COUNTESS

In saying goodbye to my son, it's like I'm losing another husband.

BERTRAM

And for me, in leaving, mother, I mourn my father's death all over again, but I must serve at the king's command, since I am now his subject and eternally in servitude to him. 

LAFEU

The king will be like a husband to you, madam, and like a father to you, sir. If he's so good to all his subjects, you can be sure he'll be good to you. Your family has been so important to him that you'd bring out the generosity in him even if he was miserable—since he is generous, there's no way he won't share that kindness with you.

COUNTESS

How likely is it that his majesty will recover?

LAFEU

He's given up on his doctors, madam. He's wasted a lot of time and hope following their orders, and all he's getting out of it is gradually losing hope over time. 

COUNTESS

[Gesturing to HELENA] This young woman had a father—oh, that word "had!" What a sad word it is!—and his skill was only outshined by his goodness. If he'd had the chance, he could have made men immortal. Death would have been out of business. If only he were living now, for the king's sake! I think he would cure the king's illness. 

LAFEU

What was the name of this man you speak of, madam?

COUNTESS

He was famous in his line of work, sir, and he absolutely deserved that fame: Gerard de Narbon. 

LAFEU

He was excellent indeed, madam. The king only recently was talking admiringly and sadly about him. Narbon had enough skill to keep himself alive, if only you could fight mortality with brilliance. 

BERTRAM

What exactly is the king's sickness, my good lord?

LAFEU

A fistula, my lord. 

BERTRAM

I haven't heard of that before. 

LAFEU

Don't let the word get out. So this woman was the daughter of Gerard de Narbon?

COUNTESS

His only child, my lord, and left to my care. I have high hopes that she'll live up to the education she's received. She got her lovely personality from her father—that makes good-looking women even better-looking. If a sinful mind accompanies a woman with many skills, those skills are praiseworthy but also regrettable—they're virtues but also traitors. In Helena, though, these virtues are stronger because she is so pure. She gets her honesty from her father and earns her goodness herself. 

LAFEU

I can see the proof of your praises in her tears, madam.  

COUNTESS

It's the best salt water a maiden can wash her praises in. As soon as she remembers her father, the cruelty of her sorrow takes all the joy out of her cheeks. No more of this, Helena. Come on, no more. You don't want people to think that you're performing sorrow rather than genuinely feeling it. 

HELENA

I do perform my sorrow, but I genuinely feel it too. 

LAFEU

Moderate mourning is what we owe to the dead, but excessive grief is an enemy to the living. 

COUNTESS

If the living is an enemy to grief, too much grief will kill the mourners. 

BERTRAM

Madam, I desire your blessing. 

LAFEU

What should we make of that?

COUNTESS

Be blessed, Bertram, and follow your father in behavior as well as in looks! Your blood and your manners are fighting for power inside of you, so let your goodness take the side of your noble blood! Be good to all, trust a few, don't wrong anyone. Win over your enemies by holding power, not by abusing it, and value your friends as much as you value your own life. Be scolded for being silent but don't talk so much that you make yourself a nuisance. Otherwise, I hope you'll be blessed with whatever heaven wants to supply you with, to make you better and to answer my prayers! Farewell, my lord. 

[To LAFEU] He's an untrained nobleman. Advise him, my lord. 

LAFEU

He'll have only the best advice from me. 

COUNTESS

Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram. 

BERTRAM

[To HELENA] I wish the best for you that you can imagine! Take care of my mother, your mistress, and keep her well. 

LAFEU

Farewell, pretty lady: you must maintain the reputation of your father. 

HELENA

Oh, if only that were all! I don't think of my father. And these over-the-top tears honor his memory more than the tears I genuinely shed for him. What was he like? I have forgot him. My imagination thinks not of any face but Bertram's. I am ruined. There's no point in being alive, none, if Bertram is away. What terrible luck that I should love a bright star and want to marry it. He is so high above me. I must be comforted by the bright radiance he gives off and the light emanating from him, for I can't be close to him. Loving someone so far above my station will be fatal to my love. The deer that wants to mate with the lion must die in the process. It was lovely, though torturous, to see him every hour, to sit and draw his arched eyebrows, his hawklike eye, his curls, on the drawing-table of my heart. My heart knows too well every line and feature of his sweet face. But now he's gone, and my idol-worshipping love must cling to the things he's left behind. Who comes here?

HELENA

[To herself] Here's one that accompanies him. I love this man for Bertram's sake, but, at the same time, I know that he's a notorious liar, pretty much a fool, completely a coward. These evils are so engrained in him that they stay firm even when virtue's own firmness wavers in the cold wind. Moreover, extreme foolishness often becomes more powerful than sturdy wisdom. 

PAROLLES

God be with you, beautiful queen! 

HELENA

And you, monarch! 

PAROLLES

No. 

HELENA

And no. 

PAROLLES

Are you thinking about virginity?

HELENA

Yes. You have some hint of soldier about you: let me ask you a question. Man is the enemy of virginity: how can we barricade it up against him?

PAROLLES

Keep him out. 

HELENA

But he attacks, and our virginity, though brave, is weak in defense. Share with us some warrior tips for resistance. 

