Act 1, Scene 3

Rousillon. A Room in the Palace.

[Enter COUNTESS, STEWARD, and CLOWN.]
Countess of Rousillon
292 I will now hear: what say you of this gentlewoman?
Rinaldo the Steward
293 Madam, the care I have had to even your content, I wish
294 might be found in the calendar of my past endeavours; for then we
295 wound our modesty, and make foul the clearness of our deservings,
296 when of ourselves we publish them.
Countess of Rousillon
297 What does this knave here? Get you gone, sirrah: the
298 complaints I have heard of you I do not all believe; 'tis my
299 slowness that I do not; for I know you lack not folly to commit
300 them, and have ability enough to make such knaveries yours.
Lavatch the Clown
301 'Tis not unknown to you, madam, I am a poor fellow.
Countess of Rousillon
302 Well, sir.
Lavatch the Clown
303 No, madam, 'tis not so well that I am poor, though many of
304 the rich are damned: but if I may have your ladyship's good will
305 to go to the world, Isbel the woman and I will do as we may.
Countess of Rousillon
306 Wilt thou needs be a beggar?
Lavatch the Clown
307 I do beg your good will in this case.
Countess of Rousillon
308 In what case?
Lavatch the Clown
309 In Isbel's case and mine own. Service is no heritage: and I
310 think I shall never have the blessing of God till I have issue of
311 my body; for they say bairns are blessings.
Countess of Rousillon
312 Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry.
Lavatch the Clown
313 My poor body, madam, requires it: I am driven on by the
314 flesh; and he must needs go that the devil drives.
Countess of Rousillon
315 Is this all your worship's reason?
Lavatch the Clown
316 Faith, madam, I have other holy reasons, such as they are.
Countess of Rousillon
317 May the world know them?
Lavatch the Clown
318 I have been, madam, a wicked creature, as you and all flesh
319 and blood are; and, indeed, I do marry that I may repent.
Countess of Rousillon
320 Thy marriage, sooner than thy wickedness.
Lavatch the Clown
321 I am out of friends, madam, and I hope to have friends for
322 my wife's sake.
Countess of Rousillon
323 Such friends are thine enemies, knave.
Lavatch the Clown
324 Y'are shallow, madam, in great friends: for the knaves come
325 to do that for me which I am a-weary of. He that ears my land
326 spares my team, and gives me leave to in the crop: if I be his
327 cuckold, he's my drudge: he that comforts my wife is the
328 cherisher of my flesh and blood; he that cherishes my flesh and
329 blood loves my flesh and blood; he that loves my flesh and blood
330 is my friend; ergo, he that kisses my wife is my friend. If men
331 could be contented to be what they are, there were no fear in
332 marriage; for young Charbon the puritan and old Poysam the
333 papist, howsome'er their hearts are severed in religion, their
334 heads are both one; they may joll horns together like any deer
335 i' the herd.
Countess of Rousillon
336 Wilt thou ever be a foul-mouth'd and calumnious knave?
Lavatch the Clown
337 A prophet I, madam; and I speak the truth the next way:
338 For I the ballad will repeat,
339 Which men full true shall find;
340 Your marriage comes by destiny,
341 Your cuckoo sings by kind.
Countess of Rousillon
342 Get you gone, sir; I'll talk with you more anon.
Rinaldo the Steward
343 May it please you, madam, that he bid Helen come to you; of her I
344 am to speak.
Countess of Rousillon
345 Sirrah, tell my gentlewoman I would speak with her; Helen I mean.
[Sings.]
