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Project Gutenberg’s The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, by William Shakespeare

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Title: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

Author: William Shakespeare

Release Date: January 1994 [EBook #100]
Last Updated: August 6, 2020

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE ***




The Complete Works of William Shakespeare



by William Shakespeare




      Contents



               THE SONNETS

               ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

               THE TRAGEDY OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

               AS YOU LIKE IT

               THE COMEDY OF ERRORS

               THE TRAGEDY OF CORIOLANUS

               CYMBELINE

               THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK

               THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH

               THE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH

               THE LIFE OF KING HENRY THE FIFTH

               THE FIRST PART OF HENRY THE SIXTH

               THE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH

               THE THIRD PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH

               KING HENRY THE EIGHTH

               KING JOHN

               THE TRAGEDY OF JULIUS CAESAR

               THE TRAGEDY OF KING LEAR

               LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST

               THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH

               MEASURE FOR MEASURE

               THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

               THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR

               A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

               MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

               THE TRAGEDY OF OTHELLO, MOOR OF VENICE

               PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE

               KING RICHARD THE SECOND

               KING RICHARD THE THIRD

               THE TRAGEDY OF ROMEO AND JULIET

               THE TAMING OF THE SHREW

               THE TEMPEST

               THE LIFE OF TIMON OF ATHENS

               THE TRAGEDY OF TITUS ANDRONICUS

               THE HISTORY OF TROILUS AND CRESSIDA

               TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, WHAT YOU WILL

               THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA

               THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN

               THE WINTER’S TALE

               A LOVER’S COMPLAINT

               THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM

               THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLE

               THE RAPE OF LUCRECE

               VENUS AND ADONIS






THE SONNETS

                    1

From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:
Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And, tender churl, mak’st waste in niggarding:
  Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
  To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.


                    2

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,
Thy youth’s proud livery so gazed on now,
Will be a tattered weed of small worth held:
Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;
To say, within thine own deep sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserv’d thy beauty’s use,
If thou couldst answer ‘This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,’
Proving his beauty by succession thine.
  This were to be new made when thou art old,
  And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.


                    3

Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest,
Now is the time that face should form another,
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose uneared womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
Of his self-love to stop posterity?
Thou art thy mother’s glass and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime,
So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.
  But if thou live remembered not to be,
  Die single and thine image dies with thee.


                    4

Unthrifty loveliness why dost thou spend,
Upon thy self thy beauty’s legacy?
Nature’s bequest gives nothing but doth lend,
And being frank she lends to those are free:
Then beauteous niggard why dost thou abuse,
The bounteous largess given thee to give?
Profitless usurer why dost thou use
So great a sum of sums yet canst not live?
For having traffic with thy self alone,
Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive,
Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,
What acceptable audit canst thou leave?
  Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,
  Which used lives th’ executor to be.


                    5

Those hours that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell
Will play the tyrants to the very same,
And that unfair which fairly doth excel:
For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter and confounds him there,
Sap checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o’er-snowed and bareness every where:
Then were not summer’s distillation left
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty’s effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it nor no remembrance what it was.
  But flowers distilled though they with winter meet,
  Leese but their show, their substance still lives sweet.


                    6

Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface,
In thee thy summer ere thou be distilled:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place,
With beauty’s treasure ere it be self-killed:
That use is not forbidden usury,
Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
That’s for thy self to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier be it ten for one,
Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?
  Be not self-willed for thou art much too fair,
  To be death’s conquest and make worms thine heir.


                    7

Lo in the orient when the gracious light
Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
Serving with looks his sacred majesty,
And having climbed the steep-up heavenly hill,
Resembling strong youth in his middle age,
Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
Attending on his golden pilgrimage:
But when from highmost pitch with weary car,
Like feeble age he reeleth from the day,
The eyes (fore duteous) now converted are
From his low tract and look another way:
  So thou, thy self out-going in thy noon:
  Unlooked on diest unless thou get a son.


                    8

Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:
Why lov’st thou that which thou receiv’st not gladly,
Or else receiv’st with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear:
Mark how one string sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;
Resembling sire, and child, and happy mother,
Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
  Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,
  Sings this to thee, ‘Thou single wilt prove none’.


                    9

Is it for fear to wet a widow’s eye,
That thou consum’st thy self in single life?
Ah, if thou issueless shalt hap to die,
The world will wail thee like a makeless wife,
The world will be thy widow and still weep,
That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
When every private widow well may keep,
By children’s eyes, her husband’s shape in mind:
Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend
Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;
But beauty’s waste hath in the world an end,
And kept unused the user so destroys it:
  No love toward others in that bosom sits
  That on himself such murd’rous shame commits.


                    10

For shame deny that thou bear’st love to any
Who for thy self art so unprovident.
Grant if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,
But that thou none lov’st is most evident:
For thou art so possessed with murd’rous hate,
That ’gainst thy self thou stick’st not to conspire,
Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate
Which to repair should be thy chief desire:
O change thy thought, that I may change my mind,
Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?
Be as thy presence is gracious and kind,
Or to thy self at least kind-hearted prove,
  Make thee another self for love of me,
  That beauty still may live in thine or thee.


                    11

As fast as thou shalt wane so fast thou grow’st,
In one of thine, from that which thou departest,
And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow’st,
Thou mayst call thine, when thou from youth convertest,
Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase,
Without this folly, age, and cold decay,
If all were minded so, the times should cease,
And threescore year would make the world away:
Let those whom nature hath not made for store,
Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish:
Look whom she best endowed, she gave thee more;
Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:
  She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby,
  Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.


                    12

When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night,
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silvered o’er with white:
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd
And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard:
Then of thy beauty do I question make
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,
And die as fast as they see others grow,
  And nothing ’gainst Time’s scythe can make defence
  Save breed to brave him, when he takes thee hence.


                    13

O that you were your self, but love you are
No longer yours, than you your self here live,
Against this coming end you should prepare,
And your sweet semblance to some other give.
So should that beauty which you hold in lease
Find no determination, then you were
Your self again after your self’s decease,
When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.
Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,
Which husbandry in honour might uphold,
Against the stormy gusts of winter’s day
And barren rage of death’s eternal cold?
  O none but unthrifts, dear my love you know,
  You had a father, let your son say so.


                    14

Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck,
And yet methinks I have astronomy,
But not to tell of good, or evil luck,
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons’ quality,
Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell;
Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,
Or say with princes if it shall go well
By oft predict that I in heaven find.
But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
And constant stars in them I read such art
As truth and beauty shall together thrive
If from thy self, to store thou wouldst convert:
  Or else of thee this I prognosticate,
  Thy end is truth’s and beauty’s doom and date.


                    15

When I consider every thing that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment.
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment.
When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky:
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
And wear their brave state out of memory.
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay,
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
Where wasteful time debateth with decay
To change your day of youth to sullied night,
  And all in war with Time for love of you,
  As he takes from you, I engraft you new.


                    16

But wherefore do not you a mightier way
Make war upon this bloody tyrant Time?
And fortify your self in your decay
With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?
Now stand you on the top of happy hours,
And many maiden gardens yet unset,
With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,
Much liker than your painted counterfeit:
So should the lines of life that life repair
Which this (Time’s pencil) or my pupil pen
Neither in inward worth nor outward fair
Can make you live your self in eyes of men.
  To give away your self, keeps your self still,
  And you must live drawn by your own sweet skill.


                    17

Who will believe my verse in time to come
If it were filled with your most high deserts?
Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb
Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts:
If I could write the beauty of your eyes,
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
The age to come would say this poet lies,
Such heavenly touches ne’er touched earthly faces.
So should my papers (yellowed with their age)
Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue,
And your true rights be termed a poet’s rage,
And stretched metre of an antique song.
  But were some child of yours alive that time,
  You should live twice in it, and in my rhyme.


                    18

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st,
  So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
  So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.


                    19

Devouring Time blunt thou the lion’s paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood,
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaws,
And burn the long-lived phoenix, in her blood,
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet’st,
And do whate’er thou wilt swift-footed Time
To the wide world and all her fading sweets:
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime,
O carve not with thy hours my love’s fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen,
Him in thy course untainted do allow,
For beauty’s pattern to succeeding men.
  Yet do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong,
  My love shall in my verse ever live young.


                    20

A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted,
Hast thou the master mistress of my passion,
A woman’s gentle heart but not acquainted
With shifting change as is false women’s fashion,
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling:
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth,
A man in hue all hues in his controlling,
Which steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth.
And for a woman wert thou first created,
Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,
And by addition me of thee defeated,
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
  But since she pricked thee out for women’s pleasure,
  Mine be thy love and thy love’s use their treasure.


                    21

So is it not with me as with that muse,
Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,
Who heaven it self for ornament doth use,
And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,
Making a couplement of proud compare
With sun and moon, with earth and sea’s rich gems:
With April’s first-born flowers and all things rare,
That heaven’s air in this huge rondure hems.
O let me true in love but truly write,
And then believe me, my love is as fair,
As any mother’s child, though not so bright
As those gold candles fixed in heaven’s air:
  Let them say more that like of hearsay well,
  I will not praise that purpose not to sell.


                    22

My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
So long as youth and thou are of one date,
But when in thee time’s furrows I behold,
Then look I death my days should expiate.
For all that beauty that doth cover thee,
Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me,
How can I then be elder than thou art?
O therefore love be of thyself so wary,
As I not for my self, but for thee will,
Bearing thy heart which I will keep so chary
As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.
  Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain,
  Thou gav’st me thine not to give back again.


                    23

As an unperfect actor on the stage,
Who with his fear is put beside his part,
Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,
Whose strength’s abundance weakens his own heart;
So I for fear of trust, forget to say,
The perfect ceremony of love’s rite,
And in mine own love’s strength seem to decay,
O’ercharged with burthen of mine own love’s might:
O let my looks be then the eloquence,
And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,
Who plead for love, and look for recompense,
More than that tongue that more hath more expressed.
  O learn to read what silent love hath writ,
  To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit.


                    24

Mine eye hath played the painter and hath stelled,
Thy beauty’s form in table of my heart,
My body is the frame wherein ’tis held,
And perspective it is best painter’s art.
For through the painter must you see his skill,
To find where your true image pictured lies,
Which in my bosom’s shop is hanging still,
That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes:
Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done,
Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me
Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun
Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;
  Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art,
  They draw but what they see, know not the heart.


                    25

Let those who are in favour with their stars,
Of public honour and proud titles boast,
Whilst I whom fortune of such triumph bars
Unlooked for joy in that I honour most;
Great princes’ favourites their fair leaves spread,
But as the marigold at the sun’s eye,
And in themselves their pride lies buried,
For at a frown they in their glory die.
The painful warrior famoused for fight,
After a thousand victories once foiled,
Is from the book of honour razed quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toiled:
  Then happy I that love and am beloved
  Where I may not remove nor be removed.


                    26

Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit;
To thee I send this written embassage
To witness duty, not to show my wit.
Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine
May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it;
But that I hope some good conceit of thine
In thy soul’s thought (all naked) will bestow it:
Till whatsoever star that guides my moving,
Points on me graciously with fair aspect,
And puts apparel on my tattered loving,
To show me worthy of thy sweet respect,
  Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee,
  Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.


                    27

Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear respose for limbs with travel tired,
But then begins a journey in my head
To work my mind, when body’s work’s expired.
For then my thoughts (from far where I abide)
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
Looking on darkness which the blind do see.
Save that my soul’s imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
Which like a jewel (hung in ghastly night)
Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.
  Lo thus by day my limbs, by night my mind,
  For thee, and for my self, no quiet find.


                    28

How can I then return in happy plight
That am debarred the benefit of rest?
When day’s oppression is not eased by night,
But day by night and night by day oppressed.
And each (though enemies to either’s reign)
Do in consent shake hands to torture me,
The one by toil, the other to complain
How far I toil, still farther off from thee.
I tell the day to please him thou art bright,
And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:
So flatter I the swart-complexioned night,
When sparkling stars twire not thou gild’st the even.
  But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,
  And night doth nightly make grief’s length seem stronger


                    29

When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon my self and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least,
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate,
  For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
  That then I scorn to change my state with kings.


                    30

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought,
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:
Then can I drown an eye (unused to flow)
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long since cancelled woe,
And moan th’ expense of many a vanished sight.
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
  But if the while I think on thee (dear friend)
  All losses are restored, and sorrows end.


                    31

Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,
Which I by lacking have supposed dead,
And there reigns love and all love’s loving parts,
And all those friends which I thought buried.
How many a holy and obsequious tear
Hath dear religious love stol’n from mine eye,
As interest of the dead, which now appear,
But things removed that hidden in thee lie.
Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,
Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,
Who all their parts of me to thee did give,
That due of many, now is thine alone.
  Their images I loved, I view in thee,
  And thou (all they) hast all the all of me.


                    32

If thou survive my well-contented day,
When that churl death my bones with dust shall cover
And shalt by fortune once more re-survey
These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover:
Compare them with the bett’ring of the time,
And though they be outstripped by every pen,
Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,
Exceeded by the height of happier men.
O then vouchsafe me but this loving thought,
’Had my friend’s Muse grown with this growing age,
A dearer birth than this his love had brought
To march in ranks of better equipage:
  But since he died and poets better prove,
  Theirs for their style I’ll read, his for his love’.


                    33

Full many a glorious morning have I seen,
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green;
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy:
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride,
With ugly rack on his celestial face,
And from the forlorn world his visage hide
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:
Even so my sun one early morn did shine,
With all triumphant splendour on my brow,
But out alack, he was but one hour mine,
The region cloud hath masked him from me now.
  Yet him for this, my love no whit disdaineth,
  Suns of the world may stain, when heaven’s sun staineth.


                    34

Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
And make me travel forth without my cloak,
To let base clouds o’ertake me in my way,
Hiding thy brav’ry in their rotten smoke?
’Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,
To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,
For no man well of such a salve can speak,
That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:
Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief,
Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss,
Th’ offender’s sorrow lends but weak relief
To him that bears the strong offence’s cross.
  Ah but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,
  And they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds.


                    35

No more be grieved at that which thou hast done,
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud,
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
All men make faults, and even I in this,
Authorizing thy trespass with compare,
My self corrupting salving thy amiss,
Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are:
For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,
Thy adverse party is thy advocate,
And ’gainst my self a lawful plea commence:
Such civil war is in my love and hate,
  That I an accessary needs must be,
  To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.


                    36

Let me confess that we two must be twain,
Although our undivided loves are one:
So shall those blots that do with me remain,
Without thy help, by me be borne alone.
In our two loves there is but one respect,
Though in our lives a separable spite,
Which though it alter not love’s sole effect,
Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love’s delight.
I may not evermore acknowledge thee,
Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,
Nor thou with public kindness honour me,
Unless thou take that honour from thy name:
  But do not so, I love thee in such sort,
  As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.


