POR. He knows me, as the blind man knows the cuckoo, By the bad voice. LOR.

Dear lady, welcome home.

POR. We have been praying for our husbands' welfare,

Which speed, we hope, the better for our words.
Are they return'd?
LOR.

Madam, they are not yet;
But there is come a messenger before,
To signify their coming.
POR.

Go in, Nerissa;
Give order to my servants, that they take
No note at all of our being absent hence;
Nor you, Lorenzo:-Jessica, nor you.

[A tucket sounds. LOR. Your husband is at hand; I hear his trumpet:

We are no tell-tales, madam; fear you not.

GRA. He will, an if he live to be a man.
NER. Ay, if a woman live to be a man.
GRA. Now, by this hand, I gave it to a youth,-
A kind of boy; a little scrubbed boy,
No higher than thyself, the judge's clerk;
A prating boy, that begg'd it as a fee;

I could not for my heart deny it him.

POR. You were to blame, I must be plain with you,
To part so slightly with your wife's first gift;
A thing stuck on with oaths upon your finger,
And riveted so with faith unto your flesh.

I gave my love a ring, and made him swear
Never to part with it; and here he stands,-
I dare be sworn for him, he would not leave it,
Nor pluck it from his finger, for the wealth
That the world masters. Now, in faith, Gratiano,
You give your wife too unkind a cause of grief;
An 'twere to me, I should be mad at it.
BASS. Why, I were best to cut my left hand off,

POR. This night, methinks, is but the daylight And swear, I lost the ring defending it.

sick.

It looks a little paler; 'tis a day,

Such as the day is, when the sun is hid.

GRA. My lord Bassanio gave his ring away Unto the judge that begg'd it, and, indeed, Deserv'd it too; and then the boy, his clerk,

Aside.

Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze,
By the sweet power of music. Therefore, the poe.
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods;
Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage,
But music for the time doth change his nature.
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted.-Mark the music.

Enter PORTIA and NERISSA at a distance.
POR. That light we see is burning in my hall:
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

NER. When the moon shone, we did not see the
candle.

POR. So doth the greater glory dim the less:
A substitute shines brightly as a king,
Until a king be by; and then his state
Empties itself, as doth an inland brook
Into the main of waters. Music! hark!

NER. It is your music, madam, of the house.
POR. Nothing is good, I see, without respect;
Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.
NER. Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam.
POR. The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark,
When neither is attended; and, I think,
The nightingale, if she should sing by day,
When every goose is cackling, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.
How many things by season season'd arc
To their right praise, and true perfection!-
Peace, ho! the moon sleeps with Endymion,
And would not be awak'd!
[Music ceases.
LOR.
That is the voice,
Or I am much deceiv'd, of Portia.

BASS. We should hold day with the Antipodes,

If you would walk in absence of the sun.

POR. Let me give light, but let me not be light; For a light wife doth make a heavy husband, And never be Bassanio so for me:

But God sort all!-You are welcome home, my lord. BASS. I thank you, madam: give welcome to my friend.

This is the man, this is Antonio,

To whom I am so infinitely bound.

But the two rings. POR.

What ring gave you, my lord?
Not that, I hope, which you receiv'd of me.
BASS. If I could add a lie unto a fault,

I would deny it; but you see, my finger
Hath not the ring upon it, it is gone.

POR. Even so void is your false heart of truth.
By heaven, I will ne'er come in your bed
Until I see the ring.

NER.

Till I again see mine.

POR. You should in all sense be much bound to BASS. him,

For, as I hear, he was much bound for you.

