HELENA.Then shalt thou give me, with thy kingly hand
What husband in thy power I will command:
Exempted be from me the arrogance
To choose from forth the royal blood of France,
My low and humble name to propagate
With any branch or image of thy state:
But such a one, thy vassal, whom I know
Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow.
KING.
Here is my hand; the premises observ’d,
Thy will by my performance shall be serv’d;
So make the choice of thy own time, for I,
Thy resolv’d 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
Unquestion’d welcome and undoubted blest.—
Give me some help here, ho!—If thou proceed
As high as word, my deed shall match thy deed.
[Flourish. Exeunt.]
SCENE 2. Rousillon. A room in the COUNTESS’S palace.
[Enter COUNTESS and CLOWN.]
COUNTESS. Come on, sir; I shall now put you to the height of your breeding.
CLOWN. I will show myself highly fed and lowly taught: I know my business is but to the court.
COUNTESS. To the court! why, what place make you special, when you put off that with such contempt? But to the court!
CLOWN. 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.
COUNTESS.
Marry, that’s a bountiful answer that fits all questions.
CLOWN. It is like a barber’s chair, that fits all buttocks—the pin-buttock, the quatch-buttock, the brawn-buttock, or any buttock.
COUNTESS.
Will your answer serve fit to all questions?
CLOWN. 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 Mayday, 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.
COUNTESS.
Have you, I, say, an answer of such fitness for all questions?
CLOWN. From below your duke to beneath your constable, it will fit any question.
COUNTESS. It must be an answer of most monstrous size that must fit all demands.
CLOWN. 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.
COUNTESS. To be young again, if we could: I will be a fool in question, hoping to be the wiser by your answer. I pray you, sir, are you a courtier?
CLOWN. O Lord, sir!—There’s a simple putting off. More, more, a hundred of them.
COUNTESS.
Sir, I am a poor friend of yours, that loves you.
CLOWN.
O Lord, sir!—Thick, thick; spare not me.
COUNTESS.
I think, sir, you can eat none of this homely meat.
CLOWN.
O Lord, sir!—Nay, put me to’t, I warrant you.
COUNTESS.
You were lately whipped, sir, as I think.
CLOWN.
O Lord, sir!—Spare not me.
COUNTESS.
Do you cry ‘O Lord, sir!’ at your whipping, and ‘spare not me’?
Indeed your ‘O Lord, sir!’ is very sequent to your whipping. You
would answer very well to a whipping, if you were but bound to’t.
CLOWN. I ne’er had worse luck in my life in my—‘O Lord, sir!’ I see thing’s may serve long, but not serve ever.
COUNTESS. I play the noble housewife with the time, to entertain it so merrily with a fool.
CLOWN.
O Lord, sir!—Why, there’t serves well again.
COUNTESS.
An end, sir! To your business. Give Helen this,
And urge her to a present answer back:
Commend me to my kinsmen and my son:
This is not much.
CLOWN.
Not much commendation to them.
COUNTESS.
Not much employment for you: you understand me?
CLOWN.
Most fruitfully: I am there before my legs.
COUNTESS.
Haste you again.
[Exeunt severally.]
SCENE 3. Paris. The KING’S palace.
[Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES.]
LAFEU. They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons to make modern and familiar things supernatural and causeless. Hence is it that we make trifles of terrors, ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear.
PAROLLES. Why, ‘tis the rarest argument of wonder that hath shot out in our latter times.
BERTRAM.
And so ‘tis.
LAFEU.
