LAF. Why, doctor she; my lord, there's one arriv'd, If you will see her,-now, by my faith and honour, KING. Nay, I'll fit you, And not be all day neither. [Exit LAFEU. KING. Thus he his special nothing ever prologues. HEL. The rather will I spare my praises towards him; Knowing him, is enough. On's bed of death Safer than mine own two more dear: I have so; Of KING. We thank you, maiden; But may not be so credulous of cure, When our most learned doctors leave us; and The congregated college have concluded That labouring art can never ransom nature From her inaidable estate; I say we must not So stain our judgment, or corrupt our hope, To prostitute our past-cure malady To empirics; or to dissever so A senseless help, when help past sense we deem. grateful: KING. I cannot give thee less, to be call'd [give, Thou thought'st to help me, and such thanks I As one near death to those that wish him live: But, what at full I know, thou know'st no part; I knowing all my peril, thou no art. HEL. What I can do, can do no hurt to try, From simple sources; and great seas have dried, KING. I must not hear thee; fare thee well, Thy pains, not us'd, must by thyself be paid: HEL. Inspired merit so by breath is barr'd: HEL. The great'st grace lending grace, Ere twice the horses of the sun shall bring Their fiery torcher his diurnal ring; Ere twice in murk and occidental damp Moist Hesperus hath quench'd his† sleepy lamp; Or four and twenty times the pilot's glass Hath told the thievish minutes how they pass; What is infirm, from your sound parts shall fly, Health shall live free, and sickness freely die. KING. Upon thy certainty and confidence, What dar'st thou venture? HEL. Tax of impudence,A strumpet's boldness, a divulged shame,Traduc'd by odious ballads; my maiden's name Of what I spoke, unpitied let me die; But will you make it even? To choose from forth the royal blood of France; KING. Here is my hand; the premises observ'd, SCENE II.-Rousillon. A Room in the Enter COUNTESS and Clown. COUNT. Come on, sir; I shall now put you to the height of your breeding. CLO. I will show myself highly fed, and lowly taught: I know my business is but to the court. a Ne worse of worst extended,-] This is the lection of the old copy, and, although unquestionably corrupt, it is not worse than the commentators' suggestions for its amendment. We should, perhaps, approach nearer to what the poet really wrote by treating ne and extended as palpable misprints, and reading :and, worse of worst expended, With vilest torture let my life be ended." b Impossibility-] That is, incredibility. e But will you make it even?] That is, Will you equale it? Will you match it? See note (a), p. 11, of the present volume. COUNT. To the court, why, what place make you special, when you put off that with such contempt? But to the court! CLO. Truly, madam, if God have lent a man any manners, he may easily put it off at court: he that cannot make a leg, put off's cap, kiss his hand, and say nothing, has neither leg, hands, lip, nor cap; and indeed, such a fellow, to say precisely, were not for the court: but, for me, I have an answer will serve all men. COUNT. Marry, that's a bountiful answer, that fits all questions. CLO. It is like a barber's chair, that fits all buttocks; the pin-buttock, the quatch-buttock, the brawn-buttock, or any buttock. COUNT. Will your answer serve fit to all questions? CLO. As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, as your French crown for your taffata punk, as Tib's rush for Tom's fore-finger, as a pancake for Shrove-Tuesday, a morris for May-day,(4) as the nail to his hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding quean to a wrangling knave, as the nun's lip to the friar's mouth; nay, as the pudding to his skin. COUNT. Have you, I say, an answer of such fitness for all questions? CLO. From below your duke, to beneath your constable, it will fit any question. COUNT. It must be an answer of most monstrous size, that must fit all demands. CLO. But a trifle neither, in good faith, if the learned should speak truth of it: here it is, and all that belongs to't ask me, if I am a courtier; it shall do you no harm to learn. COUNT. To be young again, if we could. I will be a fool in question, hoping to be the wiser by your answer. I pray you, sir, are you a courtier ? CLO. O Lord, sir!