ANT. No more than I am well acquitted of.
POR. Sir, you are very welcome to our house:
It must appear in other ways than words,
Therefore, I scant this breathing courtesy.
GRA. [To NERISSA.] By yonder moon, I swear
you do me wrong;

In faith, I gave it to the judge's clerk:
Would he were gelt that had it, for my part,
Since you do take it, love, so much at heart.
POR. A quarrel, ho, already! what's the matter?
GRA. About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring
That she did give me; whose poesy was
For all the world, like cutlers' poetry
Upon a knife, Love me, and leave me not!
NER. What talk you of the poesy, or the value?
You swore to me, when I did give it you,
That you would wear it till your hour of death;
And that it should lie with you in your grave:
Though not for me, yet for your vehement oaths,
You should have been respective, and have kept it.
Gave it a judge's clerk!-no, God's my judge!
The clerk will ne'er wear hair on 's face that had it.

Nor I in yours,

Sweet Portia, If you did know to whom I gave the ring, If you did know for whom I gave the ring, And would conceive for what I gave the ring, And how unwillingly I left the ring, When nought would be accepted but the ring, You would abate the strength of your displeasure. POR. If you had known the virtue of the ring, Or half her worthiness that gave the ring, Or your own honour to contain the ring, You would not then have parted with the ring. What man is there so much unreasonable, If you had pleas'd to have defended it With any terms of zeal, wanted the modesty To urge the thing held as a ceremony? Nerissa teaches me what to believe; I'll die for 't, but some woman had the ring.

BASS. No, by mine honour, madam, by my soul, No woman had it, but a civil doctor, Which did refuse three thousand ducats of me, And begg'd the ring; the which I did deny him, And suffer'd him to go displeas'd away;

Even he that had held up the very life

Of my dear friend. What should I say, sweet lady? I was enforc'd to send it after him;

I was beset with shame and courtesy;
My honour would not let ingratitude

So much besmear it. Pardon me, good lady;
For, by these blessed candles of the night,
Had you been there, I think, you would have begg'd
The ring of me to give the worthy doctor.
POR. Let not that doctor e'er come near my house:
Since he hath got the jewel that I lov'd,
And that which you did swear to keep for me,
I will become as liberal as you;

I'll not deny him anything I have,

No, not my body, nor my husband's bed:

Know him I shall, I am well sure of it:

Lie not a night from home; watch me, like Argus;
If you do not, if I be left alone,

Now, by mine honour, which is yet mine own,
I'll have that doctor for my bedfellow.

NER. And I his clerk; therefore be well advis'd, How you do leave me to mine own protection.

GRA. Well, do you so: let not me take him then, For, if I do, I'll mar the young clerk's pen.

ANT. I am the unhappy subject of these quarrels. POR. Sir, grieve not you; you are welcome notwithstanding.

BASS. Portia, forgive me this enforced wrong:
And, in the hearing of these many friends,

I swear to thee, even by thine own fair eyes,
Wherein I see myself,---

POR.

Mark you but that! In both my eyes he doubly sees himself: In each eye, one :-swear by your double self, And there's an oath of credit.

| Pardon this fault, and by my soul I swear,
I never more will break an oath with thee.
ANT. I once did lend my body for his wealth;
Which, but for him that had your husband's ring,
Had quite miscarried: I dare be bound again,
My soul upon the forfeit, that your lord
Will never more break faith advisedly.

POR. Then you shall be his surety. Give him this;
And bid him keep it better than the other.
ANT. Here lord Bassanio; swear to keep this ring.
BASS. By heaven, it is the same I gave the doctor!
POR. I had it of him: pardon me, Bassanio;
For by this ring the doctor lay with me.

NER. And pardon me, my gentle Gratiano; For that same scrubbed boy, the doctor's clerk, In lieu of this, last night did lie with me.

GRA. Why, this is like the mending of highways
In summer, where the ways are fair enough:
What! are we cuckolds, ere we have deserv'd it?
POR. Speak not so grossly.-You are all amaz'd:
Here is a letter. read it at your leisure;

It comes from Padua, from Bellario:
There you shall find, that Portia was the doctor;
Nerissa there, her clerk: Lorenzo here
Shall witness, I set forth as soon as you,
And but e'en now return'd; I have not yet
Enter'd my house. -Antonio, you are welcome;
And I have better news in store for you,
Than you expect: unseal this letter soon;
There you shall find, three of your argosies
Are richly come to harbour suddenly:

You shall not know by what strange accident
I chanced on this letter.

