--- /dev/null Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/searcher/tsrc/cpixsearchertest/conf/act1.txt Mon Apr 19 14:40:16 2010 +0300
@@ -0,0 +1,1009 @@
+William Shakespeare
+
+All's Well That Ends Well
+ __________________________________________________________________
+
+ACT I
+
+SCENE I. Rousillon. The Count's palace.
+
+ Enter Bertram, the Countess of Rousillon, Helena, and Lafeu, all in
+ black
+
+ Countess
+
+ In delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband.
+
+ Bertram
+
+ And I in going, madam, weep o'er my father's death anew: but I must
+ attend his majesty's command, to whom I am now in ward, evermore in
+ subjection.
+
+ Lafeu
+
+ You shall find of the king a husband, madam; you, sir, a father: he
+ that so generally is at all times good must of necessity hold his
+ virtue to you; whose worthiness would stir it up where it wanted rather
+ than lack it where there is such abundance.
+
+ Countess
+
+ What hope is there of his majesty's amendment?
+
+ Lafeu
+
+ He hath abandoned his physicians, madam; under whose practises he hath
+ persecuted time with hope, and finds no other advantage in the process
+ but only the losing of hope by time.
+
+ Countess
+
+ This young gentlewoman had a father,--O, that `had'! how sad a passage
+ 'tis!--whose skill was almost as great as his honesty; had it stretched
+ so far, would have made nature immortal, and death should have play for
+ lack of work. Would, for the king's sake, he were living! I think it
+ would be the death of the king's disease.
+
+ Lafeu
+
+ How called you the man you speak of, madam?
+
+ Countess
+
+ He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his great right to be
+ so: Gerard de Narbon.
+
+ Lafeu
+
+ He was excellent indeed, madam: the king very lately spoke of him
+ admiringly and mourningly: he was skilful enough to have lived still,
+ if knowledge could be set up against mortality.
+
+ Bertram
+
+ What is it, my good lord, the king languishes of?
+
+ Lafeu
+
+ A fistula, my lord.
+
+ Bertram
+
+ I heard not of it before.
+
+ Lafeu
+
+ I would it were not notorious. Was this gentlewoman the daughter of
+ Gerard de Narbon?
+
+ Countess
+
+ His sole child, my lord, and bequeathed to my overlooking. I have those
+ hopes of her good that her education promises; her dispositions she
+ inherits, which makes fair gifts fairer; for where an unclean mind
+ carries virtuous qualities, there commendations go with pity; they are
+ virtues and traitors too; in her they are the better for their
+ simpleness; she derives her honesty and achieves her goodness.
+
+ Lafeu
+
+ Your commendations, madam, get from her tears.
+
+ Countess
+
+ 'Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise in. The remembrance
+ of her father never approaches her heart but the tyranny of her sorrows
+ takes all livelihood from her cheek. No more of this, Helena; go to, no
+ more; lest it be rather thought you affect a sorrow than have it.
+
+ Helena
+
+ I do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have it too.
+
+ Lafeu
+
+ Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead, excessive grief the
+ enemy to the living.
+
+ Countess
+
+ If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal.
+
+ Bertram
+
+ Madam, I desire your holy wishes.
+
+ Lafeu
+
+ How understand we that?
+
+ Countess
+
+ Be thou blest, Bertram, and succeed thy father
+ In manners, as in shape! thy blood and virtue
+ Contend for empire in thee, and thy goodness
+ Share with thy birthright! Love all, trust a few,
+ Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy
+ Rather in power than use, and keep thy friend
+ Under thy own life's key: be cheque'd for silence,
+ But never tax'd for speech. What heaven more will,
+ That thee may furnish and my prayers pluck down,
+ Fall on thy head! Farewell, my lord;
+ 'Tis an unseason'd courtier; good my lord,
+ Advise him.
+
+ Lafeu
+
+ He cannot want the best
+ That shall attend his love.
+
+ Countess
+
+ Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram.
