Act 3, Scene II

SCENE II. Rousillon. The COUNT's palace.

Enter COUNTESS and Clown
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.

Opening a letter

Clown
I have no mind to Isbel since I was at court: our
old ling and our Isbels o' the country are nothing
like your old ling and your Isbels o' 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.

Exit

COUNTESS
[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 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.

Exit

Enter HELENA, and two Gentlemen

First Gentleman
Save you, good madam.

HELENA
Madam, my lord is gone, for ever gone.

Second Gentleman
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 Gentleman
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,