Countess

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

Clown

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

Countess

By what observance, I pray you?

Clown

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

Countess

Let me see what he writes, and when he means to come.

Clown

I have no mind to Isbel since I was at court: our old lings and our Isbels a' the country are nothing like your old lings and your Isbels a' the court: the brains of my Cupid's knocked out, and I begin to love, as an old man loves money, with no stomach.

Countess

What have we here?

Clown

E'en that you have there.

Countess

Reads

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 misprising of a maid too virtuous

For the contempt of empire. Re-enter CLOWN.

Clown

O madam, yonder is heavy news within between two soldiers and my young lady!

Countess

What is the matter?

Clown

Nay, there is some comfort in the news, some comfort; your son will not be killed so soon as I thought he would.

Countess

Why should he be killed?

Clown

So say I, madam, if he run away, as I hear he does: the danger is in standing to't; that's the loss of men, though it be the getting of children. Here they come will tell you more: for my part, I only hear your son was run away.

First Lord

Save you, good madam.

Helena

Madam, my lord is gone, for ever gone.

Second Lord

Do not say so.

Countess

Think upon patience. Pray you, gentlemen,

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?

Second Lord

Madam, he's gone to serve the duke of Florence:

We met him thitherward; for thence we came,

And, after some dispatch in hand at court,

Thither we bend again.

Helena

Look on his letter, madam; here's my passport.

Reads

Countess

Brought you this letter, gentlemen?

First Lord

Ay, madam;

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

Countess

I prithee, lady, have a better cheer;

If thou engrossest all the griefs are thine,

Thou robb'st me of a moiety: he was my son;

But I do wash his name out of my blood,

And thou art all my child. Towards Florence is he?

Second Lord

Ay, madam.

Countess

And to be a soldier?

Second Lord

Such is his noble purpose; and, believe't,

The duke will lay upon him all the honour

That good convenience claims.

Countess

Return you thither?

First Lord

Ay, madam, with the swiftest wing of speed.

Helena

Reads.

'Tis bitter.

Countess

Find you that there?

Helena

Ay, madam.

First Lord

'Tis but the boldness of his hand, haply, which his heart was not consenting to.

Countess

Nothing in France, until he have no wife!

There's nothing here that is too good for him

But only she; and she deserves a lord

That twenty such rude boys might tend upon

And call her hourly mistress. Who was with him?

First Lord

A servant only, and a gentleman

Which I have sometime known.

Countess

Parolles, was it not?

First Lord

Ay, my good lady, he.

Countess

A very tainted fellow, and full of wickedness.

My son corrupts a well-derived nature

With his inducement.

First Lord

Indeed, good lady,

The fellow has a deal of that too much,

Which holds him much to have.

Countess

Y' are welcome, gentlemen.

I will entreat you, when you see my son,

To tell him that his sword can never win

The honour that he loses: more I'll entreat you

Written to bear along.

Second Lord

We serve you, madam,

In that and all your worthiest affairs.

Countess

Not so, but as we change our courtesies.

Will you draw near? Exeunt Countess and Gentlemen.

Helena

“Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France.”

Nothing in France, until he has no wife!

Thou shalt have none, Rossillion, none in France;

Then hast thou all again. Poor lord! is't I

That chase thee from thy country and expose

Those tender limbs of thine to the event

Of the none-sparing war? and is it I

That drive thee from the sportive court, where thou

Wast shot at with fair eyes, to be the mark

Of smoky muskets? O you leaden messengers,

That ride upon the violent speed of fire,

Fly with false aim; move the still-peering air,

That sings with piercing; do not touch my lord

Whoever shoots at him, I set him there;

Whoever charges on his forward breast,

I am the caitiff that do hold him to't;

And, though I kill him not, I am the cause

His death was so effected: better 'twere

I met the ravin lion when he roared

With sharp constraint of hunger; better 'twere

That all the miseries which nature owes

Were mine at once. No, come thou home, Rossillion,

Whence honour but of danger wins a scar,

As oft it loses all: I will be gone;

My being here it is that holds thee hence:

Shall I stay here to do't? no, no, although

The air of paradise did fan the house

And angels officed all: I will be gone,

That pitiful rumour may report my flight,

To consolate thine ear. Come, night; end, day!

For with the dark, poor thief, I'll steal away. Exit.