William Shakespeare - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

PAROLLES.

I praise God for you.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE 3. The same. A room in the COUNTESS’S palace.

[Flourish. Enter KING, COUNTESS, LAFEU, Lords, Gentlemen, Guards, &c.]

KING.

We lost a jewel of her; and our esteem

Was made much poorer by it: but your son,

As mad in folly, lack’d the sense to know

Her estimation home.

COUNTESS.

‘Tis past, my liege:

And I beseech your majesty to make it

Natural rebellion, done i’ the blaze of youth,

When oil and fire, too strong for reason’s force,

O’erbears it and burns on.

KING.

My honour’d lady,

I have forgiven and forgotten all;

Though my revenges were high bent upon him,

And watch’d the time to shoot.

LAFEU.

This I must say,—

But first, I beg my pardon,—the young lord

Did to his majesty, his mother, and his lady,

Offence of mighty note; but to himself

The greatest wrong of all: he lost a wife

Whose beauty did astonish the survey

Of richest eyes; whose words all ears took captive;

Whose dear perfection hearts that scorn’d to serve

Humbly call’d mistress.

KING.

Praising what is lost

Makes the remembrance dear.—Well, call him hither;—

We are reconcil’d, and the first view shall kill

All repetition:—let him not ask our pardon;

The nature of his great offence is dead,

And deeper than oblivion do we bury

Th’ incensing relics of it; let him approach,

A stranger, no offender; and inform him,

So ‘tis our will he should.

GENTLEMAN.

I shall, my liege.

[Exit Gentleman.]

KING.

What says he to your daughter? have you spoke?

LAFEU.

All that he is hath reference to your highness.

KING.

Then shall we have a match. I have letters sent me

That sets him high in fame.

[Enter BERTRAM.]

LAFEU.

He looks well on ‘t.

KING.

I am not a day of season,

For thou mayst see a sunshine and a hail

In me at once: but to the brightest beams

Distracted clouds give way; so stand thou forth;

The time is fair again.

BERTRAM.

My high-repented blames,

Dear sovereign, pardon to me.

KING.

All is whole;

Not one word more of the consumed time.

Let’s take the instant by the forward top;

For we are old, and on our quick’st decrees

The inaudible and noiseless foot of time

Steals ere we can effect them. You remember

The daughter of this lord?

BERTRAM.

Admiringly, my liege: at first

I stuck my choice upon her, ere my heart

Durst make too bold herald of my tongue:

Where the impression of mine eye infixing,

Contempt his scornful perspective did lend me,

Which warp’d the line of every other favour;

Scorned a fair colour, or express’d it stolen;

Extended or contracted all proportions

To a most hideous object: thence it came

That she whom all men prais’d, and whom myself,

Since I have lost, have lov’d, was in mine eye

The dust that did offend it.

KING.

Well excus’d:

That thou didst love her, strikes some scores away

From the great compt: but love that comes too late,

Like a remorseful pardon slowly carried,

To the great sender turns a sour offence,

Crying, That’s good that’s gone. Our rash faults

Make trivial price of serious things we have,

Not knowing them until we know their grave:

Oft our displeasures, to ourselves unjust,

Destroy our friends, and after weep their dust:

Our own love waking cries to see what’s done,

While shameful hate sleeps out the afternoon.

Be this sweet Helen’s knell, and now forget her.

Send forth your amorous token for fair Maudlin:

The main consents are had; and here we’ll stay

To see our widower’s second marriage-day.

COUNTESS.

Which better than the first, O dear heaven, bless!

Or, ere they meet, in me, O nature, cesse!

LAFEU.

Come on, my son, in whom my house’s name

Must be digested, give a favour from you,

To sparkle in the spirits of my daughter,

That she may quickly come.—

[BERTRAM gives a ring to Lafeu.]

By my old beard,

And every hair that’s on ‘t, Helen, that’s dead,

Was a sweet creature: such a ring as this,

The last that e’er I took her leave at court,

I saw upon her finger.

BERTRAM.

Hers it was not.

KING.

Now, pray you, let me see it; for mine eye,

While I was speaking, oft was fasten’d to it.—

This ring was mine; and when I gave it Helen

I bade her, if her fortunes ever stood

Necessitied to help, that by this token

I would relieve her. Had you that craft to ‘reave her

Of what should stead her most?

BERTRAM.

My gracious sovereign,

Howe’er it pleases you to take it so,

The ring was never hers.

COUNTESS.

Son, on my life,

I have seen her wear it; and she reckon’d it

At her life’s rate.

LAFEU.

I am sure I saw her wear it.

BERTRAM.

You are deceiv’d, my lord; she never saw it:

In Florence was it from a casement thrown me,

Wrapp’d in a paper, which contain’d the name

Of her that threw it: noble she was, and thought

I stood engag’d: but when I had subscrib’d

To mine own fortune, and inform’d her fully

I could not answer in that course of honour

As she had made the overture, she ceas’d,

In heavy satisfaction, and would never

Receive the ring again.

KING.

Plutus himself,

That knows the tinct and multiplying medicine,

Hath not in nature’s mystery more science

Than I have in this ring: ‘twas mine, ‘twas Helen’s,

Whoever gave it you. Then, if you know

That you are well acquainted with yourself,

Confess ‘twas hers, and by what rough enforcement

You got it from her: she call’d the saints to surety

That she would never put it from her finger

Unless she gave it to yourself in bed,—

Where you have never come,—or sent it us

Upon her great disaster.

BERTRAM.

She never saw it.

KING.

Thou speak’st it falsely, as I love mine honour;

And mak’st conjectural fears to come into me

Which I would fain shut out. If it should prove

That thou art so inhuman,—‘twill not prove so:—

And yet I know not:—thou didst hate her deadly.

And she is dead; which nothing, but to close

Her eyes myself, could win me to believe

More than to see this ring.—Take him away.

[Guards seize BERTRAM.]

My forepast 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.

BERTRAM.

If you shall prove

This ring was ever hers, you shall as easy

Prove that I husbanded her bed in Florence,

Where she yet never was.

[Exit, guarded.]

KING.

I am wrapp’d in dismal thinkings.

[Enter a Gentleman.]

GENTLEMAN.

Gracious sovereign,

Whether I have been to blame or no, I know not:

Here’s a petition from a Florentine,

Who hath, for four or five removes, come short

To tender it herself. I undertook it,

Vanquish’d thereto by the fair grace and speech

Of the poor suppliant, who by this, I know,

Is here attending: her business looks in her

With an importing visage; and she told me

In a sweet verbal brief, it did concern

Your highness with herself.

KING. [Reads.] ‘Upon his many protestations to marry me, when his wife was dead, I blush to say it, he won me. Now is the count Rousillon a widower; his vows are forfeited to me, and my honour’s paid to him. He stole from Florence, taking no leave, and I follow him to his country for justice: grant it me, O king; in you it best lies; otherwise a seducer flourishes, and a poor maid is undone. DIANA CAPULET.’