"Hel. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess
makes it soon mortal.
Laf. How understand we that?"
In the folio the first of these speeches is given to the Countess; but Tieck saw rightly that it could only belong to Helena. I have transposed the next two speeches; for Lafeu must reply immediately; metrically also his reply is the complement of the speech of Helena, in which 'living' and 'grief' should perhaps change places.
"Advise him.—He cannot want the best advice."
"And these great tears grace his remembrance more
Than those I shed for him.... What was he like?"
For 'his' I read this, i.e. that of Bertram, whose departure has caused her tears to flow. There is an evident aposiopesis of graced his, arising from the perturbation of her mind, as is proved by the falling of the metric ictus on 'him,' and which also proves that 'his' could not have been the poet's word.