                    37

As a decrepit father takes delight,
To see his active child do deeds of youth,
So I, made lame by Fortune’s dearest spite
Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.
For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,
Or any of these all, or all, or more
Entitled in thy parts, do crowned sit,
I make my love engrafted to this store:
So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised,
Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give,
That I in thy abundance am sufficed,
And by a part of all thy glory live:
  Look what is best, that best I wish in thee,
  This wish I have, then ten times happy me.


                    38

How can my muse want subject to invent
While thou dost breathe that pour’st into my verse,
Thine own sweet argument, too excellent,
For every vulgar paper to rehearse?
O give thy self the thanks if aught in me,
Worthy perusal stand against thy sight,
For who’s so dumb that cannot write to thee,
When thou thy self dost give invention light?
Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth
Than those old nine which rhymers invocate,
And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth
Eternal numbers to outlive long date.
  If my slight muse do please these curious days,
  The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.


                    39

O how thy worth with manners may I sing,
When thou art all the better part of me?
What can mine own praise to mine own self bring:
And what is’t but mine own when I praise thee?
Even for this, let us divided live,
And our dear love lose name of single one,
That by this separation I may give:
That due to thee which thou deserv’st alone:
O absence what a torment wouldst thou prove,
Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave,
To entertain the time with thoughts of love,
Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive.
  And that thou teachest how to make one twain,
  By praising him here who doth hence remain.


                    40

Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all,
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call,
All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more:
Then if for my love, thou my love receivest,
I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest,
But yet be blamed, if thou thy self deceivest
By wilful taste of what thy self refusest.
I do forgive thy robbery gentle thief
Although thou steal thee all my poverty:
And yet love knows it is a greater grief
To bear greater wrong, than hate’s known injury.
  Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
  Kill me with spites yet we must not be foes.


                    41

Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits,
When I am sometime absent from thy heart,
Thy beauty, and thy years full well befits,
For still temptation follows where thou art.
Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,
Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed.
And when a woman woos, what woman’s son,
Will sourly leave her till he have prevailed?
Ay me, but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,
And chide thy beauty, and thy straying youth,
Who lead thee in their riot even there
Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth:
  Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,
  Thine by thy beauty being false to me.


                    42

That thou hast her it is not all my grief,
And yet it may be said I loved her dearly,
That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,
A loss in love that touches me more nearly.
Loving offenders thus I will excuse ye,
Thou dost love her, because thou know’st I love her,
And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,
Suff’ring my friend for my sake to approve her.
If I lose thee, my loss is my love’s gain,
And losing her, my friend hath found that loss,
Both find each other, and I lose both twain,
And both for my sake lay on me this cross,
  But here’s the joy, my friend and I are one,
  Sweet flattery, then she loves but me alone.


                    43

When most I wink then do mine eyes best see,
For all the day they view things unrespected,
But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,
And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.
Then thou whose shadow shadows doth make bright
How would thy shadow’s form, form happy show,
To the clear day with thy much clearer light,
When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!
How would (I say) mine eyes be blessed made,
By looking on thee in the living day,
When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade,
Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!
  All days are nights to see till I see thee,
  And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.


                    44

If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,
Injurious distance should not stop my way,
For then despite of space I would be brought,
From limits far remote, where thou dost stay,
No matter then although my foot did stand
Upon the farthest earth removed from thee,
For nimble thought can jump both sea and land,
As soon as think the place where he would be.
But ah, thought kills me that I am not thought
To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,
But that so much of earth and water wrought,
I must attend, time’s leisure with my moan.
  Receiving nought by elements so slow,
  But heavy tears, badges of either’s woe.


                    45

The other two, slight air, and purging fire,
Are both with thee, wherever I abide,
The first my thought, the other my desire,
These present-absent with swift motion slide.
For when these quicker elements are gone
In tender embassy of love to thee,
My life being made of four, with two alone,
Sinks down to death, oppressed with melancholy.
Until life’s composition be recured,
By those swift messengers returned from thee,
Who even but now come back again assured,
Of thy fair health, recounting it to me.
  This told, I joy, but then no longer glad,
  I send them back again and straight grow sad.


                    46

Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,
How to divide the conquest of thy sight,
Mine eye, my heart thy picture’s sight would bar,
My heart, mine eye the freedom of that right,
My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,
(A closet never pierced with crystal eyes)
But the defendant doth that plea deny,
And says in him thy fair appearance lies.
To side this title is impanelled
A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart,
And by their verdict is determined
The clear eye’s moiety, and the dear heart’s part.
  As thus, mine eye’s due is thy outward part,
  And my heart’s right, thy inward love of heart.


                    47

Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,
And each doth good turns now unto the other,
When that mine eye is famished for a look,
Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother;
With my love’s picture then my eye doth feast,
And to the painted banquet bids my heart:
Another time mine eye is my heart’s guest,
And in his thoughts of love doth share a part.
So either by thy picture or my love,
Thy self away, art present still with me,
For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,
And I am still with them, and they with thee.
  Or if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
  Awakes my heart, to heart’s and eye’s delight.


                    48

How careful was I when I took my way,
Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,
That to my use it might unused stay
From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!
But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are,
Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief,
Thou best of dearest, and mine only care,
Art left the prey of every vulgar thief.
Thee have I not locked up in any chest,
Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art,
Within the gentle closure of my breast,
From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part,
  And even thence thou wilt be stol’n I fear,
  For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.


                    49

Against that time (if ever that time come)
When I shall see thee frown on my defects,
When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,
Called to that audit by advised respects,
Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,
And scarcely greet me with that sun thine eye,
When love converted from the thing it was
Shall reasons find of settled gravity;
Against that time do I ensconce me here
Within the knowledge of mine own desert,
And this my hand, against my self uprear,
To guard the lawful reasons on thy part,
  To leave poor me, thou hast the strength of laws,
  Since why to love, I can allege no cause.


                    50

How heavy do I journey on the way,
When what I seek (my weary travel’s end)
Doth teach that case and that repose to say
’Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend.’
The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,
Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,
As if by some instinct the wretch did know
His rider loved not speed being made from thee:
The bloody spur cannot provoke him on,
That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,
Which heavily he answers with a groan,
More sharp to me than spurring to his side,
  For that same groan doth put this in my mind,
  My grief lies onward and my joy behind.


                    51

Thus can my love excuse the slow offence,
Of my dull bearer, when from thee I speed,
From where thou art, why should I haste me thence?
Till I return of posting is no need.
O what excuse will my poor beast then find,
When swift extremity can seem but slow?
Then should I spur though mounted on the wind,
In winged speed no motion shall I know,
Then can no horse with my desire keep pace,
Therefore desire (of perfect’st love being made)
Shall neigh (no dull flesh) in his fiery race,
But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade,
  Since from thee going, he went wilful-slow,
  Towards thee I’ll run, and give him leave to go.


                    52

So am I as the rich whose blessed key,
Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,
The which he will not every hour survey,
For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.
Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,
Since seldom coming in that long year set,
Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,
Or captain jewels in the carcanet.
So is the time that keeps you as my chest
Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,
To make some special instant special-blest,
By new unfolding his imprisoned pride.
  Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,
  Being had to triumph, being lacked to hope.


                    53

What is your substance, whereof are you made,
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
Since every one, hath every one, one shade,
And you but one, can every shadow lend:
Describe Adonis and the counterfeit,
Is poorly imitated after you,
On Helen’s cheek all art of beauty set,
And you in Grecian tires are painted new:
Speak of the spring, and foison of the year,
The one doth shadow of your beauty show,
The other as your bounty doth appear,
And you in every blessed shape we know.
  In all external grace you have some part,
  But you like none, none you for constant heart.


                    54

O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem,
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour, which doth in it live:
The canker blooms have full as deep a dye,
As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly,
When summer’s breath their masked buds discloses:
But for their virtue only is their show,
They live unwooed, and unrespected fade,
Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so,
Of their sweet deaths, are sweetest odours made:
  And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
  When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth.


                    55

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword, nor war’s quick fire shall burn:
The living record of your memory.
’Gainst death, and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth, your praise shall still find room,
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
  So till the judgment that your self arise,
  You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.


                    56

Sweet love renew thy force, be it not said
Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,
Which but to-day by feeding is allayed,
To-morrow sharpened in his former might.
So love be thou, although to-day thou fill
Thy hungry eyes, even till they wink with fulness,
To-morrow see again, and do not kill
The spirit of love, with a perpetual dulness:
Let this sad interim like the ocean be
Which parts the shore, where two contracted new,
Come daily to the banks, that when they see:
Return of love, more blest may be the view.
  Or call it winter, which being full of care,
  Makes summer’s welcome, thrice more wished, more rare.


                    57

Being your slave what should I do but tend,
Upon the hours, and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend;
Nor services to do till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour,
Whilst I (my sovereign) watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,
When you have bid your servant once adieu.
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought,
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But like a sad slave stay and think of nought
Save where you are, how happy you make those.
  So true a fool is love, that in your will,
  (Though you do any thing) he thinks no ill.


                    58

That god forbid, that made me first your slave,
I should in thought control your times of pleasure,
Or at your hand th’ account of hours to crave,
Being your vassal bound to stay your leisure.
O let me suffer (being at your beck)
Th’ imprisoned absence of your liberty,
And patience tame to sufferance bide each check,
Without accusing you of injury.
Be where you list, your charter is so strong,
That you your self may privilage your time
To what you will, to you it doth belong,
Your self to pardon of self-doing crime.
  I am to wait, though waiting so be hell,
  Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.


                    59

If there be nothing new, but that which is,
Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,
Which labouring for invention bear amis
The second burthen of a former child!
O that record could with a backward look,
Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
Show me your image in some antique book,
Since mind at first in character was done.
That I might see what the old world could say,
To this composed wonder of your frame,
Whether we are mended, or whether better they,
Or whether revolution be the same.
  O sure I am the wits of former days,
  To subjects worse have given admiring praise.


                    60

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end,
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned,
Crooked eclipses ’gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave, doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,
And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.
  And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand
  Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.


                    61

Is it thy will, thy image should keep open
My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,
While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?
Is it thy spirit that thou send’st from thee
So far from home into my deeds to pry,
To find out shames and idle hours in me,
The scope and tenure of thy jealousy?
O no, thy love though much, is not so great,
It is my love that keeps mine eye awake,
Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,
To play the watchman ever for thy sake.
  For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,
  From me far off, with others all too near.


                    62

Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye,
And all my soul, and all my every part;
And for this sin there is no remedy,
It is so grounded inward in my heart.
Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,
No shape so true, no truth of such account,
And for my self mine own worth do define,
As I all other in all worths surmount.
But when my glass shows me my self indeed
beated and chopt with tanned antiquity,
Mine own self-love quite contrary I read:
Self, so self-loving were iniquity.
  ’Tis thee (my self) that for my self I praise,
  Painting my age with beauty of thy days.


                    63

Against my love shall be as I am now
With Time’s injurious hand crushed and o’erworn,
When hours have drained his blood and filled his brow
With lines and wrinkles, when his youthful morn
Hath travelled on to age’s steepy night,
And all those beauties whereof now he’s king
Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
Stealing away the treasure of his spring:
For such a time do I now fortify
Against confounding age’s cruel knife,
That he shall never cut from memory
My sweet love’s beauty, though my lover’s life.
  His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
  And they shall live, and he in them still green.


                    64

When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defaced
The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age,
When sometime lofty towers I see down-rased,
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage.
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store.
When I have seen such interchange of State,
Or state it self confounded, to decay,
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate
That Time will come and take my love away.
  This thought is as a death which cannot choose
  But weep to have, that which it fears to lose.


                    65

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o’ersways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O how shall summer’s honey breath hold out,
Against the wrackful siege of batt’ring days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong but time decays?
O fearful meditation, where alack,
Shall Time’s best jewel from Time’s chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back,
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
  O none, unless this miracle have might,
  That in black ink my love may still shine bright.


                    66

Tired with all these for restful death I cry,
As to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimmed in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway disabled
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill,
And simple truth miscalled simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill.
  Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
  Save that to die, I leave my love alone.


                    67

Ah wherefore with infection should he live,
And with his presence grace impiety,
That sin by him advantage should achieve,
And lace it self with his society?
Why should false painting imitate his cheek,
And steal dead seeming of his living hue?
Why should poor beauty indirectly seek,
Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?
Why should he live, now nature bankrupt is,
Beggared of blood to blush through lively veins,
For she hath no exchequer now but his,
And proud of many, lives upon his gains?
  O him she stores, to show what wealth she had,
  In days long since, before these last so bad.


                    68

Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,
When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,
Before these bastard signs of fair were born,
Or durst inhabit on a living brow:
Before the golden tresses of the dead,
The right of sepulchres, were shorn away,
To live a second life on second head,
Ere beauty’s dead fleece made another gay:
In him those holy antique hours are seen,
Without all ornament, it self and true,
Making no summer of another’s green,
Robbing no old to dress his beauty new,
  And him as for a map doth Nature store,
  To show false Art what beauty was of yore.


                    69

Those parts of thee that the world’s eye doth view,
Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend:
All tongues (the voice of souls) give thee that due,
Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.
Thy outward thus with outward praise is crowned,
But those same tongues that give thee so thine own,
In other accents do this praise confound
By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.
They look into the beauty of thy mind,
And that in guess they measure by thy deeds,
Then churls their thoughts (although their eyes were kind)
To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:
  But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,
  The soil is this, that thou dost common grow.


                    70

That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,
For slander’s mark was ever yet the fair,
The ornament of beauty is suspect,
A crow that flies in heaven’s sweetest air.
So thou be good, slander doth but approve,
Thy worth the greater being wooed of time,
For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,
And thou present’st a pure unstained prime.
Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days,
Either not assailed, or victor being charged,
Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,
To tie up envy, evermore enlarged,
  If some suspect of ill masked not thy show,
  Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.


                    71

No longer mourn for me when I am dead,
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay if you read this line, remember not,
The hand that writ it, for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O if (I say) you look upon this verse,
When I (perhaps) compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;
But let your love even with my life decay.
  Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
  And mock you with me after I am gone.


                    72

O lest the world should task you to recite,
What merit lived in me that you should love
After my death (dear love) forget me quite,
For you in me can nothing worthy prove.
Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,
To do more for me than mine own desert,
And hang more praise upon deceased I,
Than niggard truth would willingly impart:
O lest your true love may seem false in this,
That you for love speak well of me untrue,
My name be buried where my body is,
And live no more to shame nor me, nor you.
  For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,
  And so should you, to love things nothing worth.


                    73

That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day,
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self that seals up all in rest.
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
  This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
  To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.


                    74

But be contented when that fell arrest,
Without all bail shall carry me away,
My life hath in this line some interest,
Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.
When thou reviewest this, thou dost review,
The very part was consecrate to thee,
The earth can have but earth, which is his due,
My spirit is thine the better part of me,
So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,
The prey of worms, my body being dead,
The coward conquest of a wretch’s knife,
Too base of thee to be remembered,
  The worth of that, is that which it contains,
  And that is this, and this with thee remains.


                    75

So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold such strife
As ’twixt a miser and his wealth is found.
Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon
Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure,
Now counting best to be with you alone,
Then bettered that the world may see my pleasure,
Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,
And by and by clean starved for a look,
Possessing or pursuing no delight
Save what is had, or must from you be took.
  Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,
  Or gluttoning on all, or all away.


