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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

                ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND

                          Lewis Carroll

               THE MILLENNIUM FULCRUM EDITION 3.0




                            CHAPTER I

                      Down the Rabbit-Hole


  Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister
on the bank, and of having nothing to do:  once or twice she had
peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no
pictures or conversations in it, `and what is the use of a book,'
thought Alice `without pictures or conversation?'

  So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could,
for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether
the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble
of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White
Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.

  There was nothing so VERY remarkable in that; nor did Alice
think it so VERY much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to
itself, `Oh dear!  Oh dear!  I shall be late!'  (when she thought
it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have
wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural);
but when the Rabbit actually TOOK A WATCH OUT OF ITS WAISTCOAT-
POCKET, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to
her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never
before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to
take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the
field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop
down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.

  In another moment down went Alice after it, never once
considering how in the world she was to get out again.

  The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way,
and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a
moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself
falling down a very deep well.

  Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she
had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to
wonder what was going to happen next.  First, she tried to look
down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to
see anything; then she looked at the sides of the well, and
noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves;
here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs.  She
took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed; it was
labelled `ORANGE MARMALADE', but to her great disappointment it
was empty:  she did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing
somebody, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she
fell past it.

  `Well!' thought Alice to herself, `after such a fall as this, I
shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs!  How brave they'll
all think me at home!  Why, I wouldn't say anything about it,
even if I fell off the top of the house!' (Which was very likely
true.)

  Down, down, down.  Would the fall NEVER come to an end!  `I
wonder how many miles I've fallen by this time?' she said aloud.
`I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth.  Let
me see:  that would be four thousand miles down, I think--' (for,
you see, Alice had learnt several things of this sort in her
lessons in the schoolroom, and though this was not a VERY good
opportunity for showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to
listen to her, still it was good practice to say it over) `--yes,
that's about the right distance--but then I wonder what Latitude
or Longitude I've got to?'  (Alice had no idea what Latitude was,
or Longitude either, but thought they were nice grand words to
say.)

  Presently she began again.  `I wonder if I shall fall right
THROUGH the earth!  How funny it'll seem to come out among the
people that walk with their heads downward!  The Antipathies, I
think--' (she was rather glad there WAS no one listening, this
time, as it didn't sound at all the right word) `--but I shall
have to ask them what the name of the country is, you know.
Please, Ma'am, is this New Zealand or Australia?' (and she tried
to curtsey as she spoke--fancy CURTSEYING as you're falling
through the air!  Do you think you could manage it?)  `And what
an ignorant little girl she'll think me for asking!  No, it'll
never do to ask:  perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere.'

  Down, down, down.  There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon
began talking again.  `Dinah'll miss me very much to-night, I
should think!'  (Dinah was the cat.)  `I hope they'll remember
her saucer of milk at tea-time.  Dinah my dear!  I wish you were
down here with me!  There are no mice in the air, I'm afraid, but
you might catch a bat, and that's very like a mouse, you know.
But do cats eat bats, I wonder?'  And here Alice began to get
rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a dreamy sort of
way, `Do cats eat bats?  Do cats eat bats?' and sometimes, `Do
bats eat cats?' for, you see, as she couldn't answer either
question, it didn't much matter which way she put it.  She felt
that she was dozing off, and had just begun to dream that she
was walking hand in hand with Dinah, and saying to her very
earnestly, `Now, Dinah, tell me the truth:  did you ever eat a
bat?' when suddenly, thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of
sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.

  Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a
moment:  she looked up, but it was all dark overhead; before her
was another long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in
sight, hurrying down it.  There was not a moment to be lost:
away went Alice like the wind, and was just in time to hear it
say, as it turned a corner, `Oh my ears and whiskers, how late
it's getting!'  She was close behind it when she turned the
corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen:  she found
herself in a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of lamps
hanging from the roof.

  There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked;
and when Alice had been all the way down one side and up the
other, trying every door, she walked sadly down the middle,
wondering how she was ever to get out again.

  Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of
solid glass; there was nothing on it except a tiny golden key,
and Alice's first thought was that it might belong to one of the
doors of the hall; but, alas! either the locks were too large, or
the key was too small, but at any rate it would not open any of
them.  However, on the second time round, she came upon a low
curtain she had not noticed before, and behind it was a little
door about fifteen inches high:  she tried the little golden key
in the lock, and to her great delight it fitted!

  Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small
passage, not much larger than a rat-hole:  she knelt down and
looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw.
How she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about
among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but
she could not even get her head through the doorway; `and even if
my head would go through,' thought poor Alice, `it would be of
very little use without my shoulders.  Oh, how I wish
I could shut up like a telescope!  I think I could, if I only
know how to begin.'  For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things
had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few
things indeed were really impossible.

  There seemed to be no use in waiting by the little door, so she
went back to the table, half hoping she might find another key on
it, or at any rate a book of rules for shutting people up like
telescopes:  this time she found a little bottle on it, (`which
certainly was not here before,' said Alice,) and round the neck
of the bottle was a paper label, with the words `DRINK ME'
beautifully printed on it in large letters.

  It was all very well to say `Drink me,' but the wise little
Alice was not going to do THAT in a hurry.  `No, I'll look
first,' she said, `and see whether it's marked "poison" or not';
for she had read several nice little histories about children who
had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts and other unpleasant
things, all because they WOULD not remember the simple rules
their friends had taught them:  such as, that a red-hot poker
will burn you if you hold it too long; and that if you cut your
finger VERY deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and she had
never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked
`poison,' it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or
later.

  However, this bottle was NOT marked `poison,' so Alice ventured
to taste it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort
of mixed flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast
turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast,) she very soon finished
it off.

     *       *       *       *       *       *       *

         *       *       *       *       *       *

     *       *       *       *       *       *       *

  `What a curious feeling!' said Alice; `I must be shutting up
like a telescope.'

  And so it was indeed:  she was now only ten inches high, and
her face brightened up at the thought that she was now the right
size for going through the little door into that lovely garden.
First, however, she waited for a few minutes to see if she was
going to shrink any further:  she felt a little nervous about
this; `for it might end, you know,' said Alice to herself, `in my
going out altogether, like a candle.  I wonder what I should be
like then?'  And she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle is
like after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember
ever having seen such a thing.

  After a while, finding that nothing more happened, she decided
on going into the garden at once; but, alas for poor Alice!
when she got to the door, she found she had forgotten the
little golden key, and when she went back to the table for it,
she found she could not possibly reach it:  she could see it
quite plainly through the glass, and she tried her best to climb
up one of the legs of the table, but it was too slippery;
and when she had tired herself out with trying,
the poor little thing sat down and cried.

  `Come, there's no use in crying like that!' said Alice to
herself, rather sharply; `I advise you to leave off this minute!'
She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very
seldom followed it), and sometimes she scolded herself so
severely as to bring tears into her eyes; and once she remembered
trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a game
of croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious
child was very fond of pretending to be two people.  `But it's no
use now,' thought poor Alice, `to pretend to be two people!  Why,
there's hardly enough of me left to make ONE respectable
person!'

  Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under
the table:  she opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on
which the words `EAT ME' were beautifully marked in currants.
`Well, I'll eat it,' said Alice, `and if it makes me grow larger,
I can reach the key; and if it makes me grow smaller, I can creep
under the door; so either way I'll get into the garden, and I
don't care which happens!'

  She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself, `Which
way?  Which way?', holding her hand on the top of her head to
feel which way it was growing, and she was quite surprised to
find that she remained the same size:  to be sure, this generally
happens when one eats cake, but Alice had got so much into the
way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way things to happen,
that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the
common way.

  So she set to work, and very soon finished off the cake.

     *       *       *       *       *       *       *

         *       *       *       *       *       *

     *       *       *       *       *       *       *




                           CHAPTER II

                        The Pool of Tears


  `Curiouser and curiouser!' cried Alice (she was so much
surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good
English); `now I'm opening out like the largest telescope that
ever was!  Good-bye, feet!' (for when she looked down at her
feet, they seemed to be almost out of sight, they were getting so
far off).  `Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on
your shoes and stockings for you now, dears?  I'm sure _I_ shan't
be able!  I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself
about you:  you must manage the best way you can; --but I must be
kind to them,' thought Alice, `or perhaps they won't walk the
way I want to go!  Let me see:  I'll give them a new pair of
boots every Christmas.'

  And she went on planning to herself how she would manage it.
`They must go by the carrier,' she thought; `and how funny it'll
seem, sending presents to one's own feet!  And how odd the
directions will look!

            ALICE'S RIGHT FOOT, ESQ.
                HEARTHRUG,
                    NEAR THE FENDER,
                        (WITH ALICE'S LOVE).

Oh dear, what nonsense I'm talking!'

  Just then her head struck against the roof of the hall:  in
fact she was now more than nine feet high, and she at once took
up the little golden key and hurried off to the garden door.

  Poor Alice!  It was as much as she could do, lying down on one
side, to look through into the garden with one eye; but to get
through was more hopeless than ever:  she sat down and began to
cry again.

  `You ought to be ashamed of yourself,' said Alice, `a great
girl like you,' (she might well say this), `to go on crying in
this way!  Stop this moment, I tell you!'  But she went on all
the same, shedding gallons of tears, until there was a large pool
all round her, about four inches deep and reaching half down the
hall.

  After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the
distance, and she hastily dried her eyes to see what was coming.
It was the White Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a
pair of white kid gloves in one hand and a large fan in the
other:  he came trotting along in a great hurry, muttering to
himself as he came, `Oh! the Duchess, the Duchess! Oh! won't she
be savage if I've kept her waiting!'  Alice felt so desperate
that she was ready to ask help of any one; so, when the Rabbit
came near her, she began, in a low, timid voice, `If you please,
sir--'  The Rabbit started violently, dropped the white kid
gloves and the fan, and skurried away into the darkness as hard
as he could go.

  Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very
hot, she kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking:
`Dear, dear!  How queer everything is to-day!  And yesterday
things went on just as usual.  I wonder if I've been changed in
the night?  Let me think:  was I the same when I got up this
morning?  I almost think I can remember feeling a little
different.  But if I'm not the same, the next question is, Who in
the world am I?  Ah, THAT'S the great puzzle!'  And she began
thinking over all the children she knew that were of the same age
as herself, to see if she could have been changed for any of
them.

  `I'm sure I'm not Ada,' she said, `for her hair goes in such
long ringlets, and mine doesn't go in ringlets at all; and I'm
sure I can't be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she,
oh! she knows such a very little!  Besides, SHE'S she, and I'm I,
and--oh dear, how puzzling it all is!  I'll try if I know all the
things I used to know.  Let me see:  four times five is twelve,
and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is--oh dear!
I shall never get to twenty at that rate!  However, the
Multiplication Table doesn't signify:  let's try Geography.
London is the capital of Paris, and Paris is the capital of Rome,
and Rome--no, THAT'S all wrong, I'm certain!  I must have been
changed for Mabel!  I'll try and say "How doth the little--"'
and she crossed her hands on her lap as if she were saying lessons,
and began to repeat it, but her voice sounded hoarse and
strange, and the words did not come the same as they used to do:--

            `How doth the little crocodile
              Improve his shining tail,
            And pour the waters of the Nile
              On every golden scale!

            `How cheerfully he seems to grin,
              How neatly spread his claws,
            And welcome little fishes in
              With gently smiling jaws!'

  `I'm sure those are not the right words,' said poor Alice, and
her eyes filled with tears again as she went on, `I must be Mabel
after all, and I shall have to go and live in that poky little
house, and have next to no toys to play with, and oh! ever so
many lessons to learn!  No, I've made up my mind about it; if I'm
Mabel, I'll stay down here!  It'll be no use their putting their
heads down and saying "Come up again, dear!"  I shall only look
up and say "Who am I then?  Tell me that first, and then, if I
like being that person, I'll come up:  if not, I'll stay down
here till I'm somebody else"--but, oh dear!' cried Alice, with a
sudden burst of tears, `I do wish they WOULD put their heads
down!  I am so VERY tired of being all alone here!'

  As she said this she looked down at her hands, and was
surprised to see that she had put on one of the Rabbit's little
white kid gloves while she was talking.  `How CAN I have done
that?' she thought.  `I must be growing small again.'  She got up
and went to the table to measure herself by it, and found that,
as nearly as she could guess, she was now about two feet high,
and was going on shrinking rapidly:  she soon found out that the
cause of this was the fan she was holding, and she dropped it
hastily, just in time to avoid shrinking away altogether.

`That WAS a narrow escape!' said Alice, a good deal frightened at
the sudden change, but very glad to find herself still in
existence; `and now for the garden!' and she ran with all speed
back to the little door:  but, alas! the little door was shut
again, and the little golden key was lying on the glass table as
before, `and things are worse than ever,' thought the poor child,
`for I never was so small as this before, never!  And I declare
it's too bad, that it is!'

  As she said these words her foot slipped, and in another
moment, splash! she was up to her chin in salt water.  Her first
idea was that she had somehow fallen into the sea, `and in that
case I can go back by railway,' she said to herself.  (Alice had
been to the seaside once in her life, and had come to the general
conclusion, that wherever you go to on the English coast you find
a number of bathing machines in the sea, some children digging in
the sand with wooden spades, then a row of lodging houses, and
behind them a railway station.)  However, she soon made out that
she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when she was nine
feet high.

  `I wish I hadn't cried so much!' said Alice, as she swam about,
trying to find her way out.  `I shall be punished for it now, I
suppose, by being drowned in my own tears!  That WILL be a queer
thing, to be sure!  However, everything is queer to-day.'

  Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a
little way off, and she swam nearer to make out what it was:  at
first she thought it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, but then
she remembered how small she was now, and she soon made out that
it was only a mouse that had slipped in like herself.

  `Would it be of any use, now,' thought Alice, `to speak to this
mouse?  Everything is so out-of-the-way down here, that I should
think very likely it can talk:  at any rate, there's no harm in
trying.'  So she began:  `O Mouse, do you know the way out of
this pool?  I am very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse!'
(Alice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a mouse:
she had never done such a thing before, but she remembered having
seen in her brother's Latin Grammar, `A mouse--of a mouse--to a
mouse--a mouse--O mouse!')  The Mouse looked at her rather
inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one of its little
eyes, but it said nothing.

  `Perhaps it doesn't understand English,' thought Alice; `I
daresay it's a French mouse, come over with William the
Conqueror.'  (For, with all her knowledge of history, Alice had
no very clear notion how long ago anything had happened.)  So she
began again:  `Ou est ma chatte?' which was the first sentence in
her French lesson-book.  The Mouse gave a sudden leap out of the
water, and seemed to quiver all over with fright.  `Oh, I beg
your pardon!' cried Alice hastily, afraid that she had hurt the
poor animal's feelings.  `I quite forgot you didn't like cats.'

  `Not like cats!' cried the Mouse, in a shrill, passionate
voice.  `Would YOU like cats if you were me?'

  `Well, perhaps not,' said Alice in a soothing tone:  `don't be
angry about it.  And yet I wish I could show you our cat Dinah:
I think you'd take a fancy to cats if you could only see her.
She is such a dear quiet thing,' Alice went on, half to herself,
as she swam lazily about in the pool, `and she sits purring so
nicely by the fire, licking her paws and washing her face--and
she is such a nice soft thing to nurse--and she's such a capital
one for catching mice--oh, I beg your pardon!' cried Alice again,
for this time the Mouse was bristling all over, and she felt
certain it must be really offended.  `We won't talk about her any
more if you'd rather not.'

  `We indeed!' cried the Mouse, who was trembling down to the end
of his tail.  `As if I would talk on such a subject!  Our family
always HATED cats:  nasty, low, vulgar things!  Don't let me hear
the name again!'

  `I won't indeed!' said Alice, in a great hurry to change the
subject of conversation.  `Are you--are you fond--of--of dogs?'
The Mouse did not answer, so Alice went on eagerly:  `There is
such a nice little dog near our house I should like to show you!
A little bright-eyed terrier, you know, with oh, such long curly
brown hair!  And it'll fetch things when you throw them, and
it'll sit up and beg for its dinner, and all sorts of things--I
can't remember half of them--and it belongs to a farmer, you
know, and he says it's so useful, it's worth a hundred pounds!
He says it kills all the rats and--oh dear!' cried Alice in a
sorrowful tone, `I'm afraid I've offended it again!'  For the
Mouse was swimming away from her as hard as it could go, and
making quite a commotion in the pool as it went.

  So she called softly after it, `Mouse dear!  Do come back
again, and we won't talk about cats or dogs either, if you don't
like them!'  When the Mouse heard this, it turned round and swam
slowly back to her:  its face was quite pale (with passion, Alice
thought), and it said in a low trembling voice, `Let us get to
the shore, and then I'll tell you my history, and you'll
understand why it is I hate cats and dogs.'

  It was high time to go, for the pool was getting quite crowded
with the birds and animals that had fallen into it:  there were a
Duck and a Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet, and several other curious
creatures.  Alice led the way, and the whole party swam to the
shore.



                           CHAPTER III

                  A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale


  They were indeed a queer-looking party that assembled on the
bank--the birds with draggled feathers, the animals with their
fur clinging close to them, and all dripping wet, cross, and
uncomfortable.

  The first question of course was, how to get dry again:  they
had a consultation about this, and after a few minutes it seemed
quite natural to Alice to find herself talking familiarly with
them, as if she had known them all her life.  Indeed, she had
quite a long argument with the Lory, who at last turned sulky,
and would only say, `I am older than you, and must know better';
and this Alice would not allow without knowing how old it was,
and, as the Lory positively refused to tell its age, there was no
more to be said.

  At last the Mouse, who seemed to be a person of authority among
them, called out, `Sit down, all of you, and listen to me!  I'LL
soon make you dry enough!'  They all sat down at once, in a large
ring, with the Mouse in the middle.  Alice kept her eyes
anxiously fixed on it, for she felt sure she would catch a bad
cold if she did not get dry very soon.

  `Ahem!' said the Mouse with an important air, `are you all ready?
This is the driest thing I know.  Silence all round, if you please!
"William the Conqueror, whose cause was favoured by the pope, was
soon submitted to by the English, who wanted leaders, and had been
of late much accustomed to usurpation and conquest.  Edwin and
Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria--"'

  `Ugh!' said the Lory, with a shiver.

  `I beg your pardon!' said the Mouse, frowning, but very
politely:  `Did you speak?'

  `Not I!' said the Lory hastily.

  `I thought you did,' said the Mouse.  `--I proceed.  "Edwin and
Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria, declared for him:
and even Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found
it advisable--"'

  `Found WHAT?' said the Duck.

  `Found IT,' the Mouse replied rather crossly:  `of course you
know what "it" means.'

  `I know what "it" means well enough, when I find a thing,' said
the Duck:  `it's generally a frog or a worm.  The question is,
what did the archbishop find?'

  The Mouse did not notice this question, but hurriedly went on,
`"--found it advisable to go with Edgar Atheling to meet William
and offer him the crown.  William's conduct at first was
moderate.  But the insolence of his Normans--"  How are you
getting on now, my dear?' it continued, turning to Alice as it
spoke.

  `As wet as ever,' said Alice in a melancholy tone:  `it doesn't
seem to dry me at all.'

  `In that case,' said the Dodo solemnly, rising to its feet, `I
move that the meeting adjourn, for the immediate adoption of more
energetic remedies--'

  `Speak English!' said the Eaglet.  `I don't know the meaning of
half those long words, and, what's more, I don't believe you do
either!'  And the Eaglet bent down its head to hide a smile:
some of the other birds tittered audibly.

  `What I was going to say,' said the Dodo in an offended tone,
`was, that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race.'

  `What IS a Caucus-race?' said Alice; not that she wanted much
to know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that SOMEBODY
ought to speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything.

  `Why,' said the Dodo, `the best way to explain it is to do it.'
(And, as you might like to try the thing yourself, some winter
day, I will tell you how the Dodo managed it.)

  First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (`the
exact shape doesn't matter,' it said,) and then all the party
were placed along the course, here and there.  There was no `One,
two, three, and away,' but they began running when they liked,
and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know
when the race was over.  However, when they had been running half
an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called
out `The race is over!' and they all crowded round it, panting,
and asking, `But who has won?'

  This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of
thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon
its forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare,
in the pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence.  At
last the Dodo said, `EVERYBODY has won, and all must have
prizes.'

  `But who is to give the prizes?' quite a chorus of voices
asked.

  `Why, SHE, of course,' said the Dodo, pointing to Alice with
one finger; and the whole party at once crowded round her,
calling out in a confused way, `Prizes! Prizes!'

  Alice had no idea what to do, and in despair she put her hand
in her pocket, and pulled out a box of comfits, (luckily the salt
water had not got into it), and handed them round as prizes.
There was exactly one a-piece all round.

  `But she must have a prize herself, you know,' said the Mouse.

  `Of course,' the Dodo replied very gravely.  `What else have
you got in your pocket?' he went on, turning to Alice.

  `Only a thimble,' said Alice sadly.

  `Hand it over here,' said the Dodo.

  Then they all crowded round her once more, while the Dodo
solemnly presented the thimble, saying `We beg your acceptance of
this elegant thimble'; and, when it had finished this short
speech, they all cheered.

  Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, but they all looked
so grave that she did not dare to laugh; and, as she could not
think of anything to say, she simply bowed, and took the thimble,
looking as solemn as she could.

  The next thing was to eat the comfits:  this caused some noise
and confusion, as the large birds complained that they could not
taste theirs, and the small ones choked and had to be patted on
the back.  However, it was over at last, and they sat down again
in a ring, and begged the Mouse to tell them something more.

  `You promised to tell me your history, you know,' said Alice,
`and why it is you hate--C and D,' she added in a whisper, half
afraid that it would be offended again.

  `Mine is a long and a sad tale!' said the Mouse, turning to
Alice, and sighing.

  `It IS a long tail, certainly,' said Alice, looking down with
wonder at the Mouse's tail; `but why do you call it sad?'  And
she kept on puzzling about it while the Mouse was speaking, so
that her idea of the tale was something like this:--

                    `Fury said to a
                   mouse, That he
                 met in the
               house,
            "Let us
              both go to
                law:  I will
                  prosecute
                    YOU.  --Come,
                       I'll take no
                        denial; We
                     must have a
                 trial:  For
              really this
           morning I've
          nothing
         to do."
           Said the
             mouse to the
               cur, "Such
                 a trial,
                   dear Sir,
                         With
                     no jury
                  or judge,
                would be
              wasting
             our
              breath."
               "I'll be
                 judge, I'll
                   be jury,"
                         Said
                    cunning
                      old Fury:
                     "I'll
                      try the
                         whole
                          cause,
                             and
                        condemn
                       you
                      to
                       death."'


  `You are not attending!' said the Mouse to Alice severely.
`What are you thinking of?'

  `I beg your pardon,' said Alice very humbly:  `you had got to
the fifth bend, I think?'

  `I had NOT!' cried the Mouse, sharply and very angrily.

  `A knot!' said Alice, always ready to make herself useful, and
looking anxiously about her.  `Oh, do let me help to undo it!'

  `I shall do nothing of the sort,' said the Mouse, getting up
and walking away.  `You insult me by talking such nonsense!'

  `I didn't mean it!' pleaded poor Alice.  `But you're so easily
offended, you know!'

  The Mouse only growled in reply.

  `Please come back and finish your story!' Alice called after
it; and the others all joined in chorus, `Yes, please do!' but
the Mouse only shook its head impatiently, and walked a little
quicker.

  `What a pity it wouldn't stay!' sighed the Lory, as soon as it
was quite out of sight; and an old Crab took the opportunity of
saying to her daughter `Ah, my dear!  Let this be a lesson to you
never to lose YOUR temper!'  `Hold your tongue, Ma!' said the
young Crab, a little snappishly.  `You're enough to try the
patience of an oyster!'