ANT.
I am dumb.
BASS. Were you the doctor, and I knew you not?
GRA. Were you the clerk, that is to make me
cuckold?

NER. Ay, but the clerk that never means to do it, Unless he live until he be a man.

BASS. Sweet doctor, you shall be my bedfellow; When I am absent, then lie with my wife.

ANT. Sweet lady, you have given me life, and living;

For here I read for certain, that my ships
Are safely come to road.
POR.

How now, Lorenzo?

My clerk hath some good comforts too for you.
NER. Ay, and I'll give them him without a fee.-
There do I give to you and Jessica,

From the rich Jew, a special deed of gift,
After his death, of all he dies possess'd of.
LOR. Fair ladies, you drop manna in the way
Of starved people.

POR.

It is almost morning, And yet, I am sure, you are not satisfied Of these events at full. Let us go in; And charge us there upon inter'gatories, And we will answer all things faithfully.

GRA. Let it be so. The first inter'gatory, That my Nerissa shall be sworn on, is, Whether till the next night she had rather stay, Or go to bed now, being two hours to day: But were the day come, I should wish it dark, That I were couching with the doctor's clerk. Well, while I live, I'll fear no other thing So sore, as keeping safe Nerissa's ring.

[Exeunt.

hope; and finds no other advantage in the process, but only the losing of hope by time.

COUNT. This young gentlewoman had a father, (0, that had! how sad a passage 'tis!) whose skill was almost as great as his honesty; had it stretched so far, would have made nature immortal, and death should have play for lack of work. Would, for the king's sake, he were living! I think it would be the death of the king's disease.

LAF. How called you the man you speak of, madam?

COUNT. He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his great right to be so; Gerard de Narbon. LAF. He was excellent, indeed, madam; the king very lately spoke of him, admiringly, and mourningly: he was skilful enough to have lived still, if knowledge could be set up against mortality.

of?

BER. What is it, my good lord, the king languishes

LAF. A fistula, my lord.

BER. I heard not of it before.

LAF. I would it were not notorious.-Was this gentlewoman the daughter of Gerard de Narbon? COUNT. His sole child, my lord, and bequeathed to my overlooking. I have those hopes of her good, that her education promises; her dispositions she in herits, which makes fair gifts fairer; for where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities, there commendations go with pity, they are virtues and traitors too;

tears.

in her they are the better for their simpleness; she derives her honesty, and achieves her goodness. LAF. Your commendations, madam, get from her, COUNT. 'Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise in. The remembrance of her father never approaches her heart, but the tyranny of her sorrows takes all livelihood from her cheek. No more of this, Helena, go to,—no more; lest it be rather thought you affect a sorrow, than to have.

HEL. I do affect a sorrow, indeed, but I have it too.

LAF. Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead; excessive grief the enemy to the living.

Think him a great way fool, solely a coward;
Yet these fix'd evils sit so fit in him,
That they take place, when virtue's steely bones
Look bleak i' the cold wind: withal, full oft we see
Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.
Enter PAROlles.

PAR. Save you, fair queen.
HEL. And you, monarch.
PAR. NO.

HEL. And no.

PAR. Are you meditating on virginity?

HEL. Ay. You have some stain of soldier in you; how may we barricado it against him? let me ask you a question: Man is enemy to virginity;

PAR. Keep him out.

warlike resistance.

HEL. But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant in the defence, yet is weak: unfold to us some PAR. There is none; man, sitting down before you, will undermine you, and blow you up.

HEL. Bless our poor virginity from underminers, and blowers up!-Is there no military policy, how virgins might blow up men?

