have in them a needGreater than shows itself at the first view
To you that know them not. This to my mother:
[Giving a letter.]
‘Twill be two days ere I shall see you; so
I leave you to your wisdom.
HELENA.
Sir, I can nothing say
But that I am your most obedient servant.
BERTRAM.
Come, come, no more of that.
HELENA.
And ever shall
With true observance seek to eke out that
Wherein toward me my homely stars have fail’d
To equal my great fortune.
BERTRAM.
Let that go:
My haste is very great. Farewell; hie home.
HELENA.
Pray, sir, your pardon.
BERTRAM.
Well, what would you say?
HELENA.
I am not worthy of the wealth I owe;
Nor dare I say ‘tis mine, and yet it is;
But, like a timorous thief, most fain would steal
What law does vouch mine own.
BERTRAM.
What would you have?
HELENA.
Something; and scarce so much:—nothing, indeed.—
I would not tell you what I would, my lord:—Faith, yes;—
Strangers and foes do sunder and not kiss.
BERTRAM.
I pray you, stay not, but in haste to horse.
HELENA.
I shall not break your bidding, good my lord.
BERTRAM.
Where are my other men, monsieur?—
Farewell,
[Exit HELENA.]
Go thou toward home, where I will never come
Whilst I can shake my sword or hear the drum:—
Away, and for our flight.
PAROLLES.
Bravely, coragio!
[Exeunt.]
ACT III.
SCENE 1. Florence. A room in the DUKE’s palace.
[Flourish. Enter the DUKE OF FLORENCE, attended; two French
Lords, and Soldiers.]
DUKE.
So that, from point to point, now have you heard
The fundamental reasons of this war;
Whose great decision hath much blood let forth,
And more thirsts after.
FIRST LORD.
Holy seems the quarrel
Upon your grace’s part; black and fearful
On the opposer.
DUKE.
Therefore we marvel much our cousin France
Would, in so just a business, shut his bosom
Against our borrowing prayers.
SECOND LORD.
Good my lord,
The reasons of our state I cannot yield,
But like a common and an outward man
That the great figure of a council frames
By self-unable motion; therefore dare not
Say what I think of it, since I have found
Myself in my incertain grounds to fail
As often as I guess’d.
DUKE.
Be it his pleasure.
FIRST LORD.
But I am sure the younger of our nature,
That surfeit on their ease, will day by day
Come here for physic.
DUKE.
Welcome shall they be;
And all the honours that can fly from us
Shall on them settle. You know your places well;
When better fall, for your avails they fell:
Tomorrow to th’ field.
[Flourish. Exeunt.]
SCENE 2. Rousillon. A room in the COUNTESS’S palace.
[Enter COUNTESS and CLOWN.]
COUNTESS. It hath happened 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.
[Opening a letter.]
CLOWN. I have no mind to Isbel since I was at court. Our old ling and our Isbels o’ the country are nothing like your old ling and your Isbels o’ the court. The brains of my Cupid’s knocked out; and I begin to love, as an old man loves money, with no stomach.