  `I wish I had our Dinah here, I know I do!' said Alice aloud,
addressing nobody in particular.  `She'd soon fetch it back!'

  `And who is Dinah, if I might venture to ask the question?'
said the Lory.

  Alice replied eagerly, for she was always ready to talk about
her pet:  `Dinah's our cat.  And she's such a capital one for
catching mice you can't think!  And oh, I wish you could see her
after the birds!  Why, she'll eat a little bird as soon as look
at it!'

  This speech caused a remarkable sensation among the party.
Some of the birds hurried off at once:  one old Magpie began
wrapping itself up very carefully, remarking, `I really must be
getting home; the night-air doesn't suit my throat!' and a Canary
called out in a trembling voice to its children, `Come away, my
dears!  It's high time you were all in bed!'  On various pretexts
they all moved off, and Alice was soon left alone.

  `I wish I hadn't mentioned Dinah!' she said to herself in a
melancholy tone.  `Nobody seems to like her, down here, and I'm
sure she's the best cat in the world!  Oh, my dear Dinah!  I
wonder if I shall ever see you any more!'  And here poor Alice
began to cry again, for she felt very lonely and low-spirited.
In a little while, however, she again heard a little pattering of
footsteps in the distance, and she looked up eagerly, half hoping
that the Mouse had changed his mind, and was coming back to
finish his story.



                           CHAPTER IV

                The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill


  It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back again, and
looking anxiously about as it went, as if it had lost something;
and she heard it muttering to itself `The Duchess!  The Duchess!
Oh my dear paws!  Oh my fur and whiskers!  She'll get me
executed, as sure as ferrets are ferrets!  Where CAN I have
dropped them, I wonder?'  Alice guessed in a moment that it was
looking for the fan and the pair of white kid gloves, and she
very good-naturedly began hunting about for them, but they were
nowhere to be seen--everything seemed to have changed since her
swim in the pool, and the great hall, with the glass table and
the little door, had vanished completely.

  Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice, as she went hunting about,
and called out to her in an angry tone, `Why, Mary Ann, what ARE
you doing out here?  Run home this moment, and fetch me a pair of
gloves and a fan!  Quick, now!'  And Alice was so much frightened
that she ran off at once in the direction it pointed to, without
trying to explain the mistake it had made.

  `He took me for his housemaid,' she said to herself as she ran.
`How surprised he'll be when he finds out who I am!  But I'd
better take him his fan and gloves--that is, if I can find them.'
As she said this, she came upon a neat little house, on the door
of which was a bright brass plate with the name `W. RABBIT'
engraved upon it.  She went in without knocking, and hurried
upstairs, in great fear lest she should meet the real Mary Ann,
and be turned out of the house before she had found the fan and
gloves.

  `How queer it seems,' Alice said to herself, `to be going
messages for a rabbit!  I suppose Dinah'll be sending me on
messages next!'  And she began fancying the sort of thing that
would happen:  `"Miss Alice!  Come here directly, and get ready
for your walk!" "Coming in a minute, nurse!  But I've got to see
that the mouse doesn't get out."  Only I don't think,' Alice went
on, `that they'd let Dinah stop in the house if it began ordering
people about like that!'

  By this time she had found her way into a tidy little room with
a table in the window, and on it (as she had hoped) a fan and two
or three pairs of tiny white kid gloves:  she took up the fan and
a pair of the gloves, and was just going to leave the room, when
her eye fell upon a little bottle that stood near the looking-
glass.  There was no label this time with the words `DRINK ME,'
but nevertheless she uncorked it and put it to her lips.  `I know
SOMETHING interesting is sure to happen,' she said to herself,
`whenever I eat or drink anything; so I'll just see what this
bottle does.  I do hope it'll make me grow large again, for
really I'm quite tired of being such a tiny little thing!'

  It did so indeed, and much sooner than she had expected:
before she had drunk half the bottle, she found her head pressing
against the ceiling, and had to stoop to save her neck from being
broken.  She hastily put down the bottle, saying to herself
`That's quite enough--I hope I shan't grow any more--As it is, I
can't get out at the door--I do wish I hadn't drunk quite so
much!'

  Alas! it was too late to wish that!  She went on growing, and
growing, and very soon had to kneel down on the floor:  in
another minute there was not even room for this, and she tried
the effect of lying down with one elbow against the door, and the
other arm curled round her head.  Still she went on growing, and,
as a last resource, she put one arm out of the window, and one
foot up the chimney, and said to herself `Now I can do no more,
whatever happens.  What WILL become of me?'

  Luckily for Alice, the little magic bottle had now had its full
effect, and she grew no larger:  still it was very uncomfortable,
and, as there seemed to be no sort of chance of her ever getting
out of the room again, no wonder she felt unhappy.

  `It was much pleasanter at home,' thought poor Alice, `when one
wasn't always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about
by mice and rabbits.  I almost wish I hadn't gone down that
rabbit-hole--and yet--and yet--it's rather curious, you know,
this sort of life!  I do wonder what CAN have happened to me!
When I used to read fairy-tales, I fancied that kind of thing
never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one!  There
ought to be a book written about me, that there ought!  And when
I grow up, I'll write one--but I'm grown up now,' she added in a
sorrowful tone; `at least there's no room to grow up any more
HERE.'

  `But then,' thought Alice, `shall I NEVER get any older than I
am now?  That'll be a comfort, one way--never to be an old woman--
but then--always to have lessons to learn!  Oh, I shouldn't like THAT!'

  `Oh, you foolish Alice!' she answered herself.  `How can you
learn lessons in here?  Why, there's hardly room for YOU, and no
room at all for any lesson-books!'

  And so she went on, taking first one side and then the other,
and making quite a conversation of it altogether; but after a few
minutes she heard a voice outside, and stopped to listen.

  `Mary Ann!  Mary Ann!' said the voice.  `Fetch me my gloves
this moment!'  Then came a little pattering of feet on the
stairs.  Alice knew it was the Rabbit coming to look for her, and
she trembled till she shook the house, quite forgetting that she
was now about a thousand times as large as the Rabbit, and had no
reason to be afraid of it.

  Presently the Rabbit came up to the door, and tried to open it;
but, as the door opened inwards, and Alice's elbow was pressed
hard against it, that attempt proved a failure.  Alice heard it
say to itself `Then I'll go round and get in at the window.'

  `THAT you won't' thought Alice, and, after waiting till she
fancied she heard the Rabbit just under the window, she suddenly
spread out her hand, and made a snatch in the air.  She did not
get hold of anything, but she heard a little shriek and a fall,
and a crash of broken glass, from which she concluded that it was
just possible it had fallen into a cucumber-frame, or something
of the sort.

  Next came an angry voice--the Rabbit's--`Pat! Pat!  Where are
you?'  And then a voice she had never heard before, `Sure then
I'm here!  Digging for apples, yer honour!'

  `Digging for apples, indeed!' said the Rabbit angrily.  `Here!
Come and help me out of THIS!'  (Sounds of more broken glass.)

  `Now tell me, Pat, what's that in the window?'

  `Sure, it's an arm, yer honour!'  (He pronounced it `arrum.')

  `An arm, you goose!   Who ever saw one that size?  Why, it
fills the whole window!'

  `Sure, it does, yer honour:  but it's an arm for all that.'

  `Well, it's got no business there, at any rate:  go and take it
away!'

  There was a long silence after this, and Alice could only hear
whispers now and then; such as, `Sure, I don't like it, yer
honour, at all, at all!'  `Do as I tell you, you coward!' and at
last she spread out her hand again, and made another snatch in
the air.  This time there were TWO little shrieks, and more
sounds of broken glass.  `What a number of cucumber-frames there
must be!' thought Alice.  `I wonder what they'll do next!  As for
pulling me out of the window, I only wish they COULD!  I'm sure I
don't want to stay in here any longer!'

  She waited for some time without hearing anything more:  at
last came a rumbling of little cartwheels, and the sound of a
good many voices all talking together:  she made out the words:
`Where's the other ladder?--Why, I hadn't to bring but one;
Bill's got the other--Bill! fetch it here, lad!--Here, put 'em up
at this corner--No, tie 'em together first--they don't reach half
high enough yet--Oh! they'll do well enough; don't be particular--
Here, Bill! catch hold of this rope--Will the roof bear?--Mind
that loose slate--Oh, it's coming down!  Heads below!' (a loud
crash)--`Now, who did that?--It was Bill, I fancy--Who's to go
down the chimney?--Nay, I shan't! YOU do it!--That I won't,
then!--Bill's to go down--Here, Bill! the master says you're to
go down the chimney!'

  `Oh! So Bill's got to come down the chimney, has he?' said
Alice to herself.  `Shy, they seem to put everything upon Bill!
I wouldn't be in Bill's place for a good deal:  this fireplace is
narrow, to be sure; but I THINK I can kick a little!'

  She drew her foot as far down the chimney as she could, and
waited till she heard a little animal (she couldn't guess of what
sort it was) scratching and scrambling about in the chimney close
above her:  then, saying to herself `This is Bill,' she gave one
sharp kick, and waited to see what would happen next.

  The first thing she heard was a general chorus of `There goes
Bill!' then the Rabbit's voice along--`Catch him, you by the
hedge!' then silence, and then another confusion of voices--`Hold
up his head--Brandy now--Don't choke him--How was it, old fellow?
What happened to you?  Tell us all about it!'

  Last came a little feeble, squeaking voice, (`That's Bill,'
thought Alice,) `Well, I hardly know--No more, thank ye; I'm
better now--but I'm a deal too flustered to tell you--all I know
is, something comes at me like a Jack-in-the-box, and up I goes
like a sky-rocket!'

  `So you did, old fellow!' said the others.

  `We must burn the house down!' said the Rabbit's voice; and
Alice called out as loud as she could, `If you do.  I'll set
Dinah at you!'

  There was a dead silence instantly, and Alice thought to
herself, `I wonder what they WILL do next!  If they had any
sense, they'd take the roof off.'  After a minute or two, they
began moving about again, and Alice heard the Rabbit say, `A
barrowful will do, to begin with.'

  `A barrowful of WHAT?' thought Alice; but she had not long to
doubt, for the next moment a shower of little pebbles came
rattling in at the window, and some of them hit her in the face.
`I'll put a stop to this,' she said to herself, and shouted out,
`You'd better not do that again!' which produced another dead
silence.

  Alice noticed with some surprise that the pebbles were all
turning into little cakes as they lay on the floor, and a bright
idea came into her head.  `If I eat one of these cakes,' she
thought, `it's sure to make SOME change in my size; and as it
can't possibly make me larger, it must make me smaller, I
suppose.'

  So she swallowed one of the cakes, and was delighted to find
that she began shrinking directly.  As soon as she was small
enough to get through the door, she ran out of the house, and
found quite a crowd of little animals and birds waiting outside.
The poor little Lizard, Bill, was in the middle, being held up by
two guinea-pigs, who were giving it something out of a bottle.
They all made a rush at Alice the moment she appeared; but she
ran off as hard as she could, and soon found herself safe in a
thick wood.

  `The first thing I've got to do,' said Alice to herself, as she
wandered about in the wood, `is to grow to my right size again;
and the second thing is to find my way into that lovely garden.
I think that will be the best plan.'

  It sounded an excellent plan, no doubt, and very neatly and
simply arranged; the only difficulty was, that she had not the
smallest idea how to set about it; and while she was peering
about anxiously among the trees, a little sharp bark just over
her head made her look up in a great hurry.

  An enormous puppy was looking down at her with large round
eyes, and feebly stretching out one paw, trying to touch her.
`Poor little thing!' said Alice, in a coaxing tone, and she tried
hard to whistle to it; but she was terribly frightened all the
time at the thought that it might be hungry, in which case it
would be very likely to eat her up in spite of all her coaxing.

  Hardly knowing what she did, she picked up a little bit of
stick, and held it out to the puppy; whereupon the puppy jumped
into the air off all its feet at once, with a yelp of delight,
and rushed at the stick, and made believe to worry it; then Alice
dodged behind a great thistle, to keep herself from being run
over; and the moment she appeared on the other side, the puppy
made another rush at the stick, and tumbled head over heels in
its hurry to get hold of it; then Alice, thinking it was very
like having a game of play with a cart-horse, and expecting every
moment to be trampled under its feet, ran round the thistle
again; then the puppy began a series of short charges at the
stick, running a very little way forwards each time and a long
way back, and barking hoarsely all the while, till at last it sat
down a good way off, panting, with its tongue hanging out of its
mouth, and its great eyes half shut.

  This seemed to Alice a good opportunity for making her escape;
so she set off at once, and ran till she was quite tired and out
of breath, and till the puppy's bark sounded quite faint in the
distance.

  `And yet what a dear little puppy it was!' said Alice, as she
leant against a buttercup to rest herself, and fanned herself
with one of the leaves:  `I should have liked teaching it tricks
very much, if--if I'd only been the right size to do it!  Oh
dear!  I'd nearly forgotten that I've got to grow up again!  Let
me see--how IS it to be managed?  I suppose I ought to eat or
drink something or other; but the great question is, what?'

  The great question certainly was, what?  Alice looked all round
her at the flowers and the blades of grass, but she did not see
anything that looked like the right thing to eat or drink under
the circumstances.  There was a large mushroom growing near her,
about the same height as herself; and when she had looked under
it, and on both sides of it, and behind it, it occurred to her
that she might as well look and see what was on the top of it.

  She stretched herself up on tiptoe, and peeped over the edge of
the mushroom, and her eyes immediately met those of a large
caterpillar, that was sitting on the top with its arms folded,
quietly smoking a long hookah, and taking not the smallest notice
of her or of anything else.



                            CHAPTER V

                    Advice from a Caterpillar


  The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in
silence:  at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its
mouth, and addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice.

  `Who are YOU?' said the Caterpillar.

  This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation.  Alice
replied, rather shyly, `I--I hardly know, sir, just at present--
at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think
I must have been changed several times since then.'

  `What do you mean by that?' said the Caterpillar sternly.
`Explain yourself!'

  `I can't explain MYSELF, I'm afraid, sir' said Alice, `because
I'm not myself, you see.'

  `I don't see,' said the Caterpillar.

  `I'm afraid I can't put it more clearly,' Alice replied very
politely, `for I can't understand it myself to begin with; and
being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.'

  `It isn't,' said the Caterpillar.

  `Well, perhaps you haven't found it so yet,' said Alice; `but
when you have to turn into a chrysalis--you will some day, you
know--and then after that into a butterfly, I should think you'll
feel it a little queer, won't you?'

  `Not a bit,' said the Caterpillar.

  `Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,' said Alice;
`all I know is, it would feel very queer to ME.'

  `You!' said the Caterpillar contemptuously.  `Who are YOU?'

  Which brought them back again to the beginning of the
conversation.  Alice felt a little irritated at the Caterpillar's
making such VERY short remarks, and she drew herself up and said,
very gravely, `I think, you ought to tell me who YOU are, first.'

  `Why?' said the Caterpillar.

  Here was another puzzling question; and as Alice could not
think of any good reason, and as the Caterpillar seemed to be in
a VERY unpleasant state of mind, she turned away.

  `Come back!' the Caterpillar called after her.  `I've something
important to say!'

  This sounded promising, certainly:  Alice turned and came back
again.

  `Keep your temper,' said the Caterpillar.

  `Is that all?' said Alice, swallowing down her anger as well as
she could.

  `No,' said the Caterpillar.

  Alice thought she might as well wait, as she had nothing else
to do, and perhaps after all it might tell her something worth
hearing.  For some minutes it puffed away without speaking, but
at last it unfolded its arms, took the hookah out of its mouth
again, and said, `So you think you're changed, do you?'

  `I'm afraid I am, sir,' said Alice; `I can't remember things as
I used--and I don't keep the same size for ten minutes together!'

  `Can't remember WHAT things?' said the Caterpillar.

  `Well, I've tried to say "HOW DOTH THE LITTLE BUSY BEE," but it
all came different!' Alice replied in a very melancholy voice.

  `Repeat, "YOU ARE OLD, FATHER WILLIAM,"' said the Caterpillar.

  Alice folded her hands, and began:--

    `You are old, Father William,' the young man said,
      `And your hair has become very white;
    And yet you incessantly stand on your head--
      Do you think, at your age, it is right?'

    `In my youth,' Father William replied to his son,
      `I feared it might injure the brain;
    But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
      Why, I do it again and again.'

    `You are old,' said the youth, `as I mentioned before,
      And have grown most uncommonly fat;
    Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door--
      Pray, what is the reason of that?'

    `In my youth,' said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
      `I kept all my limbs very supple
    By the use of this ointment--one shilling the box--
      Allow me to sell you a couple?'

    `You are old,' said the youth, `and your jaws are too weak
      For anything tougher than suet;
    Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak--
      Pray how did you manage to do it?'

    `In my youth,' said his father, `I took to the law,
      And argued each case with my wife;
    And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
      Has lasted the rest of my life.'

    `You are old,' said the youth, `one would hardly suppose
      That your eye was as steady as ever;
    Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose--
      What made you so awfully clever?'

    `I have answered three questions, and that is enough,'
      Said his father; `don't give yourself airs!
    Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
      Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!'


  `That is not said right,' said the Caterpillar.

  `Not QUITE right, I'm afraid,' said Alice, timidly; `some of the
words have got altered.'

  `It is wrong from beginning to end,' said the Caterpillar
decidedly, and there was silence for some minutes.

  The Caterpillar was the first to speak.

  `What size do you want to be?' it asked.

  `Oh, I'm not particular as to size,' Alice hastily replied;
`only one doesn't like changing so often, you know.'

  `I DON'T know,' said the Caterpillar.

  Alice said nothing:  she had never been so much contradicted in
her life before, and she felt that she was losing her temper.

  `Are you content now?' said the Caterpillar.

  `Well, I should like to be a LITTLE larger, sir, if you
wouldn't mind,' said Alice:  `three inches is such a wretched
height to be.'

  `It is a very good height indeed!' said the Caterpillar
angrily, rearing itself upright as it spoke (it was exactly three
inches high).

  `But I'm not used to it!' pleaded poor Alice in a piteous tone.
And she thought of herself, `I wish the creatures wouldn't be so
easily offended!'

  `You'll get used to it in time,' said the Caterpillar; and it
put the hookah into its mouth and began smoking again.

  This time Alice waited patiently until it chose to speak again.
In a minute or two the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its
mouth and yawned once or twice, and shook itself.  Then it got
down off the mushroom, and crawled away in the grass, merely
remarking as it went, `One side will make you grow taller, and
the other side will make you grow shorter.'

  `One side of WHAT?  The other side of WHAT?' thought Alice to
herself.

  `Of the mushroom,' said the Caterpillar, just as if she had
asked it aloud; and in another moment it was out of sight.

  Alice remained looking thoughtfully at the mushroom for a
minute, trying to make out which were the two sides of it; and as
it was perfectly round, she found this a very difficult question.
However, at last she stretched her arms round it as far as they
would go, and broke off a bit of the edge with each hand.

  `And now which is which?' she said to herself, and nibbled a
little of the right-hand bit to try the effect:  the next moment
she felt a violent blow underneath her chin:  it had struck her
foot!

  She was a good deal frightened by this very sudden change, but
she felt that there was no time to be lost, as she was shrinking
rapidly; so she set to work at once to eat some of the other bit.
Her chin was pressed so closely against her foot, that there was
hardly room to open her mouth; but she did it at last, and
managed to swallow a morsel of the lefthand bit.


     *       *       *       *       *       *       *

         *       *       *       *       *       *

     *       *       *       *       *       *       *

  `Come, my head's free at last!' said Alice in a tone of
delight, which changed into alarm in another moment, when she
found that her shoulders were nowhere to be found:  all she could
see, when she looked down, was an immense length of neck, which
seemed to rise like a stalk out of a sea of green leaves that lay
far below her.

  `What CAN all that green stuff be?' said Alice.  `And where
HAVE my shoulders got to?  And oh, my poor hands, how is it I
can't see you?'  She was moving them about as she spoke, but no
result seemed to follow, except a little shaking among the
distant green leaves.

  As there seemed to be no chance of getting her hands up to her
head, she tried to get her head down to them, and was delighted
to find that her neck would bend about easily in any direction,
like a serpent.  She had just succeeded in curving it down into a
graceful zigzag, and was going to dive in among the leaves, which
she found to be nothing but the tops of the trees under which she
had been wandering, when a sharp hiss made her draw back in a
hurry:  a large pigeon had flown into her face, and was beating
her violently with its wings.

  `Serpent!' screamed the Pigeon.

  `I'm NOT a serpent!' said Alice indignantly.  `Let me alone!'

  `Serpent, I say again!' repeated the Pigeon, but in a more
subdued tone, and added with a kind of sob, `I've tried every
way, and nothing seems to suit them!'

  `I haven't the least idea what you're talking about,' said
Alice.

  `I've tried the roots of trees, and I've tried banks, and I've
tried hedges,' the Pigeon went on, without attending to her; `but
those serpents!  There's no pleasing them!'

  Alice was more and more puzzled, but she thought there was no
use in saying anything more till the Pigeon had finished.

  `As if it wasn't trouble enough hatching the eggs,' said the
Pigeon; `but I must be on the look-out for serpents night and
day!  Why, I haven't had a wink of sleep these three weeks!'

  `I'm very sorry you've been annoyed,' said Alice, who was
beginning to see its meaning.

  `And just as I'd taken the highest tree in the wood,' continued
the Pigeon, raising its voice to a shriek, `and just as I was
thinking I should be free of them at last, they must needs come
wriggling down from the sky!  Ugh, Serpent!'

  `But I'm NOT a serpent, I tell you!' said Alice.  `I'm a--I'm
a--'

  `Well!  WHAT are you?' said the Pigeon.  `I can see you're
trying to invent something!'

  `I--I'm a little girl,' said Alice, rather doubtfully, as she
remembered the number of changes she had gone through that day.

  `A likely story indeed!' said the Pigeon in a tone of the
deepest contempt.  `I've seen a good many little girls in my
time, but never ONE with such a neck as that!  No, no!  You're a
serpent; and there's no use denying it.  I suppose you'll be
telling me next that you never tasted an egg!'

  `I HAVE tasted eggs, certainly,' said Alice, who was a very
truthful child; `but little girls eat eggs quite as much as
serpents do, you know.'

  `I don't believe it,' said the Pigeon; `but if they do, why
then they're a kind of serpent, that's all I can say.'

  This was such a new idea to Alice, that she was quite silent
for a minute or two, which gave the Pigeon the opportunity of
adding, `You're looking for eggs, I know THAT well enough; and
what does it matter to me whether you're a little girl or a
serpent?'

  `It matters a good deal to ME,' said Alice hastily; `but I'm
not looking for eggs, as it happens; and if I was, I shouldn't
want YOURS:  I don't like them raw.'

  `Well, be off, then!' said the Pigeon in a sulky tone, as it
settled down again into its nest.  Alice crouched down among the
trees as well as she could, for her neck kept getting entangled
among the branches, and every now and then she had to stop and
untwist it.  After a while she remembered that she still held the
pieces of mushroom in her hands, and she set to work very
carefully, nibbling first at one and then at the other, and
growing sometimes taller and sometimes shorter, until she had
succeeded in bringing herself down to her usual height.

  It was so long since she had been anything near the right size,
that it felt quite strange at first; but she got used to it in a
few minutes, and began talking to herself, as usual.  `Come,
there's half my plan done now!  How puzzling all these changes
are!  I'm never sure what I'm going to be, from one minute to
another!  However, I've got back to my right size:  the next
thing is, to get into that beautiful garden--how IS that to be
done, I wonder?'  As she said this, she came suddenly upon an
open place, with a little house in it about four feet high.
`Whoever lives there,' thought Alice, `it'll never do to come
upon them THIS size:  why, I should frighten them out of their
wits!'  So she began nibbling at the righthand bit again, and did
not venture to go near the house till she had brought herself
down to nine inches high.



