Helena has cured the King and chosen Bertram as her husband. He marries her under the King’s orders but refuses to bed her. Planning to fight in Italy with Parolles, he sends Helena home with a letter for his mother and refuses her a farewell kiss.
The Duke of Florence explains the war to two French lords and questions France’s refusal to help. One lord predicts that more young Frenchmen will join him. The Duke welcomes them, promises honours and advancement, and orders his forces into the field tomorrow.
SCENE II. Rossillon. A room in the Countess’s palace.
Enter Countess and Clown.
COUNTESS
It hath happen’d all as I would have had it, save that he comes not along with her.
CLOWN
By my troth, I take my young lord to be a very melancholy man.
COUNTESS
By what observance, I pray you?
CLOWN
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.
COUNTESS
Let me see what he writes, and when he means to come.
Opening a letter.
CLOWN
I have no mind to Isbel since I was at court.Our old lings and our Isbels o’ th’ country are nothing like your old ling and your Isbels o’ th’ court.The brains of my Cupid’s knock’d out, and I begin to love, as an old man loves money, with no stomach.
COUNTESS
What have we here?
CLOWN
E’en that you have there.
Exit.
COUNTESS
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.
COUNTESS
This is not well, rash and unbridled boy,To fly the favours of so good a king,To pluck his indignation on thy headBy the misprizing of a maid too virtuousFor the contempt of empire.
Enter Clown.
CLOWN
O madam, yonder is heavy news within between two soldiers and my young lady.
COUNTESS
What is the matter?
CLOWN
Nay, there is some comfort in the news, some comfort; your son will not be kill’d so soon as I thought he would.
COUNTESS
Why should he be kill’d?
CLOWN
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 the two Gentlemen.
FIRST GENTLEMAN
Save you, good madam.
HELENA
Madam, my lord is gone, for ever gone.
SECOND GENTLEMAN
Do not say so.
COUNTESS
Think upon patience. Pray you, gentlemen,—I have felt so many quirks of joy and griefThat the first face of neither on the startCan woman me unto ’t. Where is my son, I pray you?
SECOND GENTLEMAN
Madam, he’s gone to serve the Duke of Florence;We met him thitherward, for thence we came,And, after some despatch in hand at court,Thither we bend again.
HELENA
Look on this letter, madam; here’s my passport.
HELENA
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.
COUNTESS
Brought you this letter, gentlemen?
FIRST GENTLEMAN
Ay, madam; And for the contents’ sake, are sorry for our pains.
COUNTESS
I pr’ythee, lady, have a better cheer;If thou engrossest all the griefs are thine,Thou robb’st me of a moiety. He was my son,But I do wash his name out of my blood,And thou art all my child. Towards Florence is he?
SECOND GENTLEMAN
Ay, madam.
COUNTESS
And to be a soldier?
SECOND GENTLEMAN
Such is his noble purpose, and, believe’t,The duke will lay upon him all the honourThat good convenience claims.
COUNTESS
Return you thither?
FIRST GENTLEMAN
Ay, madam, with the swiftest wing of speed.
HELENA
Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France.’Tis bitter.
COUNTESS
Find you that there?
HELENA
Ay, madam.
FIRST GENTLEMAN
’Tis but the boldness of his hand haply, which his heart was not consenting to.
COUNTESS
Nothing in France until he have no wife!There’s nothing here that is too good for himBut only she, and she deserves a lordThat twenty such rude boys might tend upon,And call her hourly mistress. Who was with him?
FIRST GENTLEMAN
A servant only, and a gentleman which I have sometime known.
COUNTESS
Parolles, was it not?
FIRST GENTLEMAN
Ay, my good lady, he.
COUNTESS
A very tainted fellow, and full of wickedness.My son corrupts a well-derived natureWith his inducement.
FIRST GENTLEMAN
Indeed, good lady,The fellow has a deal of that too much,Which holds him much to have.
COUNTESS
Y’are welcome, gentlemen.I will entreat you, when you see my son,To tell him that his sword can never winThe honour that he loses: more I’ll entreat youWritten to bear along.
SECOND GENTLEMAN
We serve you, madam,In that and all your worthiest affairs.
COUNTESS
Not so, but as we change our courtesies.Will you draw near?
Exeunt Countess and Gentlemen.
HELENA
“Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France.”Nothing in France until he has no wife!Thou shalt have none, Rossillon, none in France;Then hast thou all again. Poor lord, is’t IThat chase thee from thy country, and exposeThose tender limbs of thine to the eventOf the none-sparing war? And is it IThat drive thee from the sportive court, where thouWast shot at with fair eyes, to be the markOf smoky muskets? O you leaden messengers,That ride upon the violent speed of fire,Fly with false aim; move the still-peering air,That sings with piercing; do not touch my lord.Whoever shoots at him, I set him there;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 causeHis death was so effected. Better ’twereI met the ravin lion when he roar’dWith sharp constraint of hunger; better ’twereThat all the miseries which nature owesWere mine at once. No; come thou home, Rossillon,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, althoughThe air of paradise did fan the house,And angels offic’d all. I will be gone,That pitiful rumour may report my flightTo consolate thine ear. Come, night; end, day;For with the dark, poor thief, I’ll steal away.
What does Bertram report in his letter to the Countess?
Reading
Reading
Locations
RoussillonScene
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.
Set here · 9 quotes in this scene
Also mentioned
Paris4 quotes in this scene · characters travel here or from here
Florence4 quotes in this scene · characters travel here or from here