Ere twice the horses of the sun shall bring

  Their fiery coacher his diurnal ring,

  Ere twice in murk and occidental damp

  Moist Hesperus hath quenched her 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?

  HELEN

  Tax of impudence,

  A strumpet’s boldness, a divulged shame;

  Traduced by odious ballads, my maiden’s name

  Seared otherwise, nay—worse of worst—extended

  With vilest torture, let my life be ended.

  KING

  Methinks in thee some blessèd spirit doth speak,

  His powerful sound within an organ weak;

  And what impossibility would slay

  In common sense, sense saves another way.

  Thy life is dear, for all that life can rate

  Worth name of life in thee hath estimate:

  Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, all

  That happiness and prime can happy call.

  Thou this to hazard needs must intimate

  Skill infinite, or monstrous desperate.

  Sweet practiser, thy physic I will try,

  That ministers thine own death if I die.

  HELEN

  If I break time, or flinch in property

  Of what I spoke, unpitied let me die,

  And well deserved. Not helping, death’s my fee.

  But if I help, what do you promise me?

  KING

  Make thy demand.

  HELEN

  But will you make it even?

  KING

  Ay, by my sceptre and my hopes of heaven.

  HELEN

  Then shalt thou give me with thy kingly hand

  What husband in thy power I will command.

  Exempted be from me the arrogance

  To choose from forth the royal blood of France,

  My low and humble name to propagate

  With any branch or image of thy state;

  But such a one, thy vassal, whom I know

  Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow.

  KING

  Here is my hand. The premises observed,

  Thy will by my performance shall be served.

  So make the choice of thy own time, for I,

  Thy resolved patient, on thee still rely.

  More should I question thee, and more I must,

  Though more to know could not be more to trust:

  From whence thou cam’st, how tended on—but rest

  Unquestioned welcome, and undoubted blessed.—

  Give me some help here, ho! If thou proceed

  As high as word, my deed shall match thy deed.

  Flourish. Exeunt the King, ⌈carried⌉, and Helen

  2.2 Enter the Countess and Lavatch the clown

  COUNTESS Come on, sir. I shall now put you to the height of your breeding.

  LAVATCH I will show myself highly fed and lowly taught. I know my business is but to the court.

  COUNTESS ‘To the court’? Why, what place make you special, when you put off that with such contempt? ‘But to the court’!

  LAVATCH 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.

  COUNTESS Marry, that’s a bountiful answer that fits all questions.

  LAVATCH It is like a barber’s chair that fits all buttocks: the pin-buttock, the quatch-buttock, the brawn-buttock, or any buttock.

  COUNTESS Will your answer serve fit to all questions?

  LAVATCH As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, as your French crown for your taffeta punk, as Tib’s rush for Tom’s forefinger, as a pancake for Shrove Tuesday, a morris for May Day, 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.

  COUNTESS Have you, I say, an answer of such fitness for all questions?

  LAVATCH From beyond your duke to beneath your constable, it will fit any question.

  COUNTESS It must be an answer of most monstrous size that must fit all demands.

  LAVATCH 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.

  COUNTESS 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?

  LAVATCH O Lord, sir!—There’s a simple putting off. More, more, a hundred of them.

  COUNTESS Sir, I am a poor friend of yours that loves you.

  LAVATCH O Lord, sir!—Thick, thick, spare not me.

  COUNTESS I think, sir, you can eat none of this homely meat.

  LAVATCH O Lord, sir!—Nay, put me to’t, I warrant you.

  COUNTESS You were lately whipped, sir, as I think.

  LAVATCH O Lord, sir!—Spare not me.

  COUNTESS Do you cry ‘O Lord, sir!’ at your whipping, 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.

  LAVATCH I ne‘er had worse luck in my life in my ‘O Lord, sir!’ I see things may serve long, but not serve ever.

  COUNTESS I play the noble housewife with the time, to entertain it so merrily with a fool.

  LAVATCH O Lord, sir!—Why, there’t serves well again. COUNTESS

  An end, sir! To your business: give Helen this,

  She gives him a letter

  And urge her to a present answer back.

  Commend me to my kinsmen and my son.

  This is not much.

  LAVATCH Not much commendation to them?

  COUNTESS Not much employment for you. You understand me.

  LAVATCH Most fruitfully. I am there before my legs.

  COUNTESS Haste you again.

  Exeunt severally

  2.3 Enter Bertram, Lafeu ⌈with a ballad], and Paroles

  LAFEU They say miracles are past, and we have our philosophical persons to make modern and familiar things supernatural and causeless. Hence is it that we make trifles of terrors, ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear.

  PAROLES Why, ’tis the rarest argument of wonder that hath shot out in our latter times.

  BERTRAM And so ’tis.