+
+ Exit
+
+ Bertram
+
+ [To Helena] The best wishes that can be forged in your thoughts be
+ servants to you! Be comfortable to my mother, your mistress, and make
+ much of her.
+
+ Lafeu
+
+ Farewell, pretty lady: you must hold the credit of your father.
+
+ Exeunt Bertram and Lafeu
+
+ Helena
+
+ O, were that all! I think not on my father;
+ 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 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
+
+ [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 fixed evils sit so fit in him,
+ That they take place, when virtue's steely bones
+ Look bleak i' the cold wind: withal, full oft we see
+ Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.
+
+ Parolles
+
+ Save you, fair queen!
+
+ Helena
+
+ And you, monarch!
+
+ Parolles
+
+ No.
+
+ Helena
+
+ And no.
+
+ Parolles
+
+ Are you meditating on virginity?
+
+ Helena
+
+ 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?
+
+ Parolles
+
+ Keep him out.
+
+ Helena
+
+ But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant, in the defence yet
+ is weak: unfold to us some warlike resistance.
+
+ Parolles
+
+ There is none: man, sitting down before you, will undermine you and
+ blow you up.
+
+ Helena
+
+ Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers up! Is there no
+ military policy, how virgins might blow up men?
+
+ Parolles
+
+ Virginity being blown down, man will quicklier 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!
+
+ Helena
+
+ I will stand for 't a little, though therefore I die a virgin.
+
+ Parolles
+
+ 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 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. Virginity
+ breeds mites, much like a cheese; consumes 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; you cannot choose but loose by't: out
+ with '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!
+
+ Helena
+
+ How might one do, sir, to lose it to her own liking?
+
+ Parolles
+
+ Let me see: marry, ill, to like him that ne'er 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 unsuitable: 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 drily; marry, 'tis a
+ withered pear; it was formerly better; marry, yet 'tis a withered pear:
+ will you anything with it?
+
+ Helena
+
+ Not my virginity yet.
+ 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--
+
+ Parolles
+
+ What one, i' faith?
+
+ Helena
+
+ That I wish well. 'Tis pity--
+
+ Parolles
+
+ What's pity?
+
+ Helena
+
+ That wishing well had not a body in't,
+ 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
+ Return us thanks.
+
+ Enter Page
+
+ Page
+
+ Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.
+
+ Exit
+
+ Parolles
+
+ Little Helen, farewell; if I can remember thee, I will think of thee at
+ court.
+
+ Helena
+
+ Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable star.
+
+ Parolles
+
+ Under Mars, I.
+
+ Helena
+
+ I especially think, under Mars.
+
+ Parolles
+
+ Why under Mars?
+
+ Helena
+
+ The wars have so kept you under that you must needs be born under Mars.
+
+ Parolles
+
+ When he was predominant.
+
+ Helena
+
+ When he was retrograde, I think, rather.
+
+ Parolles
+
+ Why think you so?
+
+ Helena
+
+ You go so much backward when you fight.
+
+ Parolles
+
+ That's for advantage.
+
+ Helena
+
+ 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.
+
+ Parolles
+
+ 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
+ unthankfulness, 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.
+
+ Exit
+
+ Helena
+
+ Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
+ 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,
+ 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
+ So 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
+
+SCENE II. Paris. The King's palace.
+
+ Flourish of cornets. Enter the King of France, with letters, and divers
+ Attendants
+
+ King
+
+ The Florentines and Senoys are by the ears;
+ Have fought with equal fortune and continue
+ A braving war.
+
+ First Lord
+
+ So 'tis reported, sir.
+
+ King
+
+ Nay, 'tis most credible; we here received it
+ A certainty, vouch'd from our cousin Austria,
+ With caution that the Florentine will move us
+ For speedy aid; wherein our dearest friend
+ Prejudicates the business and would seem
+ To have us make denial.
+
+ First Lord
+
+ His love and wisdom,
+ Approved so to your majesty, may plead
+ For amplest credence.
+
+ King
+
+ He hath arm'd our answer,
+ And Florence is denied before he comes:
+ Yet, for our gentlemen that mean to see
+ The Tuscan service, freely have they leave
+ To stand on either part.
