Rousillon. A Room in the COUNTESS’S Palace. | |
| |
Enter COUNTESS and Clown. | |
| Count. It hath happened all as I would have had it, save that he comes not along with her. | |
| Clo. By my troth, I take my young lord to be a very melancholy man. | 4 |
| Count. By what observance, I pray you? | |
| Clo. Why, he will look upon his boot and sing; mend the ruff and sing; ask questions and sing; pick his teeth and sing. I know a man that had this trick of melancholy sold a goodly manor for a song. | |
| Count. [Opening a letter.] Let me see what he writes, and when he means to come. | |
| Clo. I have no mind to Isbel since I was at court. Our old ling and our Isbels o’ the country are nothing like your old ling and your Isbels o’ the court: the brains of my Cupid’s knocked out, and I begin to love, as an old man loves money, with no stomach. | 8 |
| Count. What have we here? | |
| Clo. E’en that you have there. [Exit. | |
| Count. I have sent you a daughter-in-law: she hath recovered the king, and undone me. I have wedded her, not bedded her; and sworn to make the ‘not’ eternal. You shall hear I am run away: know it before the report come. If there be breadth enough in the world, I will hold a long distance. My duty to you. | |
| Your unfortunate son, BERTRAM. | 12 |
| This is not well: rash and unbridled boy, | |
| To fly the favours of so good a king! | |
| To pluck his indignation on thy head | |
| By the misprising of a maid too virtuous | 16 |
| For the contempt of empire! | |
| |
Re-enter Clown. | |
| Clo. O madam! yonder is heavy news within between two soldiers and my young lady. | |
| Count. What is the matter? | 20 |
| Clo. Nay, there is some comfort in the news, some comfort; your son will not be killed so soon as I thought he would. | |
| Count. Why should he be killed? | |
| Clo. So say I, madam, if he run away, as I hear he does: the danger is in standing to’t; that’s the loss of men, though it be the getting of children. Here they come will tell you more; for my part, I only hear your son was run away. [Exit. | |
| |
Enter HELENA and Gentlemen. | 24 |
| First Gen. Save you, good madam. | |
| Hel. Madam, my lord is gone, for ever gone. | |
| Sec. Gen. Do not say so. | |
| Count. Think upon patience. Pray you, gentlemen, | 28 |
| I have felt so many quirks of joy and grief, | |
| That the first face of neither, on the start, | |
| Can woman me unto ’t: where is my son, I pray you? | |
| Sec. Gen. Madam, he’s gone to serve the Duke of Florence: | 32 |
| We met him thitherward; for thence we came, | |
| And, after some dispatch in hand at court, | |
| Thither we bend again. | |
| Hel. Look on his letter, madam; here’s my passport. | 36 |
| When thou canst get the ring upon my finger, which never shall come off, and show me a child begotten of thy body that I am father to, then call me husband: but in such a ‘then’ I write a ‘never.’ | |
| This is a dreadful sentence. | |
| Count. Brought you this letter, gentlemen? | |
| First Gen. Ay, madam; | 40 |
| And for the contents’ sake are sorry for our pains. | |
| Count. I prithee, lady, have a better cheer; | |
| If thou engrossest all the griefs are thine, | |
| Thou robb’st me of a moiety: he was my son, | 44 |
| But I do wash his name out of my blood, | |
| And thou art all my child. Towards Florence is he? | |
| Sec. Gen. Ay, madam. | |
| Count. And to be a soldier? | 48 |
| Sec. Gen. Such is his noble purpose; and, believe’t, | |
| The duke will lay upon him all the honour | |
| That good convenience claims. | |
| Count. Return you thither? | 52 |
| First Gen. Ay, madam, with the swiftest wing of speed. | |
| Hel. Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France. | |
| ’Tis bitter. | |
| Count. Find you that there? | 56 |
| Hel. Ay, madam. | |
| First Gen. ’Tis but the boldness of his hand, haply, which his heart was not consenting to. | |
| Count. Nothing in France until he have no wife! | |
| There’s nothing here that is too good for him | 60 |
| But only she; and she deserves a lord | |
| That twenty such rude boys might tend upon, | |
| And call her hourly mistress. Who was with him? | |
| First Gen. A servant only, and a gentleman | 64 |
| Which I have some time known. | |
| Count. Parolles, was it not? | |
| First Gen. Ay, my good lady, he. | |
| Count. A very tainted fellow, and full of wickedness. | 68 |
| My son corrupts a well-derived nature | |
| With his inducement. | |
| First Gen. Indeed, good lady, | |
| The fellow has a deal of that too much, | 72 |
| Which holds him much to have. | |
| Count. Y’are welcome, gentlemen. | |
| I will entreat you, when you see my son, | |
| To tell him that his sword can never win | 76 |
| The honour that he loses: more I’ll entreat you | |
| Written to bear along. | |
| Sec. Gen. We serve you, madam, | |
| In that and all your worthiest affairs. | 80 |
| Count. Not so, but as we change our courtesies. | |
| Will you draw near? [Exeunt COUNTESS and Gentlemen. | |
| Hel. ‘Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France.’ | |
| Nothing in France until he has no wife! | 84 |
| Thou shalt have none, Rousillon, none in France; | |
| Then hast thou all again. Poor lord! is’t I | |
| That chase thee from thy country, and expose | |
| Those tender limbs of thine to the event | 88 |
| Of the non-sparing war? and is it I | |
| That drive thee from the sportive court, where thou | |
| Wast shot at with fair eyes, to be the mark | |
| Of smoky muskets? O you leaden messengers, | 92 |
| That ride upon the violent speed of fire, | |
| Fly with false aim; move the still-piecing air, | |
| That sings with piercing; do not touch my lord! | |
| Whoever shoots at him, I set him there; | 96 |
| Whoever charges on his forward breast, | |
| I am the caitiff that do hold him to ’t; | |
| And, though I kill him not, I am the cause | |
| His death was so effected: better ’twere | 100 |
| I met the ravin lion when he roar’d | |
| With sharp constraint of hunger; better ’twere | |
| That all the miseries which nature owes | |
| Were mine at once. No, come thou home, Rousillon, | 104 |
| Whence honour but of danger wins a scar, | |
| As oft it loses all: I will be gone; | |
| My being here it is that holds thee hence: | |
| Shall I stay here to do ’t? no, no, although | 108 |
| The air of paradise did fan the house, | |
| And angels offic’d all: I will be gone, | |
| That pitiful rumour may report my flight, | |
| To consolate thine ear. Come, night; end, day! | 112 |
| For with the dark, poor thief, I’ll steal away. [Exit. | |
