so often met in the forest: he hath been a courtier, he swears. Touch. If any man doubt that, let him put me to my purgation. I have trod a measure; 1 have flattered a lady; I have been politic with my friend, smooth with mine enemy; I have undone three tailors; I have had four quarrels, and like to have fought one. Jaq. And how was that ta'en up? then I said so; and they shook hands, and swore brothers. Your is the only peacemaker; much virtue in If. Jaq. Is not this a rare fellow, my lord? he's as good at any thing, and yet a fool. Duke S. He uses his folly like a stalkinghorse, and under the presentation of that, he shoots his wit. Touch. 'Faith, we met, and found the quar- Enter HYMEN, leading ROSALIND in worel was upon the seventh cause. Jaq. How seventh cause?-Good my lord, like this fellow. Duke S. 1 like him very well. Touch. God'ild you, sir; I desire you of the like. I press in here, sir, amongst the rest of the country copulatives, to swear, and to forswear; according as marriage binds, and blood breaks: A poor virgin, sir, an ill-favored thing, sir, but mine own; a poor humor of mine, sir, to take that that no man else will: Rich honesty dwells like a miser, sir, in a poor house; as your pearl, in your foul oyster. Duke S. By my faith, he is very swift and sententious. Touch. According to the fool's bolt, sir, and such dulcet diseases. Jaq. But, for the seventh cause; how did you find the quarrel on the seventh cause? Touch. Upon a lie seven times removed:Bear your body more seeming, Audrey :-as thus, sir, I did dislike the cut of a certain courtier's beard; he sent me word, if I said his beard was not cut well, he was in the mind it. was: This is called the Retort courteous, If man's clothes; and CELIA. Still Music. Hym. Then is there mirth in heaven, Good duke, receive thy daughter, That thou might st join her hand with Whose heurt within her bosom is. Ros. To you I give myself, for I am yours:-[TO DUKE S. To you I give myself, for I am yours:— [TO ORLANDO. Duke S. If there be truth in sight, you are my daughter. Orl. If there be truth in sight, you are my Phe. If sight and shape be true, Ros. I'll have no father, if you be not he:- [To ORLANDO. "Tis I must make conclusion I sent him word again, it was not well cut, he'll have no husband, if you be not he:would send me word, he cut it to please himself: This is called the Quip medest. If, again, Nor ne'er wed woman, if you be not she:it was not well cut, he disabled my judgment: Hym. Peace, ho! I bar confusion: [TO PHEBE, This is call'd the Reply churlish. If,again,it was not well cut, he would answer, I spake not true: This is call'd the Reproof valiant. If, again, it was not well cut, he would say, I lie: This is called the Countercheck quarrelsome: and so to the Lie circumstantial, and the Lie direct. Jaq. And how oft did you say, his beard was not well cut? Touch. I durst go no further than the Lie circumstantial, nor he durst not give me the Lie direct; and so we measured swords, and parted. Jaq. Can you nominate in order now the degrees of the lie? Touch. O sir, we quarrel in print, by the book; as you have books for good manners: I will name you the degrees. The first, the Retort courteous; the second, the Quip modest; the third, the Reply churlish; the fourth, the Reproof valiant; the fifth, the Countercheck quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with circumstance; the seventh, the Lie direct. All these you may avoid, but the Lie direct: and you may avoid that too, with an If. I knew when seven justices could not take up a quarrel; but when the parties were met themselves, one of them thought but of an If, as, If you said so, | VOL. I. Of these most strange events: If truth holds true contents. [To ORLANDO and ROSALIND, You and you are heart in heart: [To OLIVER and CELIA. [ToTOUCHSTONE and AUDREY, SONG. Wedding is great Juno's crown; O blessed bond of board and bed! 'Tis Hymen peoples every town High wedlock then be honored: Duke S. O my dear niece, welcome thou | According to the measure of their states. art to me; Even daughter, welcome in no less degree. Phe. I will not eat my word, now thou art mine; Thy faith my fancy to thee doth combine. [TO SILVIUS. Enter JAQUEs de Bois. Meantime, forget this new-fall'n dignity, Play, music ;-and you brides and bridegrooms With measure heap'd in joy, to the measures fall. Jaq. de B. Let me have audience for a And thrown into neglect the pompous court? word or two; I am the second son of old sir Rowland, Duke S. Shall share the good of our returned fortune, Jaq. de B. He hath. Jaq. To him will I: out of these convertites There is much matter to be