Act 1, Scene 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,