Lavatch the Clown
346 Was this fair face the cause, quoth she
347 Why the Grecians sacked Troy?
348 Fond done, done fond,
349 Was this King Priam's joy?
350 With that she sighed as she stood,
351 With that she sighed as she stood,
352 And gave this sentence then:—
353 Among nine bad if one be good,
354 Among nine bad if one be good,
355 There's yet one good in ten.
Countess of Rousillon
356 What, one good in ten? you corrupt the song, sirrah.
Lavatch the Clown
357 One good woman in ten, madam, which is a purifying o' the
358 song: would God would serve the world so all the year! we'd find
359 no fault with the tithe-woman, if I were the parson: one in ten,
360 quoth 'a! an we might have a good woman born before every blazing
361 star, or at an earthquake, 'twould mend the lottery well: a man
362 may draw his heart out ere he pluck one.
Countess of Rousillon
363 You'll be gone, sir knave, and do as I command you!
Lavatch the Clown
364 That man should be at woman's command, and yet no hurt done!—
365 Though honesty be no puritan, yet it will do no hurt; it will
366 wear the surplice of humility over the black gown of a big
367 heart.—I am going, forsooth: the business is for Helen to come
368 hither.
[Exit.]
Countess of Rousillon
369 Well, now.
Rinaldo the Steward
370 I know, madam, you love your gentlewoman entirely.
Countess of Rousillon
371 Faith I do: her father bequeathed her to me; and she herself,
372 without other advantage, may lawfully make title to as much love
373 as she finds: there is more owing her than is paid; and more
374 shall be paid her than she'll demand.
Rinaldo the Steward
375 Madam, I was very late more near her than I think she wished me:
376 alone she was, and did communicate to herself her own words to
377 her own ears; she thought, I dare vow for her, they touched not
378 any stranger sense. Her matter was, she loved your son: Fortune,
379 she said, was no goddess, that had put such difference betwixt
380 their two estates; Love no god, that would not extend his might
381 only where qualities were level; Diana no queen of virgins, that
382 would suffer her poor knight surprise, without rescue in the
383 first assault, or ransom afterward. This she delivered in the
384 most bitter touch of sorrow that e'er I heard virgin exclaim in;
385 which I held my duty speedily to acquaint you withal; sithence,
386 in the loss that may happen, it concerns you something to know
387 it.
Countess of Rousillon
388 You have discharged this honestly; keep it to yourself; many
389 likelihoods informed me of this before, which hung so
390 tottering in the balance that I could neither believe nor
391 misdoubt. Pray you leave me: stall this in your bosom; and I
392 thank you for your honest care: I will speak with you further
393 anon.
[Exit STEWARD.]
Countess of Rousillon
394 Even so it was with me when I was young:
395 If ever we are nature's, these are ours; this thorn
396 Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong;
397 Our blood to us, this to our blood is born;
398 It is the show and seal of nature's truth,
399 Where love's strong passion is impress'd in youth:
400 By our remembrances of days foregone,
401 Such were our faults:—or then we thought them none.
[Enter HELENA.]