                           CHAPTER VI

                         Pig and Pepper


  For a minute or two she stood looking at the house, and
wondering what to do next, when suddenly a footman in livery came
running out of the wood--(she considered him to be a footman
because he was in livery:  otherwise, judging by his face only,
she would have called him a fish)--and rapped loudly at the door
with his knuckles.  It was opened by another footman in livery,
with a round face, and large eyes like a frog; and both footmen,
Alice noticed, had powdered hair that curled all over their
heads.  She felt very curious to know what it was all about, and
crept a little way out of the wood to listen.

  The Fish-Footman began by producing from under his arm a great
letter, nearly as large as himself, and this he handed over to
the other, saying, in a solemn tone, `For the Duchess.  An
invitation from the Queen to play croquet.'  The Frog-Footman
repeated, in the same solemn tone, only changing the order of the
words a little, `From the Queen.  An invitation for the Duchess
to play croquet.'

  Then they both bowed low, and their curls got entangled
together.

  Alice laughed so much at this, that she had to run back into
the wood for fear of their hearing her; and when she next peeped
out the Fish-Footman was gone, and the other was sitting on the
ground near the door, staring stupidly up into the sky.

  Alice went timidly up to the door, and knocked.

  `There's no sort of use in knocking,' said the Footman, `and
that for two reasons.  First, because I'm on the same side of the
door as you are; secondly, because they're making such a noise
inside, no one could possibly hear you.'  And certainly there was
a most extraordinary noise going on within--a constant howling
and sneezing, and every now and then a great crash, as if a dish
or kettle had been broken to pieces.

  `Please, then,' said Alice, `how am I to get in?'

  `There might be some sense in your knocking,' the Footman went
on without attending to her, `if we had the door between us.  For
instance, if you were INSIDE, you might knock, and I could let
you out, you know.'  He was looking up into the sky all the time
he was speaking, and this Alice thought decidedly uncivil.  `But
perhaps he can't help it,' she said to herself; `his eyes are so
VERY nearly at the top of his head.  But at any rate he might
answer questions.--How am I to get in?' she repeated, aloud.

  `I shall sit here,' the Footman remarked, `till tomorrow--'

  At this moment the door of the house opened, and a large plate
came skimming out, straight at the Footman's head:  it just
grazed his nose, and broke to pieces against one of the trees
behind him.

  `--or next day, maybe,' the Footman continued in the same tone,
exactly as if nothing had happened.

  `How am I to get in?' asked Alice again, in a louder tone.

  `ARE you to get in at all?' said the Footman.  `That's the
first question, you know.'

  It was, no doubt:  only Alice did not like to be told so.
`It's really dreadful,' she muttered to herself, `the way all the
creatures argue.  It's enough to drive one crazy!'

  The Footman seemed to think this a good opportunity for
repeating his remark, with variations.  `I shall sit here,' he
said, `on and off, for days and days.'

  `But what am I to do?' said Alice.

  `Anything you like,' said the Footman, and began whistling.

  `Oh, there's no use in talking to him,' said Alice desperately:
`he's perfectly idiotic!'  And she opened the door and went in.

  The door led right into a large kitchen, which was full of
smoke from one end to the other:  the Duchess was sitting on a
three-legged stool in the middle, nursing a baby; the cook was
leaning over the fire, stirring a large cauldron which seemed to
be full of soup.

  `There's certainly too much pepper in that soup!' Alice said to
herself, as well as she could for sneezing.

  There was certainly too much of it in the air.  Even the
Duchess sneezed occasionally; and as for the baby, it was
sneezing and howling alternately without a moment's pause.  The
only things in the kitchen that did not sneeze, were the cook,
and a large cat which was sitting on the hearth and grinning from
ear to ear.

  `Please would you tell me,' said Alice, a little timidly, for
she was not quite sure whether it was good manners for her to
speak first, `why your cat grins like that?'

  `It's a Cheshire cat,' said the Duchess, `and that's why.  Pig!'

  She said the last word with such sudden violence that Alice
quite jumped; but she saw in another moment that it was addressed
to the baby, and not to her, so she took courage, and went on
again:--

  `I didn't know that Cheshire cats always grinned; in fact, I
didn't know that cats COULD grin.'

  `They all can,' said the Duchess; `and most of 'em do.'

  `I don't know of any that do,' Alice said very politely,
feeling quite pleased to have got into a conversation.

  `You don't know much,' said the Duchess; `and that's a fact.'

  Alice did not at all like the tone of this remark, and thought
it would be as well to introduce some other subject of
conversation.  While she was trying to fix on one, the cook took
the cauldron of soup off the fire, and at once set to work
throwing everything within her reach at the Duchess and the baby
--the fire-irons came first; then followed a shower of saucepans,
plates, and dishes.  The Duchess took no notice of them even when
they hit her; and the baby was howling so much already, that it
was quite impossible to say whether the blows hurt it or not.

  `Oh, PLEASE mind what you're doing!' cried Alice, jumping up
and down in an agony of terror.  `Oh, there goes his PRECIOUS
nose'; as an unusually large saucepan flew close by it, and very
nearly carried it off.

  `If everybody minded their own business,' the Duchess said in a
hoarse growl, `the world would go round a deal faster than it
does.'

  `Which would NOT be an advantage,' said Alice, who felt very
glad to get an opportunity of showing off a little of her
knowledge.  `Just think of what work it would make with the day
and night!  You see the earth takes twenty-four hours to turn
round on its axis--'

  `Talking of axes,' said the Duchess, `chop off her head!'

  Alice glanced rather anxiously at the cook, to see if she meant
to take the hint; but the cook was busily stirring the soup, and
seemed not to be listening, so she went on again:  `Twenty-four
hours, I THINK; or is it twelve?  I--'

  `Oh, don't bother ME,' said the Duchess; `I never could abide
figures!'  And with that she began nursing her child again,
singing a sort of lullaby to it as she did so, and giving it a
violent shake at the end of every line:

        `Speak roughly to your little boy,
          And beat him when he sneezes:
        He only does it to annoy,
          Because he knows it teases.'

                    CHORUS.

    (In which the cook and the baby joined):--

                `Wow! wow! wow!'

  While the Duchess sang the second verse of the song, she kept
tossing the baby violently up and down, and the poor little thing
howled so, that Alice could hardly hear the words:--

        `I speak severely to my boy,
          I beat him when he sneezes;
        For he can thoroughly enjoy
          The pepper when he pleases!'

                    CHORUS.

                `Wow! wow! wow!'

  `Here! you may nurse it a bit, if you like!' the Duchess said
to Alice, flinging the baby at her as she spoke.  `I must go and
get ready to play croquet with the Queen,' and she hurried out of
the room.  The cook threw a frying-pan after her as she went out,
but it just missed her.

  Alice caught the baby with some difficulty, as it was a queer-
shaped little creature, and held out its arms and legs in all
directions, `just like a star-fish,' thought Alice.  The poor
little thing was snorting like a steam-engine when she caught it,
and kept doubling itself up and straightening itself out again,
so that altogether, for the first minute or two, it was as much
as she could do to hold it.

  As soon as she had made out the proper way of nursing it,
(which was to twist it up into a sort of knot, and then keep
tight hold of its right ear and left foot, so as to prevent its
undoing itself,) she carried it out into the open air.  `IF I
don't take this child away with me,' thought Alice, `they're sure
to kill it in a day or two:  wouldn't it be murder to leave it
behind?'  She said the last words out loud, and the little thing
grunted in reply (it had left off sneezing by this time).  `Don't
grunt,' said Alice; `that's not at all a proper way of expressing
yourself.'

  The baby grunted again, and Alice looked very anxiously into
its face to see what was the matter with it.  There could be no
doubt that it had a VERY turn-up nose, much more like a snout
than a real nose; also its eyes were getting extremely small for
a baby:  altogether Alice did not like the look of the thing at
all.  `But perhaps it was only sobbing,' she thought, and looked
into its eyes again, to see if there were any tears.

  No, there were no tears.  `If you're going to turn into a pig,
my dear,' said Alice, seriously, `I'll have nothing more to do
with you.  Mind now!'  The poor little thing sobbed again (or
grunted, it was impossible to say which), and they went on for
some while in silence.

  Alice was just beginning to think to herself, `Now, what am I
to do with this creature when I get it home?' when it grunted
again, so violently, that she looked down into its face in some
alarm.  This time there could be NO mistake about it:  it was
neither more nor less than a pig, and she felt that it would be
quite absurd for her to carry it further.

  So she set the little creature down, and felt quite relieved to
see it trot away quietly into the wood.  `If it had grown up,'
she said to herself, `it would have made a dreadfully ugly child:
but it makes rather a handsome pig, I think.'  And she began
thinking over other children she knew, who might do very well as
pigs, and was just saying to herself, `if one only knew the right
way to change them--' when she was a little startled by seeing
the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off.

  The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice.  It looked good-
natured, she thought:  still it had VERY long claws and a great
many teeth, so she felt that it ought to be treated with respect.

  `Cheshire Puss,' she began, rather timidly, as she did not at
all know whether it would like the name:  however, it only
grinned a little wider.  `Come, it's pleased so far,' thought
Alice, and she went on.  `Would you tell me, please, which way I
ought to go from here?'

  `That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said
the Cat.

  `I don't much care where--' said Alice.

  `Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.

  `--so long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice added as an explanation.

  `Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, `if you only walk
long enough.'

  Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another
question.  `What sort of people live about here?'

  `In THAT direction,' the Cat said, waving its right paw round,
`lives a Hatter:  and in THAT direction,' waving the other paw,
`lives a March Hare.  Visit either you like:  they're both mad.'

  `But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.

  `Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat:  `we're all mad here.
I'm mad.  You're mad.'

  `How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.

  `You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'

  Alice didn't think that proved it at all; however, she went on
`And how do you know that you're mad?'

  `To begin with,' said the Cat, `a dog's not mad.  You grant
that?'

  `I suppose so,' said Alice.

  `Well, then,' the Cat went on, `you see, a dog growls when it's
angry, and wags its tail when it's pleased.  Now I growl when I'm
pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry.  Therefore I'm mad.'

  `I call it purring, not growling,' said Alice.

  `Call it what you like,' said the Cat.  `Do you play croquet
with the Queen to-day?'

  `I should like it very much,' said Alice, `but I haven't been
invited yet.'

  `You'll see me there,' said the Cat, and vanished.

  Alice was not much surprised at this, she was getting so used
to queer things happening.  While she was looking at the place
where it had been, it suddenly appeared again.

  `By-the-bye, what became of the baby?' said the Cat.  `I'd
nearly forgotten to ask.'

  `It turned into a pig,' Alice quietly said, just as if it had
come back in a natural way.

  `I thought it would,' said the Cat, and vanished again.

  Alice waited a little, half expecting to see it again, but it
did not appear, and after a minute or two she walked on in the
direction in which the March Hare was said to live.  `I've seen
hatters before,' she said to herself; `the March Hare will be
much the most interesting, and perhaps as this is May it won't be
raving mad--at least not so mad as it was in March.'  As she said
this, she looked up, and there was the Cat again, sitting on a
branch of a tree.

  `Did you say pig, or fig?' said the Cat.

  `I said pig,' replied Alice; `and I wish you wouldn't keep
appearing and vanishing so suddenly:  you make one quite giddy.'

  `All right,' said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly,
beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin,
which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.

  `Well!  I've often seen a cat without a grin,' thought Alice;
`but a grin without a cat!  It's the most curious thing I ever
saw in my life!'

  She had not gone much farther before she came in sight of the
house of the March Hare:  she thought it must be the right house,
because the chimneys were shaped like ears and the roof was
thatched with fur.  It was so large a house, that she did not
like to go nearer till she had nibbled some more of the lefthand
bit of mushroom, and raised herself to about two feet high:  even
then she walked up towards it rather timidly, saying to herself
`Suppose it should be raving mad after all!  I almost wish I'd
gone to see the Hatter instead!'



                           CHAPTER VII

                         A Mad Tea-Party


  There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house,
and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it:  a
Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep, and the other two
were using it as a cushion, resting their elbows on it, and talking
over its head.  `Very uncomfortable for the Dormouse,' thought Alice;
`only, as it's asleep, I suppose it doesn't mind.'

  The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded
together at one corner of it:  `No room!  No room!' they cried
out when they saw Alice coming.  `There's PLENTY of room!' said
Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one
end of the table.

  `Have some wine,' the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.

  Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it
but tea.  `I don't see any wine,' she remarked.

  `There isn't any,' said the March Hare.

  `Then it wasn't very civil of you to offer it,' said Alice
angrily.

  `It wasn't very civil of you to sit down without being
invited,' said the March Hare.

  `I didn't know it was YOUR table,' said Alice; `it's laid for a
great many more than three.'

  `Your hair wants cutting,' said the Hatter.  He had been
looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was
his first speech.

  `You should learn not to make personal remarks,' Alice said
with some severity; `it's very rude.'

  The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all
he SAID was, `Why is a raven like a writing-desk?'

  `Come, we shall have some fun now!' thought Alice.  `I'm glad
they've begun asking riddles.--I believe I can guess that,' she
added aloud.

  `Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?'
said the March Hare.

  `Exactly so,' said Alice.

  `Then you should say what you mean,' the March Hare went on.

  `I do,' Alice hastily replied; `at least--at least I mean what
I say--that's the same thing, you know.'

  `Not the same thing a bit!' said the Hatter.  `You might just
as well say that "I see what I eat" is the same thing as "I eat
what I see"!'

  `You might just as well say,' added the March Hare, `that "I
like what I get" is the same thing as "I get what I like"!'

  `You might just as well say,' added the Dormouse, who seemed to
be talking in his sleep, `that "I breathe when I sleep" is the
same thing as "I sleep when I breathe"!'

  `It IS the same thing with you,' said the Hatter, and here the
conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute,
while Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and
writing-desks, which wasn't much.

  The Hatter was the first to break the silence.  `What day of
the month is it?' he said, turning to Alice:  he had taken his
watch out of his pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, shaking
it every now and then, and holding it to his ear.

  Alice considered a little, and then said `The fourth.'

  `Two days wrong!' sighed the Hatter.  `I told you butter
wouldn't suit the works!' he added looking angrily at the March
Hare.

  `It was the BEST butter,' the March Hare meekly replied.

  `Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well,' the Hatter
grumbled:  `you shouldn't have put it in with the bread-knife.'

  The March Hare took the watch and looked at it gloomily:  then
he dipped it into his cup of tea, and looked at it again:  but he
could think of nothing better to say than his first remark, `It
was the BEST butter, you know.'

  Alice had been looking over his shoulder with some curiosity.
`What a funny watch!' she remarked.  `It tells the day of the
month, and doesn't tell what o'clock it is!'

  `Why should it?' muttered the Hatter.  `Does YOUR watch tell
you what year it is?'

  `Of course not,' Alice replied very readily:  `but that's
because it stays the same year for such a long time together.'

  `Which is just the case with MINE,' said the Hatter.

  Alice felt dreadfully puzzled.  The Hatter's remark seemed to
have no sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English.
`I don't quite understand you,' she said, as politely as she
could.

  `The Dormouse is asleep again,' said the Hatter, and he poured
a little hot tea upon its nose.

  The Dormouse shook its head impatiently, and said, without
opening its eyes, `Of course, of course; just what I was going to
remark myself.'

  `Have you guessed the riddle yet?' the Hatter said, turning to
Alice again.

  `No, I give it up,' Alice replied:  `what's the answer?'

  `I haven't the slightest idea,' said the Hatter.

  `Nor I,' said the March Hare.

  Alice sighed wearily.  `I think you might do something better
with the time,' she said, `than waste it in asking riddles that
have no answers.'

  `If you knew Time as well as I do,' said the Hatter, `you
wouldn't talk about wasting IT.  It's HIM.'

  `I don't know what you mean,' said Alice.

  `Of course you don't!' the Hatter said, tossing his head
contemptuously.  `I dare say you never even spoke to Time!'

  `Perhaps not,' Alice cautiously replied:  `but I know I have to
beat time when I learn music.'

  `Ah! that accounts for it,' said the Hatter.  `He won't stand
beating.  Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he'd do
almost anything you liked with the clock.  For instance, suppose
it were nine o'clock in the morning, just time to begin lessons:
you'd only have to whisper a hint to Time, and round goes the
clock in a twinkling!  Half-past one, time for dinner!'

  (`I only wish it was,' the March Hare said to itself in a
whisper.)

  `That would be grand, certainly,' said Alice thoughtfully:
`but then--I shouldn't be hungry for it, you know.'

  `Not at first, perhaps,' said the Hatter:  `but you could keep
it to half-past one as long as you liked.'

  `Is that the way YOU manage?' Alice asked.

  The Hatter shook his head mournfully.  `Not I!' he replied.
`We quarrelled last March--just before HE went mad, you know--'
(pointing with his tea spoon at the March Hare,) `--it was at the
great concert given by the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing

            "Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
            How I wonder what you're at!"

You know the song, perhaps?'

  `I've heard something like it,' said Alice.

  `It goes on, you know,' the Hatter continued, `in this way:--

            "Up above the world you fly,
            Like a tea-tray in the sky.
                    Twinkle, twinkle--"'

Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing in its sleep
`Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle--' and went on so long that
they had to pinch it to make it stop.

  `Well, I'd hardly finished the first verse,' said the Hatter,
`when the Queen jumped up and bawled out, "He's murdering the
time!  Off with his head!"'

  `How dreadfully savage!' exclaimed Alice.

  `And ever since that,' the Hatter went on in a mournful tone,
`he won't do a thing I ask!  It's always six o'clock now.'

  A bright idea came into Alice's head.  `Is that the reason so
many tea-things are put out here?' she asked.

  `Yes, that's it,' said the Hatter with a sigh:  `it's always
tea-time, and we've no time to wash the things between whiles.'

  `Then you keep moving round, I suppose?' said Alice.

  `Exactly so,' said the Hatter:  `as the things get used up.'

  `But what happens when you come to the beginning again?' Alice
ventured to ask.

  `Suppose we change the subject,' the March Hare interrupted,
yawning.  `I'm getting tired of this.  I vote the young lady
tells us a story.'

  `I'm afraid I don't know one,' said Alice, rather alarmed at
the proposal.

  `Then the Dormouse shall!' they both cried.  `Wake up,
Dormouse!'  And they pinched it on both sides at once.

  The Dormouse slowly opened his eyes.  `I wasn't asleep,' he
said in a hoarse, feeble voice:  `I heard every word you fellows
were saying.'

  `Tell us a story!' said the March Hare.

  `Yes, please do!' pleaded Alice.

  `And be quick about it,' added the Hatter, `or you'll be asleep
again before it's done.'

  `Once upon a time there were three little sisters,' the
Dormouse began in a great hurry; `and their names were Elsie,
Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well--'

  `What did they live on?' said Alice, who always took a great
interest in questions of eating and drinking.

  `They lived on treacle,' said the Dormouse, after thinking a
minute or two.

  `They couldn't have done that, you know,' Alice gently
remarked; `they'd have been ill.'

  `So they were,' said the Dormouse; `VERY ill.'

  Alice tried to fancy to herself what such an extraordinary ways
of living would be like, but it puzzled her too much, so she went
on:  `But why did they live at the bottom of a well?'

  `Take some more tea,' the March Hare said to Alice, very
earnestly.

  `I've had nothing yet,' Alice replied in an offended tone, `so
I can't take more.'

  `You mean you can't take LESS,' said the Hatter:  `it's very
easy to take MORE than nothing.'

  `Nobody asked YOUR opinion,' said Alice.

  `Who's making personal remarks now?' the Hatter asked
triumphantly.

  Alice did not quite know what to say to this:  so she helped
herself to some tea and bread-and-butter, and then turned to the
Dormouse, and repeated her question.  `Why did they live at the
bottom of a well?'

  The Dormouse again took a minute or two to think about it, and
then said, `It was a treacle-well.'

  `There's no such thing!'  Alice was beginning very angrily, but
the Hatter and the March Hare went `Sh! sh!' and the Dormouse
sulkily remarked, `If you can't be civil, you'd better finish the
story for yourself.'

  `No, please go on!' Alice said very humbly; `I won't interrupt
again.  I dare say there may be ONE.'

  `One, indeed!' said the Dormouse indignantly.  However, he
consented to go on.  `And so these three little sisters--they
were learning to draw, you know--'

  `What did they draw?' said Alice, quite forgetting her promise.

  `Treacle,' said the Dormouse, without considering at all this
time.

  `I want a clean cup,' interrupted the Hatter:  `let's all move
one place on.'

  He moved on as he spoke, and the Dormouse followed him:  the
March Hare moved into the Dormouse's place, and Alice rather
unwillingly took the place of the March Hare.  The Hatter was the
only one who got any advantage from the change:  and Alice was a
good deal worse off than before, as the March Hare had just upset
the milk-jug into his plate.

  Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse again, so she began
very cautiously:  `But I don't understand.  Where did they draw
the treacle from?'

  `You can draw water out of a water-well,' said the Hatter; `so
I should think you could draw treacle out of a treacle-well--eh,
stupid?'

  `But they were IN the well,' Alice said to the Dormouse, not
choosing to notice this last remark.

  `Of course they were', said the Dormouse; `--well in.'

  This answer so confused poor Alice, that she let the Dormouse
go on for some time without interrupting it.

  `They were learning to draw,' the Dormouse went on, yawning and
rubbing its eyes, for it was getting very sleepy; `and they drew
all manner of things--everything that begins with an M--'

  `Why with an M?' said Alice.

  `Why not?' said the March Hare.

  Alice was silent.

  The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and was going
off into a doze; but, on being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up
again with a little shriek, and went on:  `--that begins with an
M, such as mouse-traps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness--
you know you say things are "much of a muchness"--did you ever
see such a thing as a drawing of a muchness?'

  `Really, now you ask me,' said Alice, very much confused, `I
don't think--'

  `Then you shouldn't talk,' said the Hatter.

  This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear:  she got
up in great disgust, and walked off; the Dormouse fell asleep
instantly, and neither of the others took the least notice of her
going, though she looked back once or twice, half hoping that
they would call after her:  the last time she saw them, they were
trying to put the Dormouse into the teapot.

  `At any rate I'll never go THERE again!' said Alice as she
picked her way through the wood.  `It's the stupidest tea-party I
ever was at in all my life!'

  Just as she said this, she noticed that one of the trees had a
door leading right into it.  `That's very curious!' she thought.
`But everything's curious today.  I think I may as well go in at once.'
And in she went.

  Once more she found herself in the long hall, and close to the
little glass table.  `Now, I'll manage better this time,'
she said to herself, and began by taking the little golden key,
and unlocking the door that led into the garden.  Then she went
to work nibbling at the mushroom (she had kept a piece of it
in her pocket) till she was about a foot high:  then she walked down
the little passage:  and THEN--she found herself at last in the
beautiful garden, among the bright flower-beds and the cool fountains.



                          CHAPTER VIII

                   The Queen's Croquet-Ground


  A large rose-tree stood near the entrance of the garden:  the
roses growing on it were white, but there were three gardeners at
it, busily painting them red.  Alice thought this a very curious
thing, and she went nearer to watch them, and just as she came up
to them she heard one of them say, `Look out now, Five!  Don't go
splashing paint over me like that!'

  `I couldn't help it,' said Five, in a sulky tone; `Seven jogged
my elbow.'

  On which Seven looked up and said, `That's right, Five!  Always
lay the blame on others!'

  `YOU'D better not talk!' said Five.  `I heard the Queen say only
yesterday you deserved to be beheaded!'

