ACT 1
Scene 2

...not leave me.
Flourish cornets. Enter the King of France with letters, two Lords, and divers Attendants.
The Florentines and Senoys are by th’ ears,
Have fought with equal fortune, and continue
A braving war.

...’tis reported, sir.
Nay, ’tis most credible. We here receive it
A certainty vouched 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.

...For amplest credence.
He hath armed 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.

...Lafew, and Parolles.
What’s he comes here?

...lord, Young Bertram.
Youth, thou bear’st thy father’s face.
Frank nature, rather curious than in haste,
Hath well composed thee. Thy father’s moral parts
Mayst thou inherit too. Welcome to Paris.

...are your Majesty’s.
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 honor.
So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness
Were in his pride or sharpness; if they were,
His equal had awaked them, and his honor,
Clock to itself, knew the true minute when
Exception bid him speak, and at this time
His tongue obeyed his hand. Who were below him
He used as creatures of another place
And bowed 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.

...your royal speech.
Would I were with him! He would always say—
Methinks I hear him now; his plausive words
He scattered 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 wished.
I, after him, do after him wish too,
Since I nor wax nor honey can bring home,
I quickly were dissolvèd from my hive
To give some laborers room.

...lack you first.
I fill a place, I know ’t.—How long is ’t, count,
Since the physician at your father’s died?
He was much famed.

...since, my lord.
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.

...Thank your Majesty.
They exit. Flourish.

ACT 2
Scene 1

...shalt not miss.
Flourish cornets. Enter the King, attended, with divers young Lords, taking leave for the Florentine war; Bertram Count Rossillion, and Parolles.
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 received
And is enough for both.

...Grace in health.
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 honor but to wed it. When
The bravest questant shrinks, find what you seek,
That fame may cry you loud. I say farewell.

...serve your Majesty!
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.

...receive your warnings.
Farewell.—Come hither to me.
The King speaks to Attendants, while Bertram, Parolles, and other Lords come forward.

...for my tidings.
I’ll fee thee to stand up.

...so stand up.
I would I had, so I had broke thy pate
And asked thee mercy for ’t.

...Of your infirmity?
No.

...a love line.
What “her” is this?

...well at me.
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.

...bring in Helen.
Thus he his special nothing ever prologues.

...come your ways.
This haste hath wings indeed.

...Fare you well.
Now, fair one, does your business follow us?

...profess well found.
I knew him.

...all bound humbleness.
We thank you, maiden,
But may not be so credulous of cure,
When our most learnèd doctors leave us and
The congregated college have concluded
That laboring art can never ransom nature
From her inaidible 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.

...me back again.
I cannot give thee less, to be called 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.

...despair most shifts.
I must not hear thee. Fare thee well, kind maid.
Thy pains, not used, must by thyself be paid.
Proffers not took reap thanks for their reward.

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

...sickness freely die.
Upon thy certainty and confidence
What dar’st thou venture?

...life be ended.
Methinks in thee some blessèd spirit doth speak
His powerful sound within an organ weak,
And what impossibility would slay
In common sense, sense saves another way.
Thy life is dear, for all that life can rate
Worth name of life in thee hath estimate:
Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, all
That happiness and prime can happy call.
Thou this to hazard needs must intimate
Skill infinite or monstrous desperate.
Sweet practicer, thy physic I will try,
That ministers thine own death if I die.

...you promise me?
Make thy demand.

...make it even?
Ay, by my scepter and my hopes of heaven.

...thee to bestow.
Here is my hand. The premises observed,
Thy will by my performance shall be served.
So make the choice of thy own time, for I,
Thy resolved patient, on thee still rely.
More should I question thee, and more I must,
Though more to know could not be more to trust:
From whence thou cam’st, how tended on; but rest
Unquestioned welcome and undoubted blessed.—
Give me some help here, ho!—If thou proceed
As high as word, my deed shall match thy deed.
Flourish. They exit, the King assisted.

Scene 3

...be— Generally thankful.
Enter King, Helen, and Attendants.

...I think so.
Go, call before me all the lords in court.
Sit, my preserver, by thy patient’s side,
And with this healthful hand, whose banished sense
Thou hast repealed, a second time receive
The confirmation of my promised gift,
Which but attends thy naming.

Enter three or four Court 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.

...as little beard.
Peruse them well.
Not one of those but had a noble father.