Countess of Rousillon
402 Her eye is sick on't;—I observe her now.
Helena
403 What is your pleasure, madam?
Countess of Rousillon
404 You know, Helen,
405 I am a mother to you.
Helena
406 Mine honourable mistress.
Countess of Rousillon
407 Nay, a mother.
408 Why not a mother? When I said a mother,
409 Methought you saw a serpent: what's in mother,
410 That you start at it? I say I am your mother;
411 And put you in the catalogue of those
412 That were enwombed mine. 'Tis often seen
413 Adoption strives with nature; and choice breeds
414 A native slip to us from foreign seeds:
415 You ne'er oppress'd me with a mother's groan,
416 Yet I express to you a mother's care:—
417 God's mercy, maiden! does it curd thy blood
418 To say I am thy mother? What's the matter,
419 That this distemper'd messenger of wet,
420 The many-colour'd iris, rounds thine eye?
421 Why,—that you are my daughter?
Helena
422 That I am not.
Countess of Rousillon
423 I say, I am your mother.
Helena
424 Pardon, madam;
425 The Count Rousillon cannot be my brother:
426 I am from humble, he from honour'd name;
427 No note upon my parents, his all noble;
428 My master, my dear lord he is; and I
429 His servant live, and will his vassal die:
430 He must not be my brother.
Countess of Rousillon
431 Nor I your mother?
Helena
432 You are my mother, madam; would you were,—
433 So that my lord your son were not my brother,—
434 Indeed my mother!—or were you both our mothers,
435 I care no more for than I do for heaven,
436 So I were not his sister. Can't no other,
437 But, I your daughter, he must be my brother?
Countess of Rousillon
438 Yes, Helen, you might be my daughter-in-law:
439 God shield you mean it not! daughter and mother
440 So strive upon your pulse. What! pale again?
441 My fear hath catch'd your fondness: now I see
442 The mystery of your loneliness, and find
443 Your salt tears' head. Now to all sense 'tis gross
444 You love my son; invention is asham'd,
445 Against the proclamation of thy passion,
446 To say thou dost not: therefore tell me true;
447 But tell me then, 'tis so;—for, look, thy cheeks
448 Confess it, one to the other; and thine eyes
449 See it so grossly shown in thy behaviours,
450 That in their kind they speak it; only sin
451 And hellish obstinacy tie thy tongue,
452 That truth should be suspected. Speak, is't so?
453 If it be so, you have wound a goodly clue;
454 If it be not, forswear't: howe'er, I charge thee,
455 As heaven shall work in me for thine avail,
456 To tell me truly.
Helena
457 Good madam, pardon me!
Countess of Rousillon
458 Do you love my son?
Helena
459 Your pardon, noble mistress!
Countess of Rousillon
460 Love you my son?
Helena
461 Do not you love him, madam?
Countess of Rousillon
462 Go not about; my love hath in't a bond
463 Whereof the world takes note: come, come, disclose
464 The state of your affection; for your passions
465 Have to the full appeach'd.
Helena
466 Then I confess,
467 Here on my knee, before high heaven and you,
468 That before you, and next unto high heaven,
469 I love your son:—
470 My friends were poor, but honest; so's my love:
471 Be not offended; for it hurts not him
472 That he is lov'd of me: I follow him not
473 By any token of presumptuous suit;
474 Nor would I have him till I do deserve him;
475 Yet never know how that desert should be.
476 I know I love in vain, strive against hope;
477 Yet in this captious and intenible sieve
478 I still pour in the waters of my love,
479 And lack not to lose still: thus, Indian-like,
480 Religious in mine error, I adore
481 The sun, that looks upon his worshipper,
482 But knows of him no more. My dearest madam,
483 Let not your hate encounter with my love,
484 For loving where you do; but if yourself,
485 Whose aged honour cites a virtuous youth,
486 Did ever, in so true a flame of liking,
487 Wish chastely, and love dearly, that your Dian
488 Was both herself and love; O, then, give pity
489 To her whose state is such that cannot choose
490 But lend and give where she is sure to lose;
491 That seeks not to find that her search implies,
492 But, riddle-like, lives sweetly where she dies!
Countess of Rousillon
493 Had you not lately an intent,—speak truly,—
494 To go to Paris?
Helena
495 Madam, I had.
Countess of Rousillon
496 Wherefore? tell true.
Helena
497 I will tell truth; by grace itself I swear.
498 You know my father left me some prescriptions
499 Of rare and prov'd effects, such as his reading
500 And manifest experience had collected
501 For general sovereignty; and that he will'd me
502 In heedfullest reservation to bestow them,
503 As notes whose faculties inclusive were
