Page images
PDF
EPUB

For such a business; therefore am I found
So much unsettled: This drives me to entreat
you,

That presently you take your way for home;
And rather mise, than ask, why I entreat you:
For my respects are better than they seem;
And my appointments have in them a need,
Greater than shows itself, at the first view,
To you that know thèm not.

"Twill be two days ere I shall
I leave you to your wisdom.
Hel. Sir, I can nothing say,

This to my mother: [Giving a letter. see you; so

But that I am your most obedient servant,
Ber. Come, come, no more of that.

Hel. And ever shall

With true observance seek to eke out that, Wherein toward me my homely stars have fail'd'. To equal my great fortune.

Ber. Let that go:

My haste is very great: Farewell; hie home.

Hel. Pray, Sir, your pardon.

Ber. Well, what would you say?

Hèl. I am not worthy of the wealth I owe;

Nor dare I say, 'tis mine; and yet it is;

But, like a timorous thief, most fain would steal What law does vouch mine own. ›

Ber. What would you have?

Hel. Something; and scarce so much

no.

thing, indeed. ---

I would not tell you what I would; my Lord ---

'faith, yes;

Strangers, and foes, do sunder, and not kiss. Ber. I pray you, stay not, but in haste horse.

Hel. I shall not break your bidding, good my Lord.

Ber. Where are my other men, Monsieur?

Farewell.

[ocr errors]

[Exit HELENA. Go thou toward home; where I will never come, Whilst I can shake my sword, or hear the drum:Away, and for our flight.

Par. Bravely, coragio!

[Exeunt.

A C T III.

SCENE I.

Florence. A Room 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 funtamental reason of this war;

Whose great decision hath much blood let forth, And more thirsts after.

1 Lord. Holy seems the quarrel

.1

Upon your Grace's part; black and fearful

On the opposer.

Duke. Therefore we marvel much, our cousin

France

Would, in so just a business, shut his bosome Against our borrowing prayers.

19 Lond. Good my Lord,

The reasous of our state I cannot yield,

But like a common and an outward man,
That the great figure of a council frames
By self unable motion: therefore dare not
Say what I think of it; since I have found
Myself in my uncertain grounds to fail
As often as I guess'd..

Duke. Be it his pleasure.

2 Lard. But I am sure, the younger of our

nature,

That surfeit on their ease, will, day by day,
Come here for physick.

Duke. Welcome shall they be;

And all the honours, that can fly from us,
Shall on them settle. You know your places

well;

When better fall, for your avails they fell:

[blocks in formation]

Count. It hath happened all as I would have had it, save, 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 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: 1 hnow 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 lings and our Isbels o'the country. are nothing like your old ling and your Isbels 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 stomach.

Count, What have we here?

Clo. E'en that you have there.

[Exit.

Count. [Reads. 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 breadth 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 misprizing 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 kill'd so soon as I thought he would.

Count. Why should he be kill'd?

Clo. So say I, Madam, if he run away, as I hear he does: the danger is in standing to'ti

that's the loss of men, though it be the getting of children. Here they come, will tell you moree for my part, I only hear, your son was run

away.

[Exit Clown.

Enter HELENA and two gentlemen.

1 Gen. Save you, good Madam,

Hel. Madam, my lord is gone, for ever gone. 2 Gen. Do not say so.. Count. Think upon patience.

Gentlemen,

P

'Pray you,

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?

Gen. Madam, he's gone to serve the Duke of

Florence;

We met him thithetward; for thence we came,
And, after some despatch in hand at court,
Thither we bend again.

Hel. Look on his letter, Madam; here's my

passport.

[Reads.] When thou canst get the ring upon my finger, which never shall come off, and show me a child begotten of thy body, that I am father to, then call me husband: but in such a then I write a never.

This is a dreadful sentence.

[ocr errors]

Count. Brought you this letter, Gentlemen? 1 Gen. Ay, Madam;

And, for the contents' sake, are sorry for our pains.

Count. I pr'ythee, Lady, have a better cheer;

If thou engrossest all the griefs are thine-
Thon robb'st me of a moiety: He was my son;

[ocr errors]
« PreviousContinue »