COUNTESS
It happen’d all as I would have had it, save that he comes not along with her.
CLOWN
By my troth, I take my young lord to be a very melancholy man.
COUNTESS
By what observance, I pray you?
CLOWN
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
Let me see what he writes, and when he means to come.
CLOWN
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 knock’d out, and I begin to love, as an old man loves money, with no stomach.
COUNTESS
What have we here?
CLOWN
that you have there.
COUNTESS
I have sent you a daughter-in-law; she recovered the king and undone me. I have wedded her, not bedded her, and sworn to make the “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 you.
Your unfortunate son,
BERTRAM.
COUNTESS
This is not well, rash and unbridled boy,
To fly the favours of so good a king,
To pluck his indignation on head
By the misprizing of a maid too virtuous
For the contempt of empire.
CLOWN
O madam, yonder is heavy news within between two soldiers and my young lady.
COUNTESS
What is the matter?
CLOWN
Nay, there is some comfort in the news, some comfort; your son will not be kill’d so soon as I thought he would.
COUNTESS
Why should he be kill’d?
CLOWN
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.
FIRST GENTLEMAN
Save you, good madam.
HELENA
Madam, my lord is gone, for ever gone.
SECOND GENTLEMAN
Do not say so.
COUNTESS
Think upon patience. Pray you, gentlemen,—
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?
SECOND GENTLEMAN
Madam, he’s gone to serve the Duke of Florence;
We met him thitherward, for we came,
And, after some despatch in hand at court,
we bend again.
HELENA
Look on this letter, madam; here’s my passport.
HELENA
When canst get the ring upon my finger, which never shall come off, and show me a child begotten of 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?
FIRST GENTLEMAN
Ay, madam; And for the contents’ sake, are sorry for our pains.
COUNTESS
I , lady, have a better cheer;
If engrossest all the griefs are ,
robb’st me of a moiety. He was my son,
But I do wash his name out of my blood,
And 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,
The duke will lay upon him all the honour
That good convenience claims.
COUNTESS
Return you ?
FIRST GENTLEMAN
Ay, madam, with the swiftest wing of speed.
HELENA
Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France.
bitter.
COUNTESS
Find you that there?
HELENA
Ay, madam.
FIRST GENTLEMAN
but the boldness of his hand haply, which his heart was not consenting to.
COUNTESS
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
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.
My son corrupts a well-derived 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
Y’are welcome, gentlemen.
I will entreat you, when you see my son,
To tell him that his sword can never win
The honour that he loses: more I’ll entreat you
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?
HELENA
“Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France.”
Nothing in France until he has no wife!
have none, Rossillon, none in France;
Then all again. Poor lord, is’t I
That chase from country, and expose
Those tender limbs of to the event
Of the none-sparing war? And is it I
That drive from the sportive court, where
Wast shot at with fair eyes, to be the mark
Of smoky muskets? O you leaden messengers,
That ride upon the violent speed of fire,
Fly with false aim; move the still-peering air,
That sings with piercing; do not touch my lord.
Whoever shoots at him, I set him there;
Whoever charges on his forward breast,
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 roar’d
With sharp constraint of hunger; better ’twere
That all the miseries which nature owes
Were mine at once. No; come home, Rossillon,
honour but of danger wins a scar,
As it loses all. I will be gone;
My being here it is that holds .
Shall I stay here to do’t? No, no, although
The air of paradise did fan the house,
And angels offic’d all. I will be gone,
That pitiful rumour may report my flight
To consolate ear. Come, night; end, day;
For with the dark, poor thief, I’ll steal away.