| [Enter COUNTESS and Clown] | |
| COUNTESS | It hath happened 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 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. |
| COUNTESS | What have we here? |
| Clown | E'en that you have there. |
| [Exit] | |
| COUNTESS | [Reads] 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. 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 For the contempt of empire. |
| [Re-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 killed so soon as I thought he would. |
| COUNTESS | Why should he be killed? |
| 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 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 grief, That the first face of neither, on the start, Can 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 dispatch in hand at court, Thither we bend again. |
| HELENA | Look on his letter, madam; here's my passport. |
| [Reads] | |
| 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 pain. |
| COUNTESS | 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; 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 honour That good convenience claims. |
| COUNTESS | Return you thither? |
| First Gentleman | Ay, madam, with the swiftest wing of speed. |
| HELENA | [Reads] 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 him 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 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 nature With his inducement. |
| First Gentleman | Indeed, good lady, The fellow has a deal of that too much, Which holds him much to have. |
| COUNTESS | You're welcome, gentlemen. I will entreat you, when you see my son, To tell him that his sword can never win The honour that he loses: more I'll entreat you Written 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, 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 Of the none-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, 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 cause His death was so effected: better 'twere 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, 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 The air of paradise did fan the house And angels officed all: I will be gone, That pitiful rumour may report my flight, To consolate thine ear. Come, night; end, day! For with the dark, poor thief, I'll steal away. |
| [Exit] |