thee at court.

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

Par. Under Mars, I.

Hel. I especially think, under Mars.

Par. Why under Mars?

Hel. The wars have so kept you under, that you must needs be born under Mars.

Par. When he was predominant.

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

Par. Why think you so?

Hel. You go so much backward, when you fight.

Par. That's for advantage.

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.

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 capablet 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.

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.

*I. e. and show by realities what we now must only think.
I. e. thou wilt comprehend it.

+ Things formed by nature for each other.

[Exit.

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.

SCENE II-Paris. A Room in the King's Palace.

[Exit.

Flourish of Cornets. Enter the KING OF FRANCE, with letters; LORDS, and others attending.

King. The Florentines and Senoys* are by the ears; Have fought with equal fortune, and continue

A braving war.

1 Lord. So 'tis reported, Sir,

King. Nay, 'tis most credible; we here receive it
A certainty, vouch'd from our cousin Austria,
With caution, that the Florentine will move us
For speedy aid; wherein our dearest friend
Prejudicates the business, and would seem
To have us make denial.

1 Lord. His love and wisdom, Approved so to your majesty, may plead For amplest credence.

King. He hath arm'd our answer,

And Florence is denied before he comes:
Yet, for our gentlemen, that mean to see
The Tuscan service, freely have they leave
To stand on either part.

2 Lord. It may well serve

A nursery to our gentry, who are sick

For breathing an exploit.

King. What's he comes here?

Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES.

1 Lord. It is the count Rousillon, my good lord, Young Bertram.

King. Youth, thou bear'st thy father's face;
Frank nature, rather curious than in haste,

Hath well composed thee. Thy father's moral parts
Mayst thou inherit too! Welcome to Paris.

Ber. My thanks and duty are your majesty's.
King. I would I had that corporal soundness now,
As when thy father, and myself, in friendship
First tried our soldiership! He did look far
Into the service of the time, and was
Discipled of the bravest: he lasted long;
But on us both did haggish age steal on,
And wore us out of act. It much repairs me

* Siennese.

To talk of your good father: In his youth
He had the wit, which I can well observe
To-day in our young lords; but they may jest,
Till their own scorn return to them unnoted,
Ere they can hide their levity in honour.
So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness
Were in his pride or sharpness; if they were,
His equal had awaked them; and his honour,
Clock to itself, knew the true minute when
Exception bid him speak, and, at this time,
His tongue obey'd its hand: who were below him
He used as creatures of another place;

And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks,
Making them proud of his humility,

In their poor praise he humbled: Such a man
Might be copy to these younger times;

Which, follow'd well, would demonstrate them now
But goers backward.

Ber. His good remembrance, Sir,

Lies richer in your thoughts, than on his tomb;
So his approof lives not in epitaph,

As in your royal speech.

King. 'Would I were with him! He would always say (Methinks, I hear him now; his plausive words

He scatter'd not in ears, but grafted them,

To grow there, and to bear), Let me not live,-
Thus his good melancholy oft began,
On the catastrophe and heel of pastíme,

When it was out,-Let me not live, quoth he,
After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff

Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses

All but new things disdain; whose judgments are

Mere fathers of their garments;* whose constancies
Expire before their fashions:- -This he wish'd:

I, after him, do after him wish too,

Since I nor wax, nor honey, can bring home,
I quickly were dissolved from my hive,

To give some labourers room.

2 Lord. You are loved, Sir;

They, that least lend it you, shall lack you first.

King. I fill a place, I know't.-How long is't, count, Since the physican at your father's died?

He was much famed.

Ber. Some six months since, my lord.

King. If he were living, I would try him yet;-
Lend me an arm;-the rest have worn me out
With several applications :-nature and sickness
Debate it at their leisure. Welcome, count;
My son's no dearer.

Ber. Thank your majesty.

[Exeunt. Flourish.

*Who are mere inventors of dress.