                    76

Why is my verse so barren of new pride?
So far from variation or quick change?
Why with the time do I not glance aside
To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?
Why write I still all one, ever the same,
And keep invention in a noted weed,
That every word doth almost tell my name,
Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?
O know sweet love I always write of you,
And you and love are still my argument:
So all my best is dressing old words new,
Spending again what is already spent:
  For as the sun is daily new and old,
  So is my love still telling what is told.


                    77

Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,
Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste,
These vacant leaves thy mind’s imprint will bear,
And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste.
The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show,
Of mouthed graves will give thee memory,
Thou by thy dial’s shady stealth mayst know,
Time’s thievish progress to eternity.
Look what thy memory cannot contain,
Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find
Those children nursed, delivered from thy brain,
To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.
  These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,
  Shall profit thee, and much enrich thy book.


                    78

So oft have I invoked thee for my muse,
And found such fair assistance in my verse,
As every alien pen hath got my use,
And under thee their poesy disperse.
Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing,
And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,
Have added feathers to the learned’s wing,
And given grace a double majesty.
Yet be most proud of that which I compile,
Whose influence is thine, and born of thee,
In others’ works thou dost but mend the style,
And arts with thy sweet graces graced be.
  But thou art all my art, and dost advance
  As high as learning, my rude ignorance.


                    79

Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,
My verse alone had all thy gentle grace,
But now my gracious numbers are decayed,
And my sick muse doth give an other place.
I grant (sweet love) thy lovely argument
Deserves the travail of a worthier pen,
Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent,
He robs thee of, and pays it thee again,
He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word,
From thy behaviour, beauty doth he give
And found it in thy cheek: he can afford
No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live.
  Then thank him not for that which he doth say,
  Since what he owes thee, thou thy self dost pay.


                    80

O how I faint when I of you do write,
Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,
And in the praise thereof spends all his might,
To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame.
But since your worth (wide as the ocean is)
The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,
My saucy bark (inferior far to his)
On your broad main doth wilfully appear.
Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,
Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride,
Or (being wrecked) I am a worthless boat,
He of tall building, and of goodly pride.
  Then if he thrive and I be cast away,
  The worst was this, my love was my decay.


                    81

Or I shall live your epitaph to make,
Or you survive when I in earth am rotten,
From hence your memory death cannot take,
Although in me each part will be forgotten.
Your name from hence immortal life shall have,
Though I (once gone) to all the world must die,
The earth can yield me but a common grave,
When you entombed in men’s eyes shall lie,
Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall o’er-read,
And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse,
When all the breathers of this world are dead,
  You still shall live (such virtue hath my pen)
  Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.


                    82

I grant thou wert not married to my muse,
And therefore mayst without attaint o’erlook
The dedicated words which writers use
Of their fair subject, blessing every book.
Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,
Finding thy worth a limit past my praise,
And therefore art enforced to seek anew,
Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days.
And do so love, yet when they have devised,
What strained touches rhetoric can lend,
Thou truly fair, wert truly sympathized,
In true plain words, by thy true-telling friend.
  And their gross painting might be better used,
  Where cheeks need blood, in thee it is abused.


                    83

I never saw that you did painting need,
And therefore to your fair no painting set,
I found (or thought I found) you did exceed,
That barren tender of a poet’s debt:
And therefore have I slept in your report,
That you your self being extant well might show,
How far a modern quill doth come too short,
Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.
This silence for my sin you did impute,
Which shall be most my glory being dumb,
For I impair not beauty being mute,
When others would give life, and bring a tomb.
  There lives more life in one of your fair eyes,
  Than both your poets can in praise devise.


                    84

Who is it that says most, which can say more,
Than this rich praise, that you alone, are you?
In whose confine immured is the store,
Which should example where your equal grew.
Lean penury within that pen doth dwell,
That to his subject lends not some small glory,
But he that writes of you, if he can tell,
That you are you, so dignifies his story.
Let him but copy what in you is writ,
Not making worse what nature made so clear,
And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,
Making his style admired every where.
  You to your beauteous blessings add a curse,
  Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.


                    85

My tongue-tied muse in manners holds her still,
While comments of your praise richly compiled,
Reserve their character with golden quill,
And precious phrase by all the Muses filed.
I think good thoughts, whilst other write good words,
And like unlettered clerk still cry Amen,
To every hymn that able spirit affords,
In polished form of well refined pen.
Hearing you praised, I say ’tis so, ’tis true,
And to the most of praise add something more,
But that is in my thought, whose love to you
(Though words come hindmost) holds his rank before,
  Then others, for the breath of words respect,
  Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.


                    86

Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,
Bound for the prize of (all too precious) you,
That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,
Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?
Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write,
Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?
No, neither he, nor his compeers by night
Giving him aid, my verse astonished.
He nor that affable familiar ghost
Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,
As victors of my silence cannot boast,
I was not sick of any fear from thence.
  But when your countenance filled up his line,
  Then lacked I matter, that enfeebled mine.


                    87

Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know’st thy estimate,
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing:
My bonds in thee are all determinate.
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting,
And for that riches where is my deserving?
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
And so my patent back again is swerving.
Thy self thou gav’st, thy own worth then not knowing,
Or me to whom thou gav’st it, else mistaking,
So thy great gift upon misprision growing,
Comes home again, on better judgement making.
  Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter,
  In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.


                    88

When thou shalt be disposed to set me light,
And place my merit in the eye of scorn,
Upon thy side, against my self I’ll fight,
And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn:
With mine own weakness being best acquainted,
Upon thy part I can set down a story
Of faults concealed, wherein I am attainted:
That thou in losing me, shalt win much glory:
And I by this will be a gainer too,
For bending all my loving thoughts on thee,
The injuries that to my self I do,
Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me.
  Such is my love, to thee I so belong,
  That for thy right, my self will bear all wrong.


                    89

Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,
And I will comment upon that offence,
Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt:
Against thy reasons making no defence.
Thou canst not (love) disgrace me half so ill,
To set a form upon desired change,
As I’ll my self disgrace, knowing thy will,
I will acquaintance strangle and look strange:
Be absent from thy walks and in my tongue,
Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell,
Lest I (too much profane) should do it wronk:
And haply of our old acquaintance tell.
  For thee, against my self I’ll vow debate,
  For I must ne’er love him whom thou dost hate.


                    90

Then hate me when thou wilt, if ever, now,
Now while the world is bent my deeds to cross,
join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,
And do not drop in for an after-loss:
Ah do not, when my heart hath ’scaped this sorrow,
Come in the rearward of a conquered woe,
Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
To linger out a purposed overthrow.
If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,
When other petty griefs have done their spite,
But in the onset come, so shall I taste
At first the very worst of fortune’s might.
  And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,
  Compared with loss of thee, will not seem so.


                    91

Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,
Some in their wealth, some in their body’s force,
Some in their garments though new-fangled ill:
Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse.
And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,
Wherein it finds a joy above the rest,
But these particulars are not my measure,
All these I better in one general best.
Thy love is better than high birth to me,
Richer than wealth, prouder than garments’ costs,
Of more delight than hawks and horses be:
And having thee, of all men’s pride I boast.
  Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take,
  All this away, and me most wretchcd make.


                    92

But do thy worst to steal thy self away,
For term of life thou art assured mine,
And life no longer than thy love will stay,
For it depends upon that love of thine.
Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs,
When in the least of them my life hath end,
I see, a better state to me belongs
Than that, which on thy humour doth depend.
Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind,
Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie,
O what a happy title do I find,
Happy to have thy love, happy to die!
  But what’s so blessed-fair that fears no blot?
  Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not.


                    93

So shall I live, supposing thou art true,
Like a deceived husband, so love’s face,
May still seem love to me, though altered new:
Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place.
For there can live no hatred in thine eye,
Therefore in that I cannot know thy change,
In many’s looks, the false heart’s history
Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange.
But heaven in thy creation did decree,
That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell,
Whate’er thy thoughts, or thy heart’s workings be,
Thy looks should nothing thence, but sweetness tell.
  How like Eve’s apple doth thy beauty grow,
  If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show.


                    94

They that have power to hurt, and will do none,
That do not do the thing, they most do show,
Who moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow:
They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces,
And husband nature’s riches from expense,
Tibey are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others, but stewards of their excellence:
The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to it self, it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
  For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds,
  Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.


                    95

How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame,
Which like a canker in the fragrant rose,
Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!
O in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose!
That tongue that tells the story of thy days,
(Making lascivious comments on thy sport)
Cannot dispraise, but in a kind of praise,
Naming thy name, blesses an ill report.
O what a mansion have those vices got,
Which for their habitation chose out thee,
Where beauty’s veil doth cover every blot,
And all things turns to fair, that eyes can see!
  Take heed (dear heart) of this large privilege,
  The hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edge.


                    96

Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness,
Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport,
Both grace and faults are loved of more and less:
Thou mak’st faults graces, that to thee resort:
As on the finger of a throned queen,
The basest jewel will be well esteemed:
So are those errors that in thee are seen,
To truths translated, and for true things deemed.
How many lambs might the stern wolf betray,
If like a lamb he could his looks translate!
How many gazers mightst thou lead away,
if thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state!
  But do not so, I love thee in such sort,
  As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.


                    97

How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December’s bareness everywhere!
And yet this time removed was summer’s time,
The teeming autumn big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,
Like widowed wombs after their lords’ decease:
Yet this abundant issue seemed to me
But hope of orphans, and unfathered fruit,
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And thou away, the very birds are mute.
  Or if they sing, ’tis with so dull a cheer,
  That leaves look pale, dreading the winter’s near.


                    98

From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April (dressed in all his trim)
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing:
That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue,
Could make me any summer’s story tell:
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:
Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose,
They were but sweet, but figures of delight:
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
  Yet seemed it winter still, and you away,
  As with your shadow I with these did play.


                    99

The forward violet thus did I chide,
Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,
If not from my love’s breath? The purple pride
Which on thy soft check for complexion dwells,
In my love’s veins thou hast too grossly dyed.
The lily I condemned for thy hand,
And buds of marjoram had stol’n thy hair,
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair:
A third nor red, nor white, had stol’n of both,
And to his robbery had annexed thy breath,
But for his theft in pride of all his growth
A vengeful canker eat him up to death.
  More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,
  But sweet, or colour it had stol’n from thee.


                    100

Where art thou Muse that thou forget’st so long,
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?
Spend’st thou thy fury on some worthless song,
Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?
Return forgetful Muse, and straight redeem,
In gentle numbers time so idly spent,
Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem,
And gives thy pen both skill and argument.
Rise resty Muse, my love’s sweet face survey,
If time have any wrinkle graven there,
If any, be a satire to decay,
And make time’s spoils despised everywhere.
  Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,
  So thou prevent’st his scythe, and crooked knife.


                    101

O truant Muse what shall be thy amends,
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?
Both truth and beauty on my love depends:
So dost thou too, and therein dignified:
Make answer Muse, wilt thou not haply say,
’Truth needs no colour with his colour fixed,
Beauty no pencil, beauty’s truth to lay:
But best is best, if never intermixed’?
Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?
Excuse not silence so, for’t lies in thee,
To make him much outlive a gilded tomb:
And to be praised of ages yet to be.
  Then do thy office Muse, I teach thee how,
  To make him seem long hence, as he shows now.


                    102

My love is strengthened though more weak in seeming,
I love not less, though less the show appear,
That love is merchandized, whose rich esteeming,
The owner’s tongue doth publish every where.
Our love was new, and then but in the spring,
When I was wont to greet it with my lays,
As Philomel in summer’s front doth sing,
And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:
Not that the summer is less pleasant now
Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,
But that wild music burthens every bough,
And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.
  Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue:
  Because I would not dull you with my song.


                    103

Alack what poverty my muse brings forth,
That having such a scope to show her pride,
The argument all bare is of more worth
Than when it hath my added praise beside.
O blame me not if I no more can write!
Look in your glass and there appears a face,
That over-goes my blunt invention quite,
Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.
Were it not sinful then striving to mend,
To mar the subject that before was well?
For to no other pass my verses tend,
Than of your graces and your gifts to tell.
  And more, much more than in my verse can sit,
  Your own glass shows you, when you look in it.


                    104

To me fair friend you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still: three winters cold,
Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned,
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,
Since first I saw you fresh which yet are green.
Ah yet doth beauty like a dial hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived,
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived.
  For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred,
  Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead.


                    105

Let not my love be called idolatry,
Nor my beloved as an idol show,
Since all alike my songs and praises be
To one, of one, still such, and ever so.
Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,
Still constant in a wondrous excellence,
Therefore my verse to constancy confined,
One thing expressing, leaves out difference.
Fair, kind, and true, is all my argument,
Fair, kind, and true, varying to other words,
And in this change is my invention spent,
Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.
  Fair, kind, and true, have often lived alone.
  Which three till now, never kept seat in one.


                    106

When in the chronicle of wasted time,
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme,
In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights,
Then in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have expressed,
Even such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring,
And for they looked but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing:
  For we which now behold these present days,
  Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.


                    107

Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul,
Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come,
Can yet the lease of my true love control,
Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.
The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,
And the sad augurs mock their own presage,
Incertainties now crown themselves assured,
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
Now with the drops of this most balmy time,
My love looks fresh, and death to me subscribes,
Since spite of him I’ll live in this poor rhyme,
While he insults o’er dull and speechless tribes.
  And thou in this shalt find thy monument,
  When tyrants’ crests and tombs of brass are spent.


                    108

What’s in the brain that ink may character,
Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit,
What’s new to speak, what now to register,
That may express my love, or thy dear merit?
Nothing sweet boy, but yet like prayers divine,
I must each day say o’er the very same,
Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,
Even as when first I hallowed thy fair name.
So that eternal love in love’s fresh case,
Weighs not the dust and injury of age,
Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,
But makes antiquity for aye his page,
  Finding the first conceit of love there bred,
  Where time and outward form would show it dead.


                    109

O never say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seemed my flame to qualify,
As easy might I from my self depart,
As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie:
That is my home of love, if I have ranged,
Like him that travels I return again,
Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
So that my self bring water for my stain,
Never believe though in my nature reigned,
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
That it could so preposterously be stained,
To leave for nothing all thy sum of good:
  For nothing this wide universe I call,
  Save thou my rose, in it thou art my all.


                    110

Alas ’tis true, I have gone here and there,
And made my self a motley to the view,
Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,
Made old offences of affections new.
Most true it is, that I have looked on truth
Askance and strangely: but by all above,
These blenches gave my heart another youth,
And worse essays proved thee my best of love.
Now all is done, have what shall have no end,
Mine appetite I never more will grind
On newer proof, to try an older friend,
A god in love, to whom I am confined.
  Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,
  Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.


