Laf. Farewell, pretty lady: you must hold the credit of your father.

[Exeunt Bertram and Lafeu.

Hel. O, were that all! I think not on my father;

90

And these great tears grace his remembrance more
Than those I shed for him. What was he like?
I have forgot him: my imagination
Carries no favour in 't but Bertram's.
I am undone there is no living, none,
If Bertram be away. 'Twere all one
That I should love a bright particular star
And think to wed it, he is so above me:
In his bright radiance and collateral light
Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.

The ambition in my love thus plagues itself:
The hind that would be mated by the lion

Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, though a plague,
To see him every hour; to sit and draw

His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,
In our heart's table; heart too capable
Of every line and trick of his sweet favour:
But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
Must sanctify his reliques. Who comes here?

Enter Parolles.

100

[Aside] One that goes with him: I love him for his sake; And yet I know him a notorious liar,

Think him a great way fool, solely a coward;

Yet these fix'd evils sit so fit in him,

That they take place, when virtue's steely bones 110

Look bleak i' the cold wind: withal, full oft we see
Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.

Par. Save you, fair queen!

Hel. And you, monarch!
Par. No.

Hel. And no.

Par. Are you meditating on virginity?

Hel. Ay. You have some stain of soldier in you: let me ask you a question. Man is enemy to

virginity; how may we barricado it against him? 120 Par. Keep him out.

Hel. But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant, in the defence yet is weak: unfold to us some warlike resistance.

Par. There is none: man, sitting down before you, will undermine you and blow you up.

Hel. Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers up! Is there no military policy, how virgins might blow up men?

Par. Virginity being blown down, man will quicklier 130 be blown up: marry, in blowing him down again, with the breach yourselves made, you lose your city. It is not politic in the commonwealth of nature to preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational increase, and there was never virgin got till virginity was first lost. That you were made of is metal to make virgins. Virginity by being once lost may be ten times found; by being ever kept, it is ever lost: 'tis too cold a companion; away with 't!

'Hel. I will stand for 't a little, though therefore I die a virgin.

Par. There's little can be said in 't; 'tis against the rule of nature. To speak on the part of virginity, is to accuse your mothers; which is most

140

infallible disobedience. He that hangs himself
is a virgin virginity murders itself; and should
be buried in highways out of all sanctified limit,
as a desperate offendress against nature. Vir-
ginity breeds mites, much like a cheese; con- 150
sumes itself to the very paring and so dies with
feeding his own stomach. Besides, virginity is
peevish, proud, idle, made of self-love, which is
the most inhibited sin in the canon.

Keep it not;
out with 't!

you cannot choose but lose by 't;
within ten year it will make itself ten, which is a
goodly increase; and the principal itself not
much the worse: away with 't!

Hel. How might one do, sir, to lose it to her own
liking?

Par. Let me see: marry, ill, to like him that ne'er 160
it likes. 'Tis a commodity will lose the gloss
with lying; the longer kept, the less worth: off
with 't while 'tis vendible: answer the time of
request. Virginity, like an old courtier, wears
her cap out of fashion; richly suited, but un-
suitable: just like the brooch and the tooth-pick,
which wear not now. Your date is better in
your pie and your porridge than in your cheek:
and your virginity, your old virginity, is like one
of our French withered pears, it looks ill, it eats 170
drily; marry, 'tis a withered pear; it was for-
merly better; marry, yet 'tis a withered pear:
will you any thing with it?

Hel. Not my virginity yet.-[You 're for the Court;]
There shall your master have a thousand loves,
A mother and a mistress and a friend,

A phoenix, captain, and an enemy,

A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign,
A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear;
His humble ambition, proud humility,

His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet,
His faith, his sweet disaster; with a world
Of pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms,
That blinking Cupid gossips. Now shall he-
I know not what he shall. God send him well!
The court's a learning place, and he is one-
Par. What one, i' faith?

Hel. That I wish well. 'Tis pity

Par. What's pity?

180

Hel. That wishing well had not a body in 't,

190

Which might be felt; that we, the poorer born,
Whose baser stars do shut us up in wishes,
Might with effects of them follow our friends,
And show what we alone must think, which never
Returns us thanks.

Enter Page.

[Exit.

Page. Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.
Par. Little Helen, farewell; if I can remember thee,
I will think of thee at court.

Hel. Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a
charitable star.

Par. Under Mars, I.

Hel. I especially think, under Mars.

Par. Why under Mars?

Hel. The wars have so kept you under, that you must needs be born under Mars.

Par. When he was predominant.

Hel. When he was retrograde, I think, rather.

200

Par. Why think you so?

Hel. You go so much backward when you fight.
Par. That's for advantage.

Hel. So is running away, when fear proposes the
safety: but the composition that your valour and
fear makes in you is a virtue of a good wing,
and I like the wear well.

210

Par. I am so full of businesses, I cannot answer thee acutely. I will return perfect courtier; in the which, my instruction shall serve to naturalize thee, so thou wilt be capable of a courtier's counsel, and understand what advice shall thrust upon thee; else thou diest in thine unthankful- 220 ness, and thine ignorance makes thee away: farewell. When thou hast leisure, say thy prayers; when thou hast none, remember thy friends: get thee a good husband, and use him as he uses thee: so, farewell.

Hel. Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,

[Exit.

Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky
Gives us free scope; only doth backward pull
Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull.
What power is it which mounts my love so high; 230
That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?
The mightiest space in fortune nature brings
To join like likes and kiss like native things.
Impossible be strange attempts to those
That weigh their pains in sense, and do suppose
What hath been cannot be: who ever strove
To show her merit, that did miss her love?
The king's disease-my project may deceive me,
But my intents are fix'd, and will not leave me.

[Exit.