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 disposition 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.

LAF. Your commendations, madam, get from her

tears.

COUNT. "T is 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.

37 virtuous qualities] qualities of good breeding, grace, erudition, the fruits of education: not here qualities of moral virtue.

38 go with pity] are to be regretted, are to be deprecated: virtues and traitors; excellences which mislead as to the true character of Cf. Bassanio's observation, Merch. of Ven., I, iii,

their possessors.

180: "I like not fair terms and a villain's mind."

39 simpleness] singleness, integrity, freedom from deceit or uncleanness. 46 livelihood] life, liveliness. Cf. Venus and Adonis, 26: "pith and livelihood"—the attributes of Adonis's sweating palm.

40

COUNT. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess 50 makes it soon mortal.

BER. Madam, I desire your holy wishes.

LAF. How understand we that?

COUNT. Be thou blest, Bertram, and succeed

father

thy

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 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.

COUNT. Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram. [Exit. BER. [To Helena] The best wishes that can be forged in your thoughts be servants to you! Be comfortable to my mother, your mistress, and make much of her. LAF. Farewell, pretty lady: you must hold the credit of your father. [Exeunt Bertram and Lafeu.

50-51 excess mortal excessive indulgence in grief puts an end to it. Cf. Wint. Tale, V, iii, 52:

"no sorrow

But killed itself much sooner."

and Rich. II, II, i, 33 seq. : "Violent fires soon burn out themselves."

60

70

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 Bertram'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. "T was 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 reliques. Who comes here?

Enter PAROLLES

[Aside] 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 fix'd evils sit so fit in him,

That they take place, when virtue's steely bones

74-75 grace his remembrance . . . shed for him] are mere ornamental tributes to his memory rather than outpourings of past affection.

97 take place] hold their own.

80

90

Look bleak i' the cold wind: withal, full oft we

see

Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.

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: let me ask you a question. Man is enemy to virginity; how may we barricado it against him?

PAR. Keep him out.

HEL. But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant, in the defence yet is weak: unfold to us some warlike resistance.

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 99 Cold wisdom . . . folly] cheerless wisdom holding a place of inferiority to folly, which has no call to exist.

100

111

being ever kept, it is ever lost: 't is too cold a companion; away with 't!

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 principle 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 139 ten] The First Folio reads two. Ten, which is Hanmer's emendation, is obviously correct. Cf. Sonnet vi, 9-10 (which treats of the same topic):

"Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,

If ten of thine ten times refigured thee."

127

140