heard and learn'd.You to your former honor I bequeath; [TO DUKE S. Your patience, and your virtue, well deserves it: You [To ORLANDO] to a love, that your true faith doth merit: You [To OLIVER] to your land, and love, and great allies; You [70 SILVIUS] to a long and well deserved bed; And you [To TOUCHSTONE] to wrangling; for thy loving voyage Is but for two months victual'd:-So to your pleasures; I am for other than for dancing measures. Jaq. To see no pastime, I:-what you would have I'll stay to know at your abandon'd cave. [Exit. Duke S. Proceed, proceed: we will begin these rites, And we do trust they'll end in true delights. [A dance. EPILOGUE. Ros. It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue: but it is no more unhandsome, than to see the lord the prologue. If it be true, that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good play needs no epilogue: Yet to good wine they do use good bushes; and good plays prove the better by the help of good epilogues. What a case am I in then, that am neither a good epilogue, nor cannot insinuate with you in the behalf of a good play? I am not furnished like a beggar, therefore to beg will not become me: my way is, to conjure you; and I'll begin with the women. I charge you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of this play as please them: and so I charge you, O men, for the love you bear to women, (as I perceive, by your simpering, none of you hate them,) that between you and the women, the play may please. If I were a woman, I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me. complexions that liked me, and breaths that I defied not: and, I am sure, as many as have good beards, or good faces, or sweet breaths, will, for my kind offer, when I make curt'sy, bid me farewell. [Exeunt. ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. King of France. Duke of Florence. BERTRAM, Count of Rousillon. LAFEU, an old Lord. Persons represented. PAROLLES, a follower of Bertram. Lords, attending on the King; Officers, Soldiers, &c. French and Florentine. SCENE,-partly in France, and partly in Tuscany. ACT I. SCENE I. Rousillon. A Room in the Countess's Palace. Enter BERTRAM, the COUNTESS of Rousillon, HELENA, & LAFEU, in mourning. Count. In delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband. Ber. And I, in going, madam, weep o'er my father's death anew: but I must attend his majesty's command, to whom I am now in ward, evermore in subjection. Laf. 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 than lack it where there is such abundance. Count. What hope is there of his majesty's amendment? Laf. He hath abandoned his physicians, madam; under whose practices he hath persecuted time with hope; and finds no other advantage in the process but only the losing of hope by time. Count. This young gentlewoman had a father, (0, 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 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. Laf. How called you the man you speak of, madam? Count. He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his great right to be so; Gerard de Narbon. Laf. 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. Ber. What is it, my good lord, the king languishes of? Laf. A fistula, my lord. Ber. I heard not of it before. Laf. I would, it were not notorious.-Was this gentlewoman the daughter of Gerard de Narbon? Count. His sole child, my lord; and bequeathed to my overlooking. 1 have those hopes of her good, that her education promises: her dispositions she inherits, which make fair gifts fairer; for where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities, there 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. Laf. Your commendations madam, get from her tears. Count. 'Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise 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 to have. Hel. I do affect a sorrow, indeed, but I have it too. Laf. Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead, excessive grief the enemy to the living. Count. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal. Ber. Madam, I desire your holy wishes. Laf. How understand we that? Count. 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 Share with thy birth-right! Love all, trust a few, Do wrong to none: be able for hine enemy Rather in power, thannse; and keep thy friend Under thy own life's key: be check'd for silence, But never tax'd for speech. What heaven more will, That thee ay furnish, and my prayers plack down, Fall on thy head! Farewell.-My lord, Luf. tram. He cannot want the best That shall attend his love. Count. Heaven bless him!