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Come here for phyfick.

Duke. Welcome fhall they be :

And all the honours, that can fly from us,

Shall on them fettle. You know your places well.
When better fall, for your avails they fell;

To-morrow, to the field.

SCENE II.

Changes to Roufillon, in France.

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Enter Countefs, and Clown.

[Exeunt.

Count. T hath happen'd, all as I would have had it; fave, that he comes not along with her. Clo. By my troth, I take my young Lord to be a very melancholy man.

Count. By what obfervance, I pray you?

Clo. Why, he will look upon his boot, and fing; mend his ruff, and fing; ask questions, and fing; pick his teeth, and fing. I knew a man that had this trick of melancholy, fold a goodly manor for a fong. Count. Let me fee what he writes, and when he means to come. [Reads the letter. Clo. I have no mind to bel, fince I was at court. Our old ling, and our Ibels o'th' country, are nothing like your old ling, and your Ibels o' th' court: the brain of my Cupid's knock'd out; and I begin to love, as an old man loves mony, with no stomach. Count. What have we here?

Clo. E'en that you have there.

Countess reads a letter.

[Exit.

I have fent you a daughter-in-law: She bath recovered the King, and undone me. I have wedded her, not bedded her; and fworn to make the not eternal. You shall bear, I am run away; know it, before the report come. VOL. III.

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If

If there be breadth enough in the world, I will bold a long distance. My duty to you.

Your unfortunate Son,

This is not well, rash and unbridled boy,
To fly the favours of fo good a King,
To pluck his indignation on thy head;
By the misprizing of a maid, too virtuous,
For the contempt of empire.

Re-enter Clown.

Bertram.

Clo. O Madam, yonder is heavy news within between two foldiers and my young lady.

Count. What is the matter?

Clo. Nay, there is fome comfort in the news, fome comfort; your fon will not be kill'd fo foon as I thought he would.

Count. Why fhould he be kill'd?

Clo. So fay I, Madam, if he run away, as I hear he does; the danger is in ftanding to't; that's the lofs of men, though it be the getting of children. Here they come, will tell you more. For my part, I only hear, your fon was run away.

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Enter Helena, and two Gentlemen.

1 Gen. Save you, good Madam.

Hel. Madam, my Lord is gone, for ever gone.2 Gen. Do not say fo.

Count. Think upon patience-'Pray you, gentlemen, I've felt fo many quirks of joy and grief, That the firft face of neither, on the ftart,

Can woman me unto't. Where is my fon?

2 Gen.

2 Gen. Madam, he's gone to ferve the Duke of
Florence.

We met him thitherward, for thence we came ;
And, after fome difpatch in hand at court,
Thither we bend again.

Hel. Look on this letter, Madam; here's my pass

port.

8

When thou canst get the ring upon my finger, which never shall come off; and fhew me a child begotten of thy body that I am father to, then call me bufband: but in fuch a Then I write a Never.

This is a dreadful fentence.

Count. Brought you this letter, gentlemen? 1 Gen. Ay, Madam, and, for the contents' fake, are forry for our pains.

Count. I pr'ythee, lady, have a better cheer.
If thou engroffeft all the griefs as thine,

Thou robb'ft me of a moiety: he was my son,
But I do wash his name out of my blood,

And thou art all my child. Towards Florence is he? 2 Gen. Ay, Madam.

Count. And to be a foldier?

2 Gen. Such is his noble purpofe; and, believe't, The Duke will lay upon him all the honour That good convenience claims.

Count. Return you thither?

I Gen. Ay, Madam, with the swifteft wing of speed. Hel. 'Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France. 'Tis bitter. [Reading.

Count. Find you that there?

8 When thou can't get the ring, upon my finger,] i. e. When thou canft get the ring, which is on my finger, into thy poffeffion. The Oxford Editor, who took it the other way, to fignify, when thou canst get it on upon my finger, very fagaciously alters it

Z 2

to, When thou canst get the ring from my finger. WARBURTON.

I think Dr. Warburton's explanation fufficient, but I once read it thus, When thou canst get the ring upon thy finger, which never fhall come off mine.

Hel.

Hel. Yes, Madam.

1 Gen. 'Tis but the boldness of his hand, haply, which his heart was not confenting to.

Count. Nothing in France, until he have no wife? There's nothing here, that is too good for him, But only fhe; and the deferves a lord, That twenty fuch rude boys might tend upon, And call her hourly miftrefs. Who was with him? 1 Gen. A fervant only, and a gentleman Which I have fome time known.

Count. Parolles, was't not?

1 Gen. Ay, my good lady, he.

Count. A very tainted fellow, and full of wickedness: My fon corrupts a well-derived nature

With his inducement.

1 Gen. Indeed, good lady, the fellow has a deal of that too much, which holds him much to have. 9

Count. Y'are welcome, gentlemen; I will intreat you, when you fee my fon, to tell him, that his fword can never win the honour that hè lofes: more I'll intreat you written to bear along.

2 Gen. We ferve you, Madam, in that and all your worthieft affairs.

Count. Not fo, but as we change our courtefies. Will you draw near? [Exeunt Countess and Gentlemen.

9 a deal of that too much, which holds him much to bave.] That is, his vices ftand him in ftead. Helen had before deliver'd this thought in all the beauty of expreffion.

- I know him a notorious lyar ; Think bim a great way fool, folely a corward; Yet ikofe fixə evil- fit fa fu in him,

That they take place, while wir-
tue's steely bones

Look bleak in the cold wind-
But the Oxford Editor reads,
Which 'hoves him not much to
bave.
WARBURTON.

The gentlemen declare that they are fervants to the Countess, the replies, No otherwife than as the returns the fame offices of civility.

SCENE

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Hel. 'Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France: Nothing in France, until he has no wife!

Thou shalt have none, Roufillon, none in France;
Then haft thou all again. Poor lord! is't I
That chafe thee from thy country, and expose
Those tender limbs of thine to the event
Of the none-sparing war? and is it I,

2

That drive thee from the sportive court, where thou
Waft shot at with fair eyes, to be the mark
Of fmoaky mufkets? Ŏ you leaden meffengers,
That ride upon the violent fpeed of fire,
Fly with false aim; move the ftill-piercing air, *
That fings with piercing, do not touch my lord:
Whoever shoots at him, I fet him there.
Whoever charges on his forward breast,
I am the caitiff, that do hold him to it;
And tho' I kill him not, I am the cause
His death was fo effected. Better 'twere,
I met the rav'ning lion when he roar'd

With fharp constraint of hunger: better 'twere,

That all the miferies, which nature owes,

Were mine at once. No, come thou home, Roufillon;

Whence honour but of danger wins a fear;

As oft it lofes all. I will be gone:

My being here it is, that holds thee hence.
Shall I ftay here to do't? no, no, although
The air of paradife did fan the house,
And angels offic'd all; I will be gone;
That pitiful rumour may report my flight,

air,

move the ftill-piercing

pierce the ftill-moving air, That fings with piercing, 1. e. pierce the air, which is in perpetual motion, and fuffers no injury by piercing.

That fings with piercing, The words are here odly fhuffled into nonfenfe. We should read,

WARB.

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