  `What for?' said the one who had spoken first.

  `That's none of YOUR business, Two!' said Seven.

  `Yes, it IS his business!' said Five, `and I'll tell him--it
was for bringing the cook tulip-roots instead of onions.'

  Seven flung down his brush, and had just begun `Well, of all
the unjust things--' when his eye chanced to fall upon Alice, as
she stood watching them, and he checked himself suddenly:  the
others looked round also, and all of them bowed low.

  `Would you tell me,' said Alice, a little timidly, `why you are
painting those roses?'

  Five and Seven said nothing, but looked at Two.  Two began in a
low voice, `Why the fact is, you see, Miss, this here ought to
have been a RED rose-tree, and we put a white one in by mistake;
and if the Queen was to find it out, we should all have our heads
cut off, you know.  So you see, Miss, we're doing our best, afore
she comes, to--'  At this moment Five, who had been anxiously
looking across the garden, called out `The Queen!  The Queen!'
and the three gardeners instantly threw themselves flat upon
their faces.  There was a sound of many footsteps, and Alice
looked round, eager to see the Queen.

  First came ten soldiers carrying clubs; these were all shaped
like the three gardeners, oblong and flat, with their hands and
feet at the corners:  next the ten courtiers; these were
ornamented all over with diamonds, and walked two and two, as the
soldiers did.  After these came the royal children; there were
ten of them, and the little dears came jumping merrily along hand
in hand, in couples:  they were all ornamented with hearts.  Next
came the guests, mostly Kings and Queens, and among them Alice
recognised the White Rabbit:  it was talking in a hurried nervous
manner, smiling at everything that was said, and went by without
noticing her.  Then followed the Knave of Hearts, carrying the
King's crown on a crimson velvet cushion; and, last of all this
grand procession, came THE KING AND QUEEN OF HEARTS.

  Alice was rather doubtful whether she ought not to lie down on
her face like the three gardeners, but she could not remember
ever having heard of such a rule at processions; `and besides,
what would be the use of a procession,' thought she, `if people
had all to lie down upon their faces, so that they couldn't see it?'
So she stood still where she was, and waited.

  When the procession came opposite to Alice, they all stopped
and looked at her, and the Queen said severely `Who is this?'
She said it to the Knave of Hearts, who only bowed and smiled in reply.

  `Idiot!' said the Queen, tossing her head impatiently; and,
turning to Alice, she went on, `What's your name, child?'

  `My name is Alice, so please your Majesty,' said Alice very
politely; but she added, to herself, `Why, they're only a pack of
cards, after all.  I needn't be afraid of them!'

  `And who are THESE?' said the Queen, pointing to the three
gardeners who were lying round the rosetree; for, you see, as
they were lying on their faces, and the pattern on their backs
was the same as the rest of the pack, she could not tell whether
they were gardeners, or soldiers, or courtiers, or three of her
own children.

  `How should I know?' said Alice, surprised at her own courage.
`It's no business of MINE.'

  The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her
for a moment like a wild beast, screamed `Off with her head!
Off--'

  `Nonsense!' said Alice, very loudly and decidedly, and the
Queen was silent.

  The King laid his hand upon her arm, and timidly said
`Consider, my dear:  she is only a child!'

  The Queen turned angrily away from him, and said to the Knave
`Turn them over!'

  The Knave did so, very carefully, with one foot.

  `Get up!' said the Queen, in a shrill, loud voice, and the
three gardeners instantly jumped up, and began bowing to the
King, the Queen, the royal children, and everybody else.

  `Leave off that!' screamed the Queen.  `You make me giddy.'
And then, turning to the rose-tree, she went on, `What HAVE you
been doing here?'

  `May it please your Majesty,' said Two, in a very humble tone,
going down on one knee as he spoke, `we were trying--'

  `I see!' said the Queen, who had meanwhile been examining the
roses.  `Off with their heads!' and the procession moved on,
three of the soldiers remaining behind to execute the unfortunate
gardeners, who ran to Alice for protection.

  `You shan't be beheaded!' said Alice, and she put them into a
large flower-pot that stood near.  The three soldiers wandered
about for a minute or two, looking for them, and then quietly
marched off after the others.

  `Are their heads off?' shouted the Queen.

  `Their heads are gone, if it please your Majesty!' the soldiers
shouted in reply.

  `That's right!' shouted the Queen.  `Can you play croquet?'

  The soldiers were silent, and looked at Alice, as the question
was evidently meant for her.

  `Yes!' shouted Alice.

  `Come on, then!' roared the Queen, and Alice joined the
procession, wondering very much what would happen next.

  `It's--it's a very fine day!' said a timid voice at her side.
She was walking by the White Rabbit, who was peeping anxiously
into her face.

  `Very,' said Alice:  `--where's the Duchess?'

  `Hush!  Hush!' said the Rabbit in a low, hurried tone.  He
looked anxiously over his shoulder as he spoke, and then raised
himself upon tiptoe, put his mouth close to her ear, and
whispered `She's under sentence of execution.'

  `What for?' said Alice.

  `Did you say "What a pity!"?' the Rabbit asked.

  `No, I didn't,' said Alice:  `I don't think it's at all a pity.
I said "What for?"'

  `She boxed the Queen's ears--' the Rabbit began.  Alice gave a
little scream of laughter.  `Oh, hush!' the Rabbit whispered in a
frightened tone.  `The Queen will hear you!  You see, she came
rather late, and the Queen said--'

  `Get to your places!' shouted the Queen in a voice of thunder,
and people began running about in all directions, tumbling up
against each other; however, they got settled down in a minute or
two, and the game began.  Alice thought she had never seen such a
curious croquet-ground in her life; it was all ridges and
furrows; the balls were live hedgehogs, the mallets live
flamingoes, and the soldiers had to double themselves up and to
stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches.

  The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her
flamingo:  she succeeded in getting its body tucked away,
comfortably enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging down,
but generally, just as she had got its neck nicely straightened
out, and was going to give the hedgehog a blow with its head, it
WOULD twist itself round and look up in her face, with such a
puzzled expression that she could not help bursting out laughing:
and when she had got its head down, and was going to begin again,
it was very provoking to find that the hedgehog had unrolled
itself, and was in the act of crawling away:  besides all this,
there was generally a ridge or furrow in the way wherever she
wanted to send the hedgehog to, and, as the doubled-up soldiers
were always getting up and walking off to other parts of the
ground, Alice soon came to the conclusion that it was a very
difficult game indeed.

  The players all played at once without waiting for turns,
quarrelling all the while, and fighting for the hedgehogs; and in
a very short time the Queen was in a furious passion, and went
stamping about, and shouting `Off with his head!' or `Off with
her head!' about once in a minute.

  Alice began to feel very uneasy:  to be sure, she had not as
yet had any dispute with the Queen, but she knew that it might
happen any minute, `and then,' thought she, `what would become of
me?  They're dreadfully fond of beheading people here; the great
wonder is, that there's any one left alive!'

  She was looking about for some way of escape, and wondering
whether she could get away without being seen, when she noticed a
curious appearance in the air:  it puzzled her very much at
first, but, after watching it a minute or two, she made it out to
be a grin, and she said to herself `It's the Cheshire Cat:  now I
shall have somebody to talk to.'

  `How are you getting on?' said the Cat, as soon as there was
mouth enough for it to speak with.

  Alice waited till the eyes appeared, and then nodded.  `It's no
use speaking to it,' she thought, `till its ears have come, or at
least one of them.'  In another minute the whole head appeared,
and then Alice put down her flamingo, and began an account of the
game, feeling very glad she had someone to listen to her.  The
Cat seemed to think that there was enough of it now in sight, and
no more of it appeared.

  `I don't think they play at all fairly,' Alice began, in rather
a complaining tone, `and they all quarrel so dreadfully one can't
hear oneself speak--and they don't seem to have any rules in
particular; at least, if there are, nobody attends to them--and
you've no idea how confusing it is all the things being alive;
for instance, there's the arch I've got to go through next
walking about at the other end of the ground--and I should have
croqueted the Queen's hedgehog just now, only it ran away when it
saw mine coming!'

  `How do you like the Queen?' said the Cat in a low voice.

  `Not at all,' said Alice:  `she's so extremely--'  Just then
she noticed that the Queen was close behind her, listening:  so
she went on, `--likely to win, that it's hardly worth while
finishing the game.'

  The Queen smiled and passed on.

  `Who ARE you talking to?' said the King, going up to Alice, and
looking at the Cat's head with great curiosity.

  `It's a friend of mine--a Cheshire Cat,' said Alice:  `allow me
to introduce it.'

  `I don't like the look of it at all,' said the King:
`however, it may kiss my hand if it likes.'

  `I'd rather not,' the Cat remarked.

  `Don't be impertinent,' said the King, `and don't look at me
like that!'  He got behind Alice as he spoke.

  `A cat may look at a king,' said Alice.  `I've read that in
some book, but I don't remember where.'

  `Well, it must be removed,' said the King very decidedly, and
he called the Queen, who was passing at the moment, `My dear!  I
wish you would have this cat removed!'

  The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great
or small.  `Off with his head!' she said, without even looking
round.

  `I'll fetch the executioner myself,' said the King eagerly, and
he hurried off.

  Alice thought she might as well go back, and see how the game
was going on, as she heard the Queen's voice in the distance,
screaming with passion.  She had already heard her sentence three
of the players to be executed for having missed their turns, and
she did not like the look of things at all, as the game was in
such confusion that she never knew whether it was her turn or
not.  So she went in search of her hedgehog.

  The hedgehog was engaged in a fight with another hedgehog,
which seemed to Alice an excellent opportunity for croqueting one
of them with the other:  the only difficulty was, that her
flamingo was gone across to the other side of the garden, where
Alice could see it trying in a helpless sort of way to fly up
into a tree.

  By the time she had caught the flamingo and brought it back,
the fight was over, and both the hedgehogs were out of sight:
`but it doesn't matter much,' thought Alice, `as all the arches
are gone from this side of the ground.'  So she tucked it away
under her arm, that it might not escape again, and went back for
a little more conversation with her friend.

  When she got back to the Cheshire Cat, she was surprised to
find quite a large crowd collected round it:  there was a dispute
going on between the executioner, the King, and the Queen, who
were all talking at once, while all the rest were quite silent,
and looked very uncomfortable.

  The moment Alice appeared, she was appealed to by all three to
settle the question, and they repeated their arguments to her,
though, as they all spoke at once, she found it very hard indeed
to make out exactly what they said.

  The executioner's argument was, that you couldn't cut off a
head unless there was a body to cut it off from:  that he had
never had to do such a thing before, and he wasn't going to begin
at HIS time of life.

  The King's argument was, that anything that had a head could be
beheaded, and that you weren't to talk nonsense.

  The Queen's argument was, that if something wasn't done about
it in less than no time she'd have everybody executed, all round.
(It was this last remark that had made the whole party look so
grave and anxious.)

  Alice could think of nothing else to say but `It belongs to the
Duchess:  you'd better ask HER about it.'

  `She's in prison,' the Queen said to the executioner:  `fetch
her here.'  And the executioner went off like an arrow.

   The Cat's head began fading away the moment he was gone, and,
by the time he had come back with the Duchess, it had entirely
disappeared; so the King and the executioner ran wildly up and down
looking for it, while the rest of the party went back to the game.



                           CHAPTER IX

                     The Mock Turtle's Story


  `You can't think how glad I am to see you again, you dear old
thing!' said the Duchess, as she tucked her arm affectionately
into Alice's, and they walked off together.

  Alice was very glad to find her in such a pleasant temper, and
thought to herself that perhaps it was only the pepper that had
made her so savage when they met in the kitchen.

  `When I'M a Duchess,' she said to herself, (not in a very
hopeful tone though), `I won't have any pepper in my kitchen AT
ALL.  Soup does very well without--Maybe it's always pepper that
makes people hot-tempered,' she went on, very much pleased at
having found out a new kind of rule, `and vinegar that makes them
sour--and camomile that makes them bitter--and--and barley-sugar
and such things that make children sweet-tempered.  I only wish
people knew that:  then they wouldn't be so stingy about it, you
know--'

  She had quite forgotten the Duchess by this time, and was a
little startled when she heard her voice close to her ear.
`You're thinking about something, my dear, and that makes you
forget to talk.  I can't tell you just now what the moral of that
is, but I shall remember it in a bit.'

  `Perhaps it hasn't one,' Alice ventured to remark.

  `Tut, tut, child!' said the Duchess.  `Everything's got a
moral, if only you can find it.'  And she squeezed herself up
closer to Alice's side as she spoke.

  Alice did not much like keeping so close to her:  first,
because the Duchess was VERY ugly; and secondly, because she was
exactly the right height to rest her chin upon Alice's shoulder,
and it was an uncomfortably sharp chin.  However, she did not
like to be rude, so she bore it as well as she could.

  `The game's going on rather better now,' she said, by way of
keeping up the conversation a little.

  `'Tis so,' said the Duchess:  `and the moral of that is--"Oh,
'tis love, 'tis love, that makes the world go round!"'

  `Somebody said,' Alice whispered, `that it's done by everybody
minding their own business!'

  `Ah, well!  It means much the same thing,' said the Duchess,
digging her sharp little chin into Alice's shoulder as she added,
`and the moral of THAT is--"Take care of the sense, and the
sounds will take care of themselves."'

  `How fond she is of finding morals in things!' Alice thought to
herself.

  `I dare say you're wondering why I don't put my arm round your
waist,' the Duchess said after a pause:  `the reason is, that I'm
doubtful about the temper of your flamingo.  Shall I try the
experiment?'

  `HE might bite,' Alice cautiously replied, not feeling at all
anxious to have the experiment tried.

  `Very true,' said the Duchess:  `flamingoes and mustard both
bite.  And the moral of that is--"Birds of a feather flock
together."'

  `Only mustard isn't a bird,' Alice remarked.

  `Right, as usual,' said the Duchess:  `what a clear way you
have of putting things!'

  `It's a mineral, I THINK,' said Alice.

  `Of course it is,' said the Duchess, who seemed ready to agree
to everything that Alice said; `there's a large mustard-mine near
here.  And the moral of that is--"The more there is of mine, the
less there is of yours."'

  `Oh, I know!' exclaimed Alice, who had not attended to this
last remark, `it's a vegetable.  It doesn't look like one, but it
is.'

  `I quite agree with you,' said the Duchess; `and the moral of
that is--"Be what you would seem to be"--or if you'd like it put
more simply--"Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than
what it might appear to others that what you were or might have
been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared
to them to be otherwise."'

  `I think I should understand that better,' Alice said very
politely, `if I had it written down:  but I can't quite follow it
as you say it.'

  `That's nothing to what I could say if I chose,' the Duchess
replied, in a pleased tone.

  `Pray don't trouble yourself to say it any longer than that,'
said Alice.

  `Oh, don't talk about trouble!' said the Duchess.  `I make you
a present of everything I've said as yet.'

  `A cheap sort of present!' thought Alice.  `I'm glad they don't
give birthday presents like that!'  But she did not venture to
say it out loud.

  `Thinking again?' the Duchess asked, with another dig of her
sharp little chin.

  `I've a right to think,' said Alice sharply, for she was
beginning to feel a little worried.

  `Just about as much right,' said the Duchess, `as pigs have to fly;
and the m--'

  But here, to Alice's great surprise, the Duchess's voice died
away, even in the middle of her favourite word `moral,' and the
arm that was linked into hers began to tremble.  Alice looked up,
and there stood the Queen in front of them, with her arms folded,
frowning like a thunderstorm.

  `A fine day, your Majesty!' the Duchess began in a low, weak
voice.

  `Now, I give you fair warning,' shouted the Queen, stamping on
the ground as she spoke; `either you or your head must be off,
and that in about half no time!  Take your choice!'

  The Duchess took her choice, and was gone in a moment.

  `Let's go on with the game,' the Queen said to Alice; and Alice
was too much frightened to say a word, but slowly followed her
back to the croquet-ground.

  The other guests had taken advantage of the Queen's absence,
and were resting in the shade:  however, the moment they saw her,
they hurried back to the game, the Queen merely remarking that a
moment's delay would cost them their lives.

  All the time they were playing the Queen never left off
quarrelling with the other players, and shouting `Off with his
head!' or `Off with her head!'  Those whom she sentenced were
taken into custody by the soldiers, who of course had to leave
off being arches to do this, so that by the end of half an hour
or so there were no arches left, and all the players, except the
King, the Queen, and Alice, were in custody and under sentence of
execution.

  Then the Queen left off, quite out of breath, and said to
Alice, `Have you seen the Mock Turtle yet?'

  `No,' said Alice.  `I don't even know what a Mock Turtle is.'

  `It's the thing Mock Turtle Soup is made from,' said the Queen.

  `I never saw one, or heard of one,' said Alice.

  `Come on, then,' said the Queen, `and he shall tell you his
history,'

  As they walked off together, Alice heard the King say in a low
voice, to the company generally, `You are all pardoned.'  `Come,
THAT'S a good thing!' she said to herself, for she had felt quite
unhappy at the number of executions the Queen had ordered.

  They very soon came upon a Gryphon, lying fast asleep in the
sun.  (IF you don't know what a Gryphon is, look at the picture.)
`Up, lazy thing!' said the Queen, `and take this young lady to
see the Mock Turtle, and to hear his history.  I must go back and
see after some executions I have ordered'; and she walked off,
leaving Alice alone with the Gryphon.  Alice did not quite like
the look of the creature, but on the whole she thought it would
be quite as safe to stay with it as to go after that savage
Queen:  so she waited.

  The Gryphon sat up and rubbed its eyes:  then it watched the
Queen till she was out of sight:  then it chuckled.  `What fun!'
said the Gryphon, half to itself, half to Alice.

  `What IS the fun?' said Alice.

  `Why, SHE,' said the Gryphon.  `It's all her fancy, that:  they
never executes nobody, you know.  Come on!'

  `Everybody says "come on!" here,' thought Alice, as she went
slowly after it:  `I never was so ordered about in all my life,
never!'

  They had not gone far before they saw the Mock Turtle in the
distance, sitting sad and lonely on a little ledge of rock, and,
as they came nearer, Alice could hear him sighing as if his heart
would break.  She pitied him deeply.  `What is his sorrow?' she
asked the Gryphon, and the Gryphon answered, very nearly in the
same words as before, `It's all his fancy, that:  he hasn't got
no sorrow, you know.  Come on!'

  So they went up to the Mock Turtle, who looked at them with
large eyes full of tears, but said nothing.

  `This here young lady,' said the Gryphon, `she wants for to
know your history, she do.'

  `I'll tell it her,' said the Mock Turtle in a deep, hollow
tone:  `sit down, both of you, and don't speak a word till I've
finished.'

  So they sat down, and nobody spoke for some minutes.  Alice
thought to herself, `I don't see how he can EVEN finish, if he
doesn't begin.'  But she waited patiently.

  `Once,' said the Mock Turtle at last, with a deep sigh, `I was
a real Turtle.'

  These words were followed by a very long silence, broken only
by an occasional exclamation of `Hjckrrh!' from the Gryphon, and
the constant heavy sobbing of the Mock Turtle.  Alice was very
nearly getting up and saying, `Thank you, sir, for your
interesting story,' but she could not help thinking there MUST be
more to come, so she sat still and said nothing.

  `When we were little,' the Mock Turtle went on at last, more
calmly, though still sobbing a little now and then, `we went to
school in the sea.  The master was an old Turtle--we used to call
him Tortoise--'

  `Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn't one?' Alice asked.

  `We called him Tortoise because he taught us,' said the Mock
Turtle angrily:  `really you are very dull!'

  `You ought to be ashamed of yourself for asking such a simple
question,' added the Gryphon; and then they both sat silent and
looked at poor Alice, who felt ready to sink into the earth.  At
last the Gryphon said to the Mock Turtle, `Drive on, old fellow!
Don't be all day about it!' and he went on in these words:

  `Yes, we went to school in the sea, though you mayn't believe
it--'

  `I never said I didn't!' interrupted Alice.

  `You did,' said the Mock Turtle.

  `Hold your tongue!' added the Gryphon, before Alice could speak
again.  The Mock Turtle went on.

  `We had the best of educations--in fact, we went to school
every day--'

  `I'VE been to a day-school, too,' said Alice; `you needn't be
so proud as all that.'

  `With extras?' asked the Mock Turtle a little anxiously.

  `Yes,' said Alice, `we learned French and music.'

  `And washing?' said the Mock Turtle.

  `Certainly not!' said Alice indignantly.

  `Ah! then yours wasn't a really good school,' said the Mock
Turtle in a tone of great relief.  `Now at OURS they had at the
end of the bill, "French, music, AND WASHING--extra."'

  `You couldn't have wanted it much,' said Alice; `living at the
bottom of the sea.'

  `I couldn't afford to learn it.' said the Mock Turtle with a
sigh.  `I only took the regular course.'

  `What was that?' inquired Alice.

  `Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,' the Mock
Turtle replied; `and then the different branches of Arithmetic--
Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.'

  `I never heard of "Uglification,"' Alice ventured to say.  `What is it?'

  The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise.  `What!  Never
heard of uglifying!' it exclaimed.  `You know what to beautify is,
I suppose?'

  `Yes,' said Alice doubtfully:  `it means--to--make--anything--prettier.'

  `Well, then,' the Gryphon went on, `if you don't know what to
uglify is, you ARE a simpleton.'

  Alice did not feel encouraged to ask any more questions about
it, so she turned to the Mock Turtle, and said `What else had you
to learn?'

  `Well, there was Mystery,' the Mock Turtle replied, counting
off the subjects on his flappers, `--Mystery, ancient and modern,
with Seaography:  then Drawling--the Drawling-master was an old
conger-eel, that used to come once a week:  HE taught us
Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils.'

  `What was THAT like?' said Alice.

  `Well, I can't show it you myself,' the Mock Turtle said:  `I'm
too stiff.  And the Gryphon never learnt it.'

  `Hadn't time,' said the Gryphon:  `I went to the Classics
master, though.  He was an old crab, HE was.'

  `I never went to him,' the Mock Turtle said with a sigh:  `he
taught Laughing and Grief, they used to say.'

  `So he did, so he did,' said the Gryphon, sighing in his turn;
and both creatures hid their faces in their paws.

  `And how many hours a day did you do lessons?' said Alice, in a
hurry to change the subject.

  `Ten hours the first day,' said the Mock Turtle: `nine the
next, and so on.'

  `What a curious plan!' exclaimed Alice.

  `That's the reason they're called lessons,' the Gryphon
remarked:  `because they lessen from day to day.'

  This was quite a new idea to Alice, and she thought it over a
little before she made her next remark.  `Then the eleventh day
must have been a holiday?'

  `Of course it was,' said the Mock Turtle.

  `And how did you manage on the twelfth?' Alice went on eagerly.

  `That's enough about lessons,' the Gryphon interrupted in a
very decided tone:  `tell her something about the games now.'



                            CHAPTER X

                      The Lobster Quadrille


  The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and drew the back of one flapper
across his eyes.  He looked at Alice, and tried to speak, but for
a minute or two sobs choked his voice.  `Same as if he had a bone
in his throat,' said the Gryphon:  and it set to work shaking him
and punching him in the back.  At last the Mock Turtle recovered
his voice, and, with tears running down his cheeks, he went on
again:--

  `You may not have lived much under the sea--' (`I haven't,' said Alice)--
`and perhaps you were never even introduced to a lobster--'
(Alice began to say `I once tasted--' but checked herself hastily,
and said `No, never') `--so you can have no idea what a delightful
thing a Lobster Quadrille is!'

  `No, indeed,' said Alice.  `What sort of a dance is it?'

