Act I, Scene 1

Rousillon. The COUNT’s palace.

Enter BERTRAM, the COUNTESS of Rousillon, HELENA,] [p]and LAFEU, 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 5
  whom I am now in ward, evermore in subjection.

• Lafeu. 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 10
  than lack it where there is such abundance.

• Countess. What hope is there of his majesty's amendment?

• Lafeu. He hath abandoned his physicians, madam; under whose
  practises he hath persecuted time with hope, and
  finds no other advantage in the process but only the 15
  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 stretched so
  far, would have made nature immortal, and death 20
  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.

• Lafeu. How called you the man you speak of, madam?

• Countess. He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was 25
  his great right to be so: Gerard de Narbon.

• Lafeu. He was excellent indeed, madam: the king very
  lately spoke of him admiringly and mourningly: he
  was skilful enough to have lived still, if knowledge
  could be set up against mortality. 30

• Bertram. What is it, my good lord, the king languishes of?

• Lafeu. A fistula, my lord.

• Bertram. I heard not of it before.

• Lafeu. I would it were not notorious. Was this gentlewoman
  the daughter of Gerard de Narbon? 35

• 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 40
  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.

• Lafeu. Your commendations, madam, get from her tears.

• Countess. 'Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise 45
  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 have it. 50

• Helena. I do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have it too.

• Lafeu. 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. 55

• Bertram. Madam, I desire your holy wishes.

• Lafeu. How understand we that?

• Countess. Be thou blest, Bertram, and succeed thy father
  In manners, as in shape! thy blood and virtue
  Contend for empire in thee, and thy goodness 60
  Share with thy birthright! Love all, trust a few,
  Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy
  Rather in power than use, and keep thy friend
  Under thy own life's key: be cheque'd for silence,
  But never tax'd for speech. What heaven more will, 65
  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.

• Lafeu. He cannot want the best 70
  That shall attend his love.

• Countess. Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram.

[Exit]

• Bertram. [To HELENA] The best wishes that can be forged in
  your thoughts be servants to you! Be comfortable 75
  to my mother, your mistress, and make much of her.

• Lafeu. Farewell, pretty lady: you must hold the credit of
  your father.

[Exeunt BERTRAM and LAFEU]

• Helena. O, were that all! I think not on my father; 80
  And these great tears grace his remembrance more
  Than those I shed for him. What was he like?
  I have forgot him: my imagination
  Carries no favour in't but Bertram's.
  I am undone: there is no living, none, 85
  If Bertram be away. 'Twere all one
  That I should love a bright particular star
  And think to wed it, he is so above me:
  In his bright radiance and collateral light
  Must I be comforted, not in his sphere. 90
  The ambition in my love thus plagues itself:
  The hind that would be mated by the lion
  Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, though plague,
  To see him every hour; to sit and draw
  His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls, 95
  In our heart's table; heart too capable
  Of every line and trick of his sweet favour:
  But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
  Must sanctify his reliques. Who comes here?
  [Enter PAROLLES] 100
  [Aside]
  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 fixed evils sit so fit in him, 105
  That they take place, when virtue's steely bones
  Look bleak i' the cold wind: withal, full oft we see
  Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.

• Parolles. Save you, fair queen!

• Helena. And you, monarch! 110

• 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 115
  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. 120

• Parolles. There is none: man, sitting 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? 125

• 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 130
  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 't! 135

• 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: 140
  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. 145
  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 loose
  by't: out with 't! within ten year it will make
  itself ten, which is a goodly increase; and the 150
  principal itself not much the worse: away with 't!

• 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 155
  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 tooth-pick, which wear not
  now. Your date is better in your pie and your 160
  porridge than in your cheek; and your virginity,
  your old virginity, is like one of our French
  withered pears, it looks ill, it eats drily; marry,
  'tis a withered pear; it was formerly better;
  marry, yet 'tis a withered pear: will you anything with it? 165

• 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, 170
  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 world
  Of pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms, 175
  That 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— 180

• Parolles. What's pity?

• Helena. That wishing well had not a body in't,
  Which 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, 185
  And show what we alone must think, which never
  Return us thanks.

[Enter Page]

• Page. Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.

[Exit]

• 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. 195

• Parolles. Why under Mars?

• Helena. The wars have 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. 200

• 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 205
  in you is a virtue of a good wing, and I like the wear well.

• Parolles. I am so full of businesses, 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 210
  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, 215
  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 sky
  Gives us free scope, only doth backward pull 220
  Our 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 brings
  To join like likes and kiss like native things. 225
  Impossible be strange attempts to those
  That weigh their pains in sense and do suppose
  What hath been cannot be: who ever strove
  So show her merit, that did miss her love?
  The king's disease—my project may deceive me, 230
  But my intents are fix'd and will not leave me.

[Exit]