William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition (470 page)

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Authors: William Shakespeare

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BERTRAM

I cannot love her, nor will strive to do’t.

KING

Thou wrong’st thyself. If thou shouldst strive to choose—

HELEN

That you are well restored, my lord, I’m 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)
(kneeling)

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 (rising)

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 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.

⌈Flourish.⌉ Exeunt all but Paroles and Lafeu, who stay behind, commenting on this wedding

LAFEU Do you hear, monsieur? A word with you. PAROLES Your pleasure, sir.

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

PAROLES Recantation? My lord? My master?

LAFEU Ay. Is it not a language I speak?

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

LAFEU Are you companion to the Count Roussillon?

PAROLES To any count, to all counts, to what is man.

LAFEU To what is count’s man; count’s master is of another style.

PAROLES You are too old, sir. Let it satisfy you, you are too old.

LAFEU I must tell thee, sirrah, I write ‘Man’, to which title age cannot bring thee.

PAROLES What I dare too well do I dare not do.

LAFEU 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 scarves 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’rt scarce worth.

PAROLES Hadst thou not the privilege of antiquity upon thee—

LAFEU 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. 216

PAROLES My lord, you give me most egregious indignity.

LAFEU Ay, with all my heart, and thou art worthy of it. PAROLES I have not, my lord, deserved it.

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

PAROLES Well, I shall be wiser.

LAFEU E‘en 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 shall 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’.

PAROLES My lord, you do me most insupportable vexation.

LAFEU 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

PAROLES 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, an if I could but meet him again.

Enter Lafeu

LAFEU Sirrah, your lord and master’s married. There’s news for you: you have a new mistress.

PAROLES 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.

LAFEU Who? God?

PAROLES Ay, sir.

LAFEU 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.

PAROLES This is hard and undeserved measure, my lord.

LAFEU 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

PAROLES Good, very good, it is so then. Good, very good, let it be concealed awhile.

[Enter Bertram]

BERTRAM

Undone and forfeited to cares for ever.

PAROLES What’s the matter, sweetheart?

BERTRAM

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

PAROLES What, what, sweetheart?

BERTRAM

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

PAROLES

France is a dog-hole, and it no more merits
The tread of a man’s foot. To th’ wars!

BERTRAM

There’s letters from my mother. What th’import is
I know not yet.

PAROLES

Ay, that would be known. To th’ wars, my boy, to th’
wars! 275
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. Wars is no strife
To the dark house and the detested wife.

PAROLES

Will this
capriccio
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.

PAROLES

Why, these balls bound, there’s noise in it. ‘Tis hard:
A young man married is a man that’s marred.
Therefore away, and leave her bravely. Go.
The King has done you wrong, but hush ’tis so.

Exeunt

2.4
Enter Helen reading a letter, and Lavatch the clown

HELEN

My mother greets me kindly. Is she well?

LAVATCH 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.

HELEN

If she be very well, what does she ail
That she’s not very well?

LAVATCH Truly, she’s very well indeed, but for two things. HELEN What two things?

LAVATCH 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 Paroles

PAROLES Bless you, my fortunate lady.

HELEN

I hope, sir, I have your good will to have
Mine own good fortunes. 15

PAROLES You had my prayers to lead them on, and to keep them on have them stitt.—O my knave, how does my old lady?

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

PAROLES Why, I say nothing.

LAVATCH 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.

PAROLES Away, thou’rt a knave.

LAVATCH 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.

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

LAVATCH Did you find me in yourself, sir, or were you taught to find me?

⌈PAROLES⌉ In myself, knave.

LAVATCH The search, sir, was profitable, and much fool may you find in you, even to the world’s pleasure and the increase of laughter.

PAROLES
(to Helen)
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 rite of love,
Which as your due time claims, he does acknowledge,
But puts it off to a compelled restraint:
Whose want and whose delay is strewed with sweets,
Which they distil now in the curbed time,
To make the coming hour o’erflow with joy,
And pleasure drown the brim.

HELEN

What’s his will else?

PAROLES

That you will take your instant leave o’th’ King,
And make this haste as your own good proceeding,
Strengthened with what apology you think
May make it probable need.

HELEN

What more commands he?

PAROLES

That having this obtained, you presently
Attend his further pleasure.

HELEN

In everything

I wait upon his will.

PAROLES

I shall report it so.

HELEN I pray you.

⌈
Exit Paroles at one door]

Come, sirrah.

Exeunt Fat another door]

2.5
Enter Lafeu and Bertram

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

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

LAFEU You have it from his own deliverance.

BERTRAM And by other warranted testimony.

LAFEU 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.

LAFEU 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.