Re-enter Biondello. How now! what news? Bion. Sir, my mistress fends you word That she is busy, and the cannot come. Pet. How! the is busy, and the cannot come! Is that an anfwer? Gre. Ay, and a kind one too: Pray God, fir, your wife fend you not a worse. Pet. I hope, better. Hor. Sirrah, Biondello, go, and intreat my wife To come to me forthwith. Pet. Oh, ho! intreat her! Nay, then the needs muft come. Hor. I am afraid, fır, [Exit Biondello. Do what you can, yours will not be entreated. Now, where's my wife? Bion. She fays, you have fome goodly jeft in hand; Oh vile, intolerable, not to be endur'd! Hor. I know her answer. Pet. What? Hor. She will not. What duty they do owe their lords and husbands. no telling. Pet. Come on, I fay, and first begin with her. Pet. I fay, the shall; and first begin with her. brow; And dart not fcornful glances from those eyes, A woman mov'd is like a fountain troubled, To watch the night in storms, the day in cold, Pet. The fouler fortune mine, and there an end. Bap. Now, by my holidame, here comes Ka- Kath. What is your will, fir, that you fent for me? Pet. Go, fetch them hither; if they deny to come, [Exit Katharine. Luc. Here is a wonder, if you talk of a wonder. Pat. Marry, peace it bodes, and love, and quiet life, Bap. Now fair befal thee, good Petruchio! Pet. Nay, 1 will win my wager better yet; Re-enter Katharine, with Bianca and Widow. [She pulls off ber cap, and throws is down. ftrong women And craves no other tribute at thy hands, My hand is ready, may it do him ease. [me, Kate, Hor. Now go thy ways, thou haft tam'd a curft tam'd fo. Meaning, lower your pride. 2 A phrafe borrowed from archery: the mark being commonly white. ALL' Count. I N delivering my fon 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 fubjection... Laf. You shall find of the king a husband, madam;-you, fir, a father: He that so generally is at all times good, must of neceffity hold his virtue to you; whose worthiness would ftir 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 abandon'd his physicians, madam; under whose practices he hath perfecuted time with hope; and finds no other advantage in the process, but only the lofing of hope by time, Count. This young gentlewoman had a father, (0, that bad! how fad a paffage 2 'tis! whose skill was almost as great as his honesty; had it stretch'd fo far, it would have made nature immortal, and death should have play'd for lack of work. 'Would, for the king's fake, he were living! I think, it would be the death of the king's disease.. 4 1 the Widow Laf. How call'd you the man you speak of, madam? : Count. He was famous, fir, in his profeffion, and it was his great right to be so: Gerard de Narbon. Laf. He was excellent, indeed, madam; the king very lately spoke of him, admiringly, and mourningly: he was skilful enough to have liv'd ftill, if knowledge could have been fet up againft 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 fole child, my lord; and bequeathed to my overlooking. I have those hopes of her good, that her education promises: her difpofitions she inherits, which makes fair gifts fairer: for where an unclean mind carries virtuous qua lities, there commendations go with pity, they are virtues and traitors too 3; in her they are the bet ter for their simpleness4; she derives her honefty, and atchieves her goodness.. Laf. Your commendations, madam, get from her tears. Count. 'Tis the best brine a maiden can feafon her praise in. The remembrance of her father never approaches her heart, but the tyranny of her forrows takes all livelihood from her cheek. No The heirs of great fortunes were anciently the king's wards, 2 Paffage means any thing that pafes, and is here applied in the fame fenfe as when we lay the paffage of a book. 3 Dr. Johnfon this comments upon this passage: "Eftimable and useful qualities, joined with an evil difpofition, give that evil disposition power over others, who, by admiring the virtue, are betrayed to the malevolence." 4i. c. her excellencies are the better because they are artless and open, without fraud, without design, T3 more more of this, Helena, go to, no more; left it be Look bleak in the cold wind: withal, full off rather thought you affect a forrow, than to have. *Hel. I do affect a forrow, indeed, but I have Cold wisdom waiting on fuperfluous folly. it too. we fee Laf. Moderate lamentation is the right of the Par. Save you, fair queen. Hel. And you, monarch. Par. No. dead, excessive grief the enemy to the living. Count. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it foon mortal 1. Ber. Madam, I desure your holy wishes. Laf. How understand we that? [father Count. Be thou blest, Bertram! and fucceed thy In manners, as in shape! Thy blood, and virtue, Contend for empire in thee; and thy goodness Share with thy birth-right! 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 filence, But never tax'd for speech. What heaven more will, That thee may furnish, and my prayers pluck down, Fallon thy head Farewell. My lord, 'Tis an unfeafon'd courtier, good my lord, Advise him. Laf. He cannot want the best, That shall attend his love. Count. Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram. [Exit Countess. Ber. [To Helena.] The best wishes, that can be forg'd 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. [Ex. Bertram and Lafeu. Hel. Oh, were that all!-I think not on my father; And these great tears 2 grace his remembrance more, every line and 3 trick of his sweet favour, But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy. Muft fan, Stify his relicks. Who comes here? Enter Parolles. One that goes with him: I love him for his fake; That they take place, when virtue's steely bones the 3. Hel. And no.. Par. Are you meditating on virginity ? Hel. Ay. You have fome § stain of foldier 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 affails; and our virginity, though valiant, in the defence yet is weak; unfold to us fome warlike refiftance. 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 politick in the common wealth of nature, to preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational increase; and there was never virgin got, till virginity was first lott. That, you were made of, is metal to make virgins. Virginity, by being once loft, may be ten times found : by being ever kept, is ever loft: 'tis too cold a companion; away with it. Hal. I will stand for't a little, though therefore I die a virgin. Par. There's little can be faid in't; 'tis againft the rule of nature. To speak on the part of virgi nity, is to accuse your mothers; which is most in fallible difobedience. He, that hangs himself, is a virgin: virginity murders itself; and should be buried in highways, out of all fanctified limit, as a defperate offendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites, much like a cheese; confumes itself to the very paring, and fo dies with feeding its own stomach. Besides, virginity is peevith, proud, idle, made of self-love, which is the most inhibited fin in the canon. Keep it not; you cannot chuse but lose by't: Out with't: within ten years it will make itself two, which is a goodly increase; and the principal itself not much the worse. Away with 't. Hel. How might one do, fir, to lese it to her own liking? Par. Let me fee: Marry, ill, to like him that ne'er it likes. 'Tis a commodity will lofe the glofs 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 fafhion; richly fuited, but unfuitable; just like the brooch and the tooth-pick, which wear not now: Your date is better in your pye * That is, " If the living do not indulge grief, grief destroys itself by its own excess." z i, e. the tears of the king and countess. e. fome peculiar feature of his face. 4 Cold is here put for naked, and thus contrasted with fuperfluous or over-cloathed. 5 Meaning, fome colour of foldier. Parelles was in red, as appears from his being afterwards called red-tail'd humble bee.. e. forbidden in apd and your porridge, than in your cheek And thou dieft in thine unthankfulness, and thine igno. your virginity, your old virginity, is like one of our Hel. Not my virginity yet. Hel. That I wish well. 'Tis pity Hel. That wishing well had not a body in't, Par. Under Mars, I. Hel. I especially think, under Mars. Par. Why under Mars? rance makes thee away; farewel. When thou Hel. Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, SCENE II. [Exit. Flourish Cornets. Enter the King of France, with King. The Florentines and Senoyss are by the ears; Have fought with equal fortune, and continue I Lord. So 'tis reported, fir. 1 Lord. His love and wisdom, Hel. The wars have kept you so under, that you Approv'd fo to your majesty, may plead must needs be born under Mars. Par. When he was predominant. Hal. When he was retrograde, I think, rather. Hel. You go so much backward, when you fight. Hel. So is running away, when fear proposes the fafety: But the compofition, that your valour and fear makes in you, is a virtue of a good wing, and I like the wear well. For ampleft credence. King. He hath arm'd our answer, 2 Lod. It may well ferve Enter Bertram, Lafen, and Parolles. Young Bertram. Par. I am fo full of businesses, I cannot answer thee acutely: I will return perfect courtier; in the which, my inftruction shall serve to naturalize thee, so thou wilt be capable of courtier's counfel, and understand what advice shall thrust upon thee; elfe (Frank nature, rather curious than in hafte, King. Youth, thou bear'st thy father's face; Shakspeare here quibbles on the word date, which means both age, and a kind of candied fruit. 3. Dr. Warburton is of opinion, that the eight lines following friend, is the nonfense of some foolish conceited player, who finding a thousand loves spoken of, and only three reckoned up, namely, a mother's, a mistress's, and a friend's, would help out the number by the intermediate nonfenfe. The meaning of Helen, however, in this passage may be, that she shall prove every thing to Bertram. 3 A metaphor taken from falconry; and meaning, a virtue that will fly high, 4 Dr. Johnfon explains these lines thus: " Nature brings like qualities and difpofitions to meet through any distance that fortune may have set between them; the joins them, and makes them kiss like things born together." $ The Senois were the people of a small republick, of which the capital was Sienna, and with whom The Flarentines were at constant variance. Hath well compos'd thee. Thy father's moral parts | Since the physician at your father's died? Ber. My thanks and duty are your majesty's. As when thy father, and myself, in friendsmip In their poor praise he humbled 3: Such a man Ber. His good remembrance, fir, King. Would, I were with him! He would al ways fay, (Methinks, I hear him now; his plausive words Since I nor wax, nor honey, can bring home, 2 Lord. You are lov'd, fir; He was much fam'd. Ber. Some fix months since, my lord. Ber. Thank your majesty. [Flourisfb. Excunt. SCENE III. A Room in the Count's Palace. Enter Countess, Steward, and Clown 6. Count. I will now hear: what fay you of this gentlewoman? Stew. Madam, the care I have had to even your content, I wish might be found in the calendar of my paft 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, firrah: The complaints, I have heard of you, I do not all believe; 'tis my flowness, that I do not: for, I know, you lack not folly to commit them, and have ability enough to make fuch knaveries yours 8. Clo. 'Tis not unknown to you, madam, that I am a poor fellow. Count. Well, fir. Clo. No, madam, 'tis not so well, that I am poor: though many of the rich are damn'd: But, if I may have your ladyship's good will to go to the world 9, Isbel the woman and I will do as we may. Count. Wilt thou needs be a beggar? Clo. In Isbel's cafe, and mine own. Service is no heritage: and, I think, I shall never have the bleffing of God, till I have issue of my body; for, they say, bearns are bleffings. Count. Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry. Clo. My poor body, madam, requires it: Iam 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, fuch as they are. | Count. May the world know them? Clo. 1 have been, madam, a wicked creature, They, that least lend it you, shall lack you first. : count, do marry, that I may repent. 1 That is, cover petty faults with great merit. 2 i. e. he made allowances for their conduct, and bore from them what he would not from one of his own rank. 3 i. e. by condescending to stoop to his inferiors, he exalted them and made them proud; and, in the gracious receiving their poor praise, he humbled even his humility. Approof is approbation. 5 Mr. Tollet explains this passage thus: "His epitaph or infcription on his tomb is not fo much in approbation or commendation of him, as is your royal speech." • A Clown in Shakspeare is commonly taken for a licensed jester, or domestick fool. We are not to wonder that we find this character often in his plays, tince fools were, at that time, maintained in all great families, to keep up merriment in the thouse. 7 i. e. to equal your defires. 8 i. e. You are fool enough to commit those irregu-2 larities you are charged with, and yet not fo much fool neither, as to difcredit the accusation by any defect in your ability. 9 i. e. to be married. See note 1, p. 128, Countr |