Helena loves Bertram, who has entered the King’s service. With the Countess’s support, she offers her father’s remedy to the King. He agrees to try it, promising her a husband of her choice, except royal blood, if she succeeds. Bertram intends to leave secretly for war.
The Countess questions the Clown about his manners for court. He demonstrates an answer he claims will fit any question. She sends him to Helen with a message, orders him to bring an immediate reply, and sends greetings to her kinsmen and her son.
SCENE III. Paris. The King’s palace.
Enter Bertram, Lafew and Parolles.
LAFEW
They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons to make modern and familiar things supernatural and causeless.Hence is it that we make trifles of terrors, ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear.
PAROLLES
Why, ’tis the rarest argument of wonder that hath shot out in our latter times.
BERTRAM
And so ’tis.
LAFEW
To be relinquish’d of the artists,—
PAROLLES
So I say; both of Galen and Paracelsus.
LAFEW
Of all the learned and authentic fellows,—
PAROLLES
Right; so I say.
LAFEW
That gave him out incurable,—
PAROLLES
Why, there ’tis; so say I too.
LAFEW
Not to be helped.
PAROLLES
Right; as ’twere a man assur’d of a—
LAFEW
Uncertain life and sure death.
PAROLLES
Just; you say well. So would I have said.
LAFEW
I may truly say, it is a novelty to the world.
PAROLLES
It is indeed; if you will have it in showing, you shall read it in what do you call there?
LAFEW
A showing of a heavenly effect in an earthly actor.
PAROLLES
That’s it; I would have said the very same.
LAFEW
Why, your dolphin is not lustier; fore me, I speak in respect—
PAROLLES
Nay, ’tis strange, ’tis very strange; that is the brief and the tedious of it; and he’s of a most facinerious spirit that will not acknowledge it to be the—
LAFEW
Very hand of heaven.
PAROLLES
Ay, so I say.
LAFEW
In a most weak—
PAROLLES
And debile minister, great power, great transcendence, which should indeed give us a further use to be made than alone the recov’ry of the king, as to be—
LAFEW
Generally thankful.
PAROLLES
I would have said it; you say well. Here comes the king.
Enter King, Helena and Attendants.
LAFEW
Lustique, as the Dutchman says. I’ll like a maid the better, whilst I have a tooth in my head. Why, he’s able to lead her a coranto.
PAROLLES
Mor du vinager! is not this Helen?
LAFEW
Fore God, I think so.
KING
Go, call before me all the lords in court.
Exit an Attendant.
KING
Sit, my preserver, by thy patient’s side,And with this healthful hand, whose banish’d senseThou has repeal’d, a second time receiveThe confirmation of my promis’d gift,Which but attends thy naming.
Enter several Lords.
KING
Fair maid, send forth thine eye. This youthful parcelOf noble bachelors stand at my bestowing,O’er whom both sovereign power and father’s voiceI have to use. Thy frank election make;Thou hast power to choose, and they none to forsake.
HELENA
To each of you one fair and virtuous mistressFall, when love please! Marry, to each but one!
LAFEW
I’d give bay curtal and his furnitureMy mouth no more were broken than these boys’,And writ as little beard.
KING
Peruse them well.Not one of those but had a noble father.
She addresses her to a Lord.
HELENA
Gentlemen,Heaven hath through me restor’d the king to health.
ALL
We understand it, and thank heaven for you.
HELENA
I am a simple maid, and therein wealthiestThat I protest I simply am a maid.Please it, your majesty, I have done already.The blushes in my cheeks thus whisper me:“We blush that thou shouldst choose; but, be refused,Let the white death sit on thy cheek for ever,We’ll ne’er come there again.”
KING
Make choice; and, see,Who shuns thy love shuns all his love in me.
HELENA
Now, Dian, from thy altar do I fly,And to imperial Love, that god most high,Do my sighs stream. Sir, will you hear my suit?
FIRST LORD
And grant it.
HELENA
Thanks, sir; all the rest is mute.
LAFEW
I had rather be in this choice than throw ames-ace for my life.
HELENA
The honour, sir, that flames in your fair eyes,Before I speak, too threat’ningly replies.Love make your fortunes twenty times aboveHer that so wishes, and her humble love!
SECOND LORD
No better, if you please.
HELENA
My wish receive,Which great Love grant; and so I take my leave.
LAFEW
Do all they deny her? An they were sons of mine I’d have them whipp’d; or I would send them to th’ Turk to make eunuchs of.
HELENA
Be not afraid that I your hand should take;I’ll never do you wrong for your own sake.Blessing upon your vows, and in your bedFind fairer fortune, if you ever wed!