+
+ Second Lord
+
+ It well may serve
+ A nursery to our gentry, who are sick
+ For breathing and exploit.
+
+ King
+
+ What's he comes here?
+
+ Enter Bertram, Lafeu, and Parolles
+
+ First Lord
+
+ It is the Count Rousillon, my good lord,
+ Young Bertram.
+
+ King
+
+ Youth, thou bear'st thy father's face;
+ Frank nature, rather curious than in haste,
+ Hath well composed thee. Thy father's moral parts
+ Mayst thou inherit too! Welcome to Paris.
+
+ Bertram
+
+ My thanks and duty are your majesty's.
+
+ King
+
+ I would I had that corporal soundness now,
+ As when thy father and myself in friendship
+ First tried our soldiership! He did look far
+ Into the service of the time and was
+ Discipled of the bravest: he lasted long;
+ But on us both did haggish age steal on
+ And wore us out of act. It much repairs me
+ To talk of your good father. In his youth
+ He had the wit which I can well observe
+ To-day in our young lords; but they may jest
+ Till their own scorn return to them unnoted
+ Ere they can hide their levity in honour;
+ So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness
+ Were in his pride or sharpness; if they were,
+ His equal had awaked them, and his honour,
+ Clock to itself, knew the true minute when
+ Exception bid him speak, and at this time
+ His tongue obey'd his hand: who were below him
+ He used as creatures of another place
+ And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks,
+ Making them proud of his humility,
+ In their poor praise he humbled. Such a man
+ Might be a copy to these younger times;
+ Which, follow'd well, would demonstrate them now
+ But goers backward.
+
+ Bertram
+
+ His good remembrance, sir,
+ Lies richer in your thoughts than on his tomb;
+ So in approof lives not his epitaph
+ As in your royal speech.
+
+ King
+
+ Would I were with him! He would always say--
+ Methinks I hear him now; his plausive words
+ He scatter'd not in ears, but grafted them,
+ To grow there and to bear,--`Let me not live,'--
+ This his good melancholy oft began,
+ On the catastrophe and heel of pastime,
+ When it was out,--`Let me not live,' quoth he,
+ `After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff
+ Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses
+ All but new things disdain; whose judgments are
+ Mere fathers of their garments; whose constancies
+ Expire before their fashions.' This he wish'd;
+ I after him do after him wish too,
+ Since I nor wax nor honey can bring home,
+ I quickly were dissolved from my hive,
+ To give some labourers room.
+
+ Second Lord
+
+ You are loved, sir:
+ They that least lend it you shall lack you first.
+
+ King
+
+ I fill a place, I know't. How long is't, count,
+ Since the physician at your father's died?
+ He was much famed.
+
+ Bertram
+
+ Some six months since, my lord.
+
+ King
+
+ If he were living, I would try him yet.
+ Lend me an arm; the rest have worn me out
+ With several applications; nature and sickness
+ Debate it at their leisure. Welcome, count;
+ My son's no dearer.
+
+ Bertram
+
+ Thank your majesty.
+
+ Exeunt. Flourish
+
+SCENE III. Rousillon. The Count's palace.
+
+ Enter Countess, Steward, and Clown
+
+ Countess
+
+ I will now hear; what say you of this gentlewoman?
+
+ Steward
+
+ Madam, the care I have had to even your content, I wish might be found
+ in the calendar of my past endeavours; for then we wound our modesty
+ and make foul the clearness of our deservings, when of ourselves we
+ publish them.
+
+ Countess
+
+ What does this knave here? Get you gone, sirrah: the complaints I have
+ heard of you I do not all believe: 'tis my slowness that I do not; for
+ I know you lack not folly to commit them, and have ability enough to
+ make such knaveries yours.
+
+ Clown
+
+ 'Tis not unknown to you, madam, I am a poor fellow.
+
+ Countess
+
+ Well, sir.