504 More than they were in note: amongst the rest
505 There is a remedy, approv'd, set down,
506 To cure the desperate languishings whereof
507 The king is render'd lost.
Countess of Rousillon
508 This was your motive
509 For Paris, was it? speak.
Helena
510 My lord your son made me to think of this;
511 Else Paris, and the medicine, and the king,
512 Had from the conversation of my thoughts
513 Haply been absent then.
Countess of Rousillon
514 But think you, Helen,
515 If you should tender your supposed aid,
516 He would receive it? He and his physicians
517 Are of a mind; he, that they cannot help him;
518 They, that they cannot help: how shall they credit
519 A poor unlearned virgin, when the schools,
520 Embowell'd of their doctrine, have let off
521 The danger to itself?
Helena
522 There's something in't
523 More than my father's skill, which was the greatest
524 Of his profession, that his good receipt
525 Shall, for my legacy, be sanctified
526 By th' luckiest stars in heaven: and, would your honour
527 But give me leave to try success, I'd venture
528 The well-lost life of mine on his grace's cure.
529 By such a day and hour.
Countess of Rousillon
530 Dost thou believe't?
Helena
531 Ay, madam, knowingly.
Countess of Rousillon
532 Why, Helen, thou shalt have my leave, and love,
533 Means, and attendants, and my loving greetings
534 To those of mine in court: I'll stay at home,
535 And pray God's blessing into thy attempt:
536 Be gone to-morrow; and be sure of this,
537 What I can help thee to thou shalt not miss.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 294archaic vocab
“the calendar of my past endeavours”
Rinaldo means that he wishes his record of loyal service could be read like an account-book or diary ('calendar' = register, list of events) without embarrassment. He is being delicately modest: to praise one's own past service would be to 'wound our modesty' — injure proper humility.
TLN 303biblical allusion
“many of the rich are damned”
Lavatch tosses in a biblical commonplace: it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven (Matthew 19:24). So being poor, while not 'well,' is no bar to salvation — a wry twist that flatters the Countess by implying poverty is spiritually safer.
TLN 305archaic vocab
“go to the world”
'Go to the world' was an Elizabethan idiom for getting married — to 'enter the world' as a couple. Lavatch is asking the Countess's blessing to wed Isbel. The phrase also carries a faint implication of leaving behind some more sheltered or idealized state — the household, or celibacy.
TLN 309cultural context
“Service is no heritage: and I think I shall never have the blessing of God till I have issue of my body”
'Service is no heritage' is a proverb: working as a servant earns you nothing you can leave to children. The only lasting inheritance Lavatch can give his family is children ('issue of my body'), and scripture tells him 'children are blessings' (Psalm 127:3). Together the two sayings form his case for marriage: service alone will leave nothing behind, so he must have offspring.
TLN 313archaic vocab
“I am driven on by the flesh; and he must needs go that the devil drives”
Lavatch admits he wants to marry because of sexual desire ('driven on by the flesh' — the body's appetite). He then quotes a proverb: 'he must needs go that the devil drives' — a person compelled by an overpowering force has no choice. He is pretending the devil of lust leaves him no option. In Elizabethan usage 'the flesh' as opposed to 'the spirit' specifically meant bodily, sinful appetite.
TLN 332historical topical
“young Charbon the puritan and old Poysam the papist, howsome'er their hearts are severed in religion, their heads are both one”
Lavatch invents two obviously named caricatures: 'Charbon' (French chair-bon, 'good flesh') for a Puritan, and 'Poysam' (French poison) for a Catholic ('papist'). Despite their religious hatred of each other, both end up cuckolded: their 'heads are both one' — they both grow the cuckold's horns. The joke says sexual jealousy unites enemies that theology divides.
TLN 337cultural context
“A prophet I, madam; and I speak the truth the next way”
Lavatch claims the authority of a prophet to deliver his couplet, and says he speaks 'the next way' — the most direct route, without circumlocution. The four-line verse he sings is a mock-prophetic ballad in the vein of almanac doggerel that circulated in Elizabethan England, predicting the fated inevitability of marriage and cuckoldry ('Your cuckoo sings by kind' — the cuckoo's note, used as a cuckoldry call, is what it does by nature).
