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The nature of his great offence is dead,
And deeper than oblivion do we bury

The incensing relicks of it: let him approach,

A stranger, no offender; and inform him,

So 'tis our will he should.

Gent. I shall, my liege.

[Exit Gentleman.

King. What says he to your daughter? have you spoke? Laf. All that he is hath reference to your highness.

King. Then shall we have a match. I have letters

sent me,

That set him high in fame.

Enter BERTRAM.

Laf. He looks well on't.

King. I am not a day of season, 6

For thou may'st see a sun-shine and a hail

In me at once: But to the brightest beams
Distracted clouds give way; so stand thou forth,
The time is fair again.

Ber. My high-repented blames,

Dear sovereign, pardon to me.
King. All is whole;

Not one word more of the consumed time.
Let's take the instant by the forward top;
For we are old, and on our quick'st decrees
The inaudible and noiseless foot of time
Steals ere we can effect them: You remember
The daughter of this lord?

Ber. Admiringly, my liege: at first
I stuck my choice upon her, ere my heart
Durst make too bold a herald of my tongue :
Where the impression of mine eye enfixing,
Contempt his scornful pérspective did lend me,
Which warp'd the line of every other favour;
Scorn'd a fair colour, or express'd it stol'n;
Extended or contracted all proportions,
To a most hideous object: Thence it came,
That she, whom all men prais'd, and whom myself,
Since I have lost, have lov'd, was in mine eye
The dust that did offend it.

King. Well excus'd :

[6] That is, of uninterrupted rain: one of those wet days that usually happen about the vernal equinox. The word is still used in the same sense in Virginia, in which government, and especially on the eastern shore of it, where the descendants of the first settlers have been less mixed with later emigrants, many expressions of Shakspeare's time are still current. HENLEY.

That thou didst love her, strikes some scores away
From the great 'compt: But love, that comes too late,
Like a remorseful pardon slowly carried,
To the great sender turns a sour offence,
Crying, That's good that's gone: our rash faults
Make trivial price of serious things we have,
Not knowing them, until we know their grave :
Oft our displeasures, to ourselves unjust,
Destroy our friends, and after weep their dust:
Our own love waking cries to see what's done,
While shameful hate sleeps out the afternoon.
Be this sweet Helen's knell, and now forget her.
Send forth your amorous token for fair Maudlin:
The main consents are had; and here we'll stay
To see our widower's second marriage-day.

Count.Which better than the first, O dear heaven, bless! Or, ere they meet, in me, O nature, cease !

Laf. Come on, my son, in whom my house's name
Must be digested, give a favour from you,
To sparkle in the spirits of my daughter,
That she may quickly come. --By my old beard,
And every hair that's on't, Helen, that's dead,
Was a sweet creature ; such a ring as this,
The last that e'er I took her leave at court,
I saw upon her finger.

Ber. Hers it was not.

King. Now, pray you, let me see it; for mine eye,

While I was speaking, oft was fasten'd to't.-
This ring was mine; and, when I gave it Helen,
I bade her, if her fortunes ever stood

Necessitied to help, that by this token

I would relieve her: Had you that craft, to reave her

Of what should stead her most?

Ber. My gracious sovereign,

Howe'er it pleases you to take it so,

The ring was never her's.

Count. Son, on my life,

I have seen her wear it; and she reckon'd it
At her life's rate.

Laf. I am sure, I saw her wear it.

Ber. You are deceiv'd, my lord, she never saw it: In Florence was it from a casement thrown me,7

[7] Bertram still continues to have too little virtue to deserve Helen. He did not know indeed that it was Helen's ring, but he knew that he had it not from a window. JOHNS.

Wrapp'd in a paper, which contain'd the name
Of her that threw it: noble she was, and thought
I stood ingag'd : 8 but when I had subscrib'd
To mine own fortune, and inform'd her fully,
I could not answer in that course of honour
As she had made the overture, she ceas'd,
In heavy satisfaction, and would never
Receive the ring again.

King. Plutus himself,

That knows the tinct and multiplying medicine, 9
Hath not in nature's mystery more science,
Than I have in this ring. 'Twas mine, 'twas Helen's,
Whoever gave it you: Then, if you know
That you are well acquainted with yourself,
Confess 'twas hers, and by what rough enforcement
You got it from her: she call'd the saints to surety,
That she would never put it from her finger,
Unless she gave it to yourself in bed,

(Where you have never come,) or sent it us
Upon her great disaster.

Ber. She never saw it.

King. Thou speak'st it falsely, as I love mine honour;

And mak'st conjectural fears to come into me,
Which I would fain shut out: If it should prove
That thou art so inhuman,-'twill not prove so ;-
And yet I know not :-thou didst hate her deadly,
And she is dead; which nothing, but to close
Her eyes myself, could win me to believe,
More than to see this ring. - Take him away.-

[Guards seize BERTRAM.

