His servant live, and will his vassal die : Count. Nor I your mother? Hel. You are my mother, madam; 'Would you were (So that my lord, your son, were not my brother,) Indeed, my mother!-or were you both our mothers, I care no more for, than I do for heaven, So I were not his sister: Can't no other, But, I your daughter, he must be my brother? law; God shield, you mean it not! daughter, and mother, 7 My fear hath catch'd your fondness: Now I see Your salt tears' head. Now to all sense 'tis gross, Hel. Good madam, pardon me! 6 I care no more for,] There is a designed ambiguity: I care no more for, is, I care as much for. I wish it equally. FARMER. 7 strive - To strive is to contend. 8 Your salt tears' head.] The source, the fountain of your tears, the cause of your grief. JOHNSON. 9 in their kind-] i. e. in their language, according to their nature. Count. Do you love my son? Your pardon, noble mistress! Count. Love you my son? Do not you love him, madam? Count. Go not about: my love hath in't a bond, The state of your affection; for your passions Hel. Then, I confess, Here on my knee, before high heaven and you, My friends were poor, but honest; so's my love: That he is lov'd of me: I follow him not Nor would I have him, till I do deserve him; The sun, that looks upon his worshipper, But knows of him no more. My dearest madam, Let not your hate encounter with my love, For loving where you do: but, if yourself, 1 captious and intenible sieve,] Dr. Farmer supposes captious to be a contraction of capacious. Mr. Malone thinks it means recipient, capable of receiving what is put into it; and by intenible, incapable of holding or retaining it. 2 And lack not to lose still:] Helena means to say, that, like a person who pours water into a vessel full of holes, and still continues his employment, though he finds the water all lost, and the vessel empty; so, though she finds that the waters of her love are still lost, that her affection is thrown away on an object whom she thinks she never can deserve, she yet is not discouraged, but perseveres in her hopeless endeavour to accomplish her wishes. Whose aged honour cites a virtuous youth', Wish chastly, and love dearly, that your Dian Hel. Count. Madam, I had. Wherefore? tell true. Hel. I will tell truth; by grace itself, I swear. For general sovereignty; and that he will'd me 5 As notes, whose faculties inclusive were, To cure the desperate languishes, whereof Count. For Paris, was it? speak. This was your motive Hel. My lord your son made me to think of this; Else Paris, and the medicine, and the king, Had, from the conversation of my thoughts, Haply been absent then. 3 Whose aged honour cites a virtuous youth,] i. e. whose respectable conduct in age shows, or proves, that you were no less virtuous when young. Wish chastly, and love dearly, that your Dian Was both herself and love ;] i. e. Venus. Helena means to say "If ever you wished that the deity who presides over chastity, and the queen of amorous rites, were one and the same person; or, in other words, if ever you wished for the honest and lawful completion of your chaste desires." 5 notes, whose faculties inclusive ] Receipts in which greater virtues were inclosed than appeared to observation. Count. But think you, Helen, If you should tender your supposed aid, He would receive it? He and his physicians Are of a mind; he, that they cannot help him, Embowell'd of their doctrine, have left off The danger to itself? Hel. There's something hints, More than my father's skill, which was the greatest Shall, for my legacy, be sanctified By the luckiest stars in heaven: and, would your honour But give me leave to try success, I'd venture The well-lost life of mine on his grace's cure, By such a day, and hour. Count. Dost thou believ't? Hel. Ay, madam, knowingly. Count. Why, Helen, thou shalt have my leave, and love, Means, and attendants, and my loving greetings To those of mine in court; I'll stay at home, And pray God's blessing into thy attempt: Be gone to-morrow; and be sure of this, What I can help thee to, thou shalt not miss. [Exeunt. ACT II. SCENE I-Paris. A Room in the King's Palace. Flourish. Enter King, with young Lords, taking leave for the Florentine war; BERTRAM, PAROLLES, and Attendants. King. Farewell, young lord†, these warlike principles Embowell'd of their doctrine,] i. e. exhausted of their skill. Do not throw from you:- and you, my lord +, fare well: Share the advice betwixt you; if both gain all, The gift doth stretch itself as 'tis receiv'd, And is enough for both. 1 Lord. It is our hope, sir, After well enter'd soldiers, to return And find your grace in health. King. No, no, it cannot be; and yet my heart That doth my life besiege'. Farewell, young lords; The bravest questant shrinks, find what you seek, 2 Lord. Health, at your bidding, serve your majesty! King. Those girls of Italy, take heed of them; + "my lords,"-MALONE. 7 and yet my heart, &c.] i. e. in the common phrase, I am still heart whole; my spirits, by not sinking under my distemper, do not acknowledge its influence. (Those 'bated, that inherit but the fall Of the last monarchy,) see, &c.] The ancient geographers have divided Italy into the higher and the lower, the Apennine hills being a kind of natural line of partition; the side next the Adriatic was denominated the higher Italy, and the other side the lower; and the two seas followed the same terms of distinction, the Adriatic being called the upper Sea, and the Tyrrhene, or Tuscan, the lower. Now the Sennones, or Senois, with whom the Florentines are here supposed to be at war, inhabited the higher Italy, their chief town being Arminium, now called Rimini, upon the Adriatic. HANMER. Dr. Johnson says, that the sense may be this: Let upper Italy, where you are to exercise your valour, see that you come to gain honour, to the abatement, that is, to the disgrace and depression of those that have now lost their ancient military fame, and inherit but the fall of the last monarchy. To abate is used by Shakspeare in the original sense of abatre, to depress, to sink, to deject, to subduc. |