TLN 346classical allusion
“Was this fair face the cause, quoth she Why the Grecians sacked Troy”
Lavatch sings a fragment about Helen of Troy — the most beautiful woman in the ancient world, whose elopement with the Trojan prince Paris caused Greece to send a great army to sack Troy. The singer (a woman reflecting on Helen's beauty) asks whether that face was really worth the war. The song is pointed: the Clown is about to deliver a message summoning Helen (Helena), whose own 'fair face' has caused her to pursue Bertram against all odds.
classical Helen of Troy
TLN 348archaic vocab
“Fond done, done fond, Was this King Priam's joy”
'Fond' means foolish or foolishly doting (a common Elizabethan sense, not 'affectionate'). 'Fond done' means 'foolishly accomplished' — done out of folly. King Priam was the king of Troy; his 'joy' was Helen, the beautiful woman whose presence at his court caused the city's destruction. The refrain implies that Paris's bringing Helen to Troy was a fool's act.
TLN 357wordplay
“one good woman in ten, madam, which is a purifying o' the song: would God would serve the world so all the year! we'd find no fault with the tithe-woman”
Lavatch claims his version — 'one good woman in ten' — improves ('purifies') the song, which originally said 'one good in ten.' A 'tithe' was the one-tenth of produce owed to the Church; Lavatch imagines himself as the parson who collects the one good woman per ten as a kind of ecclesiastical tax. The joke satirizes women as a category while also lampooning the clergy who would happily accept one virtuous woman per ten as their share.
TLN 378cultural context
“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”
The Steward reports Helena's private complaint: Fortune is no true goddess because she placed Helena and Bertram so far apart in social rank ('two estates'), and Love is no true god because he does not limit himself to pairs of equal standing ('where qualities were level'). Helena is arguing that the gods have treated her unjustly — and that her love, however unequal by birth, is therefore not properly governed by those deities.
classical Fortune and her wheel
TLN 381classical allusion
“Diana no queen of virgins, that would suffer her poor knight surprise, without rescue in the first assault, or ransom afterward”
Diana was the Roman goddess of the hunt and patron of chastity, imagined as queen of a band of virgin followers — her 'knights.' Helena calls herself Diana's 'poor knight,' meaning a chaste woman under the goddess's protection, and accuses Diana of failing to defend her against love's attack. The metaphor frames Helena's desire for Bertram as an assault on her chastity that her patron goddess has not repelled.
classical Diana, virgin goddess of the moon
TLN 391archaic vocab
“stall this in your bosom”
The Countess tells Rinaldo to lock this information away in his chest as if in a stall or stable — to keep it shut up, private. 'Stall' here means to stable or house securely. She wants the secret of Helena's love for Bertram kept quietly inside the steward, not gossiped about.
TLN 395rhetorical device
“this thorn Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong; Our blood to us, this to our blood is born”
The Countess compares the pain of love — especially unrequited or unequal love — to a thorn that is inseparable from the rose of youth. The rose-and-thorn image was a common Renaissance emblem: beauty and pain grow together on the same stem. 'Our blood to us, this to our blood is born' means that passionate feeling is what blood (inherited nature, animal life) produces — it is born into us as surely as our parents gave us our blood.
TLN 409wordplay
“Methought you saw a serpent: what's in mother”
The Countess plays on the word 'mother': Helena flinches when the Countess calls herself her mother, as if she had seen a snake. The Countess asks what is frightening in the word. The answer is that if the Countess is Helena's mother, then Bertram is her brother — and a girl cannot marry her brother. Helena's distress at 'mother' is entirely about what the word would make impossible.
TLN 411archaic vocab
“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”
'Enwombed mine' means born from my womb — those who literally came from her body. A 'catalogue' is a list or register. The Countess is saying she places Helena on the same list as her natural children. 'A native slip from foreign seeds' is a gardening metaphor: a 'slip' is a cutting grafted onto a rootstock; a plant grown from another family's seed can put down roots in a new stock and become as native as what grew there before. Adopted love can equal natural love.
