AS YOU LIKE IT. your body more seeming, Audrey:-as thus, sir. Jaq. And how oft did you say, his beard was not Touch. I durst go no further than the lie circumstantial, nor he durst not give me the lie direct; and so we measured swords, and parted. Jaq. Can you nominate in order now the degrees of the lie? Touch. O sir, we quarrel in print, by the book; as you have books for good manners: I will name you the degrees. The first, the retort courteous; the second, the quip modest; the third, the reply churlish; the fourth, the reproof valiant; the fifth, the countercheck quarrelsome; the sixth, the lie with circumstance; the seventh, the lie direct. All these you may avoid, but the lie direct; and you may avoid that too, with an if. I knew when seven justices could not take up a quarrel; but when the parties were met themselves, one of them thought but of an if, as, if you said so, then II said so; and they shook hands, and swore brothers. Your if is the only peace-maker; much virtue in if. Jaq. Is not this a rare fellow, my lord? he's as good at any thing, and yet a fool. Duke S. He uses his folly like a stalking-horse, and under the presentation of that, he shoots his wit. Enter Hymen, leading Rosalind in woman's clothes; and Celia. Still music. Hym. Then is there mirth in heaven, Good duke, receive thy daughter, Act [To Orlando and Rosalind. You and you are heart in heart: You [To Phebe.] to his love must accord, [To Touchstone and Audrey. As the winter to foul weather. Wedding is great Juno's crown; O blessed bond of board and bed! High wedlock then be honoured: Even daughter, welcome in no less degree. Thy faith my fancy to thee doth combine.3 [To Silvius. Jaq. de B. Let me have audience for a word or am the second son of old sir Rowland, Duke S. Orl. If there be truth in sight, you are my Rosa-According to the measure of their states. (1) Seemly. (2) Unless truth fails of veracity. Meantime, forget this new-fall'n dignity, Play, music;-and you brides and bridegrooms all, Jaq. To him will I: out of these convertites Your patience, and your virtue, well deserves it :- (3) Bind. EPILOGUE. A dance. [not become me: my way is, to conjure you; and I'll begin with the women. I charge you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of this play as please them: and so I charge you, men, for the love you bear to women (as I perceive by your simpering, none of you hate them,) that between you and the women, the play may please. If I were a woman, I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me, complexions that liked me,2 and breaths that 1 defied not: and, I am sure, as many as have good beards, or good faces, or sweet breaths, will, for my kind offer, when I make curt'sy, bid me farewell. [Exeunt. Of this play the fable is wild and pleasing. 1 know not how the ladies will approve the facility with which both Rosalind and Celia give away Ros. It is not the fashion to see the lady the epi- their hearts. To Celia much may be forgiven, for logue: but it is no more unhandsome, than to see the heroism of her friendship. The character of the lord the prologue. If it be true, that good wine Jaques is natural and well preserved. The comic needs no bush, 'tis true, that a good play needs no dialogue is very sprightly, with less mixture of low epilogue: Yet to good wine they do use good buffoonery than in some other plays; and the graver bushes; and good plays prove the better by the part is elegant and harmonious. By hastening to help of good epilogues. What a case am I in then, the end of this work, Shakspeare suppressed the that am neither a good epilogue, nor cannot insin-dialogue between the usurper and the hermit, and uate with you in the behalf of a good play? I am lost an opportunity of exhibiting a moral lesson, in not furnished1 like a beggar, therefore to beg will which he might have found matter worthy of his highest powers. JOHNSON. ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. King of France. Duke of Florence. Bertram, Count of Rousillon. Lafeu, an old Lord. Parolles, a follower of Bertram. PERSONS REPRESENTED. Countess of Rousillon, mother to Bertram. Diana, daughter to the widow. Several young French Lords, that serve with Ber- Mariana, neighbours and friends to the widow. tram in the Florentine war. Lords, attending on the King; Officers, Soldiers, &c. French and Florentine. Scene, partly in France, and partly in Tuscany. ACT I. SCENE I-Rousillon. A Room in the Coun- IN delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband. 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 make fair gifts fairer; for where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities,3 there commendations go with pity, they are virtues and traitors too; in her they are the better for their simpleness4 she derives her honesty, and 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, ever-achieves her goodness. more 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. 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. (1) Under his particular care, as my guardian. (2) The countess recollects her own loss of a husband, and observes how heavily had passes through her mind. (3) Qualities of good breeding and erudition. 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 livelihoods from her cheek. No more of this, Helena, go to, no more; lest it be rather thought you affect a sorrow, than to have. 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. Count. Be thou blest, Bertram! and succeed In manners, as in shape! thy blood, and virtue, Fall on thy head! Farewell.-My lord, He cannot want the best (4) i. e. Her excellencies are the better because they are artless. (5) All appearance of life. (6) i. e. That may help thee with more and better qualifications, ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. That shall attend his love. Laf. Farewell, pretty lady: You must hold the Act I. the rule of nature. To speak on the part of virPar. There's little can be said in't; 'tis against infallible disobedience. He, that hangs himself, is ginity, is to accuse your mothers; which is most a virgin virginity murders itself; and should be buried in highways, out of all sanctified limit, as breeds mites, much like a cheese; consumes itself a desperate offendress against nature. Virginity 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: Hel. How might one do, sir, to lose it to her Away with't. 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 replague,cap out of fashion; richly suited, but unsuitable: quest. Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her just like the brooch and toothpick, which wear not now: Your dates 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 any thing with it? Hel. Not my virginity yet. every line and trick3 of his sweet favour:4 One that goes with him: I love him for his sake; That they take place, when virtue's steely bones Hel. And you, monárch. 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. 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, down again, with the breach yourselves made, you blowing him 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. (1) i. c. May you be mistress of your wishes, and have power to bring them to effect. (2) Helena considers her heart as the tablet on which his resemblance was portrayed. (3) Peculiarity of feature. (4) Countenance. There shall your master have a thousand loves, I know not what he shall :-God send him well!- Hel. That I wish well.-'Tis pity- Which might be felt: that we, the poorer born, Enter a Page. Page. Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you. charitable star. Par. Under Mars, I. Hel. I especially think, under Mars. must needs be born under Mars. Hel. The wars have so kept you under, that you Par. When he was predominant. (5) Forbidden. candied fruit. (7) i.e. And show by realities what we now must only think. |