                    111

O for my sake do you with Fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide,
Than public means which public manners breeds.
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
And almost thence my nature is subdued
To what it works in, like the dyer’s hand:
Pity me then, and wish I were renewed,
Whilst like a willing patient I will drink,
Potions of eisel ’gainst my strong infection,
No bitterness that I will bitter think,
Nor double penance to correct correction.
  Pity me then dear friend, and I assure ye,
  Even that your pity is enough to cure me.


                    112

Your love and pity doth th’ impression fill,
Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow,
For what care I who calls me well or ill,
So you o’er-green my bad, my good allow?
You are my all the world, and I must strive,
To know my shames and praises from your tongue,
None else to me, nor I to none alive,
That my steeled sense or changes right or wrong.
In so profound abysm I throw all care
Of others’ voices, that my adder’s sense,
To critic and to flatterer stopped are:
Mark how with my neglect I do dispense.
  You are so strongly in my purpose bred,
  That all the world besides methinks are dead.


                    113

Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind,
And that which governs me to go about,
Doth part his function, and is partly blind,
Seems seeing, but effectually is out:
For it no form delivers to the heart
Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch,
Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,
Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch:
For if it see the rud’st or gentlest sight,
The most sweet favour or deformed’st creature,
The mountain, or the sea, the day, or night:
The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.
  Incapable of more, replete with you,
  My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.


                    114

Or whether doth my mind being crowned with you
Drink up the monarch’s plague this flattery?
Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true,
And that your love taught it this alchemy?
To make of monsters, and things indigest,
Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,
Creating every bad a perfect best
As fast as objects to his beams assemble:
O ’tis the first, ’tis flattery in my seeing,
And my great mind most kingly drinks it up,
Mine eye well knows what with his gust is ’greeing,
And to his palate doth prepare the cup.
  If it be poisoned, ’tis the lesser sin,
  That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.


                    115

Those lines that I before have writ do lie,
Even those that said I could not love you dearer,
Yet then my judgment knew no reason why,
My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer,
But reckoning time, whose millioned accidents
Creep in ’twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,
Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp’st intents,
Divert strong minds to the course of alt’ring things:
Alas why fearing of time’s tyranny,
Might I not then say ‘Now I love you best,’
When I was certain o’er incertainty,
Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?
  Love is a babe, then might I not say so
  To give full growth to that which still doth grow.


                    116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments, love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come,
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
  If this be error and upon me proved,
  I never writ, nor no man ever loved.


                    117

Accuse me thus, that I have scanted all,
Wherein I should your great deserts repay,
Forgot upon your dearest love to call,
Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day,
That I have frequent been with unknown minds,
And given to time your own dear-purchased right,
That I have hoisted sail to all the winds
Which should transport me farthest from your sight.
Book both my wilfulness and errors down,
And on just proof surmise, accumulate,
Bring me within the level of your frown,
But shoot not at me in your wakened hate:
  Since my appeal says I did strive to prove
  The constancy and virtue of your love.


                    118

Like as to make our appetite more keen
With eager compounds we our palate urge,
As to prevent our maladies unseen,
We sicken to shun sickness when we purge.
Even so being full of your ne’er-cloying sweetness,
To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;
And sick of welfare found a kind of meetness,
To be diseased ere that there was true needing.
Thus policy in love t’ anticipate
The ills that were not, grew to faults assured,
And brought to medicine a healthful state
Which rank of goodness would by ill be cured.
  But thence I learn and find the lesson true,
  Drugs poison him that so feil sick of you.


                    119

What potions have I drunk of Siren tears
Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within,
Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,
Still losing when I saw my self to win!
What wretched errors hath my heart committed,
Whilst it hath thought it self so blessed never!
How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted
In the distraction of this madding fever!
O benefit of ill, now I find true
That better is, by evil still made better.
And ruined love when it is built anew
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.
  So I return rebuked to my content,
  And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent.


                    120

That you were once unkind befriends me now,
And for that sorrow, which I then did feel,
Needs must I under my transgression bow,
Unless my nerves were brass or hammered steel.
For if you were by my unkindness shaken
As I by yours, y’have passed a hell of time,
And I a tyrant have no leisure taken
To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.
O that our night of woe might have remembered
My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,
And soon to you, as you to me then tendered
The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits!
  But that your trespass now becomes a fee,
  Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.


                    121

’Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed,
When not to be, receives reproach of being,
And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed,
Not by our feeling, but by others’ seeing.
For why should others’ false adulterate eyes
Give salutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
Which in their wills count bad what I think good?
No, I am that I am, and they that level
At my abuses, reckon up their own,
I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;
By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown
  Unless this general evil they maintain,
  All men are bad and in their badness reign.


                    122

Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain
Full charactered with lasting memory,
Which shall above that idle rank remain
Beyond all date even to eternity.
Or at the least, so long as brain and heart
Have faculty by nature to subsist,
Till each to razed oblivion yield his part
Of thee, thy record never can be missed:
That poor retention could not so much hold,
Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score,
Therefore to give them from me was I bold,
To trust those tables that receive thee more:
  To keep an adjunct to remember thee
  Were to import forgetfulness in me.


                    123

No! Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change,
Thy pyramids built up with newer might
To me are nothing novel, nothing strange,
They are but dressings Of a former sight:
Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire,
What thou dost foist upon us that is old,
And rather make them born to our desire,
Than think that we before have heard them told:
Thy registers and thee I both defy,
Not wond’ring at the present, nor the past,
For thy records, and what we see doth lie,
Made more or less by thy continual haste:
  This I do vow and this shall ever be,
  I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.


                    124

If my dear love were but the child of state,
It might for Fortune’s bastard be unfathered,
As subject to time’s love or to time’s hate,
Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered.
No it was builded far from accident,
It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls
Under the blow of thralled discontent,
Whereto th’ inviting time our fashion calls:
It fears not policy that heretic,
Which works on leases of short-numbered hours,
But all alone stands hugely politic,
That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.
  To this I witness call the fools of time,
  Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.


                    125

Were’t aught to me I bore the canopy,
With my extern the outward honouring,
Or laid great bases for eternity,
Which proves more short than waste or ruining?
Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour
Lose all, and more by paying too much rent
For compound sweet; forgoing simple savour,
Pitiful thrivers in their gazing spent?
No, let me be obsequious in thy heart,
And take thou my oblation, poor but free,
Which is not mixed with seconds, knows no art,
But mutual render, only me for thee.
  Hence, thou suborned informer, a true soul
  When most impeached, stands least in thy control.


                    126

O thou my lovely boy who in thy power,
Dost hold Time’s fickle glass his fickle hour:
Who hast by waning grown, and therein show’st,
Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow’st.
If Nature (sovereign mistress over wrack)
As thou goest onwards still will pluck thee back,
She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill
May time disgrace, and wretched minutes kill.
Yet fear her O thou minion of her pleasure,
She may detain, but not still keep her treasure!
  Her audit (though delayed) answered must be,
  And her quietus is to render thee.


                    127

In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were it bore not beauty’s name:
But now is black beauty’s successive heir,
And beauty slandered with a bastard shame,
For since each hand hath put on nature’s power,
Fairing the foul with art’s false borrowed face,
Sweet beauty hath no name no holy bower,
But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.
Therefore my mistress’ eyes are raven black,
Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem,
At such who not born fair no beauty lack,
Slandering creation with a false esteem,
  Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,
  That every tongue says beauty should look so.


                    128

How oft when thou, my music, music play’st,
Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway’st
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,
Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap,
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,
Whilst my poor lips which should that harvest reap,
At the wood’s boldness by thee blushing stand.
To be so tickled they would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips,
O’er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
Making dead wood more blest than living lips,
  Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
  Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.


                    129

Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action, and till action, lust
Is perjured, murd’rous, bloody full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated as a swallowed bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad.
Mad in pursuit and in possession so,
Had, having, and in quest, to have extreme,
A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe,
Before a joy proposed behind a dream.
  All this the world well knows yet none knows well,
  To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.


                    130

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun,
Coral is far more red, than her lips red,
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun:
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head:
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks,
And in some perfumes is there more delight,
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know,
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
  And yet by heaven I think my love as rare,
  As any she belied with false compare.


                    131

Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,
As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;
For well thou know’st to my dear doting heart
Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.
Yet in good faith some say that thee behold,
Thy face hath not the power to make love groan;
To say they err, I dare not be so bold,
Although I swear it to my self alone.
And to be sure that is not false I swear,
A thousand groans but thinking on thy face,
One on another’s neck do witness bear
Thy black is fairest in my judgment’s place.
  In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,
  And thence this slander as I think proceeds.


                    132

Thine eyes I love, and they as pitying me,
Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,
Have put on black, and loving mourners be,
Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.
And truly not the morning sun of heaven
Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,
Nor that full star that ushers in the even
Doth half that glory to the sober west
As those two mourning eyes become thy face:
O let it then as well beseem thy heart
To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,
And suit thy pity like in every part.
  Then will I swear beauty herself is black,
  And all they foul that thy complexion lack.


                    133

Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan
For that deep wound it gives my friend and me;
Is’t not enough to torture me alone,
But slave to slavery my sweet’st friend must be?
Me from my self thy cruel eye hath taken,
And my next self thou harder hast engrossed,
Of him, my self, and thee I am forsaken,
A torment thrice three-fold thus to be crossed:
Prison my heart in thy steel bosom’s ward,
But then my friend’s heart let my poor heart bail,
Whoe’er keeps me, let my heart be his guard,
Thou canst not then use rigour in my gaol.
  And yet thou wilt, for I being pent in thee,
  Perforce am thine and all that is in me.


                    134

So now I have confessed that he is thine,
And I my self am mortgaged to thy will,
My self I’ll forfeit, so that other mine,
Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still:
But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,
For thou art covetous, and he is kind,
He learned but surety-like to write for me,
Under that bond that him as fist doth bind.
The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,
Thou usurer that put’st forth all to use,
And sue a friend, came debtor for my sake,
So him I lose through my unkind abuse.
  Him have I lost, thou hast both him and me,
  He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.


                    135

Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy will,
And Will to boot, and Will in overplus,
More than enough am I that vex thee still,
To thy sweet will making addition thus.
Wilt thou whose will is large and spacious,
Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?
Shall will in others seem right gracious,
And in my will no fair acceptance shine?
The sea all water, yet receives rain still,
And in abundance addeth to his store,
So thou being rich in will add to thy will
One will of mine to make thy large will more.
  Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill,
  Think all but one, and me in that one Will.


                    136

If thy soul check thee that I come so near,
Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy Will,
And will thy soul knows is admitted there,
Thus far for love, my love-suit sweet fulfil.
Will will fulfil the treasure of thy love,
Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one,
In things of great receipt with case we prove,
Among a number one is reckoned none.
Then in the number let me pass untold,
Though in thy store’s account I one must be,
For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold,
That nothing me, a something sweet to thee.
  Make but my name thy love, and love that still,
  And then thou lov’st me for my name is Will.


                    137

Thou blind fool Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,
That they behold and see not what they see?
They know what beauty is, see where it lies,
Yet what the best is, take the worst to be.
If eyes corrupt by over-partial looks,
Be anchored in the bay where all men ride,
Why of eyes’ falsehood hast thou forged hooks,
Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied?
Why should my heart think that a several plot,
Which my heart knows the wide world’s common place?
Or mine eyes seeing this, say this is not
To put fair truth upon so foul a face?
  In things right true my heart and eyes have erred,
  And to this false plague are they now transferred.


                    138

When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth,
Unlearned in the world’s false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue,
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O love’s best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love, loves not to have years told.
  Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
  And in our faults by lies we flattered be.


                    139

O call not me to justify the wrong,
That thy unkindness lays upon my heart,
Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue,
Use power with power, and slay me not by art,
Tell me thou lov’st elsewhere; but in my sight,
Dear heart forbear to glance thine eye aside,
What need’st thou wound with cunning when thy might
Is more than my o’erpressed defence can bide?
Let me excuse thee, ah my love well knows,
Her pretty looks have been mine enemies,
And therefore from my face she turns my foes,
That they elsewhere might dart their injuries:
  Yet do not so, but since I am near slain,
  Kill me outright with looks, and rid my pain.


                    140

Be wise as thou art cruel, do not press
My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain:
Lest sorrow lend me words and words express,
The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
If I might teach thee wit better it were,
Though not to love, yet love to tell me so,
As testy sick men when their deaths be near,
No news but health from their physicians know.
For if I should despair I should grow mad,
And in my madness might speak ill of thee,
Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,
Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.
  That I may not be so, nor thou belied,
  Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.


                    141

In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,
For they in thee a thousand errors note,
But ’tis my heart that loves what they despise,
Who in despite of view is pleased to dote.
Nor are mine cars with thy tongue’s tune delighted,
Nor tender feeling to base touches prone,
Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited
To any sensual feast with thee alone:
But my five wits, nor my five senses can
Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,
Who leaves unswayed the likeness of a man,
Thy proud heart’s slave and vassal wretch to be:
  Only my plague thus far I count my gain,
  That she that makes me sin, awards me pain.


                    142

Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,
Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving,
O but with mine, compare thou thine own state,
And thou shalt find it merits not reproving,
Or if it do, not from those lips of thine,
That have profaned their scarlet ornaments,
And sealed false bonds of love as oft as mine,
Robbed others’ beds’ revenues of their rents.
Be it lawful I love thee as thou lov’st those,
Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee,
Root pity in thy heart that when it grows,
Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.
  If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,
  By self-example mayst thou be denied.


                    143

Lo as a careful huswife runs to catch,
One of her feathered creatures broke away,
Sets down her babe and makes all swift dispatch
In pursuit of the thing she would have stay:
Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,
Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent,
To follow that which flies before her face:
Not prizing her poor infant’s discontent;
So run’st thou after that which flies from thee,
Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind,
But if thou catch thy hope turn back to me:
And play the mother’s part, kiss me, be kind.
  So will I pray that thou mayst have thy Will,
  If thou turn back and my loud crying still.


                    144

Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still,
The better angel is a man right fair:
The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.
To win me soon to hell my female evil,
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil:
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be turned fiend,
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell,
But being both from me both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another’s hell.
  Yet this shall I ne’er know but live in doubt,
  Till my bad angel fire my good one out.


                    145

Those lips that Love’s own hand did make,
Breathed forth the sound that said ‘I hate’,
To me that languished for her sake:
But when she saw my woeful state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that tongue that ever sweet,
Was used in giving gentle doom:
And taught it thus anew to greet:
‘I hate’ she altered with an end,
That followed it as gentle day,
Doth follow night who like a fiend
From heaven to hell is flown away.
  ‘I hate’, from hate away she threw,
  And saved my life saying ‘not you’.


                    146

Poor soul the centre of my sinful earth,
My sinful earth these rebel powers array,
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms inheritors of this excess
Eat up thy charge? is this thy body’s end?
Then soul live thou upon thy servant’s loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more,
  So shall thou feed on death, that feeds on men,
  And death once dead, there’s no more dying then.


                    147

My love is as a fever longing still,
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
Th’ uncertain sickly appetite to please:
My reason the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve,
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest,
My thoughts and my discourse as mad men’s are,
At random from the truth vainly expressed.
  For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
  Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.


