Page 898 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

Which warped the line of every other favour,
Scorned a fair colour or expressed it stolen, [50]
Extended or contracted all proportions
To a most hideous object. Thence it came

That she whom all men praised, and whom myself,
Since I have lost, have loved, was in mine eye
The dust that did offend it.

KING
Well excused. [55]

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 [60]

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, [65]
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. [70]

COUNTESS
Which better than the first, O dear heaven, bless!
Or, ere they meet, in me, O nature, cesse!

LAFEW

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, [75]
That she may quickly come.
Bertram gives Lafew a ring.

By my old beard
And every hair that’s on’t, Helen that’s dead