+
+ Clown
+
+ No, madam, 'tis not so well that I am poor, though many of the rich are
+ damned: but, if I may have your ladyship's good will to go to the
+ world, Isbel the woman and I will do as we may.
+
+ Countess
+
+ Wilt thou needs be a beggar?
+
+ Clown
+
+ I do beg your good will in this case.
+
+ Countess
+
+ In what case?
+
+ Clown
+
+ In Isbel's case and mine own. Service is no heritage: and I think I
+ shall never have the blessing of God till I have issue o' my body; for
+ they say barnes are blessings.
+
+ Countess
+
+ Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry.
+
+ Clown
+
+ My poor body, madam, requires it: I am driven on by the flesh; and he
+ must needs go that the devil drives.
+
+ Countess
+
+ Is this all your worship's reason?
+
+ Clown
+
+ Faith, madam, I have other holy reasons such as they are.
+
+ Countess
+
+ May the world know them?
+
+ Clown
+
+ I have been, madam, a wicked creature, as you and all flesh and blood
+ are; and, indeed, I do marry that I may repent.
+
+ Countess
+
+ Thy marriage, sooner than thy wickedness.
+
+ Clown
+
+ I am out o' friends, madam; and I hope to have friends for my wife's
+ sake.
+
+ Countess
+
+ Such friends are thine enemies, knave.
+
+ Clown
+
+ You're shallow, madam, in great friends; for the knaves come to do that
+ for me which I am aweary of. He that ears my land spares my team and
+ gives me leave to in the crop; if I be his cuckold, he's my drudge: he
+ that comforts my wife is the cherisher of my flesh and blood; he that
+ cherishes my flesh and blood loves my flesh and blood; he that loves my
+ flesh and blood is my friend: ergo, he that kisses my wife is my
+ friend. If men could be contented to be what they are, there were no
+ fear in marriage; for young Charbon the Puritan and old Poysam the
+ Papist, howsome'er their hearts are severed in religion, their heads
+ are both one; they may jowl horns together, like any deer i' the herd.
+
+ Countess
+
+ Wilt thou ever be a foul-mouthed and calumnious knave?
+
+ Clown
+
+ A prophet I, madam; and I speak the truth the next way:
+ For I the ballad will repeat,
+ Which men full true shall find;
+ Your marriage comes by destiny,
+ Your cuckoo sings by kind.
+
+ Countess
+
+ Get you gone, sir; I'll talk with you more anon.
+
+ Steward
+
+ May it please you, madam, that he bid Helen come to you: of her I am to
+ speak.
+
+ Countess
+
+ Sirrah, tell my gentlewoman I would speak with her; Helen, I mean.
+
+ Clown
+
+ Was this fair face the cause, quoth she,
+ Why the Grecians sacked Troy?
+ Fond done, done fond,
+ Was this King Priam's joy?
+ With that she sighed as she stood,
+ With that she sighed as she stood,
+ And gave this sentence then;
+ Among nine bad if one be good,
+ Among nine bad if one be good,
+ There's yet one good in ten.
+
+ Countess
+
+ What, one good in ten? you corrupt the song, sirrah.
+
+ Clown
+
+ One good woman in ten, madam; which is a purifying o' the song: would
+ God would serve the world so all the year! we'ld find no fault with the
+ tithe-woman, if I were the parson. One in ten, quoth a'! An we might
+ have a good woman born but one every blazing star, or at an earthquake,
+ 'twould mend the lottery well: a man may draw his heart out, ere a'
+ pluck one.
+
+ Countess
+
+ You'll be gone, sir knave, and do as I command you.
+
+ Clown
+
+ That man should be at woman's command, and yet no hurt done! Though
+ honesty be no puritan, yet it will do no hurt; it will wear the
+ surplice of humility over the black gown of a big heart. I am going,
+ forsooth: the business is for Helen to come hither.
+
+ Exit
+
+ Countess
+
+ Well, now.
+
+ Steward
+
+ I know, madam, you love your gentlewoman entirely.
