Clo. Truly, fortune's displeasure is but sluttish, if it smell so strong as thou speakest of: I will henceforth eat no fish of fortune's buttering. Pr'ythee, allow the wind. Par. Nay, you need not stop your nose, sir; I spake but by a metaphor. Clo. Indeed, sir, if your metaphor stink, I will stop my nose; or against any man's metaphor. Pr'ythee, get thee further. Par. Pray you, sir, deliver me this paper. Clo. Foh, pr'ythee, stand away; A paper from fortune's close-stool, to give to a nobleman! Look, here he comes himself. Enter LAFEU. -Here is a pur of fortune's, sir, or of fortune's cat, (but not a musk-cat,) that has fallen into the unclean fishpond of her displeasure, and, as he says, is muddied withal: Pray you, sir, use the carp as you may; for he looks like a poor, decayed, ingenious, foolish, rascally knave. I do pity his distress in my smiles of comfort, and leave him to your lordship. [Exit Clown. Par. My lord, I am a man whom fortune hath cruelly scratched. Laf. And what would you have me to do? 'tis too late to pare her nails now. Wherein have you played the knave with fortune, that she should scratch you, who of herself is a good lady, and would not have knaves thrive long under her? There's a quart d' ecu for you: Let the justices make you and fortune friends; I am for other business. Par. I beseech your honour, to hear me one single word. Laf. You beg a single penny more: come, you shall ha't; save your word. Par. My name, my good lord, is Parolles. Laf. You beg more than one word then.-Cox' my passion! give me your hand: How does your drum? Par. O my good lord, you were the first that found me. Laf. Was I, in sooth? and I was the first that lost thee. Par. It lies in you, my lord, to bring me in some grace, for you did bring me out. Laf. Out upon thee, knave! dost thou put upon me at once both the office of God and the devil? one brings thee in grace, and the other brings thee out. [Trumpets sound.] The king's coming, I know by his trumpets. Sirrah, inquire further after me; I had talk of you last night: though you are a fool and a knave, you shall eat;3 go to, follow. Par. I praise God for you. SCENE III. [Exeunt. The same. King. We lost a jewel of her; and our esteem Count. 'Tis past, my liege: And I beseech your majesty to make it King. My honour'd lady, I have forgiven and forgotten all; Though my revenges were high bent upon him, Laf. This I must say, But first I beg my pardon,-The young lord Of richest eyes; whose words all ears took captive ; King. Praising what is lost, Makes the remembrance dear.-Well, call him hither; [3] Parolles has many of the lineaments of Falstaff, and seems to be the character which Shakspeare delighted to draw, a fellow that had more wit than virtue. Though justice required that he should be detected and exposed, yet his vices sit so fit in him that he is not at last suffered to starve. JOHNS. [4] That is, completely, in its full extent. JOHNS. [5] The first interview shall put an end to all recollection of the past. Shakspeare is now hastening to the end of the play, finds his matter sufficient to fill up his remaining scenes, and therefore, as on such other occasions, contracts his dialogue and precipitates his action. Decency required that Bertram's double crime of cruelty and disobedinece, joined likewise with some hypocrisy, should raise more resentment; and that though his mother might easily forgive him, his king should more pertinaciously vindicate his own authority and Helen's merit of all this Shakspeare could not be ignorant, but Shakspeare wanted to conclude his play, JOHNS. The nature of his great offence is dead, The incensing relicks of it: let him approach, Gent. I shall, my liege. [Exit Gentleman. King. What says he to your daughter? have you spoke Laf. All that he is hath reference to your highness. King. Then shall we have a match. I have letters sent me, That set him high in fame. Enter BERTRAM. Laf. He looks well on't. King. I am not a day of season,6 For thou may'st see a sun-shine and a hail Ber. My high-repented blames, King. All is whole; Not one word more of the consumed time. Ber. Admiringly, my liege: at first I stuck my choice upon her, ere my heart King. Well excus'd: [6] That is, of uninterrupted rain: one of those wet days that usually happen about the vernal equinox. The word is still used in the same sense in Virginia, in which government, and especially on the eastern shore of it, where the descendants of the first settlers have been less mixed with later emigrants, many expressions of Shakspeare's time are still current. HENLEY. That thou didst love her, strikes some scores away To the great sender turns a sour offence, Count. Which better than the first, O dear heaven, bless! Or, ere they meet, in me, O nature, cease! Laf. Come on, my son, in whom my house's name Ber. Hers it was not. King. Now, pray you, let me see it; for mine eye, While I was speaking, oft was fasten'd to't. This ring was mine; and, when I gave it Helen, Necessitied to help, that by this token I would relieve her: Had you that craft, to reave her Of what should stead her most? Ber. My gracious sovereign, Howe'er it pleases you to take it so, The ring was never her's. Count. Son, on my life, I have seen her wear it; and she reckon'd it At her life's rate. Laf. I am sure, I saw her wear it. Ber. You are deceiv'd, my lord, she never saw it: In Florence was it from a casement thrown me,7 [7] Bertram still continues to have too little virtue to deserve Helen. He did not know indeed that it was Helen's ring, but he knew that he had it not from a window. JOHNS. Wrapp'd in a paper, which contain'd the name King. Plutus himself, That knows the tinct and multiplying medicine, 9 Than I have in this ring. 'Twas mine, 'twas Helen's, Confess 'twas hers, and by what rough enforcement (Where you have never come,) or sent it us Ber. She never saw it. King. Thou speak'st it falsely, as I love mine honour; And she is dead; which nothing, but to close [Guards seize BERTRAM. My fore-past proofs, howe'er the matter fall, Shall tax my fears of little vanity, Having vainly fear'd too little.-Away with him ;We'll sift this matter further. [8] Ingaged, in the sense of unengaged, is aword of exactly the same forma. tion as inhabitable, which is used by Shakspeare and the contemporary wri. ters for uninhabitable. MAL. [9] Plutus, the grand alchemist, who knows the tincture which confers the properties of gold upon base metals, and the matter by which gold is multiplied, by which a small quantity of gold is made to communicate its qualities to a large mass of base metal.-In the reign of Henry the fourth, a law was made to forbid "all men thenceforth to multiply gold, or use any craft of multiplicarion." Of which law Mr. Boyle, when he was warm with the hope of transmutation, procured a repeal. JOHNS. [1] The proofs which I have already had are sufficient to show that my fears were not vain and irrational. I have rather been hitherto more easy than I ought, and have unreasonably had too little fear. JOHNSON. 15 VOL. III. |