Proud, scornful boy, unworthy this good gift,

That dost in vile misprision shackle up

My love and her desert; that canst not dream

We, poising us in her defective scale,

Shall weigh thee to the beam; that wilt not know

It is in us to plant thine honour where

We please to have it grow. Check thy contempt;

Obey our will, which travails in thy good;

Believe not thy disdain, but presently

Do thine own fortunes that obedient right

Which both thy duty owes and our power claims,

Or I will throw thee from my care for ever

Into the staggers and the careless lapse

Of youth and ignorance, both my revenge and hate

Loosing upon thee in the name of justice

Without all terms of pity. Speak. Thine answer.

BERTRAM) (kneeling)

Pardon, my gracious lord, for I submit

My fancy to your eyes. When I consider

What great creation and what dole of honour

Flies where you bid it, I find that she, which late

Was in my nobler thoughts most base, is now

The praised of the King; who, so ennobled,

Is as ’twere born so.

KING

Take her by the hand

And tell her she is thine; to whom I promise

A counterpoise, if not to thy estate

A balance more replete.

BERTRAM (rising)

I take her hand.

KING

Good fortune and the favour of the King

Smile upon this contract, whose ceremony

Shall seem expedient on the now-born brief,

And be performed tonight. The solemn feast

Shall more attend upon the coming space,

Expecting absent friends. As thou lov’st her

Thy love’s to me religious; else, does err.

⌈Flourish.⌉ Exeunt all but Paroles and Lafeu, who stay behind, commenting on this wedding

LAFEU Do you hear, monsieur? A word with you. PAROLES Your pleasure, sir.

LAFEU Your lord and master did well to make his recantation.

PAROLES Recantation? My lord? My master?

LAFEU Ay. Is it not a language I speak?

PAROLES A most harsh one, and not to be understood without bloody succeeding. My master?

LAFEU Are you companion to the Count Roussillon?

PAROLES To any count, to all counts, to what is man.

LAFEU To what is count’s man; count’s master is of another style.

PAROLES You are too old, sir. Let it satisfy you, you are too old.

LAFEU I must tell thee, sirrah, I write ‘Man’, to which title age cannot bring thee.

PAROLES What I dare too well do I dare not do.

LAFEU I did think thee for two ordinaries to be a pretty wise fellow. Thou didst make tolerable vent of thy travel; it might pass. Yet the scarves and the bannerets about thee did manifoldly dissuade me from believing thee a vessel of too great a burden. I have now found thee; when I lose thee again I care not. Yet art thou good for nothing but taking up, and that thou’rt scarce worth.

PAROLES Hadst thou not the privilege of antiquity upon thee—

LAFEU Do not plunge thyself too far in anger, lest thou hasten thy trial, which if—Lord have mercy on thee for a hen! So, my good window of lattice, fare thee well. Thy casement I need not open, for I look through thee. Give me thy hand. 216

PAROLES My lord, you give me most egregious indignity.

LAFEU Ay, with all my heart, and thou art worthy of it. PAROLES I have not, my lord, deserved it.

LAFEU Yes, good faith, every dram of it, and I will not bate thee a scruple.

PAROLES Well, I shall be wiser.

LAFEU E‘en as soon as thou canst, for thou hast to pull at a smack o’th’ contrary. If ever thou beest bound in thy scarf and beaten thou shall find what it is to be proud of thy bondage. I have a desire to hold my acquaintance with thee, or rather my knowledge, that I may say in the default, ‘He is a man I know’.

PAROLES My lord, you do me most insupportable vexation.

LAFEU I would it were hell-pains for thy sake, and my poor doing eternal; for doing I am past, as I will by thee, in what motion age will give me leave. Exit

PAROLES Well, thou hast a son shall take this disgrace off me. Scurvy, old, filthy, scurvy lord. Well, I must be patient. There is no fettering of authority. I’ll beat him, by my life, if I can meet him with any convenience, an he were double and double a lord. I’ll have no more pity of his age than I would have of—I’ll beat him, an if I could but meet him again.

Enter Lafeu

LAFEU Sirrah, your lord and master’s married. There’s news for you: you have a new mistress.

PAROLES I most unfeignedly beseech your lordship to make some reservation of your wrongs. He is my good lord; whom I serve above is my master.

LAFEU Who? God?

PAROLES Ay, sir.

LAFEU The devil it is that’s thy master. Why dost thou garter up thy arms o’ this fashion? Dost make hose of thy sleeves? Do other servants so? Thou wert best set thy lower part where thy nose stands. By mine honour, if I were but two hours younger I’d beat thee. Methink’st thou art a general offence and every man should beat thee. I think thou wast created for men to breathe themselves upon thee.

PAROLES This is hard and undeserved measure, my lord.

LAFEU Go to, sir. You were beaten in Italy for picking a kernel out of a pomegranate, you are a vagabond and no true traveller, you are more saucy with lords and honourable personages than the commission of your birth and virtue gives you heraldry. You are not worth another word, else I’d call you knave. I leave you.

Exit

PAROLES Good, very good, it is so then. Good, very good, let it be concealed awhile.

[Enter Bertram]

BERTRAM

Undone and forfeited to cares for ever.

PAROLES What’s the matter, sweetheart?

BERTRAM

Although before the solemn priest I have sworn,

I will not bed her.

PAROLES What, what, sweetheart?

BERTRAM

O my Paroles, they have married me.

I’ll to the Tuscan wars and never bed her.

PAROLES

France is a dog-hole, and it no more merits

The tread of a man’s foot. To th’ wars!

BERTRAM

There’s letters from my mother. What th’import is

I know not yet.

PAROLES

Ay, that would be known. To th’ wars, my boy, to th’

wars! 275

He wears his honour in a box unseen

That hugs his kicky-wicky here at home,

Spending his manly marrow in her arms,

Which should sustain the bound and high curvet

Of Mars’s fiery steed. To other regions!

France is a stable, we that dwell in’t jades.