                    148

O me! what eyes hath love put in my head,
Which have no correspondence with true sight,
Or if they have, where is my judgment fled,
That censures falsely what they see aright?
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
What means the world to say it is not so?
If it be not, then love doth well denote,
Love’s eye is not so true as all men’s: no,
How can it? O how can love’s eye be true,
That is so vexed with watching and with tears?
No marvel then though I mistake my view,
The sun it self sees not, till heaven clears.
  O cunning love, with tears thou keep’st me blind,
  Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.


                    149

Canst thou O cruel, say I love thee not,
When I against my self with thee partake?
Do I not think on thee when I forgot
Am of my self, all-tyrant, for thy sake?
Who hateth thee that I do call my friend,
On whom frown’st thou that I do fawn upon,
Nay if thou lour’st on me do I not spend
Revenge upon my self with present moan?
What merit do I in my self respect,
That is so proud thy service to despise,
When all my best doth worship thy defect,
Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?
  But love hate on for now I know thy mind,
  Those that can see thou lov’st, and I am blind.


                    150

O from what power hast thou this powerful might,
With insufficiency my heart to sway,
To make me give the lie to my true sight,
And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?
Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,
That in the very refuse of thy deeds,
There is such strength and warrantise of skill,
That in my mind thy worst all best exceeds?
Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,
The more I hear and see just cause of hate?
O though I love what others do abhor,
With others thou shouldst not abhor my state.
  If thy unworthiness raised love in me,
  More worthy I to be beloved of thee.


                    151

Love is too young to know what conscience is,
Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?
Then gentle cheater urge not my amiss,
Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove.
For thou betraying me, I do betray
My nobler part to my gross body’s treason,
My soul doth tell my body that he may,
Triumph in love, flesh stays no farther reason,
But rising at thy name doth point out thee,
As his triumphant prize, proud of this pride,
He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.
  No want of conscience hold it that I call,
  Her love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.


                    152

In loving thee thou know’st I am forsworn,
But thou art twice forsworn to me love swearing,
In act thy bed-vow broke and new faith torn,
In vowing new hate after new love bearing:
But why of two oaths’ breach do I accuse thee,
When I break twenty? I am perjured most,
For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee:
And all my honest faith in thee is lost.
For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness:
Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy,
And to enlighten thee gave eyes to blindness,
Or made them swear against the thing they see.
  For I have sworn thee fair: more perjured I,
  To swear against the truth so foul a be.


                    153

Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep,
A maid of Dian’s this advantage found,
And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep
In a cold valley-fountain of that ground:
Which borrowed from this holy fire of Love,
A dateless lively heat still to endure,
And grew a seeting bath which yet men prove,
Against strange maladies a sovereign cure:
But at my mistress’ eye Love’s brand new-fired,
The boy for trial needs would touch my breast,
I sick withal the help of bath desired,
And thither hied a sad distempered guest.
  But found no cure, the bath for my help lies,
  Where Cupid got new fire; my mistress’ eyes.


                    154

The little Love-god lying once asleep,
Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,
Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep,
Came tripping by, but in her maiden hand,
The fairest votary took up that fire,
Which many legions of true hearts had warmed,
And so the general of hot desire,
Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarmed.
This brand she quenched in a cool well by,
Which from Love’s fire took heat perpetual,
Growing a bath and healthful remedy,
For men discased, but I my mistress’ thrall,
  Came there for cure and this by that I prove,
  Love’s fire heats water, water cools not love.


THE END



ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL



Contents

ACT I
Scene I. Rossillon. A room in the Countess’s palace.
Scene II. Paris. A room in the King’s palace.
Scene III. Rossillon. A Room in the Palace.


ACT II
Scene I. Paris. A room in the King’s palace.
Scene II. Rossillon. A room in the Countess’s palace.
Scene III. Paris. The King’s palace.
Scene IV. Paris. The King’s palace.
Scene V. Another room in the same.


ACT III
Scene I. Florence. A room in the Duke’s palace.
Scene II. Rossillon. A room in the Countess’s palace.
Scene III. Florence. Before the Duke’s palace.
Scene IV. Rossillon. A room in the Countess’s palace.
Scene V. Without the walls of Florence.
Scene VI. Camp before Florence.
Scene VII. Florence. A room in the Widow’s house.


ACT IV
Scene I. Without the Florentine camp.
Scene II. Florence. A room in the Widow’s house.
Scene III. The Florentine camp.
Scene IV. Florence. A room in the Widow’s house.
Scene V. Rossillon. A room in the Countess’s palace.


ACT V
Scene I. Marseilles. A street.
Scene II. Rossillon. The inner court of the Countess’s palace.
Scene III. The same. A room in the Countess’s palace.


 Dramatis Personæ

KING OF FRANCE.
THE DUKE OF FLORENCE.
BERTRAM, Count of Rossillon.
LAFEW, an old Lord.
PAROLLES, a follower of Bertram.
Several young French Lords, that serve with Bertram in the Florentine
War.
RYNALDO, servant to the Countess of Rossillon.
Clown, servant to the Countess of Rossillon.
A Page, servant to the Countess of Rossillon.
COUNTESS OF ROSSILLON, mother to Bertram.
HELENA, a Gentlewoman protected by the Countess.
An old WIDOW of Florence.
DIANA, daughter to the Widow.
VIOLENTA, neighbour and friend to the Widow.
MARIANA, neighbour and friend to the Widow.

Lords attending on the KING; Officers; Soldiers, &c., French and
Florentine.

SCENE: Partly in France, and partly in Tuscany.


ACT I

SCENE I. Rossillon. A room in the Countess’s palace.

 Enter Bertram, the Countess of Rossillon, Helena, and Lafew, 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 whom I am now in ward, evermore in
subjection.

LAFEW.
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.

COUNTESS.
What hope is there of his majesty’s amendment?

LAFEW.
He hath abandon’d 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.

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 stretch’d
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.

LAFEW.
How called you the man you speak of, madam?

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

LAFEW.
He was excellent indeed, madam; the king very lately spoke of him
admiringly, and mourningly; he was skilful enough to have liv’d still,
if knowledge could be set up against mortality.

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

LAFEW.
A fistula, my lord.

BERTRAM.
I heard not of it before.

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

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 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.

LAFEW.
Your commendations, madam, get from her tears.

COUNTESS.
’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.

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

LAFEW.
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.

BERTRAM.
Madam, I desire your holy wishes.

LAFEW.
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
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 check’d for silence,
But never tax’d for speech. What heaven more will,
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.

LAFEW.
He cannot want the best
That shall attend his love.

COUNTESS.
Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram.

 [_Exit Countess._]

BERTRAM.
The best wishes that can be forg’d in your thoughts be servants to you!
[_To Helena._] Be comfortable to my mother, your mistress, and make
much of her.

LAFEW.
Farewell, pretty lady, you must hold the credit of your father.

 [_Exeunt Bertram and Lafew._]

HELENA.
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?
I have forgot him; my imagination
Carries no favour in’t but Bertram’s.
I am undone: there is no living, none,
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.
Th’ambition in my love thus plagues itself:
The hind that would be mated by the lion
Must die for love. ’Twas pretty, though a plague,
To see him every hour; to sit and draw
His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,
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 relics. Who comes here?

 Enter Parolles.

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 fix’d evils sit so fit in him
That they take place when virtue’s steely bones
Looks bleak i’ th’ cold wind: withal, full oft we see
Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.

PAROLLES.
Save you, fair queen!

HELENA.
And you, monarch!

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 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.

PAROLLES.
There is none. Man setting 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?

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 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!

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: 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; you cannot choose but lose by’t. Out with’t! Within
the year it will make itself two, which is a goodly increase, and the
principal itself not much the worse. Away with it!

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 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 toothpick, which
wear not now. Your date is better in your pie and your porridge than in
your cheek. And your virginity, your old virginity, is like one of our
French wither’d pears; it looks ill, it eats drily; marry, ’tis a
wither’d pear; it was formerly better; marry, yet ’tis a wither’d pear.
Will you anything with it?

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,
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
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—

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,
And show what we alone must think, which never
Returns us thanks.

 Enter a Page.

PAGE.
Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.

 [_Exit Page._]

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.

PAROLLES.
Why under Mars?

HELENA.
The wars hath 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.

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

PAROLLES.
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, 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, 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
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?
The king’s disease,—my project may deceive me,
But my intents are fix’d, and will not leave me.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE II. Paris. A room in the King’s palace.

 Flourish of cornets. Enter the King of France, with letters; Lords and
 others attending.

KING.
The Florentines and Senoys are by th’ ears;
Have fought with equal fortune, and continue
A braving war.

FIRST LORD.
So ’tis reported, sir.

KING.
Nay, ’tis most credible, we here receive it,
A certainty, vouch’d from our cousin Austria,
With caution, that the Florentine will move us
For speedy aid; wherein our dearest friend
Prejudicates the business, and would seem
To have us make denial.

FIRST LORD.
His love and wisdom,
Approv’d so to your majesty, may plead
For amplest credence.

KING.
He hath arm’d our answer,
And Florence is denied before he comes:
Yet, for our gentlemen that mean to see
The Tuscan service, freely have they leave
To stand on either part.

SECOND LORD.
It well may serve
A nursery to our gentry, who are sick
For breathing and exploit.

KING.
What’s he comes here?

 Enter Bertram, Lafew and Parolles.

FIRST LORD.
It is the Count Rossillon, my good lord,
Young Bertram.

KING.
Youth, thou bear’st thy father’s face;
Frank nature, rather curious than in haste,
Hath well compos’d thee. Thy father’s moral parts
Mayst thou inherit too! Welcome to Paris.

BERTRAM.
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 tried 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,
And wore us out of act. It much repairs me
To talk of your good father; in his youth
He had the wit which I can well observe
Today in our young lords; but they may jest
Till their own scorn return to them unnoted
Ere they can hide their levity in honour
So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness
Were in his pride or sharpness; if they were,
His equal had awak’d them, and his honour,
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 us’d as creatures of another place,
And bow’d his eminent top to their low ranks,
Making them proud of his humility,
In their poor praise he humbled. Such a man
Might be a copy to these younger times;
Which, followed well, would demonstrate them now
But goers backward.

BERTRAM.
His good remembrance, sir,
Lies richer in your thoughts than on his tomb;
So in approof lives not his epitaph
As in your royal speech.

KING.
Would I were with him! He would always say,—
Methinks I hear him now; his plausive words
He scatter’d not in ears, but grafted them
To grow there and to bear,—“Let me not live,”
This his good melancholy oft began
On the catastrophe and heel of pastime,
When it was out,—“Let me not live” quoth he,
“After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff
Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses
All but new things disdain; whose judgments are
Mere fathers of their garments; whose constancies
Expire before their fashions.” This he wish’d.
I, after him, do after him wish too,
Since I nor wax nor honey can bring home,
I quickly were dissolved from my hive
To give some labourers room.

SECOND LORD.
You’re lov’d, sir;
They that least lend it you shall lack you first.

KING.
I fill a place, I know’t. How long is’t, Count,
Since the physician at your father’s died?
He was much fam’d.

BERTRAM.
Some six months since, my lord.

KING.
If he were living, I would try him yet;—
Lend me an arm;—the rest have worn me out
With several applications; nature and sickness
Debate it at their leisure. Welcome, Count;
My son’s no dearer.

BERTRAM.
Thank your majesty.

 [_Exeunt. Flourish._]

SCENE III. Rossillon. A Room in the Palace.

 Enter Countess, Steward and Clown.

COUNTESS.
I will now hear. What say you of this gentlewoman?

STEWARD.
Madam, the care I have had to even your content, I wish might be found
in the calendar of my past endeavours; for then we wound our modesty,
and make foul the clearness of our deservings, when of ourselves we
publish them.

COUNTESS.
What does this knave here? Get you gone, sirrah. The complaints I have
heard of you I do not all believe; ’tis my slowness that I do not; for
I know you lack not folly to commit them, and have ability enough to
make such knaveries yours.

CLOWN.
’Tis not unknown to you, madam, I am a poor fellow.

COUNTESS.
Well, sir.

CLOWN.
No, madam, ’tis not so well that I am poor, though many of the rich are
damned; but if I may have your ladyship’s good will to go to the world,
Isbel the woman and I will do as we may.

COUNTESS.
Wilt thou needs be a beggar?

CLOWN.
I do beg your good will in this case.

COUNTESS.
In what case?

CLOWN.
In Isbel’s case and mine own. Service is no heritage, and I think I
shall never have the blessing of God till I have issue of my body; for
they say barnes are blessings.

COUNTESS.
Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry.

CLOWN.
My poor body, madam, requires it; I am driven on by the flesh, and he
must needs go that the devil drives.

COUNTESS.
Is this all your worship’s reason?

CLOWN.
Faith, madam, I have other holy reasons, such as they are.

COUNTESS.
May the world know them?

CLOWN.
I have been, madam, a wicked creature, as you and all flesh and blood
are; and indeed I do marry that I may repent.

COUNTESS.
Thy marriage, sooner than thy wickedness.

CLOWN.
I am out of friends, madam, and I hope to have friends for my wife’s
sake.

COUNTESS.
Such friends are thine enemies, knave.

CLOWN.
Y’are shallow, madam, in great friends; for the knaves come to do that
for me which I am a-weary of. He that ears my land spares my team, and
gives me leave to in the crop: if I be his cuckold, he’s my drudge. He
that comforts my wife is the cherisher of my flesh and blood; he that
cherishes my flesh and blood loves my flesh and blood; he that loves my
flesh and blood is my friend; ergo, he that kisses my wife is my
friend. If men could be contented to be what they are, there were no
fear in marriage; for young Charbon the puritan and old Poysam the
papist, howsome’er their hearts are sever’d in religion, their heads
are both one; they may jowl horns together like any deer i’ the herd.

COUNTESS.
Wilt thou ever be a foul-mouth’d and calumnious knave?

CLOWN.
A prophet I, madam; and I speak the truth the next way:
   _For I the ballad will repeat,
   Which men full true shall find;
   Your marriage comes by destiny,
   Your cuckoo sings by kind._

COUNTESS.
Get you gone, sir; I’ll talk with you more anon.

STEWARD.
May it please you, madam, that he bid Helen come to you; of her I am to
speak.

COUNTESS.
Sirrah, tell my gentlewoman I would speak with her; Helen I mean.

CLOWN.
[_Sings._]
_   Was this fair face the cause, quoth she,
     Why the Grecians sacked Troy?
   Fond done, done fond,
      Was this King Priam’s joy?
   With that she sighed as she stood,
   With that she sighed as she stood,
      And gave this sentence then:
   Among nine bad if one be good,
   Among nine bad if one be good,
     There’s yet one good in ten._

COUNTESS.
What, one good in ten? You corrupt the song, sirrah.

CLOWN.
One good woman in ten, madam, which is a purifying o’ the song. Would
God would serve the world so all the year! We’d find no fault with the
tithe-woman, if I were the parson. One in ten, quoth ’a! And we might
have a good woman born but or every blazing star, or at an earthquake,
’twould mend the lottery well; a man may draw his heart out ere he
pluck one.