-Farewell, Ber[Erit COUNTESS. Ber. The best wishes, that can be forged in your thoughts, [TO HELENA] be servants to you! Be comfortable to my mother, your mistress, and make much of her. Laf. Farewell, pretty lady: You must hold the credit of your father. [Exeunt BERTRAM and LAFEU." Hel. O, were that all!-I think not on my father; And these great tears grace his remembrance more Than those I shed for him. What was he like? a Par. Are you meditating on virginity? in you; let me ask you a question: Man is enemy to virginity; how may we barricado it against him? Par. Keep him out. Hel. But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant in the defence, yet is weak: unfold to us some warlike resistance. Par. There is none; man, sitting down before you, will undermine you, and blow you up. Hel. Bless our poor virginity from underminers, and blowers up!-Is there no military policy, how virgins might blow up men? Par. 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 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 it. Hel. I will stand for't a little, though therefore I die a virgin. Pur. 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: 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. Besides, virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made of self-love, which is the most inhibited sin in the canon. Keep it not: yon cannot choose but lose by't: Out with't: within ten years it will make itself ten, which is a goodly increase; and the principal itself not much the worse: Away with't. Hel. How might one do, sir, to lose it to her own liking? Par. 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, while 'tis vendible: answer the time of request. Virginity, like an old conrtier, wears her cap out of fashion; richly suited, but unsuitable: just like the brooch and tooth-pick, which wear not now: Your date is better in your pic and your porridge, than in your cheek: And your virginity, your old virginity, is like one of our French withered pears; it looks ill, it eats dryly: marry, 'tis a withered pear; it was formerly better; marry, yet, 'tis a withered pear: Will you any thing with it? Hel. Not my virginity yet. There shall your master have a thousand loves, Par. Under Mars, I. Hel. I especially think, under Mars. Par. Why under Mars? ceive it A certainty, vouch'd from our cousin Austria, It may well serve Hel. The wars have so kept you under, that A nursery to our gentry, who are sick you must needs be born under Mars. Par. When he was predominant. Hel. When he was retrograde, I think, rather. Par. Why think you so? Hel. You go so much backward, when you fight. Pur. That's for advantage. Hel. So is running away, when fear proposes the safety: But the composition, that your valor and fear makes in you, is a virtue of a good wing, and I like the wear well. Par. I am so full of business, 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 counsel, aud understand what advice shall thrust upon thee; else thou diest in thine uuthankfulness, 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, and use him as he uses thee: so farewell. [Exit. Hel. Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky Gives us free scope; only, doth backward pull 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. Impossible be strange attempts, to those That weigh their pains in sense; and do suppose, What hath been cannot be: Who ever strove To show her merit, that did miss her love? King. What's he comes here? Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES. 1 Lord. It is the count Rousillon, my good lord, Young Bertram. King. Youth, thou bearst thy father's face; Frank nature, rather curious than in haste, Hath well composed thee. Thy father's moral parts Mayst thou inherit too! Welcome to Paris. Ber. My thanks and duty are your majesty's. king. I would I had that corporal soundness now, As when thy father, and myself, in friendship First try'd our soldiership! He did look far Into the service of the time, and was Discipled of the bravest : he lasted long; But on us both did haggish age steal on, It much repairs me And wore us out of act. To talk of your good father: In his youth He had the wit, which I can well observe To-day in our young lords; but they may jest, Till their own scorn return to them unnoted, Ere they can hide their levity in honor. So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness Were in his pride or sharpness: if they were, His equal had awaked them; and his houor, Clock to itself, knew the true minute when Exception bid him speak, and, at this time, His tongue obey'd his hand: who were below him He used as creatures of another place; |