PAROLLES

There's no resistance. Man, sitting down in front of you, will conquer you and blow you up.  

HELENA

Bless our poor virginity and keep it safe from conquerers and blower-uppers! Is there no military policy on how virgins could blow up men?

PAROLLES

When virginity gets blown down, men will quickly be blown up. Indeed, in blowing him down again, your fortified city's already been lost by the fracture that you yourselves have made. It's not right under nature's laws to preserve your virginity. Loss of virginity leads to a population increase and no virgins have ever been born until their mothers lost their virginity first. The stuff you were made of is material used to make more virgins. Once you've lost your virginity, you can make ten more virgins. By keeping your virginity forever, no more virgins will be made. It's too cold a companion—get rid of it! 

HELENA

I will stick with it a little bit longer even if it means I die a virgin. 

PAROLLES

There's no argument in favor of it. It's against the laws of nature. To speak out in favor of virginity is to accuse your mothers of behaving badly which is unacceptable disobedience. A virgin is like a man who hangs himself, because virginity should kill itself and should therefore, like a suicide victim, be buried far outside  holy ground as something that has committed a crime against nature. Virginity breeds mites like a cheese does, and, just like a cheese, grows moldy, rots, and dies, like it's eating itself. Besides, virginity is silly, proud, lazy, made of self-love, which is the most forbidden sin in the Bible. Don't keep your virginity; no matter what you'll lose out this way. Get rid of it! Within ten years, it will bring you ten babies, which is a good increase, and the original body itself won't be much the worse for wear. Away with it! 

HELENA

How might somebody lose it as she pleases, sir?

PAROLLES

Let me see. Well, unfortunately, you'll have to like a man you've never liked before. It's merchandise that will lose its shine if it doesn't get used. The longer you keep it, the less it's worth. Get rid of it while you can still sell it. You'd better act while the clock's still ticking. Virginity, like an old nobleman, wears a cap that's out of fashion: it looks nice, but it doesn't fit, just like the brooch or the tooth-pick, which are completely out of fashion these days. You'd do better to cook your date in your pie or porridge than in your cheek, and your virginity, your old virginity, is like one of our withered French pears. It looks ill, it tastes dry. Indeed, it is a withered pear. It used to be better, but it's still a withered pear: will you do anything with it?

HELENA

I'm not giving it up just yet. At court, your master will have a thousand relationships. A mother and a mistress and a friend, a phoenix, a captain, and an enemy, a guide, a goddess, and a sovereign, a counsellor, a traitress, and a dear loved one. His humble ambition, his proud humility, his jarring harmony, and his dissonant sweetness, his faith, his sweet misfortune, and lots of pretty, silly nicknames that blind Cupid might have given at a christening. Now shall he—I know not what he shall. God protect him! The court's a good place to get an education, and he's someone—

PAROLLES

Someone what, pray tell?

HELENA

Someone who I wish all the best. It's a pity—

PAROLLES

What's a pity?

HELENA

That wishing someone well is just a thought and not something physical that could be felt. If only we, the poorer folk, whose more unlucky fates leave us just with our wishes, could go along with our friends, and show the love that we must keep to ourselves and that never earns us any gratitude. 

PAGE

Monsieur Parolles, my lord is calling for you. 

PAROLLES

Little Helena, farewell. If I can remember you, I'll think of you at court. 

HELENA

Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a generous star. 

PAROLLES

I was born under Mars, the god of war. 

HELENA

I especially think you were born under Mars. 

PAROLLES

Why under Mars?

HELENA

You've been so subservient to the wars that you must have been born under Mars. 

PAROLLES

When the star was ascending. 

HELENA

When he was descending, I think, actually. 

PAROLLES

Why do you think so?

HELENA

You tend to flee backwards when you fight. 

PAROLLES

That's to gain advantage. 

HELENA

So is running away, when fear leads you to flee to safety. But the mixture of bravery and fear has helped you develop an impressively swift flight and it suits you well. 

PAROLLES

I am so busy, I cannot answer you fully. I will come back the perfect nobleman, and, when I've done so, I will teach you what I've learned so that you can keep up with a nobleman's advice and understand the guidance given to you. Otherwise, you'll die in your ungratefulness and your ignorance will kill you: farewell. When you have free time, say your prayers. When you don't have time, just remember your friends. Get a good husband for yourself and use him as he uses you. So, farewell. 

HELENA

Often, we find the solution in ourselves, even though we say they came from heaven. For all we say that heavens control our fates, we have free will—that talk of fate only slows us down when we ourselves are lazy in getting what we want. What power is it that makes me love someone so high up, that makes me see his wondrousness but doesn't give me the ability to gain his love? Even people who are on opposite ends of the social spectrum can be brought together by nature and their mutual attraction, and they can kiss like they were born equals. Of course, unusually difficult attempts will seem impossible to people who think rationally and rigidly about their limitations and suppose that they can't do things that others have managed to do before them. Who's ever failed to win her love when she successfully showed her merit? The king's disease—I might be misguided in this plan, but my intentions are firm and I'll stick to them.