COUNTESS.
You’ll be gone, sir knave, and do as I command you!

CLOWN.
That man should be at woman’s command, and yet no hurt done! Though
honesty be no puritan, yet it will do no hurt; it will wear the
surplice of humility over the black gown of a big heart. I am going,
forsooth; the business is for Helen to come hither.

 [_Exit._]

COUNTESS.
Well, now.

STEWARD.
I know, madam, you love your gentlewoman entirely.

COUNTESS.
Faith I do. Her father bequeath’d her to me, and she herself, without
other advantage, may lawfully make title to as much love as she finds;
there is more owing her than is paid, and more shall be paid her than
she’ll demand.

STEWARD.
Madam, I was very late more near her than I think she wish’d me; alone
she was, and did communicate to herself her own words to her own ears;
she thought, I dare vow for her, they touch’d not any stranger sense.
Her matter was, she loved your son. Fortune, she said, was no goddess,
that had put such difference betwixt their two estates; Love no god,
that would not extend his might only where qualities were level; Diana
no queen of virgins, that would suffer her poor knight surpris’d,
without rescue in the first assault or ransom afterward. This she
deliver’d in the most bitter touch of sorrow that e’er I heard virgin
exclaim in, which I held my duty speedily to acquaint you withal;
sithence, in the loss that may happen, it concerns you something to
know it.

COUNTESS.
You have discharg’d this honestly; keep it to yourself; many
likelihoods inform’d me of this before, which hung so tottering in the
balance that I could neither believe nor misdoubt. Pray you leave me;
stall this in your bosom; and I thank you for your honest care. I will
speak with you further anon.

 [_Exit Steward._]

 Enter Helena.

Even so it was with me when I was young;
If ever we are nature’s, these are ours; this thorn
Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong;
Our blood to us, this to our blood is born;
It is the show and seal of nature’s truth,
Where love’s strong passion is impress’d in youth.
By our remembrances of days foregone,
Such were our faults, or then we thought them none.
Her eye is sick on’t; I observe her now.

HELENA.
What is your pleasure, madam?

COUNTESS.
You know, Helen,
I am a mother to you.

HELENA.
Mine honourable mistress.

COUNTESS.
Nay, a mother.
Why not a mother? When I said a mother,
Methought you saw a serpent. What’s in mother,
That you start at it? I say I am your mother,
And put you in the catalogue of those
That were enwombed mine. ’Tis often seen
Adoption strives with nature, and choice breeds
A native slip to us from foreign seeds.
You ne’er oppress’d me with a mother’s groan,
Yet I express to you a mother’s care.
God’s mercy, maiden! does it curd thy blood
To say I am thy mother? What’s the matter,
That this distempered messenger of wet,
The many-colour’d Iris, rounds thine eye?
—Why, that you are my daughter?

HELENA.
That I am not.

COUNTESS.
I say, I am your mother.

HELENA.
Pardon, madam;
The Count Rossillon cannot be my brother.
I am from humble, he from honoured name;
No note upon my parents, his all noble,
My master, my dear lord he is; and I
His servant live, and will his vassal die.
He must not be my brother.

COUNTESS.
Nor I your mother?

HELENA.
You are my mother, madam; would you were—
So that my lord your son were not my brother,—
Indeed my mother! or were you both our mothers,
I care no more for than I do for heaven,
So I were not his sister. Can’t no other,
But, I your daughter, he must be my brother?

COUNTESS.
Yes, Helen, you might be my daughter-in-law.
God shield you mean it not! daughter and mother
So strive upon your pulse. What! pale again?
My fear hath catch’d your fondness; now I see
The mystery of your loneliness, and find
Your salt tears’ head. Now to all sense ’tis gross
You love my son; invention is asham’d,
Against the proclamation of thy passion
To say thou dost not. Therefore tell me true;
But tell me then, ’tis so; for, look, thy cheeks
Confess it, t’one to th’other; and thine eyes
See it so grossly shown in thy behaviours,
That in their kind they speak it; only sin
And hellish obstinacy tie thy tongue,
That truth should be suspected. Speak, is’t so?
If it be so, you have wound a goodly clew;
If it be not, forswear’t: howe’er, I charge thee,
As heaven shall work in me for thine avail,
To tell me truly.

HELENA.
Good madam, pardon me.

COUNTESS.
Do you love my son?

HELENA.
Your pardon, noble mistress.

COUNTESS.
Love you my son?

HELENA.
Do not you love him, madam?

COUNTESS.
Go not about; my love hath in’t a bond
Whereof the world takes note. Come, come, disclose
The state of your affection, for your passions
Have to the full appeach’d.

HELENA.
Then I confess,
Here on my knee, before high heaven and you,
That before you, and next unto high heaven,
I love your son.
My friends were poor, but honest; so’s my love.
Be not offended; for it hurts not him
That he is lov’d of me; I follow him not
By any token of presumptuous suit,
Nor would I have him till I do deserve him;
Yet never know how that desert should be.
I know I love in vain, strive against hope;
Yet in this captious and inteemable sieve
I still pour in the waters of my love
And lack not to lose still. Thus, Indian-like,
Religious in mine error, I adore
The sun that looks upon his worshipper,
But knows of him no more. My dearest madam,
Let not your hate encounter with my love,
For loving where you do; but if yourself,
Whose aged honour cites a virtuous youth,
Did ever, in so true a flame of liking,
Wish chastely, and love dearly, that your Dian
Was both herself and love; O then, give pity
To her whose state is such that cannot choose
But lend and give where she is sure to lose;
That seeks not to find that her search implies,
But riddle-like, lives sweetly where she dies!

COUNTESS.
Had you not lately an intent,—speak truly,—
To go to Paris?

HELENA.
Madam, I had.

COUNTESS.
Wherefore? tell true.

HELENA.
I will tell truth; by grace itself I swear.
You know my father left me some prescriptions
Of rare and prov’d effects, such as his reading
And manifest experience had collected
For general sovereignty; and that he will’d me
In heedfull’st reservation to bestow them,
As notes whose faculties inclusive were
More than they were in note. Amongst the rest
There is a remedy, approv’d, set down,
To cure the desperate languishings whereof
The king is render’d lost.

COUNTESS.
This was your motive
For Paris, was it? Speak.

HELENA.
My lord your son made me to think of this;
Else Paris, and the medicine, and the king,
Had from the conversation of my thoughts
Haply been absent then.

COUNTESS.
But think you, Helen,
If you should tender your supposed aid,
He would receive it? He and his physicians
Are of a mind; he, that they cannot help him;
They, that they cannot help. How shall they credit
A poor unlearned virgin, when the schools,
Embowell’d of their doctrine, have let off
The danger to itself?

HELENA.
There’s something in’t
More than my father’s skill, which was the great’st
Of his profession, that his good receipt
Shall for my legacy be sanctified
By th’ luckiest stars in heaven; and would your honour
But give me leave to try success, I’d venture
The well-lost life of mine on his grace’s cure.
By such a day, an hour.

COUNTESS.
Dost thou believe’t?

HELENA.
Ay, madam, knowingly.

COUNTESS.
Why, Helen, thou shalt have my leave and love,
Means and attendants, and my loving greetings
To those of mine in court. I’ll stay at home,
And pray God’s blessing into thy attempt.
Be gone tomorrow; and be sure of this,
What I can help thee to, thou shalt not miss.

 [_Exeunt._]


ACT II.

SCENE I. Paris. A room in the King’s palace.

 Flourish. Enter the King with young Lords taking leave for the
 Florentine war; Bertram, Parolles and Attendants.

KING.
Farewell, young lords; these warlike principles
Do not throw from you; and you, my lords, farewell;
Share the advice betwixt you; if both gain all,
The gift doth stretch itself as ’tis receiv’d,
And is enough for both.

FIRST LORD.
’Tis our hope, sir,
After well-ent’red soldiers, to return
And find your grace in health.

KING.
No, no, it cannot be; and yet my heart
Will not confess he owes the malady
That doth my life besiege. Farewell, young lords.
Whether I live or die, be you the sons
Of worthy Frenchmen; let higher Italy,—
Those bated that inherit but the fall
Of the last monarchy—see that you come
Not to woo honour, but to wed it, when
The bravest questant shrinks: find what you seek,
That fame may cry you loud. I say farewell.

SECOND LORD.
Health, at your bidding serve your majesty!

KING.
Those girls of Italy, take heed of them;
They say our French lack language to deny
If they demand; beware of being captives
Before you serve.

BOTH.
Our hearts receive your warnings.

KING.
Farewell.—Come hither to me.

 [_The King retires to a couch._]

FIRST LORD.
O my sweet lord, that you will stay behind us!

PAROLLES.
’Tis not his fault; the spark.

SECOND LORD.
O, ’tis brave wars!

PAROLLES.
Most admirable! I have seen those wars.

BERTRAM.
I am commanded here, and kept a coil with,
“Too young”, and “the next year” and “’tis too early”.

PAROLLES.
An thy mind stand to’t, boy, steal away bravely.

BERTRAM.
I shall stay here the forehorse to a smock,
Creaking my shoes on the plain masonry,
Till honour be bought up, and no sword worn
But one to dance with. By heaven, I’ll steal away.

FIRST LORD.
There’s honour in the theft.

PAROLLES.
Commit it, count.

SECOND LORD.
I am your accessary; and so farewell.

BERTRAM.
I grow to you, and our parting is a tortur’d body.

FIRST LORD.
Farewell, captain.

SECOND LORD.
Sweet Monsieur Parolles!

PAROLLES.
Noble heroes, my sword and yours are kin. Good sparks and lustrous, a
word, good metals. You shall find in the regiment of the Spinii one
Captain Spurio, with his cicatrice, an emblem of war, here on his
sinister cheek; it was this very sword entrench’d it. Say to him I
live; and observe his reports for me.

FIRST LORD.
We shall, noble captain.

PAROLLES.
Mars dote on you for his novices!

 [_Exeunt Lords._]

What will ye do?

BERTRAM.
Stay the king.

PAROLLES.
Use a more spacious ceremony to the noble lords; you have restrain’d
yourself within the list of too cold an adieu. Be more expressive to
them; for they wear themselves in the cap of the time; there do muster
true gait; eat, speak, and move, under the influence of the most
receiv’d star; and though the devil lead the measure, such are to be
followed. After them, and take a more dilated farewell.

BERTRAM.
And I will do so.

PAROLLES.
Worthy fellows, and like to prove most sinewy sword-men.

 [_Exeunt Bertram and Parolles._]

 Enter Lafew.

LAFEW.
Pardon, my lord [_kneeling_], for me and for my tidings.

KING.
I’ll fee thee to stand up.

LAFEW.
Then here’s a man stands that has brought his pardon.
I would you had kneel’d, my lord, to ask me mercy,
And that at my bidding you could so stand up.

KING.
I would I had; so I had broke thy pate,
And ask’d thee mercy for’t.

LAFEW.
Good faith, across;
But, my good lord, ’tis thus: will you be cur’d
Of your infirmity?

KING.
No.

LAFEW.
O, will you eat
No grapes, my royal fox? Yes, but you will
My noble grapes, and if my royal fox
Could reach them. I have seen a medicine
That’s able to breathe life into a stone,
Quicken a rock, and make you dance canary
With sprightly fire and motion; whose simple touch
Is powerful to araise King Pippen, nay,
To give great Charlemain a pen in’s hand
And write to her a love-line.

KING.
What ‘her’ is this?

LAFEW.
Why, doctor ‘she’! My lord, there’s one arriv’d,
If you will see her. Now, by my faith and honour,
If seriously I may convey my thoughts
In this my light deliverance, I have spoke
With one that in her sex, her years, profession,
Wisdom, and constancy, hath amaz’d me more
Than I dare blame my weakness. Will you see her,
For that is her demand, and know her business?
That done, laugh well at me.

KING.
Now, good Lafew,
Bring in the admiration; that we with thee
May spend our wonder too, or take off thine
By wond’ring how thou took’st it.

LAFEW.
Nay, I’ll fit you,
And not be all day neither.

 [_Exit Lafew._]

KING.
Thus he his special nothing ever prologues.

 Enter Lafew with Helena.

LAFEW.
Nay, come your ways.

KING.
This haste hath wings indeed.

LAFEW.
Nay, come your ways.
This is his majesty, say your mind to him.
A traitor you do look like, but such traitors
His majesty seldom fears; I am Cressid’s uncle,
That dare leave two together. Fare you well.

 [_Exit._]

KING.
Now, fair one, does your business follow us?

HELENA.
Ay, my good lord.
Gerard de Narbon was my father,
In what he did profess, well found.

KING.
I knew him.

HELENA.
The rather will I spare my praises towards him.
Knowing him is enough. On his bed of death
Many receipts he gave me; chiefly one,
Which, as the dearest issue of his practice,
And of his old experience the only darling,
He bade me store up as a triple eye,
Safer than mine own two; more dear I have so,
And hearing your high majesty is touch’d
With that malignant cause, wherein the honour
Of my dear father’s gift stands chief in power,
I come to tender it, and my appliance,
With all bound humbleness.

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
Our great self and our credit, to esteem
A senseless help, when help past sense we deem.

HELENA.
My duty then shall pay me for my pains.
I will no more enforce mine office on you,
Humbly entreating from your royal thoughts
A modest one to bear me back again.

KING.
I cannot give thee less, to be call’d grateful.
Thou thought’st to help me; and such thanks I give
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.

HELENA.
What I can do can do no hurt to try,
Since you set up your rest ’gainst remedy.
He that of greatest works is finisher
Oft does them by the weakest minister.
So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown,
When judges have been babes. Great floods have flown
From simple sources, and great seas have dried
When miracles have by the great’st been denied.
Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises; and oft it hits
Where hope is coldest, and despair most fits.

KING.
I must not hear thee. Fare thee well, kind maid.
Thy pains, not us’d, must by thyself be paid;
Proffers, not took, reap thanks for their reward.

HELENA.
Inspired merit so by breath is barr’d.
It is not so with Him that all things knows
As ’tis with us that square our guess by shows;
But most it is presumption in us when
The help of heaven we count the act of men.
Dear sir, to my endeavours give consent;
Of heaven, not me, make an experiment.
I am not an impostor, that proclaim
Myself against the level of mine aim,
But know I think, and think I know most sure,
My art is not past power nor you past cure.

KING.
Art thou so confident? Within what space
Hop’st thou my cure?

HELENA.
The greatest 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 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?

HELENA.
Tax of impudence,
A strumpet’s boldness, a divulged shame,
Traduc’d by odious ballads; my maiden’s name
Sear’d otherwise; ne worse of worst extended
With vildest torture, let my life be ended.

KING.
Methinks in thee some blessed 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.

HELENA.
If I break time, or flinch in property
Of what I spoke, unpitied let me die,
And well deserv’d. Not helping, death’s my fee;
But if I help, what do you promise me?

KING.
Make thy demand.