PAR. Virginity, being blown down, man will quicklier be blown up: marry, in blowing him down again, with the breach yourselves made, you lose your city. It is not politic in the commonwealth of nature, to preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational increase; and there was never virgin got, till virginity was first lost. That, you were made of, is metal to ten times found; by being ever kept, it is ever lost: make virgins. Virginity, by being once lost, may be 'tis too cold a companion: away with it. HEL. I will stand for 't a little, though therefore I die a virgin.

disobedience.

HEL. If the living be enemy to the grief, the ex

cess makes it soon mortal.

BER. Madam, I desire your holy wishes.
LAF. How understand we that?

father

In manners, as in shape; thy blood, and virtue,
Contend for empire in thee; and thy goodness,
Share with thy birth-right. Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy
Rather in power, than use; and keep thy friend
Uuder thy own life's key: be check'd for silence,
But never tax'd for speech. What heaven more will,
That thee may furnish, and my prayers pluck down,
Fall on thy head! Farewell.-My lord,
'Tis an unseason'd courtier; good my lord,
Advise him.

LAF. He cannot want the best
That shall attend his love.

much of her.

COUNT. Heaven bless him!--Farewell, Bertram. [Exit COUNTess. BER. The best wishes, that can be forged in your thoughts, [To HELENA.] be servants to you! Be comfortable to my mother, your mistress, and make LAF. Farewell, pretty lady: you must hold the credit of your father. [Exeunt BERTRAM and LAFEU. HEL. O, were that all!-I think not on my father, And these great tears grace his remembrance more Than those I shed for him. What was he like? I have forgot him: my imagination Carries no favour in 't, but Betram's.

I am undone; there is no living, none,
If Bertram be away. 'T were all one,
That I should love a bright particular star,
And think to wed it, he is so above me:
In his bright radiance and collateral light
Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.
The ambition in my love thus plagues itself:
The hind, that would be mated by the lion,
Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, though a plague,
To see him every hour; to sit and draw
His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,

In our heart's table; heart, too capable
Of every line and trick of his sweet favour:
But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
Must sanctify his relics. Who comes here?
One that goes with him: I love him for his sake;
And yet I know him a notorious liar,

goodly increase; and the principal itself not much the Away with 't.

worse.

HEL. How might one do, sir, to lose it to her own liking?

PAR. Let me see. Marry, ill, to like him that ne'er it likes. 'Tis a commodity will lose the gloss with while 'tis vendible: answer the time of request. lying; the longer kept, the less worth: off with 't, Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of fashion; richly suited, but unsuitable: just like the brooch and the toothpick, which wear not now. Your date is better in your pie and your porridge, than in your cheek: and your virginity, your old virginity, is like one of our French withered pears; it looks ill, it eats drily; marry, 'tis a withered pear; it was formerly thing with it? better, marry, yet, 'tis a withered pear: will you any

There shall your master have a thousand loves,
HEL. Not my virginity yet.
A mother, and a mistress, and a friend,
A phoenix, captain, and an enemy,
A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign,
His humble ambition, proud humility,
A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear;
His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet,
His faith, his sweet disaster; with a world
Of pretty, fond, adopticus christendoms,
That blinking Cupid gossips. Now shall he-—
I know not what he shall:-God send him well!-
The court's a learning-place;-and he is one——
PAR. What one, i' faith?

HEL. That I wish well.-'Tis pity

PAR. What's pity?

HEL. Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable star.

PAR. Under Mars, I.

HEL. I especially think, under Mars.

PAR. Why under Mars?

HEL. The wars have so kept you under, that you must needs be born under Mars.

PAR. When he was predominant.

HEL. When he was retrograde, I think, rather.
PAR. Why think you so?

HEL. You go so much backward, when you fight.
PAR. That's for advantage.

HEL. So is runnin away, when fear proposes the safety: but the composition, that your valour and fear makes in you, is a virtue of a good wing, and 1 like the wear well.