  `Why,' said the Gryphon, `you first form into a line along the sea-shore--'

  `Two lines!' cried the Mock Turtle.  `Seals, turtles, salmon, and so on;
then, when you've cleared all the jelly-fish out of the way--'

  `THAT generally takes some time,' interrupted the Gryphon.

  `--you advance twice--'

  `Each with a lobster as a partner!' cried the Gryphon.

  `Of course,' the Mock Turtle said:  `advance twice, set to
partners--'

  `--change lobsters, and retire in same order,' continued the
Gryphon.

  `Then, you know,' the Mock Turtle went on, `you throw the--'

  `The lobsters!' shouted the Gryphon, with a bound into the air.

  `--as far out to sea as you can--'

  `Swim after them!' screamed the Gryphon.

  `Turn a somersault in the sea!' cried the Mock Turtle,
capering wildly about.

  `Change lobsters again!' yelled the Gryphon at the top of its voice.

  `Back to land again, and that's all the first figure,' said the
Mock Turtle, suddenly dropping his voice; and the two creatures,
who had been jumping about like mad things all this time, sat
down again very sadly and quietly, and looked at Alice.

  `It must be a very pretty dance,' said Alice timidly.

  `Would you like to see a little of it?' said the Mock Turtle.

  `Very much indeed,' said Alice.

  `Come, let's try the first figure!' said the Mock Turtle to the
Gryphon.  `We can do without lobsters, you know.  Which shall
sing?'

  `Oh, YOU sing,' said the Gryphon.  `I've forgotten the words.'

  So they began solemnly dancing round and round Alice, every now
and then treading on her toes when they passed too close, and
waving their forepaws to mark the time, while the Mock Turtle
sang this, very slowly and sadly:--


`"Will you walk a little faster?" said a whiting to a snail.
"There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my
 tail.
See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!
They are waiting on the shingle--will you come and join the
dance?

Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the
dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the
dance?


"You can really have no notion how delightful it will be
When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to
                                                      sea!"
But the snail replied "Too far, too far!" and gave a look
                                                       askance--
Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the
   dance.
    Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join
        the dance.
    Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join
        the dance.

`"What matters it how far we go?" his scaly friend replied.
"There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.
The further off from England the nearer is to France--
Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.

    Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the
         dance?
    Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the
         dance?"'



  `Thank you, it's a very interesting dance to watch,' said
Alice, feeling very glad that it was over at last:  `and I do so
like that curious song about the whiting!'

  `Oh, as to the whiting,' said the Mock Turtle, `they--you've
seen them, of course?'

  `Yes,' said Alice, `I've often seen them at dinn--' she
checked herself hastily.

  `I don't know where Dinn may be,' said the Mock Turtle, `but
if you've seen them so often, of course you know what they're
like.'

  `I believe so,' Alice replied thoughtfully.  `They have their
tails in their mouths--and they're all over crumbs.'

  `You're wrong about the crumbs,' said the Mock Turtle:
`crumbs would all wash off in the sea.  But they HAVE their tails
in their mouths; and the reason is--' here the Mock Turtle
yawned and shut his eyes.--`Tell her about the reason and all
that,' he said to the Gryphon.

  `The reason is,' said the Gryphon, `that they WOULD go with
the lobsters to the dance.  So they got thrown out to sea.  So
they had to fall a long way.  So they got their tails fast in
their mouths.  So they couldn't get them out again.  That's all.'

  `Thank you,' said Alice, `it's very interesting.  I never knew
so much about a whiting before.'

  `I can tell you more than that, if you like,' said the
Gryphon.  `Do you know why it's called a whiting?'

  `I never thought about it,' said Alice.  `Why?'

  `IT DOES THE BOOTS AND SHOES.' the Gryphon replied very
solemnly.

  Alice was thoroughly puzzled.  `Does the boots and shoes!' she
repeated in a wondering tone.

  `Why, what are YOUR shoes done with?' said the Gryphon.  `I
mean, what makes them so shiny?'

  Alice looked down at them, and considered a little before she
gave her answer.  `They're done with blacking, I believe.'

  `Boots and shoes under the sea,' the Gryphon went on in a deep
voice, `are done with a whiting.  Now you know.'

  `And what are they made of?' Alice asked in a tone of great
curiosity.

  `Soles and eels, of course,' the Gryphon replied rather
impatiently:  `any shrimp could have told you that.'

  `If I'd been the whiting,' said Alice, whose thoughts were
still running on the song, `I'd have said to the porpoise, "Keep
back, please:  we don't want YOU with us!"'

  `They were obliged to have him with them,' the Mock Turtle
said:  `no wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise.'

  `Wouldn't it really?' said Alice in a tone of great surprise.

  `Of course not,' said the Mock Turtle:  `why, if a fish came
to ME, and told me he was going a journey, I should say "With
what porpoise?"'

  `Don't you mean "purpose"?' said Alice.

  `I mean what I say,' the Mock Turtle replied in an offended
tone.  And the Gryphon added `Come, let's hear some of YOUR
adventures.'

  `I could tell you my adventures--beginning from this morning,'
said Alice a little timidly:  `but it's no use going back to
yesterday, because I was a different person then.'

  `Explain all that,' said the Mock Turtle.

  `No, no!  The adventures first,' said the Gryphon in an
impatient tone:  `explanations take such a dreadful time.'

  So Alice began telling them her adventures from the time when
she first saw the White Rabbit.  She was a little nervous about
it just at first, the two creatures got so close to her, one on
each side, and opened their eyes and mouths so VERY wide, but she
gained courage as she went on.  Her listeners were perfectly
quiet till she got to the part about her repeating `YOU ARE OLD,
FATHER WILLIAM,' to the Caterpillar, and the words all coming
different, and then the Mock Turtle drew a long breath, and said
`That's very curious.'

  `It's all about as curious as it can be,' said the Gryphon.

  `It all came different!' the Mock Turtle repeated
thoughtfully.  `I should like to hear her try and repeat
something now.  Tell her to begin.'  He looked at the Gryphon as
if he thought it had some kind of authority over Alice.

  `Stand up and repeat "'TIS THE VOICE OF THE SLUGGARD,"' said
the Gryphon.

  `How the creatures order one about, and make one repeat
lessons!' thought Alice; `I might as well be at school at once.'
However, she got up, and began to repeat it, but her head was so
full of the Lobster Quadrille, that she hardly knew what she was
saying, and the words came very queer indeed:--

    `'Tis the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare,
    "You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair."
    As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose
    Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.'

              [later editions continued as follows
    When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark,
    And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark,
    But, when the tide rises and sharks are around,
    His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.]

  `That's different from what I used to say when I was a child,'
said the Gryphon.

  `Well, I never heard it before,' said the Mock Turtle; `but it
sounds uncommon nonsense.'

  Alice said nothing; she had sat down with her face in her
hands, wondering if anything would EVER happen in a natural way
again.

  `I should like to have it explained,' said the Mock Turtle.

  `She can't explain it,' said the Gryphon hastily.  `Go on with
the next verse.'

  `But about his toes?' the Mock Turtle persisted.  `How COULD
he turn them out with his nose, you know?'

  `It's the first position in dancing.' Alice said; but was
dreadfully puzzled by the whole thing, and longed to change the
subject.

  `Go on with the next verse,' the Gryphon repeated impatiently:
`it begins "I passed by his garden."'

  Alice did not dare to disobey, though she felt sure it would
all come wrong, and she went on in a trembling voice:--

    `I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye,
    How the Owl and the Panther were sharing a pie--'

        [later editions continued as follows
    The Panther took pie-crust, and gravy, and meat,
    While the Owl had the dish as its share of the treat.
    When the pie was all finished, the Owl, as a boon,
    Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon:
    While the Panther received knife and fork with a growl,
    And concluded the banquet--]

  `What IS the use of repeating all that stuff,' the Mock Turtle
interrupted, `if you don't explain it as you go on?  It's by far
the most confusing thing I ever heard!'

  `Yes, I think you'd better leave off,' said the Gryphon:  and
Alice was only too glad to do so.

  `Shall we try another figure of the Lobster Quadrille?' the
Gryphon went on.  `Or would you like the Mock Turtle to sing you
a song?'

  `Oh, a song, please, if the Mock Turtle would be so kind,'
Alice replied, so eagerly that the Gryphon said, in a rather
offended tone, `Hm!  No accounting for tastes!  Sing her
"Turtle Soup," will you, old fellow?'

  The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and began, in a voice sometimes
choked with sobs, to sing this:--


    `Beautiful Soup, so rich and green,
    Waiting in a hot tureen!
    Who for such dainties would not stoop?
    Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
    Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
        Beau--ootiful Soo--oop!
        Beau--ootiful Soo--oop!
    Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,
        Beautiful, beautiful Soup!

    `Beautiful Soup!  Who cares for fish,
    Game, or any other dish?
    Who would not give all else for two
    Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?
    Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?
        Beau--ootiful Soo--oop!
        Beau--ootiful Soo--oop!
    Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,
        Beautiful, beauti--FUL SOUP!'

  `Chorus again!' cried the Gryphon, and the Mock Turtle had
just begun to repeat it, when a cry of `The trial's beginning!'
was heard in the distance.

  `Come on!' cried the Gryphon, and, taking Alice by the hand,
it hurried off, without waiting for the end of the song.

  `What trial is it?' Alice panted as she ran; but the Gryphon
only answered `Come on!' and ran the faster, while more and more
faintly came, carried on the breeze that followed them, the
melancholy words:--

    `Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,
        Beautiful, beautiful Soup!'



                           CHAPTER XI

                      Who Stole the Tarts?


  The King and Queen of Hearts were seated on their throne when
they arrived, with a great crowd assembled about them--all sorts
of little birds and beasts, as well as the whole pack of cards:
the Knave was standing before them, in chains, with a soldier on
each side to guard him; and near the King was the White Rabbit,
with a trumpet in one hand, and a scroll of parchment in the
other.  In the very middle of the court was a table, with a large
dish of tarts upon it:  they looked so good, that it made Alice
quite hungry to look at them--`I wish they'd get the trial done,'
she thought, `and hand round the refreshments!'  But there seemed
to be no chance of this, so she began looking at everything about
her, to pass away the time.

  Alice had never been in a court of justice before, but she had
read about them in books, and she was quite pleased to find that
she knew the name of nearly everything there.  `That's the
judge,' she said to herself, `because of his great wig.'

  The judge, by the way, was the King; and as he wore his crown
over the wig, (look at the frontispiece if you want to see how he
did it,) he did not look at all comfortable, and it was certainly
not becoming.

  `And that's the jury-box,' thought Alice, `and those twelve
creatures,' (she was obliged to say `creatures,' you see, because
some of them were animals, and some were birds,) `I suppose they
are the jurors.'  She said this last word two or three times over
to herself, being rather proud of it:  for she thought, and
rightly too, that very few little girls of her age knew the
meaning of it at all.  However, `jury-men' would have done just
as well.

  The twelve jurors were all writing very busily on slates.
`What are they doing?'  Alice whispered to the Gryphon.  `They
can't have anything to put down yet, before the trial's begun.'

  `They're putting down their names,' the Gryphon whispered in
reply, `for fear they should forget them before the end of the
trial.'

  `Stupid things!' Alice began in a loud, indignant voice, but
she stopped hastily, for the White Rabbit cried out, `Silence in
the court!' and the King put on his spectacles and looked
anxiously round, to make out who was talking.

  Alice could see, as well as if she were looking over their
shoulders, that all the jurors were writing down `stupid things!'
on their slates, and she could even make out that one of them
didn't know how to spell `stupid,' and that he had to ask his
neighbour to tell him.  `A nice muddle their slates'll be in
before the trial's over!' thought Alice.

  One of the jurors had a pencil that squeaked.  This of course,
Alice could not stand, and she went round the court and got
behind him, and very soon found an opportunity of taking it
away.  She did it so quickly that the poor little juror (it was
Bill, the Lizard) could not make out at all what had become of
it; so, after hunting all about for it, he was obliged to write
with one finger for the rest of the day; and this was of very
little use, as it left no mark on the slate.

  `Herald, read the accusation!' said the King.

  On this the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and
then unrolled the parchment scroll, and read as follows:--

    `The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts,
          All on a summer day:
      The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts,
          And took them quite away!'

  `Consider your verdict,' the King said to the jury.

  `Not yet, not yet!' the Rabbit hastily interrupted.  `There's
a great deal to come before that!'

  `Call the first witness,' said the King; and the White Rabbit
blew three blasts on the trumpet, and called out, `First
witness!'

  The first witness was the Hatter.  He came in with a teacup in
one hand and a piece of bread-and-butter in the other.  `I beg
pardon, your Majesty,' he began, `for bringing these in:  but I
hadn't quite finished my tea when I was sent for.'

  `You ought to have finished,' said the King.  `When did you
begin?'

  The Hatter looked at the March Hare, who had followed him into
the court, arm-in-arm with the Dormouse.  `Fourteenth of March, I
think it was,' he said.

  `Fifteenth,' said the March Hare.

  `Sixteenth,' added the Dormouse.

  `Write that down,' the King said to the jury, and the jury
eagerly wrote down all three dates on their slates, and then
added them up, and reduced the answer to shillings and pence.

  `Take off your hat,' the King said to the Hatter.

  `It isn't mine,' said the Hatter.

  `Stolen!' the King exclaimed, turning to the jury, who
instantly made a memorandum of the fact.

  `I keep them to sell,' the Hatter added as an explanation;
`I've none of my own.  I'm a hatter.'

  Here the Queen put on her spectacles, and began staring at the
Hatter, who turned pale and fidgeted.

  `Give your evidence,' said the King; `and don't be nervous, or
I'll have you executed on the spot.'

  This did not seem to encourage the witness at all:  he kept
shifting from one foot to the other, looking uneasily at the
Queen, and in his confusion he bit a large piece out of his
teacup instead of the bread-and-butter.

  Just at this moment Alice felt a very curious sensation, which
puzzled her a good deal until she made out what it was:  she was
beginning to grow larger again, and she thought at first she
would get up and leave the court; but on second thoughts she
decided to remain where she was as long as there was room for
her.

  `I wish you wouldn't squeeze so.' said the Dormouse, who was
sitting next to her.  `I can hardly breathe.'

  `I can't help it,' said Alice very meekly:  `I'm growing.'

  `You've no right to grow here,' said the Dormouse.

  `Don't talk nonsense,' said Alice more boldly:  `you know
you're growing too.'

  `Yes, but I grow at a reasonable pace,' said the Dormouse:
`not in that ridiculous fashion.'  And he got up very sulkily
and crossed over to the other side of the court.

  All this time the Queen had never left off staring at the
Hatter, and, just as the Dormouse crossed the court, she said to
one of the officers of the court, `Bring me the list of the
singers in the last concert!' on which the wretched Hatter
trembled so, that he shook both his shoes off.

  `Give your evidence,' the King repeated angrily, `or I'll have
you executed, whether you're nervous or not.'

  `I'm a poor man, your Majesty,' the Hatter began, in a
trembling voice, `--and I hadn't begun my tea--not above a week
or so--and what with the bread-and-butter getting so thin--and
the twinkling of the tea--'

  `The twinkling of the what?' said the King.

  `It began with the tea,' the Hatter replied.

  `Of course twinkling begins with a T!' said the King sharply.
`Do you take me for a dunce?  Go on!'

  `I'm a poor man,' the Hatter went on, `and most things
twinkled after that--only the March Hare said--'

  `I didn't!' the March Hare interrupted in a great hurry.

  `You did!' said the Hatter.

  `I deny it!' said the March Hare.

  `He denies it,' said the King:  `leave out that part.'

  `Well, at any rate, the Dormouse said--' the Hatter went on,
looking anxiously round to see if he would deny it too:  but the
Dormouse denied nothing, being fast asleep.

  `After that,' continued the Hatter, `I cut some more bread-
and-butter--'

  `But what did the Dormouse say?' one of the jury asked.

  `That I can't remember,' said the Hatter.

  `You MUST remember,' remarked the King, `or I'll have you
executed.'

  The miserable Hatter dropped his teacup and bread-and-butter,
and went down on one knee.  `I'm a poor man, your Majesty,' he
began.

  `You're a very poor speaker,' said the King.

  Here one of the guinea-pigs cheered, and was immediately
suppressed by the officers of the court.  (As that is rather a
hard word, I will just explain to you how it was done.  They had
a large canvas bag, which tied up at the mouth with strings:
into this they slipped the guinea-pig, head first, and then sat
upon it.)

  `I'm glad I've seen that done,' thought Alice.  `I've so often
read in the newspapers, at the end of trials, "There was some
attempts at applause, which was immediately suppressed by the
officers of the court," and I never understood what it meant
till now.'

  `If that's all you know about it, you may stand down,'
continued the King.

  `I can't go no lower,' said the Hatter:  `I'm on the floor, as
it is.'

  `Then you may SIT down,' the King replied.

  Here the other guinea-pig cheered, and was suppressed.

  `Come, that finished the guinea-pigs!' thought Alice.  `Now we
shall get on better.'

  `I'd rather finish my tea,' said the Hatter, with an anxious
look at the Queen, who was reading the list of singers.

  `You may go,' said the King, and the Hatter hurriedly left the
court, without even waiting to put his shoes on.

  `--and just take his head off outside,' the Queen added to one
of the officers:  but the Hatter was out of sight before the
officer could get to the door.

  `Call the next witness!' said the King.

  The next witness was the Duchess's cook.  She carried the
pepper-box in her hand, and Alice guessed who it was, even before
she got into the court, by the way the people near the door began
sneezing all at once.

  `Give your evidence,' said the King.

  `Shan't,' said the cook.

  The King looked anxiously at the White Rabbit, who said in a
low voice, `Your Majesty must cross-examine THIS witness.'

  `Well, if I must, I must,' the King said, with a melancholy
air, and, after folding his arms and frowning at the cook till
his eyes were nearly out of sight, he said in a deep voice, `What
are tarts made of?'

  `Pepper, mostly,' said the cook.

  `Treacle,' said a sleepy voice behind her.

  `Collar that Dormouse,' the Queen shrieked out.  `Behead that
Dormouse!  Turn that Dormouse out of court!  Suppress him!  Pinch
him!  Off with his whiskers!'

  For some minutes the whole court was in confusion, getting the
Dormouse turned out, and, by the time they had settled down
again, the cook had disappeared.

  `Never mind!' said the King, with an air of great relief.
`Call the next witness.'  And he added in an undertone to the
Queen, `Really, my dear, YOU must cross-examine the next witness.
It quite makes my forehead ache!'

  Alice watched the White Rabbit as he fumbled over the list,
feeling very curious to see what the next witness would be like,
`--for they haven't got much evidence YET,' she said to herself.
Imagine her surprise, when the White Rabbit read out, at the top
of his shrill little voice, the name `Alice!'



                           CHAPTER XII

                        Alice's Evidence


  `Here!' cried Alice, quite forgetting in the flurry of the
moment how large she had grown in the last few minutes, and she
jumped up in such a hurry that she tipped over the jury-box with
the edge of her skirt, upsetting all the jurymen on to the heads
of the crowd below, and there they lay sprawling about, reminding
her very much of a globe of goldfish she had accidentally upset
the week before.

  `Oh, I BEG your pardon!' she exclaimed in a tone of great
dismay, and began picking them up again as quickly as she could,
for the accident of the goldfish kept running in her head, and
she had a vague sort of idea that they must be collected at once
and put back into the jury-box, or they would die.

  `The trial cannot proceed,' said the King in a very grave
voice, `until all the jurymen are back in their proper places--
ALL,' he repeated with great emphasis, looking hard at Alice as
he said do.

  Alice looked at the jury-box, and saw that, in her haste, she
had put the Lizard in head downwards, and the poor little thing
was waving its tail about in a melancholy way, being quite unable
to move.  She soon got it out again, and put it right; `not that
it signifies much,' she said to herself; `I should think it
would be QUITE as much use in the trial one way up as the other.'

  As soon as the jury had a little recovered from the shock of
being upset, and their slates and pencils had been found and
handed back to them, they set to work very diligently to write
out a history of the accident, all except the Lizard, who seemed
too much overcome to do anything but sit with its mouth open,
gazing up into the roof of the court.

  `What do you know about this business?' the King said to
Alice.

  `Nothing,' said Alice.

  `Nothing WHATEVER?' persisted the King.

  `Nothing whatever,' said Alice.

  `That's very important,' the King said, turning to the jury.
They were just beginning to write this down on their slates, when
the White Rabbit interrupted:  `UNimportant, your Majesty means,
of course,' he said in a very respectful tone, but frowning and
making faces at him as he spoke.

  `UNimportant, of course, I meant,' the King hastily said, and
went on to himself in an undertone, `important--unimportant--
unimportant--important--' as if he were trying which word
sounded best.

  Some of the jury wrote it down `important,' and some
`unimportant.'  Alice could see this, as she was near enough to
look over their slates; `but it doesn't matter a bit,' she
thought to herself.

  At this moment the King, who had been for some time busily
writing in his note-book, cackled out `Silence!' and read out
from his book, `Rule Forty-two.  ALL PERSONS MORE THAN A MILE
HIGH TO LEAVE THE COURT.'

  Everybody looked at Alice.

  `I'M not a mile high,' said Alice.

  `You are,' said the King.

  `Nearly two miles high,' added the Queen.

  `Well, I shan't go, at any rate,' said Alice:  `besides,
that's not a regular rule:  you invented it just now.'

  `It's the oldest rule in the book,' said the King.

  `Then it ought to be Number One,' said Alice.

  The King turned pale, and shut his note-book hastily.
`Consider your verdict,' he said to the jury, in a low, trembling
voice.

  `There's more evidence to come yet, please your Majesty,' said
the White Rabbit, jumping up in a great hurry; `this paper has
just been picked up.'

  `What's in it?' said the Queen.

  `I haven't opened it yet,' said the White Rabbit, `but it seems
to be a letter, written by the prisoner to--to somebody.'

  `It must have been that,' said the King, `unless it was
written to nobody, which isn't usual, you know.'

  `Who is it directed to?' said one of the jurymen.

  `It isn't directed at all,' said the White Rabbit; `in fact,
there's nothing written on the OUTSIDE.'  He unfolded the paper
as he spoke, and added `It isn't a letter, after all:  it's a set
of verses.'

  `Are they in the prisoner's handwriting?' asked another of
the jurymen.

  `No, they're not,' said the White Rabbit, `and that's the
queerest thing about it.'  (The jury all looked puzzled.)

  `He must have imitated somebody else's hand,' said the King.
(The jury all brightened up again.)

  `Please your Majesty,' said the Knave, `I didn't write it, and
they can't prove I did:  there's no name signed at the end.'

  `If you didn't sign it,' said the King, `that only makes the
matter worse.  You MUST have meant some mischief, or else you'd
have signed your name like an honest man.'

  There was a general clapping of hands at this:  it was the
first really clever thing the King had said that day.

  `That PROVES his guilt,' said the Queen.

  `It proves nothing of the sort!' said Alice.  `Why, you don't
even know what they're about!'

  `Read them,' said the King.

  The White Rabbit put on his spectacles.  `Where shall I begin,
please your Majesty?' he asked.

  `Begin at the beginning,' the King said gravely, `and go on
till you come to the end:  then stop.'

  These were the verses the White Rabbit read:--

        `They told me you had been to her,
          And mentioned me to him:
        She gave me a good character,
          But said I could not swim.

        He sent them word I had not gone
          (We know it to be true):
        If she should push the matter on,
          What would become of you?

        I gave her one, they gave him two,
          You gave us three or more;
        They all returned from him to you,
          Though they were mine before.

        If I or she should chance to be
          Involved in this affair,
        He trusts to you to set them free,
          Exactly as we were.

        My notion was that you had been
          (Before she had this fit)
        An obstacle that came between
          Him, and ourselves, and it.

