Which holds not colour with the time, nor does
The ministration and required office

On my particular: prepar'd 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 muse1, 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.

Hel.
But that I am your most obedient servant.

Sir, I can nothing say,

Ber. Come, come, no more of that.

Hel.

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.

Ber. Let that go:

My haste is very great: Farewell; hie home.
Hel. Pray, sir, your pardon.

Ber.

Well, what would you say?

Hel. I am not worthy of the wealth I owe5;
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.

Ber.

What would you

have?

Hel. 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.

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

4.To muse is to wonder.

5 Possess, or own.

Hel. I shall not break your bidding, good my lord. Ber. Where are my other men, monsieur ?-Farewell. [Exit HELENA. Go thou toward home; where I will never come, Whilst I can shake my sword, or hear the drum :Away, and for our flight.

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

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,

Would, in so just a business, shut his bosom

Against our borrowing prayers.

2 Lord.

Good my lord,

The reasons of our state I cannot yield1,

But like a common and an outward man 2,
That the great figure of a council frames

1 i. e. I cannot inform you of the reasons.

2 One not in the secret of affairs: so inward in a contrary sense.

By self-unable motion3: therefore dare not
Say what I think of it; since I have found
Myself in my uncertain grounds to fail
As often as I guess'd.

Duke.

Be it his pleasure.

2 Lord. But I am sure, the younger of our nature*, That surfeit on their ease, will, day by day, Come here for physick.

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:

To-morrow to the field.

SCENE II.

[Flourish. Exeunt.

Rousillon.

A Room in the Countess's Palace.

Enter Countess and Clown.

Count. It hath happened all as I would have had it, save, that he comes not along with her.

Clo. By my troth, I take my young lord to be a very melancholy man.

Count. By what observance, I pray you?

Clo. Why, he will look upon his boot, and sing; mend the ruff5, 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.

Count. Let me see what he writes, and when he means to come. [Opening a Letter.

3 Warburton and Upton are of opinion that we should read, By self-unable notion.'

As we say at present, our young fellows.

5 The tops of the boots in Shakspeare's time turned down, and hung loosely over the leg. The folding part or top was the ruff. It was of softer leather than the boot, and often fringed.

Clo. I have no mind to Isbel, since I was at court; our old ling and our Isbels o'the country are nothing like your old ling and your Isbels o'the court: the brains of my Cupid's knocked out; and I begin to love, as an old man loves money, with no stomach.

Count. What have we here?

Clo. E'en that you have there.

[Exit.

Count. [Reads.] I have sent you a daughter-inlaw: 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.

Re-enter Clown.

Clo. O madam, yonder is heavy news within, between two soldiers and my young lady.

Count. What is the matter?

Clo. Nay, there is some comfort in the news, some comfort; your son will not be killed so soon as I thought he would.

Count. Why should he be killed?

Clo. 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 Clown.

Enter HELENA and two Gentlemen.

1 Gent. Save you, good madam.

Hel. Madam, my lord is gone, for ever gone. 2 Gent. Do not say so.

Count. Think upon patience.-'Pray you, gentle

men,

I have felt so many quirks of joy, and grief,
That the first face of neither, on the start,

Can woman 6 me unto't:-Where is my son, I pray you?

2 Gent. Madam, he's gone to serve the duke of Florence:

We met him thitherward; from thence we came,
And, after some despatch in hand at court,
Thither we bend again.

Hel. Look on his letter, madam; here's my passport.

[Reads.] When thou canst get the ring upon my finger, which never shall come off, and show me a child begotten of thy body, that I am father to, then call me husband: but in such a then I write a never.

This is a dreadful sentence !

Count. Brought you this letter, gentlemen?

1 Gent.

Ay, madam; And, for the contents' sake, are sorry for our pains.

8

Count. I pr'ythee, lady, have a better cheer; If thou engrossest all the griefs are thine 3, 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?

6 i. e. affect me suddenly and deeply, as our sex are usually affected.

7 i. e. when

you can get the ring which is on my finger into your possession.

8 If thou keepest all thy sorrows to thyself: an elliptical expression for all the griefs that are thine.'