Page 782 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

ACT I IT

Scene I IT

Enter young Bertram, Count of Rossillion, his mother the Countess,
Helena, and Lord Lafew; 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.

[5]

LAFEW
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. [10]

COUNTESS
What hope is there of his majesty’s amendment?

LAFEW
He hath abandoned his physicians, madam, under whose practices he hath
persecuted time with hope, and finds no other advantage in the process but
only the [15] 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 [20] lack