My fore-past proofs, howe'er the matter fall,
Shall tax my fears of little vanity,

Having vainly fear'd too little. -Away with him ;-
We'll sift this matter further.

[8] Ingaged, in the sense of unengaged, is aword of exactly the same forma. tion as inhabitable, which is used by Shakspeare and the contemporary wri ters for uninhabitable. MAL.

[9] Plutus, the grand alchemist, who knows the tincture which confers the properties of gold upon base metals, and the matter by which gold is multiplied, by which a small quantity of gold is made to communicate its qualities to a large mass of base metal. In the reign of Henry the fourth, a law was made to forbid "all men thenceforth to multiply gold, or use any craft of multiplication." Of which law Mr. Boyle, when he was warm with the hope of transmutation, procured a repeal.

JOHNS.

[1] The proofs which I have already had are sufficient to show that my fears were not vain and irrational. I have rather been hitherto more easy JOHNSON.

than I ought, and have unreasonably had too little fear.

15

VOL. III.

Ber. If you shall prove

This ring was ever hers, you shall as easy
Prove that I husbanded her bed in Florence,

Where yet she never was. [Exit BERTRAM, guarded.

Enter a Gentleman.

King. I am wrapp'd in dismal thinkings.
Gent. Gracious sovereign,

Whether I have been to blame, or no, I know not;
Here's a petition from a Florentine,
Who hath, for four or five removes, come short
To tender it herself. I undertook it,
Vanquish'd thereto by the fair grace and speech
Of the poor suppliant, who by this, I know,
Is here attending: her business looks in her
With an importing visage; and she told me,
In a sweet verbal brief, it did concern
Your highness with herself.

King. [Reads.] Upon his many protestations to marry me, when his wife was dead, I blush to say it, he won me. Now is the count Rousillon a widower; kis vows are forfeited to me, and my honour's paid to him. He stole from Florence, taking no leave, and I follow him to his country for justice: Grant it me, O king; in you it best lies; otherwise a seducer flourishes, and a poor maid is undone. DIANA CAPULET. Laf. I will buy me a son-in-law in a fair, and toll him: for this, I'll none of him.3

King. The heavens have e thought well on thee, Lafeu, To bring forth this discovery. Seek these suitors:

Go, speedily, and bring again the count.

[Exeunt Gentleman, and some Attendants.

-I am afeard, the life of Helen, lady,
Was foully snatch'd.

Count. Now, justice on the doers !

Enter BERTRAM, guarded.

King. I wonder, sir, since wives are monstrous to you, And that you fly them as you swear them lordship, Yet you desire to marry. - What woman's that?

[2] Removes are journies or post-stages.

JOHNS.

[3] I'll buy me a son-in-law as they buy a horse in a fair; toul him, i. e. enter him on the toul or toll-book. Alluding (as Dr. Grey observes) to the two statutes relating to the sale of horses, 2 and 3 Phil. and Mary, and 31 Eliz. c. 12. and publickly tolling them in fairs, to prevent the sale of such as were stolen, and to preserve the property to the right owner. STEEV.

Re-enter Gentleman, with Widow, and DIANA.
Dia. I am, my lord, a wretched Florentine,

Derived from the ancient Capulet;
My suit, as I do understand, you know,
And therefore know how far I may be pitied.

Wid. I am her mother, sir, whose age and honour

Both suffer under this complaint we bring,
And both shall cease, without your remedy.

King. Come hither, count; Do you know these women? Ber. My lord, I neither can, nor will deny

But that I know them: Do they charge me further ? Dia. Why do you look so strange upon your wife? Ber. She's none of mine, my lord.

Dia. If you shall marry,

You give away this hand, and that is mine;

You give away heaven's vows, and those are mine;
You give away myself, which is known mine;
For I by vow am so embodied yours,

That she, which marries you, must marry me,
Either both, or none.

Laf. Your reputation [TO BERTRAM.] comes too short for my daughter, you are no husband for her.

Ber. My lord, this is a fond and desperate creature, Whom sometime I have laugh'd with: let your highness Lay a more noble thought upon mine honour, Than for to think that I would sink it here.

King. Sir, for my thoughts, you have them ill to friend, Till your deeds gain them: Fairer prove your honour, Than in my thought it lies!

Dia. Good my lord,

Ask him upon his oath, if he does think
He had not my virginity?

King. What say'st thou to her?
Ber. She's impudent, my lord;

And was a common gamester to the camp.

Dia. He does me wrong, my lord; if I were so,
He might have bought me at a common price :
Do not believe him: O, behold this ring,
Whose high respect, and rich validity,
Did lack a parallel; yet, for all that,
He gave it to a commoner o' the camp,
If I be one.

Count. He blushes, and 'tis it:

[4] i. e. decease, die. So, in King Lear-"Fall and cease." STEEV.

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