SCENE I. Rossillon. A room in the Countess’s palace.
Enter Bertram, the Countess of Rossillon, Helena, and Lafew, all in black.
COUNTESS
In delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband.
BERTRAM
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 subjection.
LAFEW
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.
COUNTESS
What hope is there of his majesty’s amendment?
LAFEW
He hath abandon’d 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.
COUNTESS
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 stretch’d 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.
LAFEW
How called you the man you speak of, madam?
COUNTESS
He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his great right to be so: Gerard de Narbon.
LAFEW
He was excellent indeed, madam; the king very lately spoke of him admiringly, and mourningly; he was skilful enough to have liv’d still, if knowledge could be set up against mortality.
BERTRAM
What is it, my good lord, the king languishes of?
LAFEW
A fistula, my lord.
BERTRAM
I heard not of it before.
LAFEW
I would it were not notorious. Was this gentlewoman the daughter of Gerard de Narbon?
COUNTESS
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 makes fair gifts fairer; for where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities, there commendations go with pity, they are virtues and traitors too.In her they are the better for their simpleness; she derives her honesty, and achieves her goodness.
LAFEW
Your commendations, madam, get from her tears.
COUNTESS
’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 livelihood from her cheek.No more of this, Helena; go to, no more, lest it be rather thought you affect a sorrow than to have.
HELENA
I do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have it too.
LAFEW
Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead; excessive grief the enemy to the living.
COUNTESS
If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal.
BERTRAM
Madam, I desire your holy wishes.
LAFEW
How understand we that?
COUNTESS
Be thou blest, Bertram, and succeed thy fatherIn manners, as in shape! Thy blood and virtueContend for empire in thee, and thy goodnessShare with thy birthright! Love all, trust a few,Do wrong to none. Be able for thine enemyRather in power than use; and keep thy friendUnder thy own life’s key. Be check’d for silence,But never tax’d for speech. What heaven more will,That thee may furnish and my prayers pluck down,Fall on thy head! Farewell. My lord,’Tis an unseason’d courtier; good my lord,Advise him.
LAFEW
He cannot want the bestThat shall attend his love.
COUNTESS
Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram.
Exit Countess.
BERTRAM
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.
LAFEW
Farewell, pretty lady, you must hold the credit of your father.
Exeunt Bertram and Lafew.
HELENA
O, were that all! I think not on my father,And these great tears grace his remembrance moreThan those I shed for him. What was he like?I have forgot him; my imaginationCarries no favour in’t but Bertram’s.I am undone: there is no living, none,If Bertram be away. ’Twere all oneThat I should love a bright particular star,And think to wed it, he is so above me.In his bright radiance and collateral lightMust I be comforted, not in his sphere.Th’ambition in my love thus plagues itself:The hind that would be mated by the lionMust die for love. ’Twas pretty, though a plague,To see him every hour; to sit and drawHis arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,In our heart’s table,—heart too capableOf every line and trick of his sweet favour.But now he’s gone, and my idolatrous fancyMust sanctify his relics. Who comes here?
Enter Parolles.
HELENA
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 so fit in himThat they take place when virtue’s steely bonesLooks bleak i’ th’ cold wind: withal, full oft we seeCold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.
PAROLLES
Save you, fair queen!
HELENA
And you, monarch!
PAROLLES
No.
HELENA
And no.
PAROLLES
Are you meditating on virginity?
HELENA
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?
PAROLLES
Keep him out.
HELENA
But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant, in the defence, yet is weak. Unfold to us some warlike resistance.
PAROLLES
There is none. Man setting down before you will undermine you and blow you up.
HELENA
Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers-up! Is there no military policy how virgins might blow up men?
PAROLLES
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!
HELENA
I will stand for’t a little, though therefore I die a virgin.
PAROLLES
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 the year it will make itself two, which is a goodly increase, and the principal itself not much the worse. Away with it!
HELENA
How might one do, sir, to lose it to her own liking?
PAROLLES
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 the toothpick, which wear not now.Your date is better in your pie and your porridge than in your cheek.And your virginity, your old virginity, is like one of our French wither’d pears; it looks ill, it eats drily; marry, ’tis a wither’d pear; it was formerly better; marry, yet ’tis a wither’d pear.Will you anything with it?
HELENA
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 worldOf pretty, fond, adoptious christendomsThat 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.
PAROLLES
What one, i’ faith?
HELENA
That I wish well. ’Tis pity—
PAROLLES
What’s pity?
HELENA
That wishing well had not a body in’tWhich 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 neverReturns us thanks.
Enter a Page.
PAGE
Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.
Exit Page.
PAROLLES
Little Helen, farewell. If I can remember thee, I will think of thee at court.
HELENA
Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable star.
PAROLLES
Under Mars, I.
HELENA
I especially think, under Mars.
PAROLLES
Why under Mars?
HELENA
The wars hath so kept you under, that you must needs be born under Mars.
PAROLLES
When he was predominant.
HELENA
When he was retrograde, I think rather.
PAROLLES
Why think you so?
HELENA
You go so much backward when you fight.
PAROLLES
That’s for advantage.
HELENA
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.
PAROLLES
I am so full of business I cannot answer thee acutely.I will return perfect courtier; in the which my instruction shall serve to naturalize thee, so thou wilt be capable 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.
Exit.
HELENA
Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated skyGives us free scope; only doth backward pullOur 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 bringsTo join like likes, and kiss like native things.Impossible be strange attempts to thoseThat weigh their pains in sense, and do supposeWhat hath been cannot be. Who ever stroveTo 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.
The home of Bertram, Count of Roussillon, and his mother, the Countess. Helena grows up in their household; the opening scenes and the final reconciliation take place here. The precise site of the count's house is unspecified.