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 make virgins. Virginity, by being once lost, may be ten times found; by being ever kept, it is ever lost: 't is too cold a companion: away with it.

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

PAR. There's little can be said in't; 't is 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 ten year it will make itself ten, which is a goodly increase; and the principal itself not much the worse. Away with 't.

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 lying; the longer kept, the less worth: off with 't, while 't is 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, 't is a withered pear; it was formerly better, marry, yet, 't is a withered pear: will you any thing with it?

HEL. 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,

(*) First folio, goe.

a Inhibited sin-] Forbidden, prohibited.

Within ten year it will make itself ten,-] The folio reads, “

make it selfe

two," &c. The alteration of "two' to "ten," which was first made by Hanmer, is countenanced by a previous observation of the speaker—“ Virginity, by being once lost, may be ten times found."

It was formerly better, marry, yet, 't is a withered pear;] This is a notable instance of "yet" being used in the sense of now. See note (b), p. 485, Vol. I.

There shall your master have a thousand loves,-] Something is evidently wanting here; this rhapsody having no connexion with what precedes it. Hanmer remedies the defect by making Helena 66 say, You're for the court" but the deficiency is more probably in Parolles' speech, where the words "We are for the court" may have been omitted by the compositor.

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-
PAR. What one, i' faith?

HEL. That I wish well.-'T is pity——
PAR. What's pity?

HEL. 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 a Page.

PAGE. Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.

[Exit Page.

PAR. Little Helen, farewell: if I can remember thee, I will think of thee at court.

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 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.

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 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.

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;
That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?

VOL. II.

R

The mightiest spacea 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 fix'd, and will not leave me.

SCENE II.-Paris. A Room in the King's Palace.

[Exit.

Flourish of cornets. Enter the KING OF FRANCE, with letters; Lords

and others attending.

KING. The Florentines and Senoys are by the ears; Have fought with equal fortune, and continue

A braving war.

1 LORD.C

So 't is reported, sir.

KING. Nay, 't is most credible; we here receive it
A certainty, vouch'd from our cousin Austria,
With caution, that the Florentine will move us
For speedy aid; wherein our dearest friend
Prejudicates the business, and would seem
To have us make denial.

1 LORD.

His love and wisdom,

Approv'd so to your majesty, may plead
For amplest credence.

KING.

He hath arm'd our answer,

And Florence is denied before he comes:
Yet, for our gentlemen that mean to see
The Tuscan service, freely have they leave
To stand on either part.

2 LORD.

It may well serve
A nursery to our gentry, who are sick
For breathing and exploit.

KING.

What's he comes here?

The mightiest space in fortune, nature brings
To join like likes, and kiss like native things.]

It would improve both the sense and metre were we to read,―

"The wid'st apart in fortune," &c.

Mightiest space is clearly one of the swarm of typographical blemishes by which the old text of this comedy is disfigured.

b What hath been cannot be.] The very opposite of what the speaker intended to express! Mason, therefore, proposed

"What ha'n't been, cannot be;"

and Hanmer substituted

"What hath not been, can't be."

We suspect the error arose from the transcriber mistaking n'ath, the old contraction of ne hath, hath not, for hath; and that we should read,—

"What n'ath been cannot be."

1 Lord.] The folio distinguishes the two Lords who speak, as "1 Lord G., and 2 Lord E."

Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES.

1 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

contempt nor bitterness
Were in his pride, or sharpness ;]

Capell, with some plausibility, reads,—

no contempt nor bitterness

Were in him, pride or sharpness."

b His tongue obey'd his hand] His hand for its hand. The latter vocable had hardly come into use at the time when this play was written. See note (c), p. 680, Vol. I.

A very slight alteration would lessen the ambiguity of this passage. We should, perhaps, read,

"In their poor praise be-humbled."

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
Erpire 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:

They, that least lend it you, shall lack you first.

KING. I fill a place, I know 't.-How long is 't, count, Since the physician at your father's died?

He was much fam'd.

BER.

Some six months since, my lord.

KING. If he were living, I would try him yet;—
Lend me an arm;-the rest have worn me out
With several applications:-nature and sickness
Debate it at their leisure. Welcome, count;
My son's no dearer.
BER.

Thank your majesty.

[Exeunt. Flourish.

SCENE III.-Rousillon.

A Room in the Countess's Palace.

Enter COUNTESS, Steward, and Clown. (2)

c

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; 't is 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, 't is not so well, that I am poor, though many of

When it was out,-] When what was out? The commentators are mute. Does not the whole tenor of the context tend to show that it is a misprint of wit? With this simple change, and supposing the ordinary distribution of the lines to be correct, the purport would be, "Often towards the end of some spirituel disport, when wit was exhausted, he would say," &c.

b With several applications:-] Manifold applications.

To even your content,-] Even is used here, seemingly, as in Act II. Sc. 1:-"But will you make it even ?"-in the sense of keep pace with, strike a balance with, equate, &c.