HELENA.
But will you make it even?

KING.
Ay, by my sceptre and my hopes of heaven.

HELENA.
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 observ’d,
Thy will by my performance shall be serv’d;
So make the choice of thy own time, for I,
Thy resolv’d 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
Unquestion’d welcome, and undoubted bless’d.
Give me some help here, ho! If thou proceed
As high as word, my deed shall match thy deed.

 [_Flourish. Exeunt._]

SCENE II. Rossillon. A room in the Countess’s palace.

 Enter Countess and Clown.

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

CLOWN.
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!

CLOWN.
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.

CLOWN.
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?

CLOWN.
As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, as your French
crown for your taffety 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?

CLOWN.
From below 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.

CLOWN.
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?

CLOWN.
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.

CLOWN.
O Lord, sir! Thick, thick; spare not me.

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

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

COUNTESS.
You were lately whipp’d, sir, as I think.

CLOWN.
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.

CLOWN.
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.

CLOWN.
O Lord, sir! Why, there’t serves well again.

COUNTESS.
An end, sir! To your business. Give Helen this,
And urge her to a present answer back.
Commend me to my kinsmen and my son.
This is not much.

CLOWN.
Not much commendation to them?

COUNTESS.
Not much employment for you. You understand me?

CLOWN.
Most fruitfully. I am there before my legs.

COUNTESS.
Haste you again.

 [_Exeunt severally._]

SCENE III. Paris. The King’s palace.

 Enter Bertram, Lafew and Parolles.

LAFEW.
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.

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

BERTRAM.
And so ’tis.

LAFEW.
To be relinquish’d of the artists,—

PAROLLES.
So I say; both of Galen and Paracelsus.

LAFEW.
Of all the learned and authentic fellows,—

PAROLLES.
Right; so I say.

LAFEW.
That gave him out incurable,—

PAROLLES.
Why, there ’tis; so say I too.

LAFEW.
Not to be helped.

PAROLLES.
Right; as ’twere a man assur’d of a—

LAFEW.
Uncertain life and sure death.

PAROLLES.
Just; you say well. So would I have said.

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

PAROLLES.
It is indeed; if you will have it in showing, you shall read it in what
do you call there?

LAFEW.
A showing of a heavenly effect in an earthly actor.

PAROLLES.
That’s it; I would have said the very same.

LAFEW.
Why, your dolphin is not lustier; fore me, I speak in respect—

PAROLLES.
Nay, ’tis strange, ’tis very strange; that is the brief and the tedious
of it; and he’s of a most facinerious spirit that will not acknowledge
it to be the—

LAFEW.
Very hand of heaven.

PAROLLES.
Ay, so I say.

LAFEW.
In a most weak—

PAROLLES.
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—

LAFEW.
Generally thankful.

PAROLLES.
I would have said it; you say well. Here comes the king.

 Enter King, Helena and Attendants.

LAFEW.
Lustique, as the Dutchman says. I’ll like a maid the better, whilst I
have a tooth in my head. Why, he’s able to lead her a coranto.

PAROLLES.
_Mor du vinager!_ is not this Helen?

LAFEW.
Fore God, I think so.

KING.
Go, call before me all the lords in court.

 [_Exit an Attendant._]

Sit, my preserver, by thy patient’s side,
And with this healthful hand, whose banish’d sense
Thou has repeal’d, a second time receive
The confirmation of my promis’d gift,
Which but attends thy naming.

 Enter several 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.

HELENA.
To each of you one fair and virtuous mistress
Fall, when love please! Marry, to each but one!

LAFEW.
I’d give bay curtal and his furniture
My mouth no more were broken than these boys’,
And writ as little beard.

KING.
Peruse them well.
Not one of those but had a noble father.

 She addresses her to a Lord.

HELENA.
Gentlemen,
Heaven hath through me restor’d the king to health.

ALL.
We understand it, and thank heaven for you.

HELENA.
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.

HELENA.
Now, Dian, from thy altar do I fly,
And to imperial Love, that god most high,
Do my sighs stream. [_To first Lord._] Sir, will you hear my suit?

FIRST LORD.
And grant it.

HELENA.
Thanks, sir; all the rest is mute.

LAFEW.
I had rather be in this choice than throw ames-ace for my life.

HELENA.
[_To second 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.

HELENA.
My wish receive,
Which great Love grant; and so I take my leave.

LAFEW.
Do all they deny her? An they were sons of mine I’d have them whipp’d;
or I would send them to th’ Turk to make eunuchs of.

HELENA.
[_To third 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!

LAFEW.
These boys are boys of ice, they’ll none have her. Sure, they are
bastards to the English; the French ne’er got ’em.

HELENA.
[_To fourth 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.

LAFEW.
There’s one grape yet. I am sure thy father drank wine. But if thou
beest not an ass, I am a youth of fourteen; I have known thee already.

HELENA.
[_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 rais’d 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, pour’d all together,
Would quite confound distinction, yet stands off
In differences so mighty. If she be
All that is virtuous, save what thou dislik’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 the 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 fore-goers. The mere word’s a slave,
Debauch’d on every tomb, on every grave
A lying trophy, and as oft is dumb
Where dust and damn’d oblivion is the tomb
Of honour’d 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.

HELENA.
That you are well restor’d, my lord, I am 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.
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.
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 perform’d 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.

 [_Exeunt King, Bertram, Helena, Lords, and Attendants._]

LAFEW.
Do you hear, monsieur? A word with you.

PAROLLES.
Your pleasure, sir.

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

PAROLLES.
Recantation! My lord! My master!

LAFEW.
Ay. Is it not a language I speak?

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

LAFEW.
Are you companion to the Count Rossillon?

PAROLLES.
To any count; to all counts; to what is man.

LAFEW.
To what is count’s man: count’s master is of another style.

PAROLLES.
You are too old, sir; let it satisfy you, you are too old.

LAFEW.
I must tell thee, sirrah, I write man; to which title age cannot bring
thee.

PAROLLES.
What I dare too well do, I dare not do.

LAFEW.
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 scarfs
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 art scarce worth.

PAROLLES.
Hadst thou not the privilege of antiquity upon thee—

LAFEW.
Do not plunge thyself too far in anger, lest thou hasten thy trial;
which if—Lord have mercy on thee for a hen! So, my good window of
lattice, fare thee well; thy casement I need not open, for I look
through thee. Give me thy hand.

PAROLLES.
My lord, you give me most egregious indignity.

LAFEW.
Ay, with all my heart; and thou art worthy of it.

PAROLLES.
I have not, my lord, deserv’d it.

LAFEW.
Yes, good faith, every dram of it; and I will not bate thee a scruple.

PAROLLES.
Well, I shall be wiser.

LAFEW.
Ev’n as soon as thou canst, for thou hast to pull at a smack o’ th’
contrary. If ever thou beest bound in thy scarf and beaten, thou shalt
find what it is to be proud of thy bondage. I have a desire to hold my
acquaintance with thee, or rather my knowledge, that I may say in the
default, “He is a man I know.”

PAROLLES.
My lord, you do me most insupportable vexation.

LAFEW.
I would it were hell-pains for thy sake, and my poor doing eternal; for
doing I am past, as I will by thee, in what motion age will give me
leave.

 [_Exit._]

PAROLLES.
Well, thou hast a son shall take this disgrace off me; scurvy, old,
filthy, scurvy lord! Well, I must be patient; there is no fettering of
authority. I’ll beat him, by my life, if I can meet him with any
convenience, an he were double and double a lord. I’ll have no more
pity of his age than I would have of—I’ll beat him, and if I could but
meet him again.

 Enter Lafew.

LAFEW.
Sirrah, your lord and master’s married; there’s news for you; you have
a new mistress.

PAROLLES.
I most unfeignedly beseech your lordship to make some reservation of
your wrongs. He is my good lord; whom I serve above is my master.

LAFEW.
Who? God?

PAROLLES.
Ay, sir.

LAFEW.
The devil it is that’s thy master. Why dost thou garter up thy arms o’
this fashion? Dost make hose of thy sleeves? Do other servants so? Thou
wert best set thy lower part where thy nose stands. By mine honour, if
I were but two hours younger, I’d beat thee. Methink’st thou art a
general offence, and every man should beat thee. I think thou wast
created for men to breathe themselves upon thee.

PAROLLES.
This is hard and undeserved measure, my lord.

LAFEW.
Go to, sir; you were beaten in Italy for picking a kernel out of a
pomegranate; you are a vagabond, and no true traveller. You are more
saucy with lords and honourable personages than the commission of your
birth and virtue gives you heraldry. You are not worth another word,
else I’d call you knave. I leave you.

 [_Exit._]

 Enter Bertram.

PAROLLES.
Good, very good, it is so then. Good, very good; let it be conceal’d
awhile.

BERTRAM.
Undone, and forfeited to cares for ever!

PAROLLES.
What’s the matter, sweetheart?

BERTRAM.
Although before the solemn priest I have sworn,
I will not bed her.

PAROLLES.
What, what, sweetheart?

BERTRAM.
O my Parolles, they have married me!
I’ll to the Tuscan wars, and never bed her.

PAROLLES.
France is a dog-hole, and it no more merits
The tread of a man’s foot: to the wars!

BERTRAM.
There’s letters from my mother; what th’ import is
I know not yet.

PAROLLES.
Ay, that would be known. To th’ wars, my boy, to th’ wars!
He wears his honour in a box unseen
That hugs his kicky-wicky here at home,
Spending his manly marrow in her arms,
Which should sustain the bound and high curvet
Of Mars’s fiery steed. To other regions!
France is a stable; we that dwell in’t, jades,
Therefore, to th’ war!

BERTRAM.
It shall be so; I’ll send her to my house,
Acquaint my mother with my hate to her,
And wherefore I am fled; write to the king
That which I durst not speak. His present gift
Shall furnish me to those Italian fields
Where noble fellows strike. War is no strife
To the dark house and the detested wife.

PAROLLES.
Will this caprichio hold in thee, art sure?

BERTRAM.
Go with me to my chamber and advise me.
I’ll send her straight away. Tomorrow
I’ll to the wars, she to her single sorrow.

PAROLLES.
Why, these balls bound; there’s noise in it. ’Tis hard:
A young man married is a man that’s marr’d.
Therefore away, and leave her bravely; go.
The king has done you wrong; but hush ’tis so.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE IV. Paris. The King’s palace.

 Enter Helena and Clown.

HELENA.
My mother greets me kindly: is she well?

CLOWN.
She is not well, but yet she has her health; she’s very merry, but yet
she is not well. But thanks be given, she’s very well, and wants
nothing i’ the world; but yet she is not well.

HELENA.
If she be very well, what does she ail that she’s not very well?

CLOWN.
Truly, she’s very well indeed, but for two things.

HELENA.
What two things?

CLOWN.
One, that she’s not in heaven, whither God send her quickly! The other,
that she’s in earth, from whence God send her quickly!

 Enter Parolles.

PAROLLES.
Bless you, my fortunate lady!

HELENA.
I hope, sir, I have your good will to have mine own good fortune.

PAROLLES.
You had my prayers to lead them on; and to keep them on, have them
still. O, my knave how does my old lady?

CLOWN.
So that you had her wrinkles and I her money, I would she did as you
say.

PAROLLES.
Why, I say nothing.

CLOWN.
Marry, you are the wiser man; for many a man’s tongue shakes out his
master’s undoing. To say nothing, to do nothing, to know nothing, and
to have nothing, is to be a great part of your title; which is within a
very little of nothing.

PAROLLES.
Away! Thou art a knave.

CLOWN.
You should have said, sir, before a knave thou art a knave; that is
before me thou art a knave. This had been truth, sir.

PAROLLES.
Go to, thou art a witty fool; I have found thee.

CLOWN.
Did you find me in yourself, sir? or were you taught to find me? The
search, sir, was profitable; and much fool may you find in you, even to
the world’s pleasure and the increase of laughter.

PAROLLES.
A good knave, i’ faith, and well fed.
Madam, my lord will go away tonight;
A very serious business calls on him.
The great prerogative and right of love,
Which, as your due, time claims, he does acknowledge;
But puts it off to a compell’d restraint;
Whose want, and whose delay, is strew’d with sweets;
Which they distil now in the curbed time,
To make the coming hour o’erflow with joy
And pleasure drown the brim.

HELENA.
What’s his will else?

PAROLLES.
That you will take your instant leave o’ the king,
And make this haste as your own good proceeding,
Strengthen’d with what apology you think
May make it probable need.

HELENA.
What more commands he?

PAROLLES.
That, having this obtain’d, you presently
Attend his further pleasure.

HELENA.
In everything I wait upon his will.

PAROLLES.
I shall report it so.

HELENA.
I pray you. Come, sirrah.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE V. Another room in the same.

 Enter Lafew and Bertram.

LAFEW.
But I hope your lordship thinks not him a soldier.

BERTRAM.
Yes, my lord, and of very valiant approof.

LAFEW.
You have it from his own deliverance.

BERTRAM.
And by other warranted testimony.

LAFEW.
Then my dial goes not true; I took this lark for a bunting.

BERTRAM.
I do assure you, my lord, he is very great in knowledge, and
accordingly valiant.

LAFEW.
I have, then, sinned against his experience and transgressed against
his valour; and my state that way is dangerous, since I cannot yet find
in my heart to repent. Here he comes; I pray you make us friends; I
will pursue the amity

 Enter Parolles.

PAROLLES.
[_To Bertram._] These things shall be done, sir.

LAFEW.
Pray you, sir, who’s his tailor?

PAROLLES.
Sir!

LAFEW.
O, I know him well, I, sir; he, sir, is a good workman, a very good
tailor.

BERTRAM.
[_Aside to Parolles._] Is she gone to the king?

PAROLLES.
She is.

BERTRAM.
Will she away tonight?

PAROLLES.
As you’ll have her.

BERTRAM.
I have writ my letters, casketed my treasure,
Given order for our horses; and tonight,
When I should take possession of the bride,
End ere I do begin.

LAFEW.
A good traveller is something at the latter end of a dinner; but one
that lies three-thirds and uses a known truth to pass a thousand
nothings with, should be once heard and thrice beaten.— God save you,
Captain.

BERTRAM.
Is there any unkindness between my lord and you, monsieur?

PAROLLES.
I know not how I have deserved to run into my lord’s displeasure.

LAFEW.
You have made shift to run into ’t, boots and spurs and all, like him
that leapt into the custard; and out of it you’ll run again, rather
than suffer question for your residence.

BERTRAM.
It may be you have mistaken him, my lord.

LAFEW.
And shall do so ever, though I took him at his prayers. Fare you well,
my lord; and believe this of me, there can be no kernal in this light
nut; the soul of this man is his clothes; trust him not in matter of
heavy consequence; I have kept of them tame, and know their natures.
Farewell, monsieur; I have spoken better of you than you have or will
to deserve at my hand; but we must do good against evil.

 [_Exit._]

PAROLLES.
An idle lord, I swear.

BERTRAM.
I think so.