  LAFEU To be relinquished of the artists—

  PAROLES So I say—both of Galen and Paracelsus.

  LAFEU Of all the learned and authentic Fellows—

  PAROLES Right, so I say.

  LAFEU That gave him out incurable—

  PAROLES Why, there ’tis, so say I too.

  LAFEU Not to be helped.

  PAROLES Right, as ’twere a man assured of a—

  LAFEU Uncertain life and sure death.

  PAROLES Just, you say well, so would I have said.

  LAFEU I may truly say it is a novelty to the world.

  PAROLES It is indeed. If you will have it in showing, you shall read it in [pointing to the ballad] what-do-ye-call there.

  LAFEU ⌈reads⌉ ‘A showing of a heavenly effect in an earthly actor.’

  PAROLES That’s it, I would have said the very same.

  LAFEU Why, your dolphin is not lustier. Fore me, I speak in respect—

  PAROLES Nay, ‘tis strange, ’tis very strange, that is the brief and the tedious of it, and he’s of a most facinorous spirit that will not acknowledge it to be the—

  LAFEU Very hand of heaven.

  PAROLES Ay, so I say.

  LAFEU In a most weak—

  PAROLES And debile minister great power, great transcendence, which should indeed give us a further use to be made than alone the recov’ry of the king, as to be—

  LAFEU Generally thankful.

  Enter the King, Helen, and attendants

  PAROLES I would have said it, you say well. Here comes the King.

  LAFEU Lustig, as the Dutchman says. I’ll like a maid the better whilst I have a tooth in my head.

  ⌈The King and Helen dance⌉

  Why, he’s able to lead her a coranto.

  PAROLES Mort du vinaigre, is not this Helen?

  LAFEU Fore God, I think so.

  KING

  Go call before me all the lords in court.

  Exit one or more

  Sit, my preserver, by thy patient’s side,⌈The King and Helen sit]

  And with this healthful hand whose banished sense

  Thou hast repealed, a second time receive

  The confirmation of my promised gift,

  Which but attends thy naming.

  Enter four Lords

  Fair maid, send forth thine eye. This youthful parcel

  Of noble bachelors stand at my bestowing,

  O’er whom both sovereign power and father’s voice

  I have to use. Thy frank election make.

  Thou hast power to choose, and they none to forsake.

  HELEN

  To each of you one fair and virtuous mistress

  Fall when love please. Marry, to each but one.

  LAFEU (aside)

  I’d give bay Curtal and his furniture

  My mouth no more were broken than these boys’,

  And writ as little beard.

  KING (to Helen) Peruse them well.

  Not one of these but had a noble father.

  HELEN Gentlemen,

  Heaven hath through me restored the King to health.

  ⌈ALL BUT HELEN]

  We understand it, and thank heaven for you.

  HELEN

  I am a simple maid, and therein wealthiest

  That I protest I simply am a maid.—

  Please it your majesty, I have done already.

  The blushes in my cheeks thus whisper me:

  ‘We blush that thou shouldst choose; but, be refused,

  Let the white death sit on thy cheek for ever,

  We’ll ne’er come there again.’

  KING Make choice and see.

  Who shuns thy love shuns all his love in me.

  HELEN (rising)

  Now, Dian, from thy altar do I fly,

  And to imperial Love, that god most high,

  Do my sighs stream.

  ⌈She addresses her to a Lord]

  Sir, will you hear my suit?

  FIRST LORD

  And grant it.

  HELEN Thanks, sir. All the rest is mute.

  LAFEU (aside) I had rather be in this choice than throw ambs-ace for my life.

  HELEN (to another Lord)

  The honour, sir, that flames in your fair eyes,

  Before I speak, too threat’ningly replies.

  Love make your fortunes twenty times above

  Her that so wishes, and her humble love.

  SECOND LORD

  No better, if you please.

  HELEN

  My wish receive,

  Which great Love grant. And so I take my leave.

  LAFEU (aside) Do all they deny her? An they were sons of mine I’d have them whipped, or I would send them to th’ Turk to make eunuchs of.

  HELEN (to another Lord)

  Be not afraid that I your hand should take;

  I’ll never do you wrong for your own sake.

  Blessing upon your vows, and in your bed

  Find fairer fortune, if you ever wed.

  LAFEU (aside) These boys are boys of ice, they’ll none have her. Sure they are bastards to the English, the French ne‘er got ’em.

  HELEN (to another Lord)

  You are too young, too happy, and too good

  To make yourself a son out of my blood.

  FOURTH LORD Fair one, I think not so.

  LAFEU (aside) There’s one grape yet. I am sure thy father drunk wine, but if thou beest not an ass I am a youth of fourteen. I have known thee already.

  HELEN (to Bertram)

  I dare not say I take you, but I give

  Me and my service ever whilst I live

  Into your guiding power.—This is the man.