LAFEW
These boys are boys of ice, they’ll none have her. Sure, they are bastards to the English; the French ne’er got ’em.
HELENA
You are too young, too happy, and too good,To make yourself a son out of my blood.
FOURTH LORD
Fair one, I think not so.
LAFEW
There’s one grape yet. I am sure thy father drank wine. But if thou beest not an ass, I am a youth of fourteen; I have known thee already.
HELENA
I dare not say I take you, but I giveMe and my service, ever whilst I live,Into your guiding power. This is the man.
KING
Why, then, young Bertram, take her; she’s thy wife.
BERTRAM
My wife, my liege! I shall beseech your highness,In such a business give me leave to useThe help of mine own eyes.
KING
Know’st thou not, Bertram,What she has done for me?
BERTRAM
Yes, my good lord,But never hope to know why I should marry her.
KING
Thou know’st she has rais’d me from my sickly bed.
BERTRAM
But follows it, my lord, to bring me downMust answer for your raising? I know her well;She had her breeding at my father’s charge:A poor physician’s daughter my wife! DisdainRather corrupt me ever!
KING
’Tis only title thou disdain’st in her, the whichI can build up. Strange is it that our bloods,Of colour, weight, and heat, pour’d all together,Would quite confound distinction, yet stands offIn differences so mighty. If she beAll that is virtuous, save what thou dislik’st,A poor physician’s daughter,—thou dislik’st—Of virtue for the name. But do not so.From lowest place when virtuous things proceed,The place is dignified by the doer’s deed.Where great additions swell’s, and virtue none,It is a dropsied honour. Good aloneIs good without a name; vileness is so:The property by what it is should go,Not by the title. She is young, wise, fair;In these to nature she’s immediate heir;And these breed honour: that is honour’s scornWhich challenges itself as honour’s born,And is not like the sire. Honours thriveWhen rather from our acts we them deriveThan our fore-goers. The mere word’s a slave,Debauch’d on every tomb, on every graveA lying trophy, and as oft is dumbWhere dust and damn’d oblivion is the tombOf honour’d bones indeed. What should be said?If thou canst like this creature as a maid,I can create the rest. Virtue and sheIs her own dower; honour and wealth from me.
BERTRAM
I cannot love her, nor will strive to do ’t.
KING
Thou wrong’st thyself, if thou shouldst strive to choose.
HELENA
That you are well restor’d, my lord, I am glad.Let the rest go.
KING
My honour’s at the stake, which to defeat,I must produce my power. Here, take her hand,Proud scornful boy, unworthy this good gift,That dost in vile misprision shackle upMy love and her desert; that canst not dreamWe, poising us in her defective scale,Shall weigh thee to the beam; that wilt not knowIt is in us to plant thine honour whereWe please to have it grow. Check thy contempt;Obey our will, which travails in thy good;Believe not thy disdain, but presentlyDo thine own fortunes that obedient rightWhich both thy duty owes and our power claims;Or I will throw thee from my care for everInto the staggers and the careless lapseOf youth and ignorance; both my revenge and hateLoosing upon thee in the name of justice,Without all terms of pity. Speak! Thine answer!
BERTRAM
Pardon, my gracious lord; for I submitMy fancy to your eyes. When I considerWhat great creation, and what dole of honourFlies where you bid it, I find that she, which lateWas in my nobler thoughts most base, is nowThe praised of the king; who, so ennobled,Is as ’twere born so.
KING
Take her by the hand,And tell her she is thine; to whom I promiseA counterpoise; if not to thy estate,A balance more replete.
BERTRAM
I take her hand.
KING
Good fortune and the favour of the kingSmile upon this contract; whose ceremonyShall seem expedient on the now-born brief,And be perform’d tonight. The solemn feastShall more attend upon the coming space,Expecting absent friends. As thou lov’st her,Thy love’s to me religious; else, does err.
Exeunt King, Bertram, Helena, Lords, and Attendants.
LAFEW
Do you hear, monsieur? A word with you.
PAROLLES
Your pleasure, sir.
LAFEW
Your lord and master did well to make his recantation.
PAROLLES
Recantation! My lord! My master!
LAFEW
Ay. Is it not a language I speak?
PAROLLES
A most harsh one, and not to be understood without bloody succeeding. My master!
LAFEW
Are you companion to the Count Rossillon?
PAROLLES
To any count; to all counts; to what is man.
LAFEW
To what is count’s man: count’s master is of another style.
PAROLLES
You are too old, sir; let it satisfy you, you are too old.
LAFEW
I must tell thee, sirrah, I write man; to which title age cannot bring thee.