+
+ Countess
+
+ Faith, I do: her father bequeathed her to me; and she herself, without
+ other advantage, may lawfully make title to as much love as she finds:
+ there is more owing her than is paid; and more shall be paid her than
+ she'll demand.
+
+ Steward
+
+ Madam, I was very late more near her than I think she wished me: alone
+ she was, and did communicate to herself her own words to her own ears;
+ she thought, I dare vow for her, they touched not any stranger sense.
+ Her matter was, she loved your son: Fortune, she said, was no goddess,
+ that had put such difference betwixt their two estates; Love no god,
+ that would not extend his might, only where qualities were level; Dian
+ no queen of virgins, that would suffer her poor knight surprised,
+ without rescue in the first assault or ransom afterward. This she
+ delivered in the most bitter touch of sorrow that e'er I heard virgin
+ exclaim in: which I held my duty speedily to acquaint you withal;
+ sithence, in the loss that may happen, it concerns you something to
+ know it.
+
+ Countess
+
+ You have discharged this honestly; keep it to yourself: many
+ likelihoods informed me of this before, which hung so tottering in the
+ balance that I could neither believe nor misdoubt. Pray you, leave me:
+ stall this in your bosom; and I thank you for your honest care: I will
+ speak with you further anon.
+
+ Exit Steward
+
+ Enter Helena
+
+ Even so it was with me when I was young:
+ If ever we are nature's, these are ours; this thorn
+ Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong;
+ Our blood to us, this to our blood is born;
+ It is the show and seal of nature's truth,
+ Where love's strong passion is impress'd in youth:
+ By our remembrances of days foregone,
+ Such were our faults, or then we thought them none.
+ Her eye is sick on't: I observe her now.
+
+ Helena
+
+ What is your pleasure, madam?
+
+ Countess
+
+ You know, Helen, I am a mother to you.
+
+ Helena
+
+ Mine honourable mistress.
+
+ Countess
+
+ Nay, a mother:
+ Why not a mother? When I said `a mother,'
+ Methought you saw a serpent: what's in 'mother,'
+ That you start at it? I say, I am your mother;
+ And put you in the catalogue of those
+ That were enwombed mine: 'tis often seen
+ Adoption strives with nature and choice breeds
+ A native slip to us from foreign seeds:
+ You ne'er oppress'd me with a mother's groan,
+ Yet I express to you a mother's care:
+ God's mercy, maiden! does it curd thy blood
+ To say I am thy mother? What's the matter,
+ That this distemper'd messenger of wet,
+ The many-colour'd Iris, rounds thine eye?
+ Why? that you are my daughter?
+
+ Helena
+
+ That I am not.
+
+ Countess
+
+ I say, I am your mother.
+
+ Helena
+
+ Pardon, madam;
+ The Count Rousillon cannot be my brother:
+ I am from humble, he from honour'd name;
+ No note upon my parents, his all noble:
+ My master, my dear lord he is; and I
+ His servant live, and will his vassal die:
+ He must not be my brother.
+
+ Countess
+
+ Nor I your mother?
+
+ Helena
+
+ You are my mother, madam; would you were,--
+ So that my lord your son were not my brother,--
+ Indeed my mother! or were you both our mothers,
+ I care no more for than I do for heaven,
+ So I were not his sister. Can't no other,
+ But, I your daughter, he must be my brother?
+
+ Countess
+
+ Yes, Helen, you might be my daughter-in-law:
+ God shield you mean it not! daughter and mother
+ So strive upon your pulse. What, pale again?
+ My fear hath catch'd your fondness: now I see
+ The mystery of your loneliness, and find
+ Your salt tears' head: now to all sense 'tis gross
+ You love my son; invention is ashamed,
+ Against the proclamation of thy passion,
+ To say thou dost not: therefore tell me true;
+ But tell me then, 'tis so; for, look thy cheeks
+ Confess it, th' one to th' other; and thine eyes
+ See it so grossly shown in thy behaviors
+ That in their kind they speak it: only sin
+ And hellish obstinacy tie thy tongue,
+ That truth should be suspected. Speak, is't so?