-There's a simple putting off; more, more, a hundred of them. COUNT. Sir, I am a poor friend of yours, that loves you. CLO. O Lord, sir !-Thick, thick, spare not me. COUNT. I think, sir, you can eat none of this homely meat. CLO. O Lord, sir!-Nay, put me to't, I warrant you. COUNT. You were lately whipped, sir, as I think. CLO. O Lord, sir !-Spare not me. COUNT. Do you cry, O Lord, sir, at your whip And my hopes of heaven.] The old copy has help. The correction, which is due to Dr. Thiriby, seems called for both by the context and the rhyme. It is observable that much of this scene is in smooth, rhyming verses; it was a portion probably of the poet's first youthful conception, for we cannot divest ourselves of the impression that at a subsequent period of his career he rewrote a considerable part of this play. e O Lord, sir!] The use of this expletive, which appears to have been thought the mode both in court and city, has been finely ridiculed by Jonson also. See "Every Man out of his Humour," Act III. Sc. 1, and passim. ping, and spare not me? Indeed, your O Lord, sir, is very sequent to your whipping; you would answer very well to a whipping, if you were but bound to't. CLO. I ne'er had worse luck in my life, in my -O Lord, sir: I see things may serve long, but not serve ever. COUNT. I play the noble housewife with the time, to entertain it so merrily with a fool. CLO. O Lord, sir!-Why, there't serves well again. COUNT. An end, sir: to your business. And urge her to a present answer back: CLO. Not much commendation to them. Give LAF. To be relinquished of the artists,-- LAF. That gave him out incurable,- PAR. Right: as 't were, a man assured of a-- PAR. Just, you say well; so would I have said. LAF. I may truly say, it is a novelty to the world. PAR. It is, indeed: if you will have it in (*) First folio, And. a Lustique,-] "An old play, that has a great deal of merit, call'd The weakest goeth to the Wall,' (printed in 1600, but how much earlier written, or by whom written, we are no where inform'd,) has in it a Dutchman, call'd-Jacob van Smelt, who speaks a jargon of Dutch and our language; and upon several occasions uses this very word, which in English is-lusty."-CAPELL Fair maid, send forth thine eye this youthful parcel Of noble bachelors stand at my bestowing, HEL. To each of you, one fair and virtuous mistress (*) First folio, facinerious. b A coranto.] The coranto was a dance distinguished for the liveliness and rapidity of its movements.- "And teach lavoltas high, and swift corantos."- Let the white death sit on thy cheek for ever; HEL. Be not afraid [To a Lord.] that I I'll never do you wrong for your own sake: your LAF. These boys are boys of ice, they'll none have her sure, they are bastards to the English; the French ne'er got them. [good, HEL. You are too young, too happy, and too To make yourself a son out of my blood. 4 LORD. Fair one, I think not so. LAF. There's one grape yet,-I am sure thy father drank wine. But if thou be'st not an ass, I am a youth of fourteen; I have known thee already. HEL. I dare not say, I take you; [To BERTRAM.] Me and my service, ever whilst I live, KING. Why then, young Bertram, take her, BER. My wife, my liege? I shall beseech your highness, In such a business give me leave to use The help of mine own eyes. KING. Know'st thou not, Bertram, What she has done for me? BER. 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. BER. But follows it, my lord, to bring me down, a There's one grape yet. -I am sure thy father drank wine.] We are to suppose that Lafeu, who has been in conversation with Paroiles, had not heard the discourse between Helena and the young courtiers, but believed she had propose to each, and been refused by all but the one now in question. The after-part of his Must answer for your raising? I know her well; KING. 'Tis only title thou disdain'st in her, the which I can build up. Strange is it, that our bloods, All that is virtuous, (save what thou dislik'st, Is good, without a name; vileness is so : I can create the rest: virtue, and she, KING. My honour's at the stake; which to defeat, I must produce my power. Here, take her hand, Shall weigh thee to the beam; that wilt not know, (*) Old text, whence. claims; (+) First folio, is. speech, "But if thou be'st not an ass," &c. refers, (aside,) to Parolles. |