  KING

  Why then, young Bertram, take her, she’s thy wife.

  BERTRAM

  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?

  BERTRAM

  Yes, my good lord,

  But never hope to know why I should marry her.

  KING

  Thou know’st she has raised me from my sickly bed.

  BERTRAM

  But follows it, my lord, to bring me down

  Must answer for your raising? I know her well:

  She had her breeding at my father’s charge.

  A poor physician’s daughter, my wife? Disdain

  Rather corrupt me ever.

  KING

  ‘Tis only title thou disdain’st in her, the which

  I can build up. Strange is it that our bloods,

  Of colour, weight, and heat, poured all together,

  Would quite confound distinction, yet stands off

  In differences so mighty. If she be

  All that is virtuous, save what thou distik’st—

  ‘A poor physician’s daughter’—thou dislik’st

  Of virtue for the name. But do not so.

  From lowest place when virtuous things proceed,

  The place is dignified by th’ doer’s deed.

  Where great additions swell’s, and virtue none,

  It is a dropsied honour. Good alone

  Is good without a name, vileness is so:

  The property by what it is should go,

  Not by the title. She is young, wise, fair.

  In these to nature she’s immediate heir,

  And these breed honour. That is honour’s scorn

  Which challenges itself as honour’s born

  And is not like the sire; honours thrive

  When rather from our acts we them derive

  Than our foregoers. The mere word’s a slave,

  Debauched on every tomb, on every grave

  A lying trophy, and as oft is dumb

  Where dust and dammed oblivion is the tomb

  Of honoured bones indeed. What should be said?

  If thou canst like this creature as a maid,

  I can create the rest. Virtue and she

  Is her own dower; honour and wealth from me.

  BERTRAM

  I cannot love her, nor will strive to do’t.

  KING

  Thou wrong’st thyself. If thou shouldst strive to choose—

  HELEN

  That you are well restored, my lord, I’m glad.

  Let the rest go.

  KING

  My honour’s at the stake, which to defeat

  I must produce my power. Here, take her hand,

  Proud, scornful boy, unworthy this good gift,

  That dost in vile misprision shackle up

  My love and her desert; that canst not dream

  We, poising us in her defective scale,

  Shall weigh thee to the beam; that wilt not know

  It is in us to plant thine honour where

  We please to have it grow. Check thy contempt;

  Obey our will, which travails in thy good;

  Believe not thy disdain, but presently

  Do thine own fortunes that obedient right

  Which both thy duty owes and our power claims,

  Or I will throw thee from my care for ever

  Into the staggers and the careless lapse

  Of youth and ignorance, both my revenge and hate

  Loosing upon thee in the name of justice

  Without all terms of pity. Speak. Thine answer.

  BERTRAM) (kneeling)

  Pardon, my gracious lord, for I submit

  My fancy to your eyes. When I consider

  What great creation and what dole of honour

  Flies where you bid it, I find that she, which late

  Was in my nobler thoughts most base, is now

  The praised of the King; who, so ennobled,

  Is as ’twere born so.

  KING

  Take her by the hand

  And tell her she is thine; to whom I promise

  A counterpoise, if not to thy estate

  A balance more replete.

  BERTRAM (rising)

  I take her hand.

  KING

  Good fortune and the favour of the King

  Smile upon this contract, whose ceremony

  Shall seem expedient on the now-born brief,

  And be performed tonight. The solemn feast

  Shall more attend upon the coming space,

  Expecting absent friends. As thou lov’st her

  Thy love’s to me religious; else, does err.

  ⌈Flourish.⌉ Exeunt all but Paroles and Lafeu, who stay behind, commenting on this wedding

  LAFEU Do you hear, monsieur? A word with you. PAROLES Your pleasure, sir.

  LAFEU Your lord and master did well to make his recantation.

  PAROLES Recantation? My lord? My master?

  LAFEU Ay. Is it not a language I speak?

  PAROLES A most harsh one, and not to be understood without bloody succeeding. My master?

  LAFEU Are you companion to the Count Roussillon?

  PAROLES To any count, to all counts, to what is man.

  LAFEU To what is count’s man; count’s master is of another style.

  PAROLES You are too old, sir. Let it satisfy you, you are too old.

  LAFEU I must tell thee, sirrah, I write ‘Man’, to which title age cannot bring thee.

  PAROLES What I dare too well do I dare not do.

  LAFEU I did think thee for two ordinaries to be a pretty wise fellow. Thou didst make tolerable vent of thy travel; it might pass. Yet the scarves and the bannerets about thee did manifoldly dissuade me from believing thee a vessel of too great a burden. I have now found thee; when I lose thee again I care not. Yet art thou good for nothing but taking up, and that thou’rt scarce worth.