ACT 1
Scene 3

...Thank your Majesty.
Enter Countess, Steward, and Fool.

...such knaveries yours.
’Tis not unknown to you, madam, I am a poor
fellow.

... Well, sir.
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.

...be a beggar?
I do beg your good will in this case.

...In what case?
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 o’ my body, for they say bairns
are blessings.

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

...your Worship’s reason?
Faith, madam, I have other holy reasons, such
as they are.

...world know them?
I have been, madam, a wicked creature, as you
and all flesh and blood are, and indeed I do marry
that I may repent.

...than thy wickedness.
I am out o’ friends, madam, and I hope to have
friends for my wife’s sake.

...thine enemies, knave.
You’re shallow, madam, in great friends, for the
knaves come to do that for me which I am aweary
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
severed in religion, their heads are both one; they
may jowl horns together like any deer i’ th’ herd.

...and calumnious knave?
A prophet I, madam, and I speak the truth the
next way: Sings.

For I the ballad will repeat

Which men full true shall find:

Your marriage comes by destiny;

Your cuckoo sings by kind.

...her—Helen, I mean.
sings

“Was this fair face the cause,” quoth she,

“Why the Grecians sackèd Troy?

Fond done, done fond.

Was this King Priam’s joy?”

With that she sighèd as she stood,

With that she sighèd 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.”

...the song, sirrah.
One good woman in ten, madam, which is a
purifying o’ th’ 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 he? An 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.

...I command you!
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.
He exits.

ACT 2
Scene 2

...match thy deed.
Enter Countess and Fool.

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

...to the court”?
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.

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

...to all questions?
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.

...for all questions?
From below your duke to beneath your constable,
it will fit any question.

...fit all demands.
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.

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

...that loves you.
O Lord, sir!—Thick, thick. Spare not me.

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

...as I think.
O Lord, sir!—Spare not me.

...bound to ’t.
I ne’er had worse luck in my life in my “O Lord,
sir!” I see things may serve long but not serve ever.

...with a fool.
O Lord, sir!—Why, there ’t serves well again.
COUNTESS, giving him a paper

...is not much.
Not much commendation to them?

...You understand me.
Most fruitfully. I am there before my legs.

...Haste you again.
They exit.

Scene 4

...hush, ’tis so.
Enter Helen with a paper, and Fool.

...Is she well?
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’ th’ world,
but yet she is not well.

...not very well?
Truly, she’s very well indeed, but for two things.

...What two things?
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.

...my old lady?
So that you had her wrinkles and I her money, I
would she did as you say.

...I say nothing.
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.

...’rt a knave.
You should have said, sir, “Before a knave,
thou ’rt a knave”; that’s “Before me, thou ’rt a
knave.” This had been truth, sir.

...have found thee.
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.

...you, come, sirrah.
They exit.

ACT 3
Scene 2

...to th’ field.
Enter Countess, with a paper, and Fool.

...along with her.
By my troth, I take my young lord to be a very
melancholy man.

...I pray you?
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.

...opens the letter.
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 knocked out, and I begin to
love as an old man loves money, with no stomach.

...have we here?
E’en that you have there.
He exits.

...contempt of empire.
Enter Fool.
O madam, yonder is heavy news within, between
two soldiers and my young lady.

...is the matter?
Nay, there is some comfort in the news, some
comfort. Your son will not be killed so soon as I
thought he would.

...he be killed?
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.
He exits.

ACT 4
Scene 5

...is the renown.
Enter Fool, Countess, and Lafew.

...such another herb.
Indeed, sir, she was the sweet marjoram of the
salad, or rather the herb of grace.

...They are nose-herbs.
I am no great Nebuchadnezzar, sir. I have not
much skill in grass.

...or a fool?
A fool, sir, at a woman’s service, and a knave at a
man’s.

... Your distinction?
I would cozen the man of his wife and do his
service.

...his service indeed.
And I would give his wife my bauble, sir, to do
her service.

...knave and fool.
At your service.

...No, no, no.
Why, sir, if I cannot serve you, I can serve as
great a prince as you are.

...that, a Frenchman?
Faith, sir, he has an English name, but his
phys’nomy is more hotter in France than there.

...prince is that?
The black prince, sir, alias the prince of darkness,
alias the devil.
LAFEW, giving him money

...Serve him still.
I am a woodland fellow, sir, that always loved a
great fire, and the master I speak of ever keeps a
good fire. But sure he is the prince of the world; let
his Nobility remain in ’s court. I am for the house
with the narrow gate, which I take to be too little
for pomp to enter. Some that humble themselves
may, but the many will be too chill and tender, and
they’ll be for the flow’ry way that leads to the
broad gate and the great fire.

...without any tricks.
If I put any tricks upon ’em, sir, they shall be
jades’ tricks, which are their own right by the law
of nature.
He exits.

...it holds yet.
Enter Fool.
O madam, yonder’s my lord your son with a
patch of velvet on ’s face. Whether there be a scar
under ’t or no, the velvet knows, but ’tis a goodly
patch of velvet. His left cheek is a cheek of two pile
and a half, but his right cheek is worn bare.

...belike is that.
But it is your carbonadoed face.

...young noble soldier.
’Faith, there’s a dozen of ’em, with delicate fine
hats, and most courteous feathers which bow the
head and nod at every man.
They exit.

ACT 5
Scene 2

...Go, go, provide.
Enter Fool and Parolles.

...her strong displeasure.
Truly, Fortune’s displeasure is but sluttish if it
smell so strongly as thou speak’st of. I will henceforth
eat no fish of Fortune’s butt’ring. Prithee,
allow the wind.

...by a metaphor.
Indeed, sir, if your metaphor stink I will stop my
nose, or against any man’s metaphor. Prithee, get
thee further.

...me this paper.
Foh! Prithee, stand away. A paper from Fortune’s
close-stool, to give to a nobleman!

Enter Lafew.
Look, here he comes himself.—Here is a purr of
Fortune’s, sir, or of Fortune’s cat—but not a
musk-cat—that has fall’n into the unclean fishpond
of her displeasure and, as he says, is muddied
withal. Pray you, sir, use the carp as you may,
for he looks like a poor, decayed, ingenious, foolish,
rascally knave. I do pity his distress in my
smiles of comfort, and leave him to your Lordship.
He exits.