TLN 444archaic vocab
“invention is asham'd, Against the proclamation of thy passion, To say thou dost not”
'Invention' here means the capacity to invent excuses or denials — creative ingenuity brought to lying. The Countess tells Helena that even the most skilled fabrication would be ashamed to deny what Helena's body openly announces ('the proclamation of thy passion'): her blushes, tears, and manner all make the love visible. Denying it would shame even a lie.
TLN 453archaic vocab
“you have wound a goodly clue”
A 'clue' (also 'clew') was a ball of yarn or thread; 'wound' means wound up, rolled into a ball. The Countess is saying that if Helena does love Bertram, she has spun herself a fine tangled skein of trouble — a ball of thread that will unravel in complicated and unpredictable ways. The image suggests that the love creates difficulties rather than opportunities.
TLN 477archaic vocab
“in this captious and intenible sieve I still pour in the waters of my love”
'Captious' here means capable of taking or catching (from Latin capere, 'to take') — but also, by another sense, fault-finding and tricky: the sieve both catches nothing and ensnares. 'Intenible' means incapable of holding — unable to retain. A sieve that pours out as fast as you pour in is the image: Helena is pouring love into a vessel (Bertram) that can hold none of it. She keeps giving; it keeps draining away.
TLN 479historical topical
“Indian-like, Religious in mine error, I adore The sun”
Helena compares herself to a pagan sun-worshipper — a 'West Indian' or 'East Indian' in the Elizabethan imagination — who reverently worships the sun even though the sun does not know the worshipper exists. She adores Bertram ('the sun') with a devotion as sincere as it is unrequited and as misdirected as idol-worship. The comparison is self-deprecating: she calls her love an 'error,' a kind of religious mistake, yet cannot stop.
TLN 498cultural context
“my father left me some prescriptions Of rare and prov'd effects, such as his reading And manifest experience had collected For general sovereignty”
'Prescriptions' are written medical recipes — formulas for compounding remedies. Gerard, Helena's dead father, was a great physician; his 'reading' (study of medical texts) and 'manifest experience' (clinical observation over years) gave him a collection of tested cures of 'general sovereignty' — outstanding, broadly effective power. He instructed Helena to preserve them carefully ('heedfullest reservation') rather than share them freely.
historical The King's fistula and the woman healer
TLN 506archaic vocab
“the desperate languishings whereof The king is render'd lost”
'Languishings' means the long, wasting illness (to 'languish' = to grow weak through sickness or grief). 'Render'd lost' means given up as beyond help — his physicians have declared the King a lost cause. His illness is a 'fistula' (a deep, chronic suppurating wound), named at 1.1; by 1.3 the court has accepted that he is dying and that medicine cannot save him.
historical The King's fistula and the woman healerhistorical Giletta of Narbonne (the source story)
TLN 519archaic vocab
“a poor unlearned virgin, when the schools, Embowell'd of their doctrine, have let off The danger to itself”
The Countess's sceptical question: why would the King trust a young, untrained woman when the learned physicians ('the schools') have exhausted ('embowell'd') all their knowledge and given up the case ('let off the danger to itself')? 'Embowell'd of their doctrine' means the schools have been gutted of their teaching — they have nothing left to offer. 'Let off the danger to itself' means they have abandoned the disease to run its own course, having no further treatment.
TLN 524cultural context
“his good receipt Shall, for my legacy, be sanctified By th' luckiest stars in heaven”
Helena says her father's medical recipe ('receipt' = a recipe or formula) will be blessed ('sanctified') by the most favourable alignment of stars in heaven — she plans to attempt the cure at an astrologically propitious moment. The 'legacy' is what she inherits from her father and what she will use to repay his gift. Renaissance physicians regularly timed the giving of medicines and the performance of operations by the positions of the planets, which were held to govern the body and influence the efficacy of treatments.