...come there again.”
Make choice and see.
Who shuns thy love shuns all his love in me.

...is the man.
Why then, young Bertram, take her. She’s thy wife.

...mine own eyes.
Know’st thou not, Bertram,
What she has done for me?

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

...corrupt me ever!
’Tis only title thou disdain’st in her, the which
I can build up. Strange is it that our bloods,
Of color, weight, and heat, poured all together,
Would quite confound distinction, yet stands off
In differences so mighty. If she be
All that is virtuous, save what thou dislik’st—
“A poor physician’s daughter”—thou dislik’st
Of virtue for the name. But do not so.
From lowest place whence virtuous things proceed,
The place is dignified by th’ doer’s deed.
Where great additions swell ’s, and virtue none,
It is a dropsied honor. 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 honor. That is honor’s scorn
Which challenges itself as honor’s born
And is not like the sire. Honors thrive
When rather from our acts we them derive
Than our foregoers. The mere word’s a slave
Debauched on every tomb, on every grave
A lying trophy, and as oft is dumb
Where dust and damned oblivion is the tomb
Of honored 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, honor and wealth from me.

...to do ’t.
Thou wrong’st thyself if thou shouldst strive to choose.

...the rest go.
My honor’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 honor 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 forever
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.

...’twere born so.
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.

...take her hand.
Good fortune and the favor of the King
Smile upon this contract, whose ceremony
Shall seem expedient on the now-born brief
And be performed tonight. The solemn feast
Shall more attend upon the coming space,
Expecting absent friends. As thou lov’st her
Thy love’s to me religious; else, does err.
They exit. Parolles and Lafew stay behind, commenting of this wedding.

ACT 5
Scene 3

...God for you.
Flourish. Enter King, Countess, Lafew, the two French Lords, with Attendants.
We lost a jewel of her, and our esteem
Was made much poorer by it. But your son,
As mad in folly, lacked the sense to know
Her estimation home.

...and burns on.
My honored lady,
I have forgiven and forgotten all,
Though my revenges were high bent upon him
And watched the time to shoot.

...Humbly called mistress.
Praising what is lost
Makes the remembrance dear. Well, call him hither.
We are reconciled, and the first view shall kill
All repetition. Let him not ask our pardon.
The nature of his great offense is dead,
And deeper than oblivion we do bury
Th’ incensing relics of it. Let him approach
A stranger, no offender, and inform him
So ’tis our will he should.

...shall, my liege.
What says he to your daughter? Have you spoke?

...to your Highness.
Then shall we have a match. I have letters sent me
That sets him high in fame.

...well on ’t.
I am not a day of season,
For thou mayst see a sunshine and a hail
In me at once. But to the brightest beams
Distracted clouds give way. So stand thou forth.
The time is fair again.

...pardon to me.
All is whole.
Not one word more of the consumèd time.
Let’s take the instant by the forward top,
For we are old, and on our quick’st decrees
Th’ inaudible and noiseless foot of time
Steals ere we can effect them. You remember
The daughter of this lord?

...did offend it.
Well excused.
That thou didst love her strikes some scores away
From the great compt. But love that comes too late,
Like a remorseful pardon slowly carried,
To the great sender turns a sour offense,
Crying “That’s good that’s gone!” Our rash faults
Make trivial price of serious things we have,
Not knowing them until we know their grave.
Oft our displeasures, to ourselves unjust,
Destroy our friends and after weep their dust.
Our own love, waking, cries to see what’s done,
While shameful hate sleeps out the afternoon.
Be this sweet Helen’s knell, and now forget her.
Send forth your amorous token for fair Maudlin.
The main consents are had, and here we’ll stay
To see our widower’s second marriage day.

...it was not.
Now, pray you, let me see it, for mine eye,
While I was speaking, oft was fastened to ’t. Lafew passes the ring to the King.
This ring was mine, and when I gave it Helen,
I bade her if her fortunes ever stood
Necessitied to help, that by this token
I would relieve her. To Bertram.
Had you that craft to reave her
Of what should stead her most?

...the ring again.
Plutus himself,
That knows the tinct and multiplying med’cine,
Hath not in nature’s mystery more science
Than I have in this ring. ’Twas mine, ’twas Helen’s,
Whoever gave it you. Then if you know
That you are well acquainted with yourself,
Confess ’twas hers and by what rough enforcement
You got it from her. She called the saints to surety
That she would never put it from her finger
Unless she gave it to yourself in bed,
Where you have never come, or sent it us
Upon her great disaster.

