Enter Countess, ⌜with a paper,⌝ and ⌜Fool.⌝COUNTESS It hath happened all as I would have had it, save that he comes not along with her.FOOL By my troth, I take my young lord to be a very melancholy man.COUNTESS 5By what observance, I pray you?FOOL 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.COUNTESS 10Let me see what he writes and when he means to come.⌜She opens the letter.⌝FOOL 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. The15 brains of my Cupid’s knocked out, and I begin to love as an old man loves money, with no stomach.COUNTESS What have we here?FOOL E’en that you have there.He exits.⌜COUNTESS reads.⌝ I have sent you a daughter-in-law.
20 She hath recovered the King and undone me. I have
wedded her, not bedded her, and sworn to make the
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“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
25 you.
Your unfortunate son,
Bertram. This is not well, rash and unbridled boy: To fly the favors of so good a king,30 To pluck his indignation on thy head By the misprizing of a maid too virtuous For the contempt of empire.Enter ⌜Fool.⌝FOOL O madam, yonder is heavy news within, between two soldiers and my young lady.COUNTESS 35What is the matter?FOOL Nay, there is some comfort in the news, some comfort. Your son will not be killed so soon as I thought he would.COUNTESS Why should he be killed?FOOL 40So 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.⌝Enter Helen, ⌜with a paper,⌝ and two Gentlemen.FIRST GENTLEMAN, ⌜to Countess⌝ 45Save you, good madam.HELEN Madam, my lord is gone, forever gone.SECOND GENTLEMAN Do not say so.COUNTESS Think upon patience, pray you.—Gentlemen,50 I have felt so many quirks of joy and grief That the first face of neither on the start Can woman me unto ’t. Where is my son, I pray you?
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SECOND GENTLEMAN Madam, he’s gone to serve the Duke of Florence. We met him thitherward, for thence we came,55 And, after some dispatch in hand at court, Thither we bend again.HELEN Look on his letter, madam; here’s my passport. ⌜She reads.⌝ When thou canst get the ring upon
my finger, which never shall come off, and show me
60 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.COUNTESS Brought you this letter, gentlemen?SECOND GENTLEMAN 65 Ay, madam, And for the contents’ sake are sorry for our pains.COUNTESS I prithee, lady, have a better cheer. If thou engrossest all the griefs are thine, Thou robb’st me of a moiety. He was my son,70 But I do wash his name out of my blood, And thou art all my child.—Towards Florence is he?SECOND GENTLEMAN Ay, madam.COUNTESS And to be a soldier?SECOND GENTLEMAN Such is his noble purpose, and, believe ’t,75 The Duke will lay upon him all the honor That good convenience claims.COUNTESS Return you thither?FIRST GENTLEMAN Ay, madam, with the swiftest wing of speed.HELEN ⌜reads⌝ Till I have no wife I have nothing in France.80 ’Tis bitter.
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COUNTESS Find you that there?HELEN Ay, madam.FIRST GENTLEMAN ’Tis but the boldness of his hand, haply, Which his heart was not consenting to.COUNTESS 85 Nothing in France until he have no wife! There’s nothing here that is too good for him But only she, and she deserves a lord That twenty such rude boys might tend upon And call her hourly mistress. Who was with him?FIRST GENTLEMAN 90 A servant only, and a gentleman Which I have sometime known.COUNTESS Parolles was it not?FIRST GENTLEMAN Ay, my good lady, he.COUNTESS A very tainted fellow, and full of wickedness.95 My son corrupts a well-derivèd nature With his inducement.FIRST GENTLEMAN Indeed, good lady, The fellow has a deal of that too much Which holds him much to have.COUNTESS 100 You’re welcome, gentlemen. I will entreat you when you see my son To tell him that his sword can never win The honor that he loses. More I’ll entreat you105 Written to bear along.SECOND GENTLEMAN We serve you, madam, In that and all your worthiest affairs.COUNTESS Not so, but as we change our courtesies. Will you draw near?She exits ⌜with the Gentlemen.⌝
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HELEN 110 “Till I have no wife I have nothing in France.” Nothing in France until he has no wife. Thou shalt have none, Rossillion, none in France. Then hast thou all again. Poor lord, is ’t I That chase thee from thy country and expose115 Those tender limbs of thine to the event Of the none-sparing war? And is it I That drive thee from the sportive court, where thou Wast shot at with fair eyes, to be the mark Of smoky muskets? O you leaden messengers120 That ride upon the violent speed of fire, Fly with false aim; move the still-’pearing air That sings with piercing; do not touch my lord. Whoever shoots at him, I set him there; Whoever charges on his forward breast,125 I am the caitiff that do hold him to ’t; And though I kill him not, I am the cause His death was so effected. Better ’twere I met the ravin lion when he roared With sharp constraint of hunger; better ’twere130 That all the miseries which nature owes Were mine at once. No, come thou home, Rossillion, Whence honor but of danger wins a scar, As oft it loses all. I will be gone. My being here it is that holds thee hence.135 Shall I stay here to do ’t? No, no, although The air of paradise did fan the house And angels officed all. I will be gone, That pitiful rumor may report my flight To consolate thine ear. Come, night; end, day;140 For with the dark, poor thief, I’ll steal away.She exits.