        Don't let him know she liked them best,
          For this must ever be
        A secret, kept from all the rest,
          Between yourself and me.'

  `That's the most important piece of evidence we've heard yet,'
said the King, rubbing his hands; `so now let the jury--'

  `If any one of them can explain it,' said Alice, (she had
grown so large in the last few minutes that she wasn't a bit
afraid of interrupting him,) `I'll give him sixpence.  _I_ don't
believe there's an atom of meaning in it.'

  The jury all wrote down on their slates, `SHE doesn't believe
there's an atom of meaning in it,' but none of them attempted to
explain the paper.

  `If there's no meaning in it,' said the King, `that saves a
world of trouble, you know, as we needn't try to find any.  And
yet I don't know,' he went on, spreading out the verses on his
knee, and looking at them with one eye; `I seem to see some
meaning in them, after all.  "--SAID I COULD NOT SWIM--" you
can't swim, can you?' he added, turning to the Knave.

  The Knave shook his head sadly.  `Do I look like it?' he said.
(Which he certainly did NOT, being made entirely of cardboard.)

  `All right, so far,' said the King, and he went on muttering
over the verses to himself:  `"WE KNOW IT TO BE TRUE--" that's
the jury, of course-- "I GAVE HER ONE, THEY GAVE HIM TWO--" why,
that must be what he did with the tarts, you know--'

  `But, it goes on "THEY ALL RETURNED FROM HIM TO YOU,"' said
Alice.

  `Why, there they are!' said the King triumphantly, pointing to
the tarts on the table.  `Nothing can be clearer than THAT.
Then again--"BEFORE SHE HAD THIS FIT--"  you never had fits, my
dear, I think?' he said to the Queen.

  `Never!' said the Queen furiously, throwing an inkstand at the
Lizard as she spoke.  (The unfortunate little Bill had left off
writing on his slate with one finger, as he found it made no
mark; but he now hastily began again, using the ink, that was
trickling down his face, as long as it lasted.)

  `Then the words don't FIT you,' said the King, looking round
the court with a smile.  There was a dead silence.

  `It's a pun!' the King added in an offended tone, and
everybody laughed, `Let the jury consider their verdict,' the
King said, for about the twentieth time that day.

  `No, no!' said the Queen.  `Sentence first--verdict afterwards.'

  `Stuff and nonsense!' said Alice loudly.  `The idea of having
the sentence first!'

  `Hold your tongue!' said the Queen, turning purple.

  `I won't!' said Alice.

  `Off with her head!' the Queen shouted at the top of her voice.
Nobody moved.

  `Who cares for you?' said Alice, (she had grown to her full
size by this time.)  `You're nothing but a pack of cards!'

  At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying
down upon her:  she gave a little scream, half of fright and half
of anger, and tried to beat them off, and found herself lying on
the bank, with her head in the lap of her sister, who was gently
brushing away some dead leaves that had fluttered down from the
trees upon her face.

  `Wake up, Alice dear!' said her sister; `Why, what a long
sleep you've had!'

  `Oh, I've had such a curious dream!' said Alice, and she told
her sister, as well as she could remember them, all these strange
Adventures of hers that you have just been reading about; and
when she had finished, her sister kissed her, and said, `It WAS a
curious dream, dear, certainly:  but now run in to your tea; it's
getting late.'  So Alice got up and ran off, thinking while she
ran, as well she might, what a wonderful dream it had been.

  But her sister sat still just as she left her, leaning her
head on her hand, watching the setting sun, and thinking of
little Alice and all her wonderful Adventures, till she too began
dreaming after a fashion, and this was her dream:--

  First, she dreamed of little Alice herself, and once again the
tiny hands were clasped upon her knee, and the bright eager eyes
were looking up into hers--she could hear the very tones of her
voice, and see that queer little toss of her head to keep back
the wandering hair that WOULD always get into her eyes--and
still as she listened, or seemed to listen, the whole place
around her became alive the strange creatures of her little
sister's dream.

  The long grass rustled at her feet as the White Rabbit hurried
by--the frightened Mouse splashed his way through the
neighbouring pool--she could hear the rattle of the teacups as
the March Hare and his friends shared their never-ending meal,
and the shrill voice of the Queen ordering off her unfortunate
guests to execution--once more the pig-baby was sneezing on the
Duchess's knee, while plates and dishes crashed around it--once
more the shriek of the Gryphon, the squeaking of the Lizard's
slate-pencil, and the choking of the suppressed guinea-pigs,
filled the air, mixed up with the distant sobs of the miserable
Mock Turtle.

  So she sat on, with closed eyes, and half believed herself in
Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and
all would change to dull reality--the grass would be only
rustling in the wind, and the pool rippling to the waving of the
reeds--the rattling teacups would change to tinkling sheep-
bells, and the Queen's shrill cries to the voice of the shepherd
boy--and the sneeze of the baby, the shriek of the Gryphon, and
all the other queer noises, would change (she knew) to the
confused clamour of the busy farm-yard--while the lowing of the
cattle in the distance would take the place of the Mock Turtle's
heavy sobs.

  Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of
hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how
she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and
loving heart of her childhood:  and how she would gather about
her other little children, and make THEIR eyes bright and eager
with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of
Wonderland of long ago:  and how she would feel with all their
simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys,
remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.

                             THE END

alls_well_that_ends_well.txt

All's Well That Ends Well
Shakespeare homepage | All's Well That Ends Well | Entire play
ACT I

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; she derives her honesty and achieves her goodness.
LAFEU
Your commendations, madam, get from her tears.
COUNTESS
'Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise
in. The remembrance of her father never approaches
her heart but the tyranny of her sorrows takes all
livelihood from her cheek. No more of this, Helena;
go to, no more; lest it be rather thought you affect
a sorrow than have it.
HELENA
I do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have it too.
LAFEU
Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead,
excessive grief the enemy to the living.
COUNTESS
If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess
makes it soon mortal.
BERTRAM
Madam, I desire your holy wishes.
LAFEU
How understand we that?
COUNTESS
Be thou blest, 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: be able for thine enemy
Rather in power than use, and keep thy friend
Under thy own life's key: be cheque'd for silence,
But never tax'd for speech. What heaven more will,
That thee may furnish and my prayers pluck down,
Fall on thy head! Farewell, my lord;
'Tis an unseason'd courtier; good my lord,
Advise him.
LAFEU
He cannot want the best
That shall attend his love.
COUNTESS
Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram.
Exit

BERTRAM
[To HELENA] The best wishes that can be forged in
your thoughts be servants to you! Be comfortable
to my mother, your mistress, and make much of her.
LAFEU
Farewell, pretty lady: you must hold the credit of
your father.
Exeunt BERTRAM and LAFEU

HELENA
O, were that all! I think not on my father;
And these great tears grace his remembrance more
Than those I shed for him. What was he like?
I have forgot him: my imagination
Carries no favour in't but Bertram's.
I am undone: there is no living, none,
If Bertram be away. 'Twere all one
That I should love a bright particular star
And think to wed it, he is so above me:
In his bright radiance and collateral light
Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.
The ambition in my love thus plagues itself:
The hind that would be mated by the lion
Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, though plague,
To see him every hour; to sit and draw
His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,
In our heart's table; heart too capable
Of every line and trick of his sweet favour:
But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
Must sanctify his reliques. Who comes here?
Enter PAROLLES

Aside

One that goes with him: I love him for his sake;
And yet I know him a notorious liar,
Think him a great way fool, solely a coward;
Yet these fixed evils sit so fit in him,
That they take place, when virtue's steely bones
Look bleak i' the cold wind: withal, full oft we see
Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.
PAROLLES
Save you, fair queen!
HELENA
And you, monarch!
PAROLLES
No.
HELENA
And no.
PAROLLES
Are you meditating on virginity?
HELENA
Ay. You have some stain of soldier in you: let me
ask you a question. Man is enemy to virginity; how
may we barricado it against him?
PAROLLES
Keep him out.
HELENA
But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant,
in the defence yet is weak: unfold to us some
warlike resistance.
PAROLLES
There is none: man, sitting down before you, will
undermine you and blow you up.
HELENA
Bless our poor virginity from underminers and
blowers up! Is there no military policy, how
virgins might blow up men?
PAROLLES
Virginity being blown down, man will quicklier be
blown up: marry, in blowing him down again, with
the breach yourselves made, you lose your city. It
is not politic in the commonwealth of nature to
preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational
increase and there was never virgin got till
virginity was first lost. That you were made of is
metal to make virgins. Virginity by being once lost
may be ten times found; by being ever kept, it is
ever lost: 'tis too cold a companion; away with 't!
HELENA
I will stand for 't a little, though therefore I die a virgin.
PAROLLES
There's little can be said in 't; 'tis against the
rule of nature. To speak on the part of virginity,
is to accuse your mothers; which is most infallible
disobedience. He that hangs himself is a virgin:
virginity murders itself and should be buried in
highways out of all sanctified limit, as a desperate
offendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites,
much like a cheese; consumes itself to the very
paring, and so dies with feeding his own stomach.
Besides, virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made of
self-love, which is the most inhibited sin in the
canon. Keep it not; you cannot choose but loose
by't: out with 't! within ten year it will make
itself ten, which is a goodly increase; and the
principal itself not much the worse: away with 't!
HELENA
How might one do, sir, to lose it to her own liking?
PAROLLES
Let me see: marry, ill, to like him that ne'er it
likes. 'Tis a commodity will lose the gloss with
lying; the longer kept, the less worth: off with 't
while 'tis vendible; answer the time of request.
Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out
of fashion: richly suited, but unsuitable: just
like the brooch and the tooth-pick, which wear not
now. Your date is better in your pie and your
porridge than in your cheek; and your virginity,
your old virginity, is like one of our French
withered pears, it looks ill, it eats drily; marry,
'tis a withered pear; it was formerly better;
marry, yet 'tis a withered pear: will you anything with it?
HELENA
Not my virginity yet [ ]
There shall your master have a thousand loves,
A mother and a mistress and a friend,
A phoenix, captain and an enemy,
A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign,
A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear;
His humble ambition, proud humility,
His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet,
His faith, his sweet disaster; with a world
Of pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms,
That blinking Cupid gossips. Now shall he--
I know not what he shall. God send him well!
The court's a learning place, and he is one--
PAROLLES
What one, i' faith?
HELENA
That I wish well. 'Tis pity--
PAROLLES
What's pity?
HELENA
That wishing well had not a body in't,
Which might be felt; that we, the poorer born,
Whose baser stars do shut us up in wishes,
Might with effects of them follow our friends,
And show what we alone must think, which never
Return us thanks.
Enter Page

Page
Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.
Exit

PAROLLES
Little Helen, farewell; if I can remember thee, I
will think of thee at court.
HELENA
Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable star.
PAROLLES
Under Mars, I.
HELENA
I especially think, under Mars.
PAROLLES
Why under Mars?
HELENA
The wars have so kept you under that you must needs
be born under Mars.
PAROLLES
When he was predominant.
HELENA
When he was retrograde, I think, rather.
PAROLLES
Why think you so?
HELENA
You go so much backward when you fight.
PAROLLES
That's for advantage.
HELENA
So is running away, when fear proposes the safety;
but the composition that your valour and fear makes
in you is a virtue of a good wing, and I like the wear well.
PAROLLES
I am so full of businesses, I cannot answer thee
acutely. I will return perfect courtier; in the
which, my instruction shall serve to naturalize
thee, so thou wilt be capable of a courtier's
counsel and understand what advice shall thrust upon
thee; else thou diest in thine unthankfulness, and
thine ignorance makes thee away: farewell. When
thou hast leisure, say thy prayers; when thou hast
none, remember thy friends; get thee a good husband,
and use him as he uses thee; so, farewell.
Exit

HELENA
Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky
Gives us free scope, only doth backward pull
Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull.
What power is it which mounts my love so high,
That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?
The mightiest space in fortune nature brings
To join like likes and kiss like native things.
Impossible be strange attempts to those
That weigh their pains in sense and do suppose
What hath been cannot be: who ever strove
So show her merit, that did miss her love?
The king's disease--my project may deceive me,
But my intents are fix'd and will not leave me.
Exit

SCENE II. Paris. The KING's palace.

Flourish of cornets. Enter the KING of France, with letters, and divers Attendants
KING
The Florentines and Senoys are by the ears;
Have fought with equal fortune and continue
A braving war.
First Lord
So 'tis reported, sir.
KING
Nay, 'tis most credible; we here received it
A certainty, vouch'd from our cousin Austria,
With caution that the Florentine will move us
For speedy aid; wherein our dearest friend
Prejudicates the business and would seem
To have us make denial.
First Lord
His love and wisdom,
Approved so to your majesty, may plead
For amplest credence.
KING
He hath arm'd our answer,
And Florence is denied before he comes:
Yet, for our gentlemen that mean to see
The Tuscan service, freely have they leave
To stand on either part.
Second Lord
It well may serve
A nursery to our gentry, who are sick
For breathing and exploit.
KING
What's he comes here?
Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES

First Lord
It is the Count Rousillon, my good lord,
Young Bertram.
KING
Youth, thou bear'st thy father's face;
Frank nature, rather curious than in haste,
Hath well composed thee. Thy father's moral parts
Mayst thou inherit too! Welcome to Paris.
BERTRAM
My thanks and duty are your majesty's.
KING
I would I had that corporal soundness now,
As when thy father and myself in friendship
First tried our soldiership! He did look far
Into the service of the time and was
Discipled of the bravest: he lasted long;
But on us both did haggish age steal on
And wore us out of act. It much repairs me
To talk of your good father. In his youth
He had the wit which I can well observe
To-day in our young lords; but they may jest
Till their own scorn return to them unnoted
Ere they can hide their levity in honour;
So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness
Were in his pride or sharpness; if they were,
His equal had awaked them, and his honour,
Clock to itself, knew the true minute when
Exception bid him speak, and at this time
His tongue obey'd his hand: who were below him
He used as creatures of another place
And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks,
Making them proud of his humility,
In their poor praise he humbled. Such a man
Might be a copy to these younger times;
Which, follow'd well, would demonstrate them now
But goers backward.
BERTRAM
His good remembrance, sir,
Lies richer in your thoughts than on his tomb;
So in approof lives not his epitaph
As in your royal speech.
KING
Would I were with him! He would always say--
Methinks I hear him now; his plausive words
He scatter'd not in ears, but grafted them,
To grow there and to bear,--'Let me not live,'--
This his good melancholy oft began,
On the catastrophe and heel of pastime,
When it was out,--'Let me not live,' quoth he,
'After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff
Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses
All but new things disdain; whose judgments are
Mere fathers of their garments; whose constancies
Expire before their fashions.' This he wish'd;
I after him do after him wish too,
Since I nor wax nor honey can bring home,
I quickly were dissolved from my hive,
To give some labourers room.
Second Lord
You are loved, sir:
They that least lend it you shall lack you first.
KING
I fill a place, I know't. How long is't, count,
Since the physician at your father's died?
He was much famed.
BERTRAM
Some six months since, my lord.
KING
If he were living, I would try him yet.
Lend me an arm; the rest have worn me out
With several applications; nature and sickness
Debate it at their leisure. Welcome, count;
My son's no dearer.
BERTRAM
Thank your majesty.
Exeunt. Flourish

SCENE III. Rousillon. The COUNT's palace.

Enter COUNTESS, Steward, and Clown
COUNTESS
I will now hear; what say you of this gentlewoman?
Steward
Madam, the care I have had to even your content, I
wish might be found in the calendar of my past
endeavours; for then we wound our modesty and make
foul the clearness of our deservings, when of
ourselves we publish them.
COUNTESS
What does this knave here? Get you gone, sirrah:
the complaints I have heard of you I do not all
believe: 'tis my slowness that I do not; for I know
you lack not folly to commit them, and have ability
enough to make such knaveries yours.
Clown
'Tis not unknown to you, madam, I am a poor fellow.
COUNTESS
Well, sir.
Clown
No, madam, 'tis not so well that I am poor, though
many of the rich are damned: but, if I may have
your ladyship's good will to go to the world, Isbel
the woman and I will do as we may.
COUNTESS
Wilt thou needs be a beggar?
Clown
I do beg your good will in this case.
COUNTESS
In what case?
Clown
In Isbel's case and mine own. Service is no
heritage: and I think I shall never have the
blessing of God till I have issue o' my body; for
they say barnes are blessings.
COUNTESS
Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry.
Clown
My poor body, madam, requires it: I am driven on
by the flesh; and he must needs go that the devil drives.
COUNTESS
Is this all your worship's reason?
Clown
Faith, madam, I have other holy reasons such as they
are.
COUNTESS
May the world know them?
Clown
I have been, madam, a wicked creature, as you and
all flesh and blood are; and, indeed, I do marry
that I may repent.
COUNTESS
Thy marriage, sooner than thy wickedness.
Clown
I am out o' friends, madam; and I hope to have
friends for my wife's sake.
COUNTESS
Such friends are thine enemies, knave.
Clown
You're shallow, madam, in great friends; for the
knaves come to do that for me which I am aweary of.
He that ears my land spares my team and gives me
leave to in the crop; if I be his cuckold, he's my
drudge: he that comforts my wife is the cherisher
of my flesh and blood; he that cherishes my flesh
and blood loves my flesh and blood; he that loves my
flesh and blood is my friend: ergo, he that kisses
my wife is my friend. If men could be contented to
be what they are, there were no fear in marriage;
for young Charbon the Puritan and old Poysam the
Papist, howsome'er their hearts are severed in
religion, their heads are both one; they may jowl
horns together, like any deer i' the herd.
COUNTESS
Wilt thou ever be a foul-mouthed and calumnious knave?
Clown
A prophet I, madam; and I speak the truth the next
way:
For I the ballad will repeat,
Which men full true shall find;
Your marriage comes by destiny,
Your cuckoo sings by kind.
COUNTESS
Get you gone, sir; I'll talk with you more anon.
Steward
May it please you, madam, that he bid Helen come to
you: of her I am to speak.
COUNTESS
Sirrah, tell my gentlewoman I would speak with her;
Helen, I mean.
Clown
Was this fair face the cause, quoth she,
Why the Grecians sacked Troy?
Fond done, done fond,
Was this King Priam's joy?
With that she sighed as she stood,
With that she sighed as she stood,
And gave this sentence then;
Among nine bad if one be good,
Among nine bad if one be good,
There's yet one good in ten.
COUNTESS
What, one good in ten? you corrupt the song, sirrah.
Clown
One good woman in ten, madam; which is a purifying
o' the song: would God would serve the world so all
the year! we'ld find no fault with the tithe-woman,
if I were the parson. One in ten, quoth a'! An we
might have a good woman born but one every blazing
star, or at an earthquake, 'twould mend the lottery
well: a man may draw his heart out, ere a' pluck
one.
COUNTESS
You'll be gone, sir knave, and do as I command you.
Clown
That man should be at woman's command, and yet no
hurt done! Though honesty be no puritan, yet it
will do no hurt; it will wear the surplice of
humility over the black gown of a big heart. I am
going, forsooth: the business is for Helen to come hither.
Exit

COUNTESS
Well, now.
Steward
I know, madam, you love your gentlewoman entirely.
COUNTESS
Faith, I do: her father bequeathed her to me; and
she herself, without other advantage, may lawfully
make title to as much love as she finds: there is
more owing her than is paid; and more shall be paid
her than she'll demand.
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; Love no
god, that would not extend his might, only where
qualities were level; Dian no queen of virgins, that
would suffer her poor knight surprised, without
rescue in the first assault or ransom afterward.
This she delivered in the most bitter touch of
sorrow that e'er I heard virgin exclaim in: which I
held my duty speedily to acquaint you withal;
sithence, in the loss that may happen, it concerns
you something to know it.
COUNTESS
You have discharged this honestly; keep it to
yourself: many likelihoods informed me of this
before, which hung so tottering in the balance that
I could neither believe nor misdoubt. Pray you,
leave me: stall this in your bosom; and I thank you
for your honest care: I will speak with you further anon.
Exit Steward

Enter HELENA

Even so it was with me when I was young:
If ever we are nature's, these are ours; this thorn
Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong;
Our blood to us, this to our blood is born;
It is the show and seal of nature's truth,
Where love's strong passion is impress'd in youth:
By our remembrances of days foregone,
Such were our faults, or then we thought them none.
Her eye is sick on't: I observe her now.
HELENA
What is your pleasure, madam?
COUNTESS
You know, Helen,
I am a mother to you.
HELENA
Mine honourable mistress.
COUNTESS
Nay, a mother:
Why not a mother? When I said 'a mother,'
Methought you saw a serpent: what's in 'mother,'
That you start at it? I say, I am your mother;
And put you in the catalogue of those
That were enwombed mine: 'tis often seen
Adoption strives with nature and choice breeds
A native slip to us from foreign seeds:
You ne'er oppress'd me with a mother's groan,
Yet I express to you a mother's care:
God's mercy, maiden! does it curd thy blood
To say I am thy mother? What's the matter,
That this distemper'd messenger of wet,
The many-colour'd Iris, rounds thine eye?
Why? that you are my daughter?
HELENA
That I am not.
COUNTESS
I say, I am your mother.
HELENA
Pardon, madam;
The Count Rousillon cannot be my brother:
I am from humble, he from honour'd name;
No note upon my parents, his all noble:
My master, my dear lord he is; and I
His servant live, and will his vassal die:
He must not be my brother.
COUNTESS
Nor I your mother?
HELENA
You are my mother, madam; would you were,--
So that my lord your son were not my brother,--
Indeed my mother! or were you both our mothers,
I care no more for than I do for heaven,
So I were not his sister. Can't no other,
But, I your daughter, he must be my brother?
COUNTESS
Yes, Helen, you might be my daughter-in-law:
God shield you mean it not! daughter and mother
So strive upon your pulse. What, pale again?
My fear hath catch'd your fondness: now I see
The mystery of your loneliness, and find
Your salt tears' head: now to all sense 'tis gross
You love my son; invention is ashamed,
Against the proclamation of thy passion,
To say thou dost not: therefore tell me true;
But tell me then, 'tis so; for, look thy cheeks
Confess it, th' one to th' other; and thine eyes
See it so grossly shown in thy behaviors
That in their kind they speak it: only sin
And hellish obstinacy tie thy tongue,
That truth should be suspected. Speak, is't so?
If it be so, you have wound a goodly clew;
If it be not, forswear't: howe'er, I charge thee,
As heaven shall work in me for thine avail,
Tell me truly.
HELENA
Good madam, pardon me!
COUNTESS
Do you love my son?
HELENA
Your pardon, noble mistress!
COUNTESS
Love you my son?
HELENA
Do not you love him, madam?
COUNTESS
Go not about; my love hath in't a bond,
Whereof the world takes note: come, come, disclose
The state of your affection; for your passions
Have to the full appeach'd.
HELENA
Then, I confess,
Here on my knee, before high heaven and you,
That before you, and next unto high heaven,
I love your son.
My friends were poor, but honest; so's my love:
Be not offended; for it hurts not him
That he is loved of me: I follow him not
By any token of presumptuous suit;
Nor would I have him till I do deserve him;
Yet never know how that desert should be.
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
And lack not to lose still: thus, Indian-like,
Religious in mine error, I adore
The sun, that looks upon his worshipper,
But knows of him no more. My dearest madam,
Let not your hate encounter with my love
For loving where you do: but if yourself,
Whose aged honour cites a virtuous youth,
Did ever in so true a flame of liking
Wish chastely and love dearly, that your Dian
Was both herself and love: O, then, give pity
To her, whose state is such that cannot choose
But lend and give where she is sure to lose;
That seeks not to find that her search implies,
But riddle-like lives sweetly where she dies!
COUNTESS
Had you not lately an intent,--speak truly,--
To go to Paris?
HELENA
Madam, I had.
COUNTESS
Wherefore? tell true.
HELENA
I will tell truth; by grace itself I swear.
You know my father left me some prescriptions
Of rare and proved effects, such as his reading
And manifest experience had collected
For general sovereignty; and that he will'd me
In heedfull'st reservation to bestow them,
As notes whose faculties inclusive were
More than they were in note: amongst the rest,
There is a remedy, approved, set down,
To cure the desperate languishings whereof
The king is render'd lost.
COUNTESS
This was your motive
For Paris, was it? speak.
HELENA
My lord your son made me to think of this;
Else Paris and the medicine and the king
Had from the conversation of my thoughts
Haply been absent then.
COUNTESS
But think you, Helen,
If you should tender your supposed aid,
He would receive it? he and his physicians
Are of a mind; he, that they cannot help him,
They, that they cannot help: how shall they credit
A poor unlearned virgin, when the schools,
Embowell'd of their doctrine, have left off
The danger to itself?
HELENA
There's something in't,
More than my father's skill, which was the greatest
Of his profession, that his good receipt
Shall for my legacy be sanctified
By the luckiest stars in heaven: and, would your honour
But give me leave to try success, I'ld venture
The well-lost life of mine on his grace's cure
By such a day and hour.
COUNTESS
Dost thou believe't?
HELENA
Ay, madam, knowingly.
COUNTESS
Why, Helen, thou shalt have my leave and love,
Means and attendants and my loving greetings
To those of mine in court: I'll stay at home
And pray God's blessing into thy attempt:
Be gone to-morrow; and be sure of this,
What I can help thee to thou shalt not miss.
Exeunt

ACT II

SCENE I. Paris. The KING's palace.

