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. The ambition in my love thus plagues itself : The hind, that would be mated by the lion, Must die for love. "T was 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 line and trick of his sweet favour: every Must sanctify his relics. Who comes here? my idolatrous fancy

Of

But now he's

gone, and

In our heart's table;] Table is used here in the sense of panel, or surface, on which a picture was painted. So, in "King John," Act II. Sc. 2:

"Drawn in the flattering table of her eye!" And you, monarch.] This is conceived to be an allusion to the fantastic Italian, styled Monarcho; of whom an account will

PAR. Are you meditating on virginity?

HEL. 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?

PAR. Keep him out.

HEL. But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant in the defence, yet is weak: unfold to us some warlike resistance.

PAR. There is none; man, sitting down before you, will undermine you, and blow you up.

HEL. Bless our poor virginity from underminers, and blowers up!-Is there no military policy, how virgins might blow up men?

PAR. Virginity, being blown down, man will quicklier be blown up: marry, in blowing him down again, with the breach yourselves made, you lose your city. It is not politic in the commonwealth of nature, to preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational increase; and there was never virgin got, till virginity was first lost. That, you were made of, is metal to make virgins. Virginity, by being once lost, may be ten times found; by being ever kept, it is ever lost: 'tis too cold a companion: away with it.

*

HEL. I will stand for't a little, though therefore I die a virgin.

PAR. 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 ten year it will make itself ten, which is a goodly increase; and the principal itself not much the worse. Away with 't.

HEL. How might one do, sir, to lose it to her own liking?

PAR. Let me see. Marry, ill, to like him that ne'er it likes. 'Tis a commodity will lose the gloss with lying; the longer kept, the less worth: off with 't, while 't is vendible: answer the time of request. Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of fashion; richly suited, but unsuitable:

(*) First folio, goe.

a Some stain-] Some tinet, some mark. b Inhibited sin-] Forbidden, prohibited.

e Within ten year it will make itself ten,-] The folio reads, make it selfe two," &c. The alteration of "two" to "ten," which was first made by Hanmer, is countenanced by a previous observation of the speaker-“Virginity, by being once lost, may be ten times found."

8

[SCENE L.

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 withered pears; it looks ill, it eats drily; marry, 'tis a withered pear; it was formerly better, marry, yet, 'tis a withered pear: will you any thing with it?

d

HEL. 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—
PAR. What one, i'faith?

HEL. That I wish well.--'Tis pity-
PAR. What's pity?

HEL. 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

dIt was formerly better, marry, yet, 'tis a withered pear:] This is a notable instance of "yet being used in the sense of now. See note (b), p. 346, Vol. I.

e There shall your master have a thousand loves.-] Something is evidently wanting here; this rhapsody having no connexion with what precedes it. Hanmer remedies the defect by making Helena say, "You're for the court;" but the deficiency is more probably in Parolles' speech, where the words "We are for the court" may have been omitted by the compositor.

PAR. That's for advantage.

:

HEL. 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.

PAR. I am so full of businesses, I cannot answer thee acutely: I will return perfect courtier; in the which, my instruction shall serve to naturalize thee, so thou wilt be capable of a courtier's 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.

HEL. Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky Gives us free scope; only, doth backward pull Our slow designs, when we ourselves are dull. is it, which mounts my love so high; That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye? The mightiest space" in fortune, nature brings

What

power

The mightiest space in fortune, nature brings
To join like likes, and kiss like native things.]

It would improve both the sense and metre were we to read,

"The wid'st apart in fortune," &c.

Mightiest space is clearly one of the swarm of typographical blemishes by which the old text of this comedy is disfigured. b What hath been cannot be.] The very opposite of what the speaker intended to express! Mason, therefore, proposed"What ha'n't been, cannot be;"

ACT I.]

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
To-day in our young lords; but they may jest,
Till their own scorn return to them unnoted,
Ere they can hide their levity in 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, follow'd well, would démonstrate them now
But goers backward.
His good remembrance, sir,
Lies richer in your thoughts, than on his tomb;
So in approof lives not his epitaph,

BER.

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,d-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.

first.

2 LORD. You are lov'd, sir: They, that least lend it shall lack you, KING. I fill a place, I know't.-How long is 't,

count,

you

Since the physician at your father's died?
He was much fam'd.

BER.
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.
BER.

Thank your majesty.
[Exeunt. Flourish.

SCENE III. Rousillon. A Room in the Countess's Palace.

Enter COUNTESS, Steward, and Clown.(2) COUNT. I will now hear: what say you of this gentlewoman?

A very slight alteration would lessen the ambiguity of this passage. We should, perhaps, read,

"In their poor praise be-humbled."

When it was out,-] When what was out? The commentators are mute. Does not the whole tenor of the context tend to show that it is a misprint of wit? With this simple change, and supposing the ordinary distribution of the lines to be correct, the purport would be, " Often towards the end of some spirituel disport, when wit was exhausted, he would say," &c.

With several applications:-] Manifold applications.

STEW. Madam, the care I have had to evena 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.

COUNT. What does this knave here? Get gone, sirrah: the complaints, I have heard of you 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.

a

CLO. "Tis not unknown to you, madam, I am poor fellow.

COUNT. Well, sir.

CLO. 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

Act 11, Sc. 1:-"But will you make it even?"-in the sense To even your content,-] Even is used here, seemingly, as in of keep pace with, strike a balance with, equate, &c.

the world, Isbel the woman and I will do as we may.

COUNT. Wilt thou needs be a beggar?
CLO. I do beg your good-will in this case.
COUNT. In what case?

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

COUNT. Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry.

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

COUNT. Is this all your worship's reason? CLO. 'Faith, madam, I have other, holy reasons, such as they are.

COUNT. May the world know them?

(*) First folio, w.

b To go to the world,-] That is, to be married. See note (c), p. 707, Vol. I.