Par. Bless you, my fortunate lady!

Hel. I hope, sir, I have your good will to have mine own good fortunes.

Par. You had my prayers to lead them on: and to keep them on, have them still.—O, my knave! How does my old lady?

Clo. So that you had her wrinkles, and I her money, I would she did as you say.

Par. Why, I say nothing.

Clo. Marry, you are the wiser man; for many a man's tongue shakes out his master's undoing. To say nothing, to do nothing, to know nothing, and to have nothing, is to be a great part of your title; which is within a very little of nothing. Par. Away; thou 'rt a knave.

Clo. You should have said, sir," Before a knave thou art a knave:" that is,-Before me thou art a knave. This had been truth, sir.

Par. Go to, thou art a witty fool, I have found thee.

Clo. Did you find me in yourself, sir; or were you taught to find me? The search, sir, was profitable; and much fool may you find in you, even to the world's pleasure and the increase of laughter.

Par. A good knave, i' faith, and well fed. Madam, my lord will go away to-night: A very serious business calls on him. The great prerogative and rite of love, Which, as your due, time claims, he does acknowledge;

But puts it off by a compelled restraint;
Whose want and whose delay is strewed with
sweets,

Which they distil now in the curbéd time,
To make the coming hour o'erflow with joy,
And pleasure drown the brim.

Enter LAFEU and BERTRAM. Laf. But I hope your lordship thinks not him a soldier.

Ber. Yes, my lord, and of very valiant approof. Laf. You have it from his own deliverance. Ber. And by other warranted testimony. Laf. Then my dial goes not true: I took this lark for a bunting.

Ber. I do assure you, my lord, he is very great in knowledge, and accordingly valiant.

Laf. I have then sinned against his experience, and transgressed against his valour; and my state that way is dangerous, since I cannot yet find in my heart to repent. Here he comes: I pray you, make us friends; I will pursue the amity.

Par. I know not how I have deserved to run into my lord's displeasure.

Laf. You have made shift to run into 't, boots and spurs and all, like him that leaped into the custard; and out of it you'll run again, rather than suffer question for your residence.

Ber. It may be you have mistaken him, my lord.

Laf. And shall do so ever, though I took him at his prayers. Fare you well, my lord; and believe this of me,-there can be no kernel in this light nut; the soul of this man is his clothes: trust him not in matter of heavy consequence: I have kept of them tame, and know their natures.-Farewell, monsieur: I have spoken better of you than you have or will deserve at my hand; but we must do good against evil. Par. An idle lord, I swear.

Ber. I think so.

Par. Why, do you not know him?

[Exit.

Clo. By my troth, I take my young lord to be a very melancholy man.

Count. By what observance, I pray you?

Clo. Why, he will look upon his boot, and sing; mend the ruff, and sing; ask questions, and sing; pick his teeth, and sing. I know a man, that had this trick of melancholy, sold a goodly manor for a song.

Count. Let me see what he writes, and when he means to come. [Opening a letter.

Clo. I have no mind to Isbel since I was at court: our old ling and our Isbels o' the country are nothing like your old ling and your Isbels o' the court. The brains of my Cupid's knocked out; and I begin to love, as an old man loves money, with no stomach.

Count. What have we here?
Clo. E'en that you have there.
COUNTESS reads.

[Exit.

"I have sent you a daughter-in-law: she hath recovered the King, and undone me. I have wedded her, not bedded her; and sworn to make the 'not' eternal. You shall hear I am run away: know it, before the report come. If there be breath enough in the world, I will hold a long distance. My duty to you. "Your unfortunate son, "BERTRAM."

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

Re-enter CLOWN.

Clo. O madam, yonder is heavy news within, between two soldiers and my young lady. Count. What is the matter?

Clo. Nay, there is some comfort in the news, some comfort: your son will not be killed so soon as I thought he would.

Count. Why should he be killed?

Clo. So say I, madam, if he run away, as I hear he does the danger is in standing to 't: that's the loss of men, though it be the getting of children. Here they come will tell you more: for my part, I only hear your son was run away. [Exit.

Enter HELENA and two Gentlemen. 1st Gent. Save you, good madam. Hel. Madam, my lord is gone; for ever gone. 2nd Gent. Do not say so.

Count. Think upon patience. - 'Pray you, gentlemen,

I have felt so many quirks of joy and grief,
That the first face of neither, on the start,
Can woman me unto 't:-where is my son, I pray you?
2nd Gent. Madam, he's gone to serve the
Duke of Florence:

We met him thitherward: from thence we came,
And, after some dispatch in hand at court,
Thither we bend again.

Hel. Look on his letter, madam; here's my passport:

Count. Brought you this letter, gentlemen? 1st Gent. Ay, madam:

And, for the contents' sake, are sorry for our pains.
Count. I pr'y thee, lady, have a better cheer:

If thou engrossest all the griefs are thine,
Thou robb'st me of a moiety. He was my son;
But I do wash his name out of my blood,

"Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France."
Nothing in France, until he has no wife!
Thou shalt have none, Rousillon, none in France;
Then hast thou all again. Poor lord! is 't I
That chase thee from thy country, and expose
Those tender limbs of thine to the event
Of the none-sparing war? and is it I

That drive thee from the sportive court, where thou
Wast shot at with fair eyes, to be the mark
Of smoky muskets? O you leaden messengers,
That ride upon the violent speed of fire,

Count.

And to be a soldier?

That sings with piercing; do not touch my lord!
Whoever shoots at him, I set him there;
Whoever charges on his forward breast,

I am the caitiff that do hold him to 't;
And, though I kill him not, I am the cause
His death was so effected.-Better 't were

I met the ravin lion when he roared
With sharp constraint of hunger; better 't were
That all the miseries which nature owes

Were mine at once. No, come thou home, Rou

sillon,

Whence honour but of danger wins a scar;
As oft it loses all. I will be gone:
My being here it is that holds thee hence:
Shall I stay here to do't? No, no, although
The air of paradise did fan the house,
And angels officed all. I will be gone;
That pitiful rumour may report my flight,
To consolate thine ear. Come, night; end, day!
For with the dark, poor thief, I'll steal away.

[Exit.