Rousillon. A Room in the Countess's Palace.
 Enter young BERTRAM, Count of Rousillon, his mother the COUNTESS,
 HELENA, and LORD LAFEU, all in black.

Countess	In delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband.

Bertram	And I in going, madam, weep o'er my father's death anew; 
	but I must attend his majesty's command, to whom I am now 
	in ward, evermore in subjection.

Lafeu	You shall find of the king a husband, madam; you, sir, a 
	father. He that so generally is at all times good must of 
	necessity hold his virtue to you, whose worthiness would 
	stir it up where it wanted rather than lack it where there 
	is such abundance.

Countess	What hope is there of his majesty's amendment?

Lafeu	He hath abandoned his physicians, madam, under whose 
	practices he hath persecuted time with hope, and finds no 
	other advantage in the process but only the losing of hope 
	by time.

Countess	This young gentlewoman had a father - O 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.

Lafeu	How called you the man you speak of, madam?

Countess	He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his great 
	right to be so: Gerard de Narbon.

Lafeu	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.

Bertram	What is it, my good lord, the king languishes of?

Lafeu	A fistula, my lord.

Bertram	I heard not of it before.

Lafeu	I would it were not notorious. Was this gentlewoman the 
	daughter of Gerard de Narbon?

Countess	His sole child, my lord, and bequeathed to my overlooking. 
	I have those hopes of her good that her education promises; 
	her dispositions she inherits, which makes fair gifts 
	fairer; for where an unclean mind carries virtuous 
	qualities, there commendations go with pity: they are 
	virtues and traitors too. In her they are the better for 
	their simpleness: she derives her honesty and achieves her 
	goodness.

Lafeu	Your commendations, madam, get from her tears.

Countess	'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-

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

Lafeu	Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead, excessive 
	grief the enemy to the living.

Countess	If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it 
	soon mortal.

Bertram	Madam, I desire your holy wishes.

Lafeu	How understand we that?

Countess	Be thou blessed, Bertram, and succeed thy father
	In manners as in shape! Thy blood and virtue
	Contend for empire in thee, and thy goodness
	Share with thy birthright! Love all, trust a few,
	Do wrong to none. Be able for thine enemy
	Rather in power than use, and keep thy friend
	Under thy own life's key. Be checked for silence,
	But never taxed for speech. What heaven more will
	That thee may furnish and my prayers pluck down,
	Fall on thy head! Farewell. My lord,
	'Tis an unseasoned courtier; good my lord,
	Advise him.

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

Countess	Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram.
												[Exit.

Bertram	The best wishes that can be forged in your thoughts be 
	servants to you!
	[To HELENA.] Be comfortable to my mother, your mistress, 
	and make much of her.

Lafeu	Farewell, pretty lady; you must hold the credit of your 
	father.
												[Exeunt BERTRAM and LAFEU.

Helena	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 Bertram's.
	I am undone; there is no living, none,
	If Bertram be away. 'Twere 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.
	Th' 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 archd 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?

                             Enter PAROLLES.

	One that goes with him: I love him for his sake;
	And yet I know him a notorious liar,
	Think him a great way fool, solely a coward.
	Yet these fixed evils sit so fit in him
	That they take place when virtue's steely bones
	Looks bleak i'th' cold wind; withal, full oft we see
	Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.

Parolles	Save you, fair queen!

Helena	And you, monarch!

Parolles	No.

Helena	And no.

Parolles	Are you meditating on virginity?

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

Parolles	Keep him out.

Helena	But he assails, and our virginity, though valiant in the 
	defence, yet is weak. Unfold to us some warlike resistance.

Parolles	There is none. Man, setting down before you, will undermine 
	you and blow you up.

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

Parolles	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 
	mettle to make virgins. Virginity, by being once lost may 
	be ten times found; by being ever kept it is ever lost. 
	'Tis too cold a companion - away with't!

Helena	I will stand for't a little, though therefore I die a 
	virgin.

Parolles	There's little can be said in't; 'tis against the rule of 
	nature. To speak on the part of virginity is to accuse your 
	mothers, which is most infallible disobedience. He that 
	hangs himself is a virgin; virginity murders itself, and 
	should be buried in highways, out of all sanctified limit, 
	as a desperate offendress against nature. Virginity breeds 
	mites, much like a cheese; consumes itself to the very 
	paring, and so dies with feeding his own stomach. Besides, 
	virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made of self-love, which 
	is the most inhibited sin in the canon. Keep it not; you 
	cannot choose but lose by't. Out with't! Within the year it 
	will make itself two, which is a goodly increase, and the 
	principal itself not much the worse. Away with't!

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

Parolles	Let me see. Marry, ill, to like him that ne'er it likes. 
	'Tis a commodity will lose the gloss with lying; the longer 
	kept, the less worth. Off with't while 'tis vendible; 
	answer the time of request. 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 better, marry, yet 'tis a withered pear. Will 
	you anything with it?

Helena	Not my virginity - yet.
	There shall your master have a thousand loves,
	A mother, and a mistress, and a friend,
	A phoenix, captain, and an enemy,
	A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign,
	A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear;
	His humble ambition, proud humility,
	His jarring concord, and his discord-dulcet,
	His faith, his sweet disaster; with a world
	Of pretty, fond, adoptious 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-

Parolles	What one, i'faith?

Helena	That I wish well. 'Tis pity-

Parolles	What's pity?

Helena	That wishing well had not a body in't
	Which might be felt, that we, the poorer born,
	Whose baser stars do shut us up in wishes,
	Might with effects of them follow our friends,
	And show what we alone must think, which never
	Returns us thanks.

                               Enter PAGE.

Page	Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.
												[Exit.

Parolles	Little Helen, farewell. If I can remember thee I will think 
	of thee at court.

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

Parolles	Under Mars, I.

Helena	I especially think under Mars.

Parolles	Why under Mars?

Helena	The wars hath so kept you under that you must needs be born 
	under Mars.

Parolles	When he was predominant.

Helena	When he was retrograde, I think rather.

Parolles	Why think you so?

Helena	You go so much backward when you fight.

Parolles	That's for advantage.

Helena	So is running 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 I like the wear well.

Parolles	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 understand what advice shall 
	thrust upon thee; else thou diest in thine unthankfulness, 
	and thine ignorance 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 uses thee. So, farewell.
												[Exit.
Helena	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,
	That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?
	The mightiest space in fortune nature brings
	To join like likes, and kiss like native things.
	Impossible be strange attempts to those
	That weigh their pains in sense, and do suppose
	What hath been cannot be. Who ever strove
	To show her merit that did miss her love?
	The king's disease - my project may deceive me,
	But my intents are fixed and will not leave me.
												[Exit.
