Countess of Rossillion

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.

Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead,
excessive grief the enemy to the living

Lafew
You shall find of the King a husband,
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Countess 
Be thou blessed, Bertram, and succeed thy father
In manners as in shape. Thy blood and virtue
Contend for empire in thee, and thy goodness
Share with thy birthright.

Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to none

Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to noneIsocolon.
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Fool
I am out o’ friends, madam, and I hope to have
friends for my wife’s sake.
Countess
Such friends are thine enemies, knave.

for young Charbon the Puritan and old
Poysam the Papist, howsome’er their hearts are
severed in religion, their heads are both one

Fool
You’re shallow,
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Steward
Madam, I was very late more near her than I
think she wished me. Alone she was and did
communicate to herself her own words to her own 
ears;  she thought, I dare vow for her, they touched
not any stranger sense. Her matter was she loved
your son. Fortune, she said, was no goddess, that
had put such difference betwixt their two estates;
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Countess
You know, Helen, I am a mother to you.
Helen
Mine honorable mistress.

I know I love in vain, strive against hope,
Yet in this captious and intenible sieve
I still pour in the waters of my love

Countess
Nay, a mother.
Why not a mother? When I said “a mother,”
Methought you saw a serpent.
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Countess 
Alas! And would you take the letter of her?
Might you not know she would do as she has done
By sending me a letter? Read it again.

Ah, what sharp stings are in her mildest words!

Steward reads the  letter
I am Saint Jaques’ pilgrim, thither gone.
Ambitious love hath so in me offended
That barefoot plod I the cold ground upon,
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What angel shall
Bless this unworthy husband? He cannot thrive
Unless her prayers, whom heaven delights to hear
And loves to grant, reprieve him from the wrath
Of greatest justice. Write, write, Rinaldo,
To this unworthy husband of his wife.

My heart is heavy, and mine age is weak.
Grief would have tears, and sorrow bids me speak.
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Lafew
No, no, no, your son was misled with a
snipped-taffeta fellow there, whose villainous saffron
would have made all the unbaked and doughy
youth of a nation in his color. Your daughter-in-law
had been alive at this hour, and your son here
at home, more advanced by the King than by that
red-tailed humble-bee I speak of.
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King
We lost a jewel of her, and our esteem
Was made much poorer by it. But your son,
As mad in folly, lacked the sense to know
Her estimation home.
Countess
’Tis past, my liege,
And I beseech your Majesty to make it
Natural rebellion done i’ th’ blade of youth,
When oil and fire,
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King
I am not a day of season,
For thou mayst see a sunshine and a hail
In me at once. But to the brightest beams
Distracted clouds give way. So stand thou forth.
The time is fair again.

For we are old, and on our quick’st decrees
Th’ inaudible and noiseless foot of time
Steals ere we can effect them.
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