...never saw it.
Thou speak’st it falsely, as I love mine honor,
And mak’st conjectural fears to come into me
Which I would fain shut out. If it should prove
That thou art so inhuman—’twill not prove so,
And yet I know not. Thou didst hate her deadly,
And she is dead, which nothing but to close
Her eyes myself could win me to believe
More than to see this ring.—Take him away.
My forepast proofs, howe’er the matter fall,
Shall tax my fears of little vanity,
Having vainly feared too little. Away with him.
We’ll sift this matter further.

...she never was.
I am wrapped in dismal thinkings.

...I know not.
He gives the King a paper.

...Highness with herself.
reads
Upon his many protestations to marry me
when his wife was dead, I blush to say it, he won
me. Now is the Count Rossillion a widower, his
vows are forfeited to me and my honor’s paid to him.
He stole from Florence, taking no leave, and I follow
him to his country for justice. Grant it me, O king.
In you it best lies. Otherwise a seducer flourishes,
and a poor maid is undone.
Diana Capilet.

...none of him.
The heavens have thought well on thee, Lafew,
To bring forth this discov’ry.—Seek these suitors.
Go speedily, and bring again the Count.
I am afeard the life of Helen, lady,
Was foully snatched.

...Bertram under guard.
I wonder, sir, since wives are monsters to you
And that you fly them as you swear them lordship,
Yet you desire to marry.

Enter Widow and Diana.
What woman’s that?

...without your remedy.
Come hither, count. Do you know these women?

...sink it here.
Sir, for my thoughts, you have them ill to friend
Till your deeds gain them. Fairer prove your honor
Than in my thought it lies.

...not my virginity.
What sayst thou to her?

...a thousand proofs.
to Diana
Methought you said
You saw one here in court could witness it.

...man he be.
Find him, and bring him hither.

...will speak anything?
She hath that ring of yours.

...have it not.
to Diana
What ring was yours, I pray you?

...upon your finger.
Know you this ring? This ring was his of late.

...him, being abed.
The story, then, goes false you threw it him
Out of a casement?

...ring was hers.
You boggle shrewdly. Every feather starts you.—
Is this the man you speak of?

...Ay, my lord.
Tell me, sirrah—but tell me true, I charge you,
Not fearing the displeasure of your master,
Which, on your just proceeding, I’ll keep off—
By him and by this woman here what know you?

...which gentlemen have.
Come, come, to th’ purpose. Did he love this
woman?

...her, but how?
How, I pray you?

...loves a woman.
How is that?

...loved her not.
As thou art a knave and no knave. What an
equivocal companion is this!

...than I’ll speak.
But wilt thou not speak all thou know’st?

...what I know.
Thou hast spoken all already, unless thou canst
say they are married. But thou art too fine in thy
evidence. Therefore stand aside. To Diana.
This ring you say was yours?

...my good lord.
Where did you buy it? Or who gave it you?

...not buy it.
Who lent it you?

...lent me neither.
Where did you find it then?

...found it not.
If it were yours by none of all these ways,
How could you give it him?

...on at pleasure.
This ring was mine. I gave it his first wife.

...aught I know.
to Attendants
Take her away. I do not like her now.
To prison with her, and away with him.—
Unless thou tell’st me where thou hadst this ring,
Thou diest within this hour.

...never tell you.
Take her away.

...bail, my liege.
I think thee now some common customer.

...man, ’twas you.
Wherefore hast thou accused him all this while?

...old man’s wife.
She does abuse our ears. To prison with her.

...Helen and Widow.
Is there no exorcist
Beguiles the truer office of mine eyes?
Is ’t real that I see?

...are scurvy ones.
Let us from point to point this story know,
To make the even truth in pleasure flow.
To Diana.
If thou be’st yet a fresh uncroppèd flower,
Choose thou thy husband, and I’ll pay thy dower.
For I can guess that by thy honest aid
Thou kept’st a wife herself, thyself a maid.
Of that and all the progress more and less,
Resolvedly more leisure shall express.
All yet seems well, and if it end so meet,
The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.

EPILOGUE

...take our hearts.
All exit.