William Shakespeare - Ultimate Collection: Complete Plays & Poetry in One Volume. William Shakespeare

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 cozen’d 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.

       HELENA.

       Yet, I pray you:

       But with the 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 waggon is prepar’d, 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.]

      SCENE 5. Rousillon. A room in the COUNTESS’S palace.

       [Enter COUNTESS, LAFEU, and CLOWN.]

       LAFEU. No, no, no, son was misled with a snipt-taffeta fellow there, whose villanous saffron would have made all the unbaked and doughy youth of a nation in his colour: 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-tail’d humble-bee I speak of.

       COUNTESS. I would I 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.

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

       LAFEU.

       They are not salad-herbs, you knave; they are nose-herbs.

       CLOWN. I am no great Nebuchadnezzar, sir; I have not much skill in grass.

       LAFEU.

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

       CLOWN.

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

       LAFEU.

       Your distinction?

       CLOWN.

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

       LAFEU.

       So you were a knave at his service, indeed.

       CLOWN.

       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.

       CLOWN.

       At your service.

       LAFEU.

       No, no, no.

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

       LAFEU.

       Who’s that? a Frenchman?

       CLOWN. Faith, sir, ‘a has an English name; but his phisnomy is more hotter in France than there.

       LAFEU.

       What prince is that?

       CLOWN. 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 talkest of; serve him still.

       CLOWN. I am a woodland fellow, sir, that always loved a great fire; and the master I speak of ever keeps a good fire. But, sure, he is the prince of the world; let his nobility remain in his 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 a-weary 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.

       CLOWN. 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 he 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; he will be here tomorrow, or I am deceived by him that in such intelligence hath seldom failed.

       COUNTESS. It rejoices me that I hope I shall see him ere I die. I have letters that my son will be here tonight: I shall beseech your lordship to remain with me till they meet together.

       LAFEU. Madam, I was thinking with what manners I might safely be admitted.

       COUNTESS.

       You need but plead your honourable privilege.

       LAFEU.

       Lady, of that I have made a bold charter; but, I thank my

       God, it holds yet.

       [Re-enter CLOWN.]

       CLOWN. O madam, yonder’s my lord your son with a patch of velvet on’s face; whether there be a scar under it or no, the velvet knows; but ‘tis a goodly patch of velvet: his left cheek is a cheek of two pile and a half, but his right cheek is worn bare.

       LAFEU. A scar nobly got, or a noble scar, is a good livery of honour; so belike is that.

       CLOWN.

       But it is your carbonadoed face.

       LAFEU. Let us go see your son, I pray you; I long to talk with the young noble soldier.

       CLOWN. Faith, there’s a dozen of ‘em, with delicate fine hats, and most courteous feathers, which bow the head and nod at every man.

       [Exeunt.]

       ACT V.

      SCENE 1. Marseilles. A street.

       [Enter HELENA, Widow, and DIANA, with two Attendants.]

       HELENA.

       But this exceeding posting day and night

       Must wear your spirits low: we cannot help it.

       But since you have made the days and nights as one,

       To wear your gentle limbs in my affairs,

       Be bold you do