INTERPRETER If you could find out a country where but women were that had received so much shame, you might begin an impudent nation. Fare ye well, sir. I am for France too. We shall speak of you there. Exit

PAROLES

Yet am I thankful. If my heart were great

‘Twould burst at this. Captain I’ll be no more,

But I will eat and drink and sleep as soft

As captain shall. Simply the thing I am

Shall make me live. Who knows himself a braggart,

Let him fear this, for it will come to pass

That every braggart shall be found an ass.

Rust, sword; cool, blushes; and Paroles live

Safest in shame; being fooled, by fool’ry thrive.

There’s place and means for every man alive.

I’ll after them. Exit

4.4 Enter Helen, the Widow, and Diana

HELEN

That you may well perceive I have not wronged you,

One of the greatest in the Christian world

Shall be my surety; fore whose throne ‘tis needful,

Ere I can perfect mine intents, to kneel.

Time was, I did him a desired office

Dear almost as his life; which gratitude

Through flinty Tartar’s bosom would peep forth

And answer ‘Thanks’. I duly am informed

His grace is at Marseilles, to which place

We have convenient convoy. You must know

I am supposed dead. The army breaking,

My husband hies him home, where, heaven aiding,

And by the leave of my good lord the King,

We’ll be before our welcome.

WIDOW Gentle madam,

You never had a servant to whose trust

Your business was more welcome.

HELEN Nor you, mistress,

Ever a friend whose thoughts more truly labour

To recompense your love. Doubt not but heaven

Hath brought me up to be your daughter’s dower,

As it hath fated her to be my motive

And helper to a husband. But O, strange men,

That can such sweet use make of what they hate,

When saucy trusting of the cozened thoughts

Defiles the pitchy night; so lust doth play

With what it loathes, for that which is away.

But more of this hereafter. You, Diana,

Under my poor instructions yet must suffer

Something in my behalf.

DIANA Let death and honesty

Go with your impositions, I am yours,

Upon your will to suffer.

HELEN Yet, I pray you.—

But with that word the time will bring on summer,

When briers shall have leaves as well as thorns

And be as sweet as sharp. We must away,

Our wagon is prepared, and time revives us.

All’s well that ends well; still the fine’s the crown.

Whate’er the course, the end is the renown.

Exeunt

4.5 Enter Lavatch, the old Countess, and Lafeu

LAFEU No, no, no, your son was misled with a snipped-taffeta fellow there, whose villainous saffron would have made all the unbaked and doughy youth of a nation in his colour. Else, your daughter-in-law had been alive at this hour, and your son here at home, more advanced by the King than by that red-tailed humble-bee I speak of.

COUNTESS I would a had not known him. It was the death of the most virtuous gentlewoman that ever nature had praise for creating. If she had partaken of my flesh and cost me the dearest groans of a mother I could not have owed her a more rooted love.

LAFEU ‘Twas a good lady, ’twas a good lady. We may pick a thousand salads ere we light on such another herb.

LAVATCH Indeed, sir, she was the sweet marjoram of the salad, or rather the herb of grace.

LAFEU They are not grass, you knave, they are nose-herbs.

LAVATCH I am no great Nebuchadnezzar, sir, I have not much skill in grace. 21

LAFEU Whether dost thou profess thyself, a knave or a fool?

LAVATCH A fool, sir, at a woman’s service, and a knave at a man’s.

LAFEU Your distinction?

LAVATCH I would cozen the man of his wife and do his service.

LAFEU So you were a knave at his service indeed.

LAVATCH And I would give his wife my bauble, sir, to do her service.

LAFEU I will subscribe for thee, thou art both knave and fool.

LAVATCH At your service.

LAFEU No, no, no. 35

LAVATCH Why, sir, if I cannot serve you I can serve as great a prince as you are.

LAFEU Who’s that? A Frenchman?

LAVATCH Faith, sir, a has an English name, but his phys’namy is more hotter in France than there.

LAFEU What prince is that?

LAVATCH The Black Prince, sir, alias the prince of darkness, alias the devil.

LAFEU Hold thee, there’s my purse. I give thee not this to suggest thee from thy master thou talk’st of; serve him still.

LAVATCH I am a woodland fellow, sir, that always loved a great fire, and the master I speak of ever keeps a good fire. But since he is the prince of the world, let the nobility remain in’s court; I am for the house with the narrow gate, which I take to be too little for pomp to enter. Some that humble themselves may, but the many will be too chill and tender, and they’ll be for the flow’ry way that leads to the broad gate and the great fire.

LAFEU Go thy ways. I begin to be aweary of thee, and I tell thee so before, because I would not fall out with thee. Go thy ways. Let my horses be well looked to, without any tricks.

LAVATCH If I put any tricks upon ’em, sir, they shall be jades’ tricks, which are their own right by the law of nature. Exit

LAFEU A shrewd knave and an unhappy.

COUNTESS So a is. My lord that’s gone made himself much sport out of him; by his authority he remains here, which he thinks is a patent for his sauciness, and indeed he has no pace, but runs where he will.

LAFEU I like him well, ’tis not amiss. And I was about to tell you, since I heard of the good lady’s death and that my lord your son was upon his return home, I moved the King my master to speak in the behalf of my daughter; which, in the minority of them both, his majesty out of a self-gracious remembrance did first propose. His highness hath promised me to do it; and to stop up the displeasure he hath conceived against your son, there is no fitter matter. How does your ladyship like it?

COUNTESS With very much content, my lord, and I wish it happily effected.

LAFEU His highness comes post from Marseilles, of as able body as when he numbered thirty. A will be here tomorrow, or I am deceived by him that in such intelligence hath seldom failed.