PAR. I am so full of businesses, I cannot answer

thee acutely: I will return perfect courtier; in the which, my instruction shall serve to naturalize thee, so thou wilt be capable of a courtier's counsel, and thou diest in thine unthankfulness, and thine ignorance understand what advice shall thrust upon thee; else makes thee away: farewell. When thou hast leisure, say thy prayers; when thou hast none, remember thy friends: get thee a good husband, and use him as he [Exit.

uses thee: so farewell.

HEL. Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky Gives us free scope; only, doth backward pull Our slow designs, when we ourselves are dull. What power is it, which mounts my love so high; The mightiest space in fortune, nature brings That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye? To join like likes, and kiss like native things. Impossible be strange attempts, to those To show her merit, that did miss her love? What hath been cannot be. That weigh their pains in sense; and do suppose, Who ever strove The king's disease-my project may deceive me, But my intents are fix'd, and will not leave me. [Exit.

Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLEs.

I LORD. It is the count Rousillon, my good lord, Young Bertram.

KING. Youth, thou bear'st thy father's face: Frank nature, rather curious than in haste, Hath well compos'd thee. Thy father's moral parts May'st thou inherit too! Welcome to Paris.

BER My thanks and duty are your majesty's. KING. I would I had that corporal soundness now, As when thy father, and myself, in friendship First tried our soldiership! He did look far Into the service of the time, and was Discipled of the bravest: he lasted long; But on us both did haggish age steal on, And wore us out of act. It much repairs me To talk of your good father: in his youth He had the wit, which I can well observe To-day in our young lords; but they may jest, Till their own scorn return to them unnoted, Ere they can hide their levity in honour. So like a courtier: contempt nor bitterness Were in his pride, or sharpness; if they were, His equal had awak'd them; and his honour,

Clock to itself, knew the true minute when
Exception bid him speak, and, at this time,
His tongue obey'd his hand. Who were below him
He us'd as creatures of another place;

And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks,
Making them proud of his humility,

In their poor praise he humbled: such a man
Might be a copy to these younger times;
Which, follow'd well, would démonstrate them now
But goers backward.
BER.

His good remembrance, sir,
Lies richer in your thoughts, than on his tomb;
So in approof lives not his epitaph,
As in your royal speech.

KING. Would I were with him! He would always

say,

(Methinks, I hear him now: his plausive words
He scatter'd not in ears, but grafted them,
To grow there, and to bear,)-Let me not live,-
This his good melancholy oft began,
On the catastrophe and heel of pastime,
When it was out,-let me not live, quoth he,
After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff
Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses
All but new things disdain; whose judgments are
Mere fathers of their garments; whose constancies
Expire before their fashions.This he wish'd:
I, after him, do after him wish too,

Since I nor wax nor honey can bring home,

I quickly were dissolved from my hive,

To give some labourers room.

2 LORD.

You are lov'd, sir:

CLO. You are shallow, madam, in great friends; for the knaves come to do that for me, which I am aweary of. He, that ears my land, spares my team, and gives me leave to inn the crop: if I be his cuckold, he's my drudge. He, that comforts my wife, is the cherisher of my flesh and blood; he, that cherishes my flesh and blood, loves my flesh and blood; he, that loves my flesh and blood, is my friend; ergo, he that kisses my wife, is my friend. If men could be contented to be what they are, there were no fear in marriage: for young Charbon the puritan, and old Poysam the papist, howsome'er their hearts are severed in religion, their heads are both one, they may jowl horns together, like any deer i' the herd. COUNT. Wilt thou ever be a foul-mouthed and calumnious knave?

CLO. A prophet I, madam; and I speak the truth the next way:

For I the ballad will repeat,
Which men full true shall find;
Your marriage comes by destiny,
Your cuckoo sings by kind.

and yet no hurt done!-Though honesty be no puritan, yet it will do no hurt; it will wear the surplice of humility over the black gown of a big heart.-I am going, forsooth; the business is for Helen to come hither. [Exit Clown.

COUNT. Well, now.

STEW. I know, madam, you love your gentlewoman entirely.