Flourish of cornets. Enter the KING, attended with divers young Lords taking leave for the Florentine war; BERTRAM, and PAROLLES
KING
Farewell, young lords; these warlike principles
Do not throw from you: and you, my lords, farewell:
Share the advice betwixt you; if both gain, all
The gift doth stretch itself as 'tis received,
And is enough for both.
First Lord
'Tis our hope, sir,
After well enter'd soldiers, to return
And find your grace in health.
KING
No, no, it cannot be; and yet my heart
Will not confess he owes the malady
That doth my life besiege. Farewell, young lords;
Whether I live or die, be you the sons
Of worthy Frenchmen: let higher Italy,--
Those bated that inherit but the fall
Of the last monarchy,--see that you come
Not to woo honour, but to wed it; when
The bravest questant shrinks, find what you seek,
That fame may cry you loud: I say, farewell.
Second Lord
Health, at your bidding, serve your majesty!
KING
Those girls of Italy, take heed of them:
They say, our French lack language to deny,
If they demand: beware of being captives,
Before you serve.
Both
Our hearts receive your warnings.
KING
Farewell. Come hither to me.
Exit, attended

First Lord
O, my sweet lord, that you will stay behind us!
PAROLLES
'Tis not his fault, the spark.
Second Lord
O, 'tis brave wars!
PAROLLES
Most admirable: I have seen those wars.
BERTRAM
I am commanded here, and kept a coil with
'Too young' and 'the next year' and ''tis too early.'
PAROLLES
An thy mind stand to't, boy, steal away bravely.
BERTRAM
I shall stay here the forehorse to a smock,
Creaking my shoes on the plain masonry,
Till honour be bought up and no sword worn
But one to dance with! By heaven, I'll steal away.
First Lord
There's honour in the theft.
PAROLLES
Commit it, count.
Second Lord
I am your accessary; and so, farewell.
BERTRAM
I grow to you, and our parting is a tortured body.
First Lord
Farewell, captain.
Second Lord
Sweet Monsieur Parolles!
PAROLLES
Noble heroes, my sword and yours are kin. Good
sparks and lustrous, a word, good metals: you shall
find in the regiment of the Spinii one Captain
Spurio, with his cicatrice, an emblem of war, here
on his sinister cheek; it was this very sword
entrenched it: say to him, I live; and observe his
reports for me.
First Lord
We shall, noble captain.
Exeunt Lords

PAROLLES
Mars dote on you for his novices! what will ye do?
BERTRAM
Stay: the king.
Re-enter KING. BERTRAM and PAROLLES retire

PAROLLES
[To BERTRAM] Use a more spacious ceremony to the
noble lords; you have restrained yourself within the
list of too cold an adieu: be more expressive to
them: for they wear themselves in the cap of the
time, there do muster true gait, eat, speak, and
move under the influence of the most received star;
and though the devil lead the measure, such are to
be followed: after them, and take a more dilated farewell.
BERTRAM
And I will do so.
PAROLLES
Worthy fellows; and like to prove most sinewy sword-men.
Exeunt BERTRAM and PAROLLES

Enter LAFEU

LAFEU
[Kneeling] Pardon, my lord, for me and for my tidings.
KING
I'll fee thee to stand up.
LAFEU
Then here's a man stands, that has brought his pardon.
I would you had kneel'd, my lord, to ask me mercy,
And that at my bidding you could so stand up.
KING
I would I had; so I had broke thy pate,
And ask'd thee mercy for't.
LAFEU
Good faith, across: but, my good lord 'tis thus;
Will you be cured of your infirmity?
KING
No.
LAFEU
O, will you eat no grapes, my royal fox?
Yes, but you will my noble grapes, an if
My royal fox could reach them: I have seen a medicine
That's able to breathe life into a stone,
Quicken a rock, and make you dance canary
With spritely fire and motion; whose simple touch,
Is powerful to araise King Pepin, nay,
To give great Charlemain a pen in's hand,
And write to her a love-line.
KING
What 'her' is this?
LAFEU
Why, Doctor She: my lord, there's one arrived,
If you will see her: now, by my faith and honour,
If seriously I may convey my thoughts
In this my light deliverance, I have spoke
With one that, in her sex, her years, profession,
Wisdom and constancy, hath amazed me more
Than I dare blame my weakness: will you see her
For that is her demand, and know her business?
That done, laugh well at me.
KING
Now, good Lafeu,
Bring in the admiration; that we with thee
May spend our wonder too, or take off thine
By wondering how thou took'st it.
LAFEU
Nay, I'll fit you,
And not be all day neither.
Exit

KING
Thus he his special nothing ever prologues.
Re-enter LAFEU, with HELENA

LAFEU
Nay, come your ways.
KING
This haste hath wings indeed.
LAFEU
Nay, come your ways:
This is his majesty; say your mind to him:
A traitor you do look like; but such traitors
His majesty seldom fears: I am Cressid's uncle,
That dare leave two together; fare you well.
Exit

KING
Now, fair one, does your business follow us?
HELENA
Ay, my good lord.
Gerard de Narbon was my father;
In what he did profess, well found.
KING
I knew him.
HELENA
The rather will I spare my praises towards him:
Knowing him is enough. On's bed of death
Many receipts he gave me: chiefly one.
Which, as the dearest issue of his practise,
And of his old experience the oily darling,
He bade me store up, as a triple eye,
Safer than mine own two, more dear; I have so;
And hearing your high majesty is touch'd
With that malignant cause wherein the honour
Of my dear father's gift stands chief in power,
I come to tender it and my appliance
With all bound humbleness.
KING
We thank you, maiden;
But may not be so credulous of cure,
When our most learned doctors leave us and
The congregated college have concluded
That labouring art can never ransom nature
From her inaidible estate; I say we must not
So stain our judgment, or corrupt our hope,
To prostitute our past-cure malady
To empirics, or to dissever so
Our great self and our credit, to esteem
A senseless help when help past sense we deem.
HELENA
My duty then shall pay me for my pains:
I will no more enforce mine office on you.
Humbly entreating from your royal thoughts
A modest one, to bear me back again.
KING
I cannot give thee less, to be call'd grateful:
Thou thought'st to help me; and such thanks I give
As one near death to those that wish him live:
But what at full I know, thou know'st no part,
I knowing all my peril, thou no art.
HELENA
What I can do can do no hurt to try,
Since you set up your rest 'gainst remedy.
He that of greatest works is finisher
Oft does them by the weakest minister:
So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown,
When judges have been babes; great floods have flown
From simple sources, and great seas have dried
When miracles have by the greatest been denied.
Oft expectation fails and most oft there
Where most it promises, and oft it hits
Where hope is coldest and despair most fits.
KING
I must not hear thee; fare thee well, kind maid;
Thy pains not used must by thyself be paid:
Proffers not took reap thanks for their reward.
HELENA
Inspired merit so by breath is barr'd:
It is not so with Him that all things knows
As 'tis with us that square our guess by shows;
But most it is presumption in us when
The help of heaven we count the act of men.
Dear sir, to my endeavours give consent;
Of heaven, not me, make an experiment.
I am not an impostor that proclaim
Myself against the level of mine aim;
But know I think and think I know most sure
My art is not past power nor you past cure.
KING
Are thou so confident? within what space
Hopest thou my cure?
HELENA
The great'st grace lending grace
Ere twice the horses of the sun shall bring
Their fiery torcher his diurnal ring,
Ere twice in murk and occidental damp
Moist Hesperus hath quench'd his sleepy lamp,
Or four and twenty times the pilot's glass
Hath told the thievish minutes how they pass,
What is infirm from your sound parts shall fly,
Health shall live free and sickness freely die.
KING
Upon thy certainty and confidence
What darest thou venture?
HELENA
Tax of impudence,
A strumpet's boldness, a divulged shame
Traduced by odious ballads: my maiden's name
Sear'd otherwise; nay, worse--if worse--extended
With vilest torture let my life be ended.
KING
Methinks in thee some blessed spirit doth speak
His powerful sound within an organ weak:
And what impossibility would slay
In common sense, sense saves another way.
Thy life is dear; for all that life can rate
Worth name of life in thee hath estimate,
Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, all
That happiness and prime can happy call:
Thou this to hazard needs must intimate
Skill infinite or monstrous desperate.
Sweet practiser, thy physic I will try,
That ministers thine own death if I die.
HELENA
If I break time, or flinch in property
Of what I spoke, unpitied let me die,
And well deserved: not helping, death's my fee;
But, if I help, what do you promise me?
KING
Make thy demand.
HELENA
But will you make it even?
KING
Ay, by my sceptre and my hopes of heaven.
HELENA
Then shalt thou give me with thy kingly hand
What husband in thy power I will command:
Exempted be from me the arrogance
To choose from forth the royal blood of France,
My low and humble name to propagate
With any branch or image of thy state;
But such a one, thy vassal, whom I know
Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow.
KING
Here is my hand; the premises observed,
Thy will by my performance shall be served:
So make the choice of thy own time, for I,
Thy resolved patient, on thee still rely.
More should I question thee, and more I must,
Though more to know could not be more to trust,
From whence thou camest, how tended on: but rest
Unquestion'd welcome and undoubted blest.
Give me some help here, ho! If thou proceed
As high as word, my deed shall match thy meed.
Flourish. Exeunt

SCENE II. Rousillon. The COUNT's palace.

Enter COUNTESS and Clown
COUNTESS
Come on, sir; I shall now put you to the height of
your breeding.
Clown
I will show myself highly fed and lowly taught: I
know my business is but to the court.
COUNTESS
To the court! why, what place make you special,
when you put off that with such contempt? But to the court!
Clown
Truly, madam, if God have lent a man any manners, he
may easily put it off at court: he that cannot make
a leg, put off's cap, kiss his hand and say nothing,
has neither leg, hands, lip, nor cap; and indeed
such a fellow, to say precisely, were not for the
court; but for me, I have an answer will serve all
men.
COUNTESS
Marry, that's a bountiful answer that fits all
questions.
Clown
It is like a barber's chair that fits all buttocks,
the pin-buttock, the quatch-buttock, the brawn
buttock, or any buttock.
COUNTESS
Will your answer serve fit to all questions?
Clown
As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney,
as your French crown for your taffeta punk, as Tib's
rush for Tom's forefinger, as a pancake for Shrove
Tuesday, a morris for May-day, as the nail to his
hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding queen
to a wrangling knave, as the nun's lip to the
friar's mouth, nay, as the pudding to his skin.
COUNTESS
Have you, I say, an answer of such fitness for all
questions?
Clown
From below your duke to beneath your constable, it
will fit any question.
COUNTESS
It must be an answer of most monstrous size that
must fit all demands.
Clown
But a trifle neither, in good faith, if the learned
should speak truth of it: here it is, and all that
belongs to't. Ask me if I am a courtier: it shall
do you no harm to learn.
COUNTESS
To be young again, if we could: I will be a fool in
question, hoping to be the wiser by your answer. I
pray you, sir, are you a courtier?
Clown
O Lord, sir! There's a simple putting off. More,
more, a hundred of them.
COUNTESS
Sir, I am a poor friend of yours, that loves you.
Clown
O Lord, sir! Thick, thick, spare not me.
COUNTESS
I think, sir, you can eat none of this homely meat.
Clown
O Lord, sir! Nay, put me to't, I warrant you.
COUNTESS
You were lately whipped, sir, as I think.
Clown
O Lord, sir! spare not me.
COUNTESS
Do you cry, 'O Lord, sir!' at your whipping, and
'spare not me?' Indeed your 'O Lord, sir!' is very
sequent to your whipping: you would answer very well
to a whipping, if you were but bound to't.
Clown
I ne'er had worse luck in my life in my 'O Lord,
sir!' I see things may serve long, but not serve ever.
COUNTESS
I play the noble housewife with the time
To entertain't so merrily with a fool.
Clown
O Lord, sir! why, there't serves well again.
COUNTESS
An end, sir; to your business. Give Helen this,
And urge her to a present answer back:
Commend me to my kinsmen and my son:
This is not much.
Clown
Not much commendation to them.
COUNTESS
Not much employment for you: you understand me?
Clown
Most fruitfully: I am there before my legs.
COUNTESS
Haste you again.
Exeunt severally

SCENE III. Paris. The KING's palace.

Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES
LAFEU
They say miracles are past; and we have our
philosophical persons, to make modern and familiar,
things supernatural and causeless. Hence is it that
we make trifles of terrors, ensconcing ourselves
into seeming knowledge, when we should submit
ourselves to an unknown fear.
PAROLLES
Why, 'tis the rarest argument of wonder that hath
shot out in our latter times.
BERTRAM
And so 'tis.
LAFEU
To be relinquish'd of the artists,--
PAROLLES
So I say.
LAFEU
Both of Galen and Paracelsus.
PAROLLES
So I say.
LAFEU
Of all the learned and authentic fellows,--
PAROLLES
Right; so I say.
LAFEU
That gave him out incurable,--
PAROLLES
Why, there 'tis; so say I too.
LAFEU
Not to be helped,--
PAROLLES
Right; as 'twere, a man assured of a--
LAFEU
Uncertain life, and sure death.
PAROLLES
Just, you say well; so would I have said.
LAFEU
I may truly say, it is a novelty to the world.
PAROLLES
It is, indeed: if you will have it in showing, you
shall read it in--what do you call there?
LAFEU
A showing of a heavenly effect in an earthly actor.
PAROLLES
That's it; I would have said the very same.
LAFEU
Why, your dolphin is not lustier: 'fore me,
I speak in respect--
PAROLLES
Nay, 'tis strange, 'tis very strange, that is the
brief and the tedious of it; and he's of a most
facinerious spirit that will not acknowledge it to be the--
LAFEU
Very hand of heaven.
PAROLLES
Ay, so I say.
LAFEU
In a most weak--
pausing

and debile minister, great power, great
transcendence: which should, indeed, give us a
further use to be made than alone the recovery of
the king, as to be--
pausing

generally thankful.
PAROLLES
I would have said it; you say well. Here comes the king.
Enter KING, HELENA, and Attendants. LAFEU and PAROLLES retire

LAFEU
Lustig, as the Dutchman says: I'll like a maid the
better, whilst I have a tooth in my head: why, he's
able to lead her a coranto.
PAROLLES
Mort du vinaigre! is not this Helen?
LAFEU
'Fore God, I think so.
KING
Go, call before me all the lords in court.
Sit, my preserver, by thy patient's side;
And with this healthful hand, whose banish'd sense
Thou hast repeal'd, a second time receive
The confirmation of my promised gift,
Which but attends thy naming.
Enter three or four Lords

Fair maid, send forth thine eye: this youthful parcel
Of noble bachelors stand at my bestowing,
O'er whom both sovereign power and father's voice
I have to use: thy frank election make;
Thou hast power to choose, and they none to forsake.
HELENA
To each of you one fair and virtuous mistress
Fall, when Love please! marry, to each, but one!
LAFEU
I'ld give bay Curtal and his furniture,
My mouth no more were broken than these boys',
And writ as little beard.
KING
Peruse them well:
Not one of those but had a noble father.
HELENA
Gentlemen,
Heaven hath through me restored the king to health.
All
We understand it, and thank heaven for you.
HELENA
I am a simple maid, and therein wealthiest,
That I protest I simply am a maid.
Please it your majesty, I have done already:
The blushes in my cheeks thus whisper me,
'We blush that thou shouldst choose; but, be refused,
Let the white death sit on thy cheek for ever;
We'll ne'er come there again.'
KING
Make choice; and, see,
Who shuns thy love shuns all his love in me.
HELENA
Now, Dian, from thy altar do I fly,
And to imperial Love, that god most high,
Do my sighs stream. Sir, will you hear my suit?
First Lord
And grant it.
HELENA
Thanks, sir; all the rest is mute.
LAFEU
I had rather be in this choice than throw ames-ace
for my life.
HELENA
The honour, sir, that flames in your fair eyes,
Before I speak, too threateningly replies:
Love make your fortunes twenty times above
Her that so wishes and her humble love!
Second Lord
No better, if you please.
HELENA
My wish receive,
Which great Love grant! and so, I take my leave.
LAFEU
Do all they deny her? An they were sons of mine,
I'd have them whipped; or I would send them to the
Turk, to make eunuchs of.
HELENA
Be not afraid that I your hand should take;
I'll never do you wrong for your own sake:
Blessing upon your vows! and in your bed
Find fairer fortune, if you ever wed!
LAFEU
These boys are boys of ice, they'll none have her:
sure, they are bastards to the English; the French
ne'er got 'em.
HELENA
You are too young, too happy, and too good,
To make yourself a son out of my blood.
Fourth Lord
Fair one, I think not so.
LAFEU
There's one grape yet; I am sure thy father drunk
wine: but if thou be'st not an ass, I am a youth
of fourteen; I have known thee already.
HELENA
[To BERTRAM] I dare not say I take you; but I give
Me and my service, ever whilst I live,
Into your guiding power. This is the man.
KING
Why, then, young Bertram, take her; she's thy wife.
BERTRAM
My wife, my liege! I shall beseech your highness,
In such a business give me leave to use
The help of mine own eyes.
KING
Know'st thou not, Bertram,
What she has done for me?
BERTRAM
Yes, my good lord;
But never hope to know why I should marry her.
KING
Thou know'st she has raised me from my sickly bed.
BERTRAM
But follows it, my lord, to bring me down
Must answer for your raising? I know her well:
She had her breeding at my father's charge.
A poor physician's daughter my wife! Disdain
Rather corrupt me ever!
KING
'Tis only title thou disdain'st in her, the which
I can build up. Strange is it that our bloods,
Of colour, weight, and heat, pour'd all together,
Would quite confound distinction, yet stand off
In differences so mighty. If she be
All that is virtuous, save what thou dislikest,
A poor physician's daughter, thou dislikest
Of virtue for the name: but do not so:
From lowest place when virtuous things proceed,
The place is dignified by the doer's deed:
Where great additions swell's, and virtue none,
It is a dropsied honour. Good alone
Is good without a name. Vileness is so:
The property by what it is should go,
Not by the title. She is young, wise, fair;
In these to nature she's immediate heir,
And these breed honour: that is honour's scorn,
Which challenges itself as honour's born
And is not like the sire: honours thrive,
When rather from our acts we them derive
Than our foregoers: the mere word's a slave
Debosh'd on every tomb, on every grave
A lying trophy, and as oft is dumb
Where dust and damn'd oblivion is the tomb
Of honour'd bones indeed. What should be said?
If thou canst like this creature as a maid,
I can create the rest: virtue and she
Is her own dower; honour and wealth from me.
BERTRAM
I cannot love her, nor will strive to do't.
KING
Thou wrong'st thyself, if thou shouldst strive to choose.
HELENA
That you are well restored, my lord, I'm glad:
Let the rest go.
KING
My honour's at the stake; which to defeat,
I must produce my power. Here, take her hand,
Proud scornful boy, unworthy this good gift;
That dost in vile misprision shackle up
My love and her desert; that canst not dream,
We, poising us in her defective scale,
Shall weigh thee to the beam; that wilt not know,
It is in us to plant thine honour where
We please to have it grow. Cheque thy contempt:
Obey our will, which travails in thy good:
Believe not thy disdain, but presently
Do thine own fortunes that obedient right
Which both thy duty owes and our power claims;
Or I will throw thee from my care for ever
Into the staggers and the careless lapse
Of youth and ignorance; both my revenge and hate
Loosing upon thee, in the name of justice,
Without all terms of pity. Speak; thine answer.
BERTRAM
Pardon, my gracious lord; for I submit
My fancy to your eyes: when I consider
What great creation and what dole of honour
Flies where you bid it, I find that she, which late
Was in my nobler thoughts most base, is now
The praised of the king; who, so ennobled,
Is as 'twere born so.
KING
Take her by the hand,
And tell her she is thine: to whom I promise
A counterpoise, if not to thy estate
A balance more replete.
BERTRAM
I take her hand.
KING
Good fortune and the favour of the king
Smile upon this contract; whose ceremony
Shall seem expedient on the now-born brief,
And be perform'd to-night: the solemn feast
Shall more attend upon the coming space,
Expecting absent friends. As thou lovest her,
Thy love's to me religious; else, does err.
Exeunt all but LAFEU and PAROLLES

LAFEU
[Advancing] Do you hear, monsieur? a word with you.
PAROLLES
Your pleasure, sir?
LAFEU
Your lord and master did well to make his
recantation.
PAROLLES
Recantation! My lord! my master!
LAFEU
Ay; is it not a language I speak?
PAROLLES
A most harsh one, and not to be understood without
bloody succeeding. My master!
LAFEU
Are you companion to the Count Rousillon?
PAROLLES
To any count, to all counts, to what is man.
LAFEU
To what is count's man: count's master is of
another style.
PAROLLES
You are too old, sir; let it satisfy you, you are too old.
LAFEU
I must tell thee, sirrah, I write man; to which
title age cannot bring thee.
PAROLLES
What I dare too well do, I dare not do.
LAFEU
I did think thee, for two ordinaries, to be a pretty
wise fellow; thou didst make tolerable vent of thy
travel; it might pass: yet the scarfs and the
bannerets about thee did manifoldly dissuade me from
believing thee a vessel of too great a burthen. I
have now found thee; when I lose thee again, I care
not: yet art thou good for nothing but taking up; and
that thou't scarce worth.
PAROLLES
Hadst thou not the privilege of antiquity upon thee,--
LAFEU
Do not plunge thyself too far in anger, lest thou
hasten thy trial; which if--Lord have mercy on thee
for a hen! So, my good window of lattice, fare thee
well: thy casement I need not open, for I look
through thee. Give me thy hand.
PAROLLES
My lord, you give me most egregious indignity.
LAFEU
Ay, with all my heart; and thou art worthy of it.
PAROLLES
I have not, my lord, deserved it.
LAFEU
Yes, good faith, every dram of it; and I will not
bate thee a scruple.
PAROLLES
Well, I shall be wiser.
LAFEU
Even as soon as thou canst, for thou hast to pull at
a smack o' the contrary. If ever thou be'st bound
in thy scarf and beaten, thou shalt find what it is
to be proud of thy bondage. I have a desire to hold
my acquaintance with thee, or rather my knowledge,
that I may say in the default, he is a man I know.
PAROLLES
My lord, you do me most insupportable vexation.
LAFEU
I would it were hell-pains for thy sake, and my poor
doing eternal: for doing I am past: as I will by
thee, in what motion age will give me leave.
Exit

PAROLLES
Well, thou hast a son shall take this disgrace off
me; scurvy, old, filthy, scurvy lord! Well, I must
be patient; there is no fettering of authority.
I'll beat him, by my life, if I can meet him with
any convenience, an he were double and double a
lord. I'll have no more pity of his age than I
would of--I'll beat him, an if I could but meet him again.
Re-enter LAFEU

LAFEU
Sirrah, your lord and master's married; there's news
for you: you have a new mistress.
PAROLLES
I most unfeignedly beseech your lordship to make
some reservation of your wrongs: he is my good
lord: whom I serve above is my master.
LAFEU
Who? God?
PAROLLES
Ay, sir.
LAFEU
The devil it is that's thy master. Why dost thou
garter up thy arms o' this fashion? dost make hose of
sleeves? do other servants so? Thou wert best set
thy lower part where thy nose stands. By mine
honour, if I were but two hours younger, I'ld beat
thee: methinks, thou art a general offence, and
every man should beat thee: I think thou wast
created for men to breathe themselves upon thee.
PAROLLES
This is hard and undeserved measure, my lord.
LAFEU
Go to, sir; you were beaten in Italy for picking a
kernel out of a pomegranate; you are a vagabond and
no true traveller: you are more saucy with lords
and honourable personages than the commission of your
birth and virtue gives you heraldry. You are not
worth another word, else I'ld call you knave. I leave you.
Exit

PAROLLES
Good, very good; it is so then: good, very good;
let it be concealed awhile.
Re-enter BERTRAM

BERTRAM
Undone, and forfeited to cares for ever!
PAROLLES
What's the matter, sweet-heart?
BERTRAM
Although before the solemn priest I have sworn,
I will not bed her.
PAROLLES
What, what, sweet-heart?
BERTRAM
O my Parolles, they have married me!
I'll to the Tuscan wars, and never bed her.
PAROLLES
France is a dog-hole, and it no more merits
The tread of a man's foot: to the wars!
BERTRAM
There's letters from my mother: what the import is,
I know not yet.
PAROLLES
Ay, that would be known. To the wars, my boy, to the wars!
He wears his honour in a box unseen,
That hugs his kicky-wicky here at home,
Spending his manly marrow in her arms,
Which should sustain the bound and high curvet
Of Mars's fiery steed. To other regions
France is a stable; we that dwell in't jades;
Therefore, to the war!
BERTRAM
It shall be so: I'll send her to my house,
Acquaint my mother with my hate to her,
And wherefore I am fled; write to the king
That which I durst not speak; his present gift
Shall furnish me to those Italian fields,
Where noble fellows strike: war is no strife
To the dark house and the detested wife.
PAROLLES
Will this capriccio hold in thee? art sure?
BERTRAM
Go with me to my chamber, and advise me.
I'll send her straight away: to-morrow
I'll to the wars, she to her single sorrow.
PAROLLES
Why, these balls bound; there's noise in it. 'Tis hard:
A young man married is a man that's marr'd:
Therefore away, and leave her bravely; go:
The king has done you wrong: but, hush, 'tis so.
Exeunt

SCENE IV. Paris. The KING's palace.

