BERTRAM.
Admiringly, my liege. At first
I stuck my choice upon her, ere my heart
Durst make too bold herald of my tongue:
Where the impression of mine eye infixing,
Contempt his scornful perspective did lend me,
Which warp’d the line of every other favour,
Scorn’d a fair colour, or express’d it stolen,
Extended or contracted all proportions
To a most hideous object. Thence it came
That she whom all men prais’d, and whom myself,
Since I have lost, have lov’d, was in mine eye
The dust that did offend it.
KING.
Well excus’d:
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
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,
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.
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,
That she may quickly come.
[Bertram gives a ring to Lafew.]
By my old beard,
And ev’ry hair that’s on ’t, Helen that’s dead
Was a sweet creature: such a ring as this,
The last that e’er I took her leave at court,
I saw upon her finger.
BERTRAM.
Hers it was not.
KING.
Now, pray you, let me see it; for mine eye,
While I was speaking, oft was fasten’d to it.
This ring was mine; and when I gave it Helen
I bade her, if her fortunes ever stood
Necessitied to help, that by this token
I would relieve her. Had you that craft to ’reave her
Of what should stead her most?
BERTRAM.
My gracious sovereign,
Howe’er it pleases you to take it so,
The ring was never hers.
COUNTESS.
Son, on my life,
I have seen her wear it; and she reckon’d it
At her life’s rate.