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And by the leave of my good lord the King,

We'll be before our welcome.

WIDOW.

Gentle madam,

You never had a servant to whose trust

Your business was more welcome.

HELENA.

Nor you, mistress,

Ever a friend whose thoughts more truly labour

To recompense your love. Doubt not but heaven

Hath brought me up to be your daughter's dower,

As it hath fated her to be my motive

And helper to a husband. But, O strange men!

That can such sweet use make of what they hate,

When saucy trusting of the cozen'd thoughts

Defiles the pitchy night. So lust doth play

With what it loathes, for that which is away.

But more of this hereafter. You, Diana,

Under my poor instructions yet must suffer

Something in my behalf.

DIANA.

Let death and honesty

Go with your impositions, I am yours

Upon your will to suffer.

HELENA.

Yet, I pray you:

But with the word the time will bring on summer,

When briers shall have leaves as well as thorns

And be as sweet as sharp. We must away;

Our waggon is prepar'd, and time revives us.

All's Well that Ends Well. Still the fine's the crown.

Whate'er the course, the end is the renown. Exeunt

ACT IV SCENE 5. Rousillon. The COUNT'S palace

Enter COUNTESS, LAFEU, and CLOWN

LAFEU.

No, no, no, son was misled with a snipt-taffeta fellow there, whose villainous saffron would have made all the unbak'd and doughy youth of a nation in his colour. Your daughter-in-law had been alive at this hour, and your son here at home, more advanc'd by the King than by that red-tail'd humble-bee I speak of. COUNTESS. I would I had not known him. It was the death of the most virtuous gentlewoman that ever nature had praise for creating. If she had partaken of my flesh, and cost me the dearest groans of a mother. I could not have owed her a more rooted love. LAFEU. 'Twas a good lady, 'twas a good lady. We may pick a thousand sallets ere we light on such another herb. CLOWN. Indeed, sir, she was the sweet-marjoram of the sallet, or, rather, the herb of grace. LAFEU. They are not sallet-herbs, you knave; they are nose-herbs. CLOWN. I am no great Nebuchadnezzar, sir; I have not much skill in grass. LAFEU. Whether dost thou profess thyself-a knave or a fool? CLOWN. A fool, sir, at a woman's service, and a knave at a man's. LAFEU. Your distinction? CLOWN. I would cozen the man of his wife, and do his service. LAFEU. So you were a knave at his service, indeed. CLOWN. And I would give his wife my bauble, sir, to do her service. LAFEU. I will subscribe for thee; thou art both knave and fool. CLOWN. At your service. LAFEU. No, no, no. CLOWN. Why, sir, if I cannot serve you, I can serve as great a prince as you are. LAFEU. Who's that? A Frenchman? CLOWN. Faith, sir, 'a has an English name; but his fisnomy is more hotter in France than there. LAFEU. What prince is that? CLOWN. The Black Prince, sir; alias, the Prince of Darkness; alias, the devil. LAFEU. Hold thee, there's my purse. I give thee not this to suggest thee from thy master thou talk'st of; serve him still. CLOWN. I am a woodland fellow, sir, that always loved a great fire; and the master I speak of ever keeps a good fire. But, sure, he is the prince of the world; let his nobility remain in's court. I am for the house with the narrow gate, which I take to be too little for pomp to enter. Some that humble themselves may; but the many will be too chill and tender: and they'll be for the flow'ry way that leads to the broad gate and the great fire. LAFEU. Go thy ways, I begin to be aweary of thee; and I tell thee so before, because I would not fall out with thee. Go thy ways; let my horses be well look'd to, without any tricks. CLOWN. If I put any tricks upon 'em, sir, they shall be jades' tricks, which are their own right by the law of nature. Exit LAFEU. A shrewd knave, and an unhappy. COUNTESS. So 'a is. My lord that's gone made himself much sport out of him. By his authority he remains here, which he thinks is a patent for his sauciness; and indeed he has no pace, but runs where he will. LAFEU. I like him well;