SCENE II - ROUSILLON THE COUNT'S PALACE Enter COUNTESS and Clown COUNT. Come on, sir; I shall now put you to the height of your breeding. CLO. I will show myself highly fed and lowly taught: I know my business is but to the court. COUNT. To the court! why, what place make you special, when you put off that with such contempt ? But to the court! CLO. 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 noth- 10 ing, 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. COUNT. Marry, that's a bountiful answer that fits all questions. CLO. It is like a barber's chair, that fits all buttocks, the pin-buttock, the quatch-buttock, the brawn-buttock, or any buttock. COUNT. Will your answer serve fit to all questions? CLO. As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, as your French crown for your taffeta punk, 20 as Tib's rush for Tom's forefinger, as a pancake for 21 Tib's rush, etc.] "Tib" and "Tom" were used for "lad" and "lass much like "Jack" and "Jill." "Tib's rush" means a ring made of a rush, commonly used in rural districts as a love token, Shrove Tuesday, a morris for May-day, 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. COUNT. Have you, I say, an answer of such fitness for all questions? CLO. From below your duke to beneath your constable, it will fit any question. COUNT. It must be an answer of most monstrous size that must fit all demands. CLO. 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. COUNT. 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 ? 30 CLO. O Lord, sir! There's a simple putting off. 40 More, more, a hundred of them. COUNT. Sir, I am a poor friend of yours, that loves you. CLO. O Lord, sir! Thick, thick, spare not me. COUNT. I think, sir, you can eat none of this homely meat. CLO. O Lord, sir! Nay, put me to 't, I warrant you. COUNT. 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 50 very well to a whipping, if you were but bound to 't. 66 CLO. I ne'er had worse luck in my life in my “O Lord, sir!" I see things may serve long, but not serve ever. COUNT. I play the noble housewife with the time, To entertain 't so merrily with a fool. CLO. O Lord, sir! why, there't serves well again. COUNT. An end, sir; to your business. Give Helen this, And urge her to a present answer back : CLO. Not much commendation to them. COUNT. Not much employment for you: you understand me? CLO. Most fruitfully: I am there before my legs. [Exeunt severally. SCENE III-PARIS THE KING'S PALACE Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES LAF. 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 3 causeless] Coleridge points out that a cause is only predicable of things natural (phenomena), and that Shakespeare is strictly accurate from a philosophical point of view in describing things super 60 make trifles of terrors; ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge, when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear. PAR. Why, 't is the rarest argument of wonder that hath shot out in our latter times. BER. And so 't is. LAF. To be relinquished of the artists, PAR. So I say; both of Galen and Paracelsus. LAF. Of all the learned and authentic fellows, LAF. That gave him out incurable, PAR. Why, there 't is ; so say I too. LAF. Not to be helped, PAR. Right; as 't were, a man assured of a — PAR. Just, you say well; so would I have said. LAF. I may truly say, it is a novelty to the world. PAR. It is, indeed: if you will have it in showing, you shall read it in what do ye call there? LAF. A showing of a heavenly effect in an earthly actor. PAR. That's it; I would have said the very same. LAF. Why, your dolphin is not lustier: 'fore me, I speak in respect — PAR. Nay, 't is strange, 't is very strange, that is the brief and the tedious of it; and he's of a most facinerious spirit that will not acknowledge it to be the natural (noumena) as "causeless," i. e. without mundane origin or connection with matter. 10 20 LAF. Very hand of heaven. LAF. In a most weak PAR. And debile minister, great power, great transcendence: which should, indeed, give us a further use to be made than alone the recovery of the king, as to be — LAF. Generally thankful. PAR. I would have said it; you say well. Here comes the king. Enter KING, HELENA, and Attendants LAF. Lustig, as the Dutchman says: I'll like a maid the better, whilst I have a tooth in my head: why, he's 40 able to lead her a coranto. PAR. Mort du vinaigre! is not this Helen? LAF. 'Fore God, I think so. KING. Go, call before me all the lords in court. Sit, my preserver, by thy patient's side; And with this healthful hand, whose banish'd sense The confirmation of my promised gift, Which but attends thy naming. Enter three or four Lords Fair maid, send forth thine eye: this youthful parcel O'er whom both sovereign power and father's voice 39 Lustig] The Dutch word is "Lustigh," meaning lusty, vigorous, 52 father's voice] father's approval. Cf. Mids. N. Dr., I, i, 54. |