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BER. What would you have?

[deed.

HEL. Something; and fcarce fo much :-nothing, inI would not tell you what I would; my lord-'faith, yes;— Strangers, and foes, do funder, and not kifs,

BER. I pray you, ftay not, but in hafte to horse. HEL. I fhall not break your bidding, good my lord. BER. Where are my other men, monfieur ?—Fare[Exit HELENA. Go thou toward home; where I will never come,

well.

Whilst I can shake my fword, or hear the drum :—

Away, and for our flight.

PAR. Bravely, coragio!

ACT. III.

[Exeunt.

SCENE I.

Florence. A Rooom in the DUKE's Palace.

Flourish. Enter the DUKE of Florence, attended; two French LORDS, and Others.

DUKE. So that, from point to point, now have you heard The fundamental reason of this war;

Whose great decifion hath much blood let forth,
And more thirfts after.

I LORD. Holy feems the quarrel

Upon your grace's part; black and fearful

On the oppofer.

DUKE. Therefore we marvel much, our coufin France Would, in fo just a business, shut his bofom

Against our borrowing prayers.

2 LORD. Good my lord,

The reafons of our ftate I cannot yield,
But like a common and an outward man,
That the great figure of a council frames
By felf-unable motion: therefore dare not

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Say what I think of it; fince I have found
Myself in my uncertain grounds to fail
As often as I guefs'd.

DUKE. Be it his pleasure.

2 LORD. But I am fure, the younger of our nature, That furfeit on their ease, will, day by day,

Come here for phyfick.

DUKE. Welcome fhall they be;

And all the honours, that can fly from us,

Shall on them fettle. You know your places well;
When better fall, for your avails they fell:

To-morrow to the field.

[Flourish. Exeunt.

SCENE II. Roufillon. A Room in the COUNTESS's Palace.
Enter COUNTESS and CLOWN.

COUNT. It hath happened all as I would have had it, fave, that he comes not along with her.

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

COUNT. By what obfervance, I pray you?

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

to come.

COUNT. Let me fee what he writes, and when he means [Opening a Letter. CLO. I have no mind to Ifbel, fince I was at court: our old lings and our Ifbels o' the country are nothing like your old ling and your Ifbels o' the court: the brains of my Cupid's knock'd out;` and I begin to love, as an old man loves money, with no ftomach.

COUNT. What have we here?

CLO. E'en that

you

have there.

[Exit.

COUNT. [Reads.] I have fent you a daughter-in-law: fhe bath recovered the king, and undone me. I have wedded her, not bedded her; and fworn to make the not eternal. You fball hear, I am run away; know it, before the report come. If there be breadth enough in the world, I will hold a long diftance. My duty to you.

Your unfortunate fon,

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

Re-enter CLOWN.

BERTRAM.

CLO. O madam, yonder is heavy news within, between two foldiers and my young lady.

COUNT. What is the matter?

CLO. Nay, there is fome comfort in the news, fome comfort; your fon will not be kill'd fo foon as I thought he would.

COUNT. Why fhould he be kill'd?

CLO. So fay I, madam, if he run away, as I hear he does the danger is in ftanding to't; that's the lofs of men, though it be the getting of children. Here they come, will tell you more: for my part, I only hear, your fon was run away. [Exit CLOWN.

Enter HELENA and two GENTLEMEN.

Í GEN. Save you, good madam.

HEL. Madam, my lord is gone, for ever gone.

2 GEN. Do not say so.

COUNT. Think upon patience.-'Pray you, gentle

men,

I have felt so many quirks of joy, and grief,

That the firft face of neither, on the ftart,

Can woman me unto't :-Where is my fon, I pray you? 2 GEN. Madam, he's gone to ferve the duke of Florence: We met him thitherward; for 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. [Reads.] When thou canft get the ring upon my finger, which never fhall come off, and show me a child begotten of thy body, that I am father to, then call me husband : but in fuch a then I write a never.

This is a dreadful fentence.

COUNT. Brought you this letter, gentlemen?
I GEN. Ay, madam ;

And, for the contents' fake, are forry for our pains.
COUNT. I pr'ythee, lady, have a better cheer;
If thou engroffeft all the griefs are thine,
Thou robb'ft me of a moiety: He was my fon;
But I do wash his name out of my blood,

And thou art all my child.-Towards Florence is he? 2 GEN. Ay, madam.

COUNT. And to be a foldier?

2 GEN. Such is his noble purpose: and, believe't, The duke will lay upon him all the honour That good convenience claims.

COUNT. Return you thither?

I GEN. Ay, madam, with the swifteft wing of speed. HEL. [Reads.] 'Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France.

'Tis bitter.

COUNT. Find you that there?

HEL. Ay, madam.

1 GEN. 'Tis but the boldness of his hand, haply, which

His heart was not confenting to.

COUNT. Nothing in France, until he have no wife! There's nothing here, that is too good for him, But only fhe; and fhe deferves a lord, That twenty fuch rude boys might tend upon, And call her hourly, mistress. Who was with him? 1 GEN. A fervant only, and a gentleman Which I have fome time known.

COUNT. Parolles, was't not?

1 GEN. Ay, my good lady, he.

COUNT. A very tainted fellow, and full of wickedness. My fon corrupts a well-derived nature With his inducement.

I GEN. Indeed, good lady,

The fellow has a deal of that, too much,
Which holds him much to have.

COUNT. You are welcome, gentlemen,
I will entreat you, when you fee my fon,
To tell him, that his fword can never win
The honour that he loses: more I'll entreat you
Written to bear along.

2 GEN. We serve you, madam,

In that and all your worthieft affairs.

COUNT. Not fo, but as we change our courtefies. Will you draw near?

[Exeunt COUNTESS and GENTLEMEN. HEL. 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 haft thou all again. Poor lord! is't I
That chafe thee from thy country, and expofe
Thofe tender limbs of thine to the event

Of the none-fparing war? and is it I

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