COUNT. 'Faith, I do: her father bequeathed her to me; and she herself, without other advantage, may lawfully make title to as much love as she finds; there is more owing her than is paid; and more shall be paid her, than she 'll demand.

STEW. Madam, I was very late more near her than, I think, she wished me: alone she was, and did communicate to herself, her own words to her own ears; she thought, I dare vow for her, they touched not any stranger sense. Her matter was, she loved your son: Fortune, she said, was no goddess, that had put such difference betwixt their two estates; Love, no god, that would not extend his might, only where qualities were level; Diana, no queen of virgins, that would

[Exeunt. Flourish.

SCENE III.-Rousillon. A Room in the Countess's Palace.

Enter COUNTESS, Steward, and Clown.

COUNT. I will now hear: what say you of this gentlewoman?

STEW. Madam, the care I have had to even your content, I wish might be found in the calendar of my past endeavours: for then we wound our modesty, and make foul the clearness of our deservings, when of ourselves we publish them.

COUNT. What does this knave here? Get you gone, sirrah: the complaints, I have heard of you, I do not all believe; 'tis my slowness, that I do not: for I know you lack not folly to commit them, and have ability enough to make such knaveries yours.

CLO. 'Tis not unknown to you, madam, I am a poor fellow.

COUNT. Well, sir.

CLO. No, madam, 'tis not so well, that I am poor, though many of the rich are damned: but, if I may have your ladyship's good-will to go to the world, Isbel the woman and I will do as we may. COUNT. Wilt thou needs be a beggar? CLO. I do beg your good-will in this case. COUNT. In what case?

CLO. In Isbel's case, and mine own.

Service is no

heritage: and, I think, I shall never have the blessing of God, till I have issue o' my body; for, they say, barns are blessings.

COUNT. Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry. CLO. My poor body, madam, requires it: I am driven on by the flesh; and he must needs go, that the devil drives.

COUNT. Is this all your worship's reason? CLO. 'Faith, madam, I have other, holy reasons, such as they are.

COUNT. May the world know them? CLO. I have been, madam, a wicked creature, as you and all flesh and blood are; and, indeed, I do marry, that I may repent.

COUNT. Thy marriage, sooner than thy wickedness. CLO. I am out o' friends, madam; and I hope to have friends for my wife's sake.

COUNT. Such friends are thine enemies, knave.

anon.

STEW. May it please you, madam, that he bid Helen come to you; of her I am to speak. COUNT. Sirrah, tell my gentlewoman, I would speak with her; Helen I mean.

CLO. [Singing.]

Was this fair face the cause, quoth she,
Why the Grecians sacked Troy?
Fond done, done fond,

Was this king Priam's joy.
With that she sighed as she stood,
With that she sighed as she stood.

And gave this sentence then;
Among nine bad if one be good,
Among nine bad if one be good,
There's yet one good in ten.
COUNT. What, one good in ten? you corrup. .he
song, sirrah.

CLO. One good woman in ten, madam; which is a purifying o' the song. Would God would serve the world so all the year! we 'd find no fault with the tithe-woman, if I were the parson: one in ten, quoth a'! an we might have a good woman born but 'fore every blazing star, or at an earthquake, 'twould mend the lottery well; a man may draw his heart out, ere 'a pluck one.

COUNT. You'll be gone, sir knave, and do as I command you.

CLO. That man should be at woman's command,

suffer her poor knight surprised, without rescue, in the first assault, or ransome afterward. This she delivered in the most bitter touch of sorrow, that e'er I heard virgin exclaim in: which I held my duty, speedily to acquaint you withal; sithence, in the loss that may happen, it concerns you something to know it.

COUNT. You have discharged this honestly; keep it to yourself: many likelihoods informed me of this before, which hung so tottering in the balance, that I could neither believe nor misdoubt. 'Pray you, leave me: stall this in your bosom, and I thank you for your honest care: I will speak with you further anon.

[Exit Steward. COUNT. Even so it was with me, when I was