Beets And Temperature

SCENE I. Rousillon. The COUNT's palace.

Enter BERTRAM, the COUNTESS of Rousillon, HELENA, and LAFEU, all in black

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.

LAFEU

You shall find of the king a husband, madam; you,

sir, a father: he that so generally is at all times

good must of necessity hold his virtue to you; whose

worthiness would stir it up where it wanted rather

than lack it where there is such abundance.

COUNTESS

What hope is there of his majesty's amendment?

LAFEU

He hath abandoned his physicians, madam; under whose

practises he hath persecuted time with hope, and

finds no other advantage in the process but only the

losing of hope by time.

COUNTESS

This young gentlewoman had a father,--O, that

'had'! how sad a passage 'tis!--whose skill was

almost as great as his honesty; had it stretched so

far, would have made nature immortal, and death

should have play for lack of work. Would, for the

king's sake, he were living! I think it would be

the death of the king's disease.

LAFEU

How called you the man you speak of, madam?

COUNTESS

He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was

his great right to be so: Gerard de Narbon.

LAFEU

He was excellent indeed, madam: the king very

lately spoke of him admiringly and mourningly: he

was skilful enough to have lived still, if knowledge

could be set up against mortality.

BERTRAM

What is it, my good lord, the king languishes of?

LAFEU

A fistula, my lord.

BERTRAM

I heard not of it before.

LAFEU

I would it were not notorious. Was this gentlewoman

the daughter of Gerard de Narbon?

COUNTESS

His sole child, my lord, and bequeathed to my

overlooking. I have those hopes of her good that

her education promises; her dispositions she

inherits, which makes fair gifts fairer; for where

an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities, there

commendations go with pity; they are virtues and

traitors too; in her they are the better for their

simpleness;