See it fo grofsly fhown in thy behaviours,
That in their kind 6 they speak it; only fin
And hellish obftinacy tie thy tongue,

That truth fhould be fufpected: Speak, is't fo?
If it be fo, you have wound a goodly clue;

If it be not, forfwear't: howe'er, I charge thee,
As heaven fhall work in me for thine avail,

To tell me truly.

Hel.
Good madam, pardon me!
Count. Do you love my fon?
Hel.

Count. Love you my fon?

Hel.

Your pardon, noble miftrefs!

Do not you love him, madam?

Count. Go not about; my love hath in't a bond, Whereof the world takes note: come, come, disclose The state of your affection; for your paffions

Have to the full appeach'd.

Hel.

Then, I confefs,

Here on my knee, before high heaven and you,
That before you, and next unto high heaven,
I love your fon :-

My friends were poor, but honeft; fo's my love:
Be not offended; for it hurts not him,
That he is lov'd of me: I follow him not

By any token of prefunfptuous fuit;

Nor would I have him, till I do deserve him;
Yet never know how that defert fhould be.
I know I love in vain, ftrive against hope;
Yet, in this captious and intenible fieve,"

6 i, e. in their language, according to their nature. STEEVENS.

7 The word captious I never found in this fenfe; yet I cannot tell what to fubftitute, unless carious for 1otten, which yet is a word more likely to have been mistaken by the copiers than ufed by the author.

JOHNSON. Dr. Farmer fuppofes captious to be a contraction of capacious. As violent ones are to be found among our ancient writers, and especially in Churchyard's Poems, with which Shakspeare was not unacquainted.

STEEVENS.

By captious, I believe Shakspeare only meant recipient, capable of receiving what is put into it ; and by intenible, incapable of holding or retaining it.

How

I ftill

pour in the waters of my love,

And lack not to lofe ftill: 8 thus, Indian-like,
Religious in mine error, I adore

The fun, 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,
Whofe aged honour cites a virtuous youth,"
Did ever, in fo true a flame of liking,
Wish chaftly, and love dearly, that your Dian
Was both herself and Love; 2 O then, give pity
To her, whose state is such, that cannot choofe
But lend and give where fhe is fure to lofe;
That feeks not to find that her fearch implies,
But, riddle-like, lives fweetly where the dies.
Count. Had you not lately an intent, speak truly,
To go to Paris?

Hel.

Madam, I had.

Count.

How frequently he and the other writers of his age confounded the active and paffive adjectives, has been already more than once obferved.

8 And lack not to lofe ftill:] Perhaps we should read-
And lack not to love ftill. TYR WHITT.

I believe lofe is right. So afterwards, in this fpeech:

whofe ftate is fuch that cannot choose

"But lend and give, where he is fure to lofe."

MALONE.

Helena means, I think, to say that, like a perfon who pours water into a vefiel full of holes, and ftill continues his employment though he finds the water all loft, and the veffel empty, fo, though the finds that the waters of her love are ftill loft, that her affection is thrown away on an object whom he thinks fhe never can deferve, fhe yet is not difcouraged, but perfeveres in her hopeless endeavour to accomplish her wishes. The poet evidently alludes to the trite ftory of the daughters of Danaus.

MALONE.

9 i. e. whose respectable conduct in age fhows, or proves, that you were no lefs virtuous when young. As a fact is proved by citing witneffes, or examples from books, our author with his ufual license uses to eite, in the fenfe of to prove. MALONE.

2 Helena means to fay-"If ever you wished that the deity who prefides over chastity, and the queen of amorous rites, were one and the fame perfon; or, in other words, if ever you wished for the honeft and lawful I believe, however, the words were completion of your chafte de fires." accidently tranfpofed at the prefs, and would read

Love dearly, and wish chaftly, that your Dian, &c. MALONE,

Count.
Wherefore? tell true.3
Hel. I will tell truth; by grace itself, I swear.
You know, my father left me fome prescriptions
Of rare and prov'd effects, fuch as his reading,
And manifeft experience, had collected
For general fovereignty: and that he will'd me
In heedfullest reservation to bestow them,
As notes, whose faculties inclufive + were,
More than they were note: amongst the reft,
There is a remedy, approv'd, fet down,
To cure the defperate languifhings, whereof
The king is render'd loft.

Count.

This was your motive For Paris, was it? fpeak.

Hel. My lord your fon made me to think of this;
Elfe Paris, and the medicine, and the king,

Had, from the converfation of my thoughts,
Haply, been abfent then.

Count.