+ If it be so, you have wound a goodly clew;
+ If it be not, forswear't: howe'er, I charge thee,
+ As heaven shall work in me for thine avail,
+ Tell me truly.
+
+ Helena
+
+ Good madam, pardon me!
+
+ Countess
+
+ Do you love my son?
+
+ Helena
+
+ Your pardon, noble mistress!
+
+ Countess
+
+ Love you my son?
+
+ Helena
+
+ Do not you love him, madam?
+
+ Countess
+
+ 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 passions
+ Have to the full appeach'd.
+
+ Helena
+
+ Then, I confess,
+ Here on my knee, before high heaven and you,
+ That before you, and next unto high heaven,
+ I love your son.
+ My friends were poor, but honest; so's my love:
+ Be not offended; for it hurts not him
+ That he is loved of me: I follow him not
+ By any token of presumptuous suit;
+ Nor would I have him till I do deserve him;
+ Yet never know how that desert should be.
+ I know I love in vain, strive against hope;
+ Yet in this captious and intenible sieve
+ I still pour in the waters of my love
+ And lack not to lose still: thus, Indian-like,
+ Religious in mine error, I adore
+ The sun, 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,
+ Whose aged honour cites a virtuous youth,
+ Did ever in so true a flame of liking
+ Wish chastely and love dearly, that your Dian
+ Was both herself and love: O, then, give pity
+ To her, whose state is such that cannot choose
+ But lend and give where she is sure to lose;
+ That seeks not to find that her search implies,
+ But riddle-like lives sweetly where she dies!
+
+ Countess
+
+ Had you not lately an intent,--speak truly,--
+ To go to Paris?
+
+ Helena
+
+ Madam, I had.
+
+ Countess
+
+ Wherefore? tell true.
+
+ Helena
+
+ I will tell truth; by grace itself I swear.
+ You know my father left me some prescriptions
+ Of rare and proved effects, such as his reading
+ And manifest experience had collected
+ For general sovereignty; and that he will'd me
+ In heedfull'st reservation to bestow them,
+ As notes whose faculties inclusive were
+ More than they were in note: amongst the rest,
+ There is a remedy, approved, set down,
+ To cure the desperate languishings whereof
+ The king is render'd lost.
+
+ Countess
+
+ This was your motive
+ For Paris, was it? speak.
+
+ Helena
+
+ My lord your son made me to think of this;
+ Else Paris and the medicine and the king
+ Had from the conversation of my thoughts
+ Haply been absent then.
+
+ Countess
+
+ But think you, Helen,
+ If you should tender your supposed aid,
+ He would receive it? he and his physicians
+ Are of a mind; he, that they cannot help him,
+ They, that they cannot help: how shall they credit
+ A poor unlearned virgin, when the schools,
+ Embowell'd of their doctrine, have left off
+ The danger to itself?
+
+ Helena
+
+ There's something in't,
+ More than my father's skill, which was the greatest
+ Of his profession, that his good receipt
+ Shall for my legacy be sanctified
+ By the luckiest stars in heaven: and, would your honour
+ But give me leave to try success, I'ld venture
+ The well-lost life of mine on his grace's cure
+ By such a day and hour.
+
+ Countess
+
+ Dost thou believe't?
+
+ Helena
+
+ Ay, madam, knowingly.
+
+ Countess
+
+ Why, Helen, thou shalt have my leave and love,
+ Means and attendants and my loving greetings
+ To those of mine in court: I'll stay at home
+ And pray God's blessing into thy attempt:
+ Be gone to-morrow; and be sure of this,
+ What I can help thee to thou shalt not miss.
+
+ Exeunt
+
+ | [1]Table of Contents | [2]Next |
+
+ Last updated on Wed Sep 29 20:06:20 2004 for [3]eBooks@Adelaide.
+
+References
+
+ 1. file://localhost/home/arau/shakespeare/allswell/index.html
+ 2. file://localhost/home/arau/shakespeare/allswell/act2.html
+ 3. http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/