Enter HELENA and Clown
HELENA
My mother greets me kindly; is she well?
Clown
She is not well; but yet she has her health: she's
very merry; but yet she is not well: but thanks be
given, she's very well and wants nothing i', the
world; but yet she is not well.
HELENA
If she be very well, what does she ail, that she's
not very well?
Clown
Truly, she's very well indeed, but for two things.
HELENA
What two things?
Clown
One, that she's not in heaven, whither God send her
quickly! the other that she's in earth, from whence
God send her quickly!
Enter PAROLLES

PAROLLES
Bless you, my fortunate lady!
HELENA
I hope, sir, I have your good will to have mine own
good fortunes.
PAROLLES
You had my prayers to lead them on; and to keep them
on, have them still. O, my knave, how does my old lady?
Clown
So that you had her wrinkles and I her money,
I would she did as you say.
PAROLLES
Why, I say nothing.
Clown
Marry, you are the wiser man; for many a man's
tongue shakes out his master's undoing: to say
nothing, to do nothing, to know nothing, and to have
nothing, is to be a great part of your title; which
is within a very little of nothing.
PAROLLES
Away! thou'rt a knave.
Clown
You should have said, sir, before a knave thou'rt a
knave; that's, before me thou'rt a knave: this had
been truth, sir.
PAROLLES
Go to, thou art a witty fool; I have found thee.
Clown
Did you find me in yourself, sir? or were you
taught to find me? The search, sir, was profitable;
and much fool may you find in you, even to the
world's pleasure and the increase of laughter.
PAROLLES
A good knave, i' faith, and well fed.
Madam, my lord will go away to-night;
A very serious business calls on him.
The great prerogative and rite of love,
Which, as your due, time claims, he does acknowledge;
But puts it off to a compell'd restraint;
Whose want, and whose delay, is strew'd with sweets,
Which they distil now in the curbed time,
To make the coming hour o'erflow with joy
And pleasure drown the brim.
HELENA
What's his will else?
PAROLLES
That you will take your instant leave o' the king
And make this haste as your own good proceeding,
Strengthen'd with what apology you think
May make it probable need.
HELENA
What more commands he?
PAROLLES
That, having this obtain'd, you presently
Attend his further pleasure.
HELENA
In every thing I wait upon his will.
PAROLLES
I shall report it so.
HELENA
I pray you.
Exit PAROLLES

Come, sirrah.
Exeunt

SCENE V. Paris. The KING's palace.

Enter LAFEU and BERTRAM
LAFEU
But I hope your lordship thinks not him a soldier.
BERTRAM
Yes, my lord, and of very valiant approof.
LAFEU
You have it from his own deliverance.
BERTRAM
And by other warranted testimony.
LAFEU
Then my dial goes not true: I took this lark for a bunting.
BERTRAM
I do assure you, my lord, he is very great in
knowledge and accordingly valiant.
LAFEU
I have then sinned against his experience and
transgressed against his valour; and my state that
way is dangerous, since I cannot yet find in my
heart to repent. Here he comes: I pray you, make
us friends; I will pursue the amity.
Enter PAROLLES

PAROLLES
[To BERTRAM] These things shall be done, sir.
LAFEU
Pray you, sir, who's his tailor?
PAROLLES
Sir?
LAFEU
O, I know him well, I, sir; he, sir, 's a good
workman, a very good tailor.
BERTRAM
[Aside to PAROLLES] Is she gone to the king?
PAROLLES
She is.
BERTRAM
Will she away to-night?
PAROLLES
As you'll have her.
BERTRAM
I have writ my letters, casketed my treasure,
Given order for our horses; and to-night,
When I should take possession of the bride,
End ere I do begin.
LAFEU
A good traveller is something at the latter end of a
dinner; but one that lies three thirds and uses a
known truth to pass a thousand nothings with, should
be once heard and thrice beaten. God save you, captain.
BERTRAM
Is there any unkindness between my lord and you, monsieur?
PAROLLES
I know not how I have deserved to run into my lord's
displeasure.
LAFEU
You have made shift to run into 't, boots and spurs
and all, like him that leaped into the custard; and
out of it you'll run again, rather than suffer
question for your residence.
BERTRAM
It may be you have mistaken him, my lord.
LAFEU
And shall do so ever, though I took him at 's
prayers. Fare you well, my lord; and believe this
of me, there can be no kernel in this light nut; the
soul of this man is his clothes. Trust him not in
matter of heavy consequence; I have kept of them
tame, and know their natures. Farewell, monsieur:
I have spoken better of you than you have or will to
deserve at my hand; but we must do good against evil.
Exit

PAROLLES
An idle lord. I swear.
BERTRAM
I think so.
PAROLLES
Why, do you not know him?
BERTRAM
Yes, I do know him well, and common speech
Gives him a worthy pass. Here comes my clog.
Enter HELENA

HELENA
I have, sir, as I was commanded from you,
Spoke with the king and have procured his leave
For present parting; only he desires
Some private speech with you.
BERTRAM
I shall obey his will.
You must not marvel, Helen, at my course,
Which holds not colour with the time, nor does
The ministration and required office
On my particular. Prepared I was not
For such a business; therefore am I found
So much unsettled: this drives me to entreat you
That presently you take our way for home;
And rather muse than ask why I entreat you,
For my respects are better than they seem
And my appointments have in them a need
Greater than shows itself at the first view
To you that know them not. This to my mother:
Giving a letter

'Twill be two days ere I shall see you, so
I leave you to your wisdom.
HELENA
Sir, I can nothing say,
But that I am your most obedient servant.
BERTRAM
Come, come, no more of that.
HELENA
And ever shall
With true observance seek to eke out that
Wherein toward me my homely stars have fail'd
To equal my great fortune.
BERTRAM
Let that go:
My haste is very great: farewell; hie home.
HELENA
Pray, sir, your pardon.
BERTRAM
Well, what would you say?
HELENA
I am not worthy of the wealth I owe,
Nor dare I say 'tis mine, and yet it is;
But, like a timorous thief, most fain would steal
What law does vouch mine own.
BERTRAM
What would you have?
HELENA
Something; and scarce so much: nothing, indeed.
I would not tell you what I would, my lord:
Faith yes;
Strangers and foes do sunder, and not kiss.
BERTRAM
I pray you, stay not, but in haste to horse.
HELENA
I shall not break your bidding, good my lord.
BERTRAM
Where are my other men, monsieur? Farewell.
Exit HELENA

Go thou toward home; where I will never come
Whilst I can shake my sword or hear the drum.
Away, and for our flight.
PAROLLES
Bravely, coragio!
Exeunt

ACT III

SCENE I. Florence. The DUKE's palace.

Flourish. Enter the DUKE of Florence attended; the two Frenchmen, with a troop of soldiers.
DUKE
So that from point to point now have you heard
The fundamental reasons of this war,
Whose great decision hath much blood let forth
And more thirsts after.
First Lord
Holy seems the quarrel
Upon your grace's part; black and fearful
On the opposer.
DUKE
Therefore we marvel much our cousin France
Would in so just a business shut his bosom
Against our borrowing prayers.
Second Lord
Good my lord,
The reasons of our state I cannot yield,
But like a common and an outward man,
That the great figure of a council frames
By self-unable motion: therefore dare not
Say what I think of it, since I have found
Myself in my incertain grounds to fail
As often as I guess'd.
DUKE
Be it his pleasure.
First Lord
But I am sure the younger of our nature,
That surfeit on their ease, will day by day
Come here for physic.
DUKE
Welcome shall they be;
And all the honours that can fly from us
Shall on them settle. You know your places well;
When better fall, for your avails they fell:
To-morrow to the field.
Flourish. Exeunt

SCENE II. Rousillon. The COUNT's palace.

Enter COUNTESS and Clown
COUNTESS
It hath happened all as I would have had it, save
that he comes not along with her.
Clown
By my troth, I take my young lord to be a very
melancholy man.
COUNTESS
By what observance, I pray you?
Clown
Why, he will look upon his boot and sing; mend the
ruff and sing; ask questions and sing; pick his
teeth and sing. I know a man that had this trick of
melancholy sold a goodly manor for a song.
COUNTESS
Let me see what he writes, and when he means to come.
Opening a letter

Clown
I have no mind to Isbel since I was at court: our
old ling and our Isbels o' the country are nothing
like your old ling and your Isbels o' the court:
the brains of my Cupid's knocked out, and I begin to
love, as an old man loves money, with no stomach.
COUNTESS
What have we here?
Clown
E'en that you have there.
Exit

COUNTESS
[Reads] I have sent you a daughter-in-law: she hath
recovered the king, and undone me. I have wedded
her, not bedded her; and sworn to make the 'not'
eternal. You shall hear I am run away: know it
before the report come. If there be breadth enough
in the world, I will hold a long distance. My duty
to you.  Your unfortunate son,
BERTRAM.
This is not well, rash and unbridled boy.
To fly the favours of so good a king;
To pluck his indignation on thy head
By the misprising of a maid too virtuous
For the contempt of empire.
Re-enter Clown

Clown
O madam, yonder is heavy news within between two
soldiers and my young lady!
COUNTESS
What is the matter?
Clown
Nay, there is some comfort in the news, some
comfort; your son will not be killed so soon as I
thought he would.
COUNTESS
Why should he be killed?
Clown
So say I, madam, if he run away, as I hear he does:
the danger is in standing to't; that's the loss of
men, though it be the getting of children. Here
they come will tell you more: for my part, I only
hear your son was run away.
Exit

Enter HELENA, and two Gentlemen

First Gentleman
Save you, good madam.
HELENA
Madam, my lord is gone, for ever gone.
Second Gentleman
Do not say so.
COUNTESS
Think upon patience. Pray you, gentlemen,
I have felt so many quirks of joy and grief,
That the first face of neither, on the start,
Can woman me unto't: where is my son, I pray you?
Second Gentleman
Madam, he's gone to serve the duke of Florence:
We met him thitherward; for thence we came,
And, after some dispatch in hand at court,
Thither we bend again.
HELENA
Look on his letter, madam; here's my passport.
Reads

When thou canst get the ring upon my finger which
never shall come off, and show me a child begotten
of thy body that I am father to, then call me
husband: but in such a 'then' I write a 'never.'
This is a dreadful sentence.
COUNTESS
Brought you this letter, gentlemen?
First Gentleman
Ay, madam;
And for the contents' sake are sorry for our pain.
COUNTESS
I prithee, lady, have a better cheer;
If thou engrossest all the griefs are thine,
Thou robb'st me of a moiety: he was my son;
But I do wash his name out of my blood,
And thou art all my child. Towards Florence is he?
Second Gentleman
Ay, madam.
COUNTESS
And to be a soldier?
Second Gentleman
Such is his noble purpose; and believe 't,
The duke will lay upon him all the honour
That good convenience claims.
COUNTESS
Return you thither?
First Gentleman
Ay, madam, with the swiftest wing of speed.
HELENA
[Reads] Till I have no wife I have nothing in France.
'Tis bitter.
COUNTESS
Find you that there?
HELENA
Ay, madam.
First Gentleman
'Tis but the boldness of his hand, haply, which his
heart was not consenting to.
COUNTESS
Nothing in France, until he have no wife!
There's nothing here that is too good for him
But only she; and she deserves a lord
That twenty such rude boys might tend upon
And call her hourly mistress. Who was with him?
First Gentleman
A servant only, and a gentleman
Which I have sometime known.
COUNTESS
Parolles, was it not?
First Gentleman
Ay, my good lady, he.
COUNTESS
A very tainted fellow, and full of wickedness.
My son corrupts a well-derived nature
With his inducement.
First Gentleman
Indeed, good lady,
The fellow has a deal of that too much,
Which holds him much to have.
COUNTESS
You're welcome, gentlemen.
I will entreat you, when you see my son,
To tell him that his sword can never win
The honour that he loses: more I'll entreat you
Written to bear along.
Second Gentleman
We serve you, madam,
In that and all your worthiest affairs.
COUNTESS
Not so, but as we change our courtesies.
Will you draw near!
Exeunt COUNTESS and Gentlemen

HELENA
'Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France.'
Nothing in France, until he has no wife!
Thou shalt have none, Rousillon, none in France;
Then hast thou all again. Poor lord! is't I
That chase thee from thy country and expose
Those tender limbs of thine to the event
Of the none-sparing war? and is it I
That drive thee from the sportive court, where thou
Wast shot at with fair eyes, to be the mark
Of smoky muskets? O you leaden messengers,
That ride upon the violent speed of fire,
Fly with false aim; move the still-peering air,
That sings with piercing; do not touch my lord.
Whoever shoots at him, I set him there;
Whoever charges on his forward breast,
I am the caitiff that do hold him to't;
And, though I kill him not, I am the cause
His death was so effected: better 'twere
I met the ravin lion when he roar'd
With sharp constraint of hunger; better 'twere
That all the miseries which nature owes
Were mine at once. No, come thou home, Rousillon,
Whence honour but of danger wins a scar,
As oft it loses all: I will be gone;
My being here it is that holds thee hence:
Shall I stay here to do't? no, no, although
The air of paradise did fan the house
And angels officed all: I will be gone,
That pitiful rumour may report my flight,
To consolate thine ear. Come, night; end, day!
For with the dark, poor thief, I'll steal away.
Exit

SCENE III. Florence. Before the DUKE's palace.

Flourish. Enter the DUKE of Florence, BERTRAM, PAROLLES, Soldiers, Drum, and Trumpets
DUKE
The general of our horse thou art; and we,
Great in our hope, lay our best love and credence
Upon thy promising fortune.
BERTRAM
Sir, it is
A charge too heavy for my strength, but yet
We'll strive to bear it for your worthy sake
To the extreme edge of hazard.
DUKE
Then go thou forth;
And fortune play upon thy prosperous helm,
As thy auspicious mistress!
BERTRAM
This very day,
Great Mars, I put myself into thy file:
Make me but like my thoughts, and I shall prove
A lover of thy drum, hater of love.
Exeunt

SCENE IV. Rousillon. The COUNT's palace.

Enter COUNTESS and Steward
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.
Steward
[Reads]
I am Saint Jaques' pilgrim, thither gone:
Ambitious love hath so in me offended,
That barefoot plod I the cold ground upon,
With sainted vow my faults to have amended.
Write, write, that from the bloody course of war
My dearest master, your dear son, may hie:
Bless him at home in peace, whilst I from far
His name with zealous fervor sanctify:
His taken labours bid him me forgive;
I, his despiteful Juno, sent him forth
From courtly friends, with camping foes to live,
Where death and danger dogs the heels of worth:
He is too good and fair for death and me:
Whom I myself embrace, to set him free.
COUNTESS
Ah, what sharp stings are in her mildest words!
Rinaldo, you did never lack advice so much,
As letting her pass so: had I spoke with her,
I could have well diverted her intents,
Which thus she hath prevented.
Steward
Pardon me, madam:
If I had given you this at over-night,
She might have been o'erta'en; and yet she writes,
Pursuit would be but vain.
COUNTESS
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;
Let every word weigh heavy of her worth
That he does weigh too light: my greatest grief.
Though little he do feel it, set down sharply.
Dispatch the most convenient messenger:
When haply he shall hear that she is gone,
He will return; and hope I may that she,
Hearing so much, will speed her foot again,
Led hither by pure love: which of them both
Is dearest to me. I have no skill in sense
To make distinction: provide this messenger:
My heart is heavy and mine age is weak;
Grief would have tears, and sorrow bids me speak.
Exeunt

SCENE V. Florence. Without the walls. A tucket afar off.

Enter an old Widow of Florence, DIANA, VIOLENTA, and MARIANA, with other Citizens
Widow
Nay, come; for if they do approach the city, we
shall lose all the sight.
DIANA
They say the French count has done most honourable service.
Widow
It is reported that he has taken their greatest
commander; and that with his own hand he slew the
duke's brother.
Tucket

We have lost our labour; they are gone a contrary
way: hark! you may know by their trumpets.
MARIANA
Come, let's return again, and suffice ourselves with
the report of it. Well, Diana, take heed of this
French earl: the honour of a maid is her name; and
no legacy is so rich as honesty.
Widow
I have told my neighbour how you have been solicited
by a gentleman his companion.
MARIANA
I know that knave; hang him! one Parolles: a
filthy officer he is in those suggestions for the
young earl. Beware of them, Diana; their promises,
enticements, oaths, tokens, and all these engines of
lust, are not the things they go under: many a maid
hath been seduced by them; and the misery is,
example, that so terrible shows in the wreck of
maidenhood, cannot for all that dissuade succession,
but that they are limed with the twigs that threaten
them. I hope I need not to advise you further; but
I hope your own grace will keep you where you are,
though there were no further danger known but the
modesty which is so lost.
DIANA
You shall not need to fear me.
Widow
I hope so.
Enter HELENA, disguised like a Pilgrim

Look, here comes a pilgrim: I know she will lie at
my house; thither they send one another: I'll
question her. God save you, pilgrim! whither are you bound?
HELENA
To Saint Jaques le Grand.
Where do the palmers lodge, I do beseech you?
Widow
At the Saint Francis here beside the port.
HELENA
Is this the way?
Widow
Ay, marry, is't.
A march afar

Hark you! they come this way.
If you will tarry, holy pilgrim,
But till the troops come by,
I will conduct you where you shall be lodged;
The rather, for I think I know your hostess
As ample as myself.
HELENA
Is it yourself?
Widow
If you shall please so, pilgrim.
HELENA
I thank you, and will stay upon your leisure.
Widow
You came, I think, from France?
HELENA
I did so.
Widow
Here you shall see a countryman of yours
That has done worthy service.
HELENA
His name, I pray you.
DIANA
The Count Rousillon: know you such a one?
HELENA
But by the ear, that hears most nobly of him:
His face I know not.
DIANA
Whatsome'er he is,
He's bravely taken here. He stole from France,
As 'tis reported, for the king had married him
Against his liking: think you it is so?
HELENA
Ay, surely, mere the truth: I know his lady.
DIANA
There is a gentleman that serves the count
Reports but coarsely of her.
HELENA
What's his name?
DIANA
Monsieur Parolles.
HELENA
O, I believe with him,
In argument of praise, or to the worth
Of the great count himself, she is too mean
To have her name repeated: all her deserving
Is a reserved honesty, and that
I have not heard examined.
DIANA
Alas, poor lady!
'Tis a hard bondage to become the wife
Of a detesting lord.
Widow
I warrant, good creature, wheresoe'er she is,
Her heart weighs sadly: this young maid might do her
A shrewd turn, if she pleased.
HELENA
How do you mean?
May be the amorous count solicits her
In the unlawful purpose.
Widow
He does indeed;
And brokes with all that can in such a suit
Corrupt the tender honour of a maid:
But she is arm'd for him and keeps her guard
In honestest defence.
MARIANA
The gods forbid else!
Widow
So, now they come:
Drum and Colours

Enter BERTRAM, PAROLLES, and the whole army

That is Antonio, the duke's eldest son;
That, Escalus.
HELENA
Which is the Frenchman?
DIANA
He;
That with the plume: 'tis a most gallant fellow.
I would he loved his wife: if he were honester
He were much goodlier: is't not a handsome gentleman?
HELENA
I like him well.
DIANA
'Tis pity he is not honest: yond's that same knave
That leads him to these places: were I his lady,
I would Poison that vile rascal.
HELENA
Which is he?
DIANA
That jack-an-apes with scarfs: why is he melancholy?
HELENA
Perchance he's hurt i' the battle.
PAROLLES
Lose our drum! well.
MARIANA
He's shrewdly vexed at something: look, he has spied us.
Widow
Marry, hang you!
MARIANA
And your courtesy, for a ring-carrier!
Exeunt BERTRAM, PAROLLES, and army

Widow
The troop is past. Come, pilgrim, I will bring you
Where you shall host: of enjoin'd penitents
There's four or five, to great Saint Jaques bound,
Already at my house.
HELENA
I humbly thank you:
Please it this matron and this gentle maid
To eat with us to-night, the charge and thanking
Shall be for me; and, to requite you further,
I will bestow some precepts of this virgin
Worthy the note.
BOTH
We'll take your offer kindly.
Exeunt

SCENE VI. Camp before Florence.

Enter BERTRAM and the two French Lords
Second Lord
Nay, good my lord, put him to't; let him have his
way.
First Lord
If your lordship find him not a hilding, hold me no
more in your respect.
Second Lord
On my life, my lord, a bubble.
BERTRAM
Do you think I am so far deceived in him