But think you, Helen,
If you should tender your fuppofed aid,

He would receive it? He and his phyficians
Are of a mind; he, that they cannot help him,
They, that they cannot help; How fhill they credit
A poor unlearned virgin, when the schools,
Embowell'd of their doctrine, 5 have left off
The danger to itself?

Hel.

There's fomething hints,

More than my father's fkill, which was the greatest

Of his profesion, that his good receipt 6

C3

Shall,

3 This is an evident interpolation. It is needlefs, because it repeats what the Countess had already faid: it is injurious, because it spoils the measure. STEEVENS.

4 Receipts in which greater virtues were inclosed than appeared to ob. fervation. JOHNSON.

5 i, e. exhaufted of their fkill. STEEVENS.

Here is an inference, [that] without any thing preceding, to which it refers, which makes the fentence vicious, and fhows that we should read

There's fomething hints

More than my father's fkill,

that bis good rec.ipt

i.c. I have a fecret premonition, or prefage. WARBURTON.

Shall, for my legacy, be fanctified

By the luckieft ftars in heaven: and, would your honour
But give me leave to try fuccefs, I'd venture

The well-loft life of mine on his grace's cure,

By fuch a day, and hour.

Count.

Doft thou believe'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 ftay at home,

And pray God's bleffing into thy attempt:
Be gone to-morrow? and be fure of this,
What I can help thee to, thou shalt not miss.

[Exeunt

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, thefe warlike principles Do not throw from you :-and you, my lord, farewell :8.

7 In all the latter copies thefe lines flood thus:

Farewell, young lords; thefe warlike principles
Do not throw from you. You, my lords, farewell;
Share the advice betwixt you; if both again,

The gift doth firetch itself as 'tis receiv'd.

Share

The third line in that ftate was unintelligible. Sir Thomas Hanmer

reads thus:

Farewell, young lord: thefe warlike principles.

Do not throw from you; you, my lord, farewell;
Share the advice betwixt you: If both gain, well!
The gift doth firetch itself as 'tis receiv'd,

And is enough for buth.

The first edition, from which the paffage is restored, was fufficiently clear; yet it is plain, that the latter editors preferred a reading which they did not understand. JOHNSON.

8 and you, my lord, farewell :] The old copy, both in this and the following inftance, reads-lords. STEEVENS.

It

Share the advice betwixt you; if both gain all,
The gift doth ftretch itself as 'tis receiv'd,

And is enough for both.

1 Lord.

It is our hope, fir,

After well-enter'd foldiers, to return

And find your grace in health.

King. No, no, it cannot be; and yet my heart
Will not confefs he owes the malady

That doth my life befiege.9 Farewell, young lords;
Whether I live or die, be you the fons
Of worthy Frenchmen: let higher Italy
(Thofe 'bated, that inherit but the fall
Of the laft monarchy,) fee, that you come
Not to woo honour, but to wed it ;2 when

C 4

The

It does not any where appear that more than two French lords (besides Bertram) went to serve in Italy; and therefore I think the King's fpeech fhould be corrected thus:

Farewell, young lord; these warlike principles

Do not throw from you; and you, my lord, farewell; what follows, fhows this correction to be neceffary:

"Share the advice betwixt you; if both gain all," &c.

TYRWHITT. Tyrwhitt's amendment is clearly right. Advice is the only thing that may be fhared between two, and yet both gain all. M. MASON. 9 i. e. as the common phrase runs, I am ftill heart-whole; my spirits, by not finking under my distemper, do not acknowledge its influence. STEEVENS.

2 The ancient geographers have divided Italy into the higher and the lower, the Apennine hills being a kind of natural line of partition; the fide next the Adriatick was denominated the higher Italy, and the other fide the lower and the two feas followed the fame terms of diftinction, the Adriatick being called the upper Sea and the Tyrrhene or Tufcan the lower. Now the Sennones, or Senois, with whom the Florentines are here fuppofed to be at war, inhabited the higher Italy, their chief town being Arminium, now called Rimini, upon the Adriatick. HANMER. Italy, at the time of this fcene, was under three very different tenures. The emperor, as fucceffor of the Roman emperors, had one part; the pope, by a pretended donation from Conftantine, another; and the third was compofed of free ftates. Now by the laft monarchy is meant the Roman, the last of the four general monarchies. Upon the fall of this monarchy, in the fcramble, feveral cities fet up for themfelves, and became free states: now thefe might be faid properly to inherit the fall of the monarchy. This being premifed, let us now confider fenfe. The King fays bigber Italy;-giving it the rank of preference to France; but

he