PAROLLES.
Why, do you not know him?

BERTRAM.
Yes, I do know him well; and common speech
Gives him a worthy pass. Here comes my clog.

 Enter Helena.

HELENA.
I have, sir, as I was commanded from you,
Spoke with the king, and have procur’d his leave
For present parting; only he desires
Some private speech with you.

BERTRAM.
I shall obey his will.
You must not marvel, Helen, at my course,
Which holds not colour with the time, nor does
The ministration and required office
On my particular. Prepared I was not
For such a business; therefore am I found
So much unsettled: this drives me to entreat you;
That presently you take your way for home,
And rather muse than ask why I entreat you:
For my respects are better than they seem;
And my appointments have in them a need
Greater than shows itself at the first view
To you that know them not. This to my mother.

 [_Giving a letter._]

’Twill be two days ere I shall see you; so
I leave you to your wisdom.

HELENA.
Sir, I can nothing say
But that I am your most obedient servant.

BERTRAM.
Come, come, no more of that.

HELENA.
And ever shall
With true observance seek to eke out that
Wherein toward me my homely stars have fail’d
To equal my great fortune.

BERTRAM.
Let that go.
My haste is very great. Farewell; hie home.

HELENA.
Pray, sir, your pardon.

BERTRAM.
Well, what would you say?

HELENA.
I am not worthy of the wealth I owe;
Nor dare I say ’tis mine, and yet it is;
But, like a timorous thief, most fain would steal
What law does vouch mine own.

BERTRAM.
What would you have?

HELENA.
Something; and scarce so much; nothing indeed.
I would not tell you what I would, my lord. Faith, yes,
Strangers and foes do sunder and not kiss.

BERTRAM.
I pray you, stay not, but in haste to horse.

HELENA.
I shall not break your bidding, good my lord.
Where are my other men, monsieur?
Farewell,

 [_Exit Helena._]

BERTRAM.
Go thou toward home, where I will never come
Whilst I can shake my sword or hear the drum.
Away, and for our flight.

PAROLLES.
Bravely, coragio!

 [_Exeunt._]


ACT III.

SCENE I. Florence. A room in the Duke’s palace.

 Flourish. Enter the Duke of Florence attended; two French Lords, and
 Soldiers.

DUKE.
So that, from point to point, now have you heard
The fundamental reasons of this war,
Whose great decision hath much blood let forth,
And more thirsts after.

FIRST LORD.
Holy seems the quarrel
Upon your Grace’s part; black and fearful
On the opposer.

DUKE.
Therefore we marvel much our cousin France
Would, in so just a business, shut his bosom
Against our borrowing prayers.

SECOND LORD.
Good my lord,
The reasons of our state I cannot yield,
But like a common and an outward man
That the great figure of a council frames
By self-unable motion; therefore dare not
Say what I think of it, since I have found
Myself in my incertain grounds to fail
As often as I guess’d.

DUKE.
Be it his pleasure.

FIRST LORD.
But I am sure the younger of our nature,
That surfeit on their ease, will day by day
Come here for physic.

DUKE.
Welcome shall they be;
And all the honours that can fly from us
Shall on them settle. You know your places well;
When better fall, for your avails they fell.
Tomorrow to the field.

 [_Flourish. Exeunt._]

SCENE II. Rossillon. A room in the Countess’s palace.

 Enter Countess and Clown.

COUNTESS.
It hath happen’d 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 lings and our
Isbels o’ th’ country are nothing like your old ling and your Isbels o’
th’ court. The brains of my Cupid’s knock’d 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 misprizing of a maid too virtuous
For the contempt of empire.

 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 kill’d so soon as I thought he would.

COUNTESS.
Why should he be kill’d?

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 the 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 despatch in hand at court,
Thither we bend again.

HELENA.
Look on this 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 pains.

COUNTESS.
I pr’ythee, 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.
Y’are 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, Rossillon, 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, Rossillon,
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 offic’d 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._]

SCENE III. Florence. Before the Duke’s palace.

 Flourish. Enter the Duke of Florence, Bertram, drum and trumpets,
 Soldiers, Parolles.

DUKE.
The general of our horse thou art, and we,
Great in our hope, lay our best love and credence
Upon thy promising fortune.

BERTRAM.
Sir, it is
A charge too heavy for my strength; but yet
We’ll strive to bear it for your worthy sake
To th’extreme edge of hazard.

DUKE.
Then go thou forth;
And fortune play upon thy prosperous helm,
As thy auspicious mistress!

BERTRAM.
This very day,
Great Mars, I put myself into thy file;
Make me but like my thoughts, and I shall prove
A lover of thy drum, hater of love.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE IV. Rossillon. A room in the Countess’s palace.

 Enter Countess and Steward.

COUNTESS.
Alas! and would you take the letter of her?
Might you not know she would do as she has done,
By sending me a letter? Read it again.

STEWARD.
[_Reads._] _I am Saint Jaques’ pilgrim, thither gone.
Ambitious love hath so in me offended
That barefoot plod I the cold ground upon,
With sainted vow my faults to have amended.
Write, write, that from the bloody course of war
My dearest master, your dear son, may hie.
Bless him at home in peace, whilst I from far
His name with zealous fervour sanctify.
His taken labours bid him me forgive;
I, his despiteful Juno, sent him forth
From courtly friends, with camping foes to live,
Where death and danger dog the heels of worth.
He is too good and fair for death and me;
Whom I myself embrace to set him free._

COUNTESS.
Ah, what sharp stings are in her mildest words!
Rynaldo, you did never lack advice so much
As letting her pass so; had I spoke with her,
I could have well diverted her intents,
Which thus she hath prevented.

STEWARD.
Pardon me, madam;
If I had given you this at over-night,
She might have been o’erta’en; and yet she writes
Pursuit would be but vain.

COUNTESS.
What angel shall
Bless this unworthy husband? He cannot thrive,
Unless her prayers, whom heaven delights to hear
And loves to grant, reprieve him from the wrath
Of greatest justice. Write, write, Rynaldo,
To this unworthy husband of his wife;
Let every word weigh heavy of her worth,
That he does weigh too light; my greatest grief,
Though little he do feel it, set down sharply.
Dispatch the most convenient messenger.
When haply he shall hear that she is gone
He will return; and hope I may that she,
Hearing so much, will speed her foot again,
Led hither by pure love. Which of them both
Is dearest to me I have no skill in sense
To make distinction. Provide this messenger.
My heart is heavy, and mine age is weak;
Grief would have tears, and sorrow bids me speak.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE V. Without the walls of Florence.

 Enter an old Widow of Florence, Diana, Violenta, Mariana and other
 Citizens.

WIDOW.
Nay, come; for if they do approach the city, we shall lose all the
sight.

DIANA.
They say the French count has done most honourable service.

WIDOW.
It is reported that he has taken their great’st commander, and that
with his own hand he slew the duke’s brother.

 [_A tucket afar off._]

We have lost our labour; they are gone a contrary way. Hark! you may
know by their trumpets.

MARIANA.
Come, let’s return again, and suffice ourselves with the report of it.
Well, Diana, take heed of this French earl; the honour of a maid is her
name; and no legacy is so rich as honesty.

WIDOW.
I have told my neighbour how you have been solicited by a gentleman his
companion.

MARIANA.
I know that knave; hang him! one Parolles; a filthy officer he is in
those suggestions for the young earl. Beware of them, Diana; their
promises, enticements, oaths, tokens, and all these engines of lust,
are not the things they go under; many a maid hath been seduced by
them; and the misery is, example, that so terrible shows in the wreck
of maidenhood, cannot for all that dissuade succession, but that they
are limed with the twigs that threaten them. I hope I need not to
advise you further; but I hope your own grace will keep you where you
are, though there were no further danger known but the modesty which is
so lost.

DIANA.
You shall not need to fear me.

 Enter Helena in the dress of a pilgrim.

WIDOW.
I hope so. Look, here comes a pilgrim. I know she will lie at my house;
thither they send one another; I’ll question her. God save you,
pilgrim! Whither are bound?

HELENA.
To Saint Jaques le Grand.
Where do the palmers lodge, I do beseech you?

WIDOW.
At the Saint Francis here, beside the port.

HELENA.
Is this the way?

 [_A march afar._]

WIDOW.
Ay, marry, is’t. Hark you, they come this way.
If you will tarry, holy pilgrim,
But till the troops come by,
I will conduct you where you shall be lodg’d;
The rather for I think I know your hostess
As ample as myself.

HELENA.
Is it yourself?

WIDOW.
If you shall please so, pilgrim.

HELENA.
I thank you, and will stay upon your leisure.

WIDOW.
You came, I think, from France?

HELENA.
I did so.

WIDOW.
Here you shall see a countryman of yours
That has done worthy service.

HELENA.
His name, I pray you.

DIANA.
The Count Rossillon. Know you such a one?

HELENA.
But by the ear, that hears most nobly of him;
His face I know not.

DIANA.
Whatsome’er he is,
He’s bravely taken here. He stole from France,
As ’tis reported, for the king had married him
Against his liking. Think you it is so?

HELENA.
Ay, surely, mere the truth; I know his lady.

DIANA.
There is a gentleman that serves the count
Reports but coarsely of her.

HELENA.
What’s his name?

DIANA.
Monsieur Parolles.

HELENA.
O, I believe with him,
In argument of praise, or to the worth
Of the great count himself, she is too mean
To have her name repeated; all her deserving
Is a reserved honesty, and that
I have not heard examin’d.

DIANA.
Alas, poor lady!
’Tis a hard bondage to become the wife
Of a detesting lord.

WIDOW.
Ay, right; good creature, wheresoe’er she is,
Her heart weighs sadly. This young maid might do her
A shrewd turn, if she pleas’d.

HELENA.
How do you mean?
Maybe the amorous count solicits her
In the unlawful purpose.

WIDOW.
He does indeed,
And brokes with all that can in such a suit
Corrupt the tender honour of a maid;
But she is arm’d for him, and keeps her guard
In honestest defence.

 Enter, with a drum and colours, a party of the Florentine army,
 Bertram and Parolles.

MARIANA.
The gods forbid else!

WIDOW.
So, now they come.
That is Antonio, the Duke’s eldest son;
That Escalus.

HELENA.
Which is the Frenchman?

DIANA.
He;
That with the plume; ’tis a most gallant fellow.
I would he lov’d his wife; if he were honester
He were much goodlier. Is’t not a handsome gentleman?

HELENA.
I like him well.

DIANA.
’Tis pity he is not honest. Yond’s that same knave
That leads him to these places. Were I his lady
I would poison that vile rascal.

HELENA.
Which is he?

DIANA.
That jack-an-apes with scarfs. Why is he melancholy?

HELENA.
Perchance he’s hurt i’ the battle.

PAROLLES.
Lose our drum! Well.

MARIANA.
He’s shrewdly vex’d at something. Look, he has spied us.

WIDOW.
Marry, hang you!

MARIANA.
And your courtesy, for a ring-carrier!

 [_Exeunt Bertram, Parolles, Officers and Soldiers._]

WIDOW.
The troop is past. Come, pilgrim, I will bring you
Where you shall host; of enjoin’d penitents
There’s four or five, to great Saint Jaques bound,
Already at my house.

HELENA.
I humbly thank you.
Please it this matron and this gentle maid
To eat with us tonight; the charge and thanking
Shall be for me; and, to requite you further,
I will bestow some precepts of this virgin,
Worthy the note.

BOTH.
We’ll take your offer kindly.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE VI. Camp before Florence.

 Enter Bertram and the two French Lords.

FIRST LORD.
Nay, good my lord, put him to’t; let him have his way.

SECOND LORD.
If your lordship find him not a hilding, hold me no more in your
respect.

FIRST LORD.
On my life, my lord, a bubble.

BERTRAM.
Do you think I am so far deceived in him?

FIRST LORD.
Believe it, my lord, in mine own direct knowledge, without any malice,
but to speak of him as my kinsman, he’s a most notable coward, an
infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise-breaker, the owner of no
one good quality worthy your lordship’s entertainment.

SECOND LORD.
It were fit you knew him; lest, reposing too far in his virtue, which
he hath not, he might at some great and trusty business, in a main
danger fail you.

BERTRAM.
I would I knew in what particular action to try him.

SECOND LORD.
None better than to let him fetch off his drum, which you hear him so
confidently undertake to do.

FIRST LORD.
I with a troop of Florentines will suddenly surprise him; such I will
have whom I am sure he knows not from the enemy; we will bind and
hoodwink him so that he shall suppose no other but that he is carried
into the leaguer of the adversaries when we bring him to our own tents.
Be but your lordship present at his examination; if he do not for the
promise of his life, and in the highest compulsion of base fear, offer
to betray you, and deliver all the intelligence in his power against
you, and that with the divine forfeit of his soul upon oath, never
trust my judgment in anything.

SECOND LORD.
O, for the love of laughter, let him fetch his drum; he says he has a
stratagem for’t. When your lordship sees the bottom of his success
in’t, and to what metal this counterfeit lump of ore will be melted, if
you give him not John Drum’s entertainment, your inclining cannot be
removed. Here he comes.

 Enter Parolles.

FIRST LORD.
O, for the love of laughter, hinder not the honour of his design: let
him fetch off his drum in any hand.

BERTRAM.
How now, monsieur! This drum sticks sorely in your disposition.

SECOND LORD.
A pox on ’t; let it go; ’tis but a drum.

PAROLLES.
But a drum! Is’t but a drum? A drum so lost! There was excellent
command, to charge in with our horse upon our own wings, and to rend
our own soldiers.

SECOND LORD.
That was not to be blam’d in the command of the service; it was a
disaster of war that Caesar himself could not have prevented, if he had
been there to command.

BERTRAM.
Well, we cannot greatly condemn our success: some dishonour we had in
the loss of that drum, but it is not to be recovered.

PAROLLES.
It might have been recovered.

BERTRAM.
It might, but it is not now.

PAROLLES.
It is to be recovered. But that the merit of service is seldom
attributed to the true and exact performer, I would have that drum or
another, or _hic jacet_.

BERTRAM.
Why, if you have a stomach, to’t, monsieur, if you think your mystery
in stratagem can bring this instrument of honour again into his native
quarter, be magnanimous in the enterprise, and go on; I will grace the
attempt for a worthy exploit; if you speed well in it, the duke shall
both speak of it and extend to you what further becomes his greatness,
even to the utmost syllable of your worthiness.

PAROLLES.
By the hand of a soldier, I will undertake it.

BERTRAM.
But you must not now slumber in it.

PAROLLES.
I’ll about it this evening; and I will presently pen down my dilemmas,
encourage myself in my certainty, put myself into my mortal
preparation; and by midnight look to hear further from me.

BERTRAM.
May I be bold to acquaint his grace you are gone about it?

PAROLLES.
I know not what the success will be, my lord, but the attempt I vow.

BERTRAM.
I know th’art valiant; and to the possibility of thy soldiership, will
subscribe for thee. Farewell.

PAROLLES.