PAROLLES
What I dare too well do, I dare not do.
LAFEW
I did think thee, for two ordinaries, to be a pretty wise fellow; thou didst make tolerable vent of thy travel; it might pass.Yet the scarfs and the bannerets about thee did manifoldly dissuade me from believing thee a vessel of too great a burden.I have now found thee; when I lose thee again I care not.Yet art thou good for nothing but taking up, and that thou art scarce worth.
PAROLLES
Hadst thou not the privilege of antiquity upon thee—
LAFEW
Do not plunge thyself too far in anger, lest thou hasten thy trial; which if—Lord have mercy on thee for a hen!So, my good window of lattice, fare thee well; thy casement I need not open, for I look through thee. Give me thy hand.
PAROLLES
My lord, you give me most egregious indignity.
LAFEW
Ay, with all my heart; and thou art worthy of it.
PAROLLES
I have not, my lord, deserv’d it.
LAFEW
Yes, good faith, every dram of it; and I will not bate thee a scruple.
PAROLLES
Well, I shall be wiser.
LAFEW
Ev’n as soon as thou canst, for thou hast to pull at a smack o’ th’ contrary.If ever thou beest bound in thy scarf and beaten, thou shalt find what it is to be proud of thy bondage.I have a desire to hold my acquaintance with thee, or rather my knowledge, that I may say in the default, “He is a man I know.”
PAROLLES
My lord, you do me most insupportable vexation.
LAFEW
I would it were hell-pains for thy sake, and my poor doing eternal; for doing I am past, as I will by thee, in what motion age will give me leave.
Exit.
PAROLLES
Well, thou hast a son shall take this disgrace off me; scurvy, old, filthy, scurvy lord!Well, I must be patient; there is no fettering of authority.I’ll beat him, by my life, if I can meet him with any convenience, an he were double and double a lord.I’ll have no more pity of his age than I would have of—I’ll beat him, and if I could but meet him again.
Enter Lafew.
LAFEW
Sirrah, your lord and master’s married; there’s news for you; you have a new mistress.
PAROLLES
I most unfeignedly beseech your lordship to make some reservation of your wrongs. He is my good lord; whom I serve above is my master.
LAFEW
Who? God?
PAROLLES
Ay, sir.
LAFEW
The devil it is that’s thy master.Why dost thou garter up thy arms o’ this fashion?Dost make hose of thy sleeves? Do other servants so?Thou wert best set thy lower part where thy nose stands.By mine honour, if I were but two hours younger, I’d beat thee.Methink’st thou art a general offence, and every man should beat thee.I think thou wast created for men to breathe themselves upon thee.
PAROLLES
This is hard and undeserved measure, my lord.
LAFEW
Go to, sir; you were beaten in Italy for picking a kernel out of a pomegranate; you are a vagabond, and no true traveller.You are more saucy with lords and honourable personages than the commission of your birth and virtue gives you heraldry.You are not worth another word, else I’d call you knave. I leave you.
Exit.
Enter Bertram.
PAROLLES
Good, very good, it is so then. Good, very good; let it be conceal’d awhile.
BERTRAM
Undone, and forfeited to cares for ever!
PAROLLES
What’s the matter, sweetheart?
BERTRAM
Although before the solemn priest I have sworn,I will not bed her.
PAROLLES
What, what, sweetheart?
BERTRAM
O my Parolles, they have married me!I’ll to the Tuscan wars, and never bed her.
PAROLLES
France is a dog-hole, and it no more meritsThe tread of a man’s foot: to the wars!
BERTRAM
There’s letters from my mother; what th’ import isI know not yet.
PAROLLES
Ay, that would be known. To th’ wars, my boy, to th’ wars!He wears his honour in a box unseenThat hugs his kicky-wicky here at home,Spending his manly marrow in her arms,Which should sustain the bound and high curvetOf Mars’s fiery steed. To other regions!France is a stable; we that dwell in’t, jades,Therefore, to th’ war!
BERTRAM
It shall be so; I’ll send her to my house,Acquaint my mother with my hate to her,And wherefore I am fled; write to the kingThat which I durst not speak. His present giftShall furnish me to those Italian fieldsWhere noble fellows strike. War is no strifeTo the dark house and the detested wife.
PAROLLES
Will this caprichio hold in thee, art sure?
BERTRAM
Go with me to my chamber and advise me.I’ll send her straight away. TomorrowI’ll to the wars, she to her single sorrow.
PAROLLES
Why, these balls bound; there’s noise in it. ’Tis hard:A young man married is a man that’s marr’d.Therefore away, and leave her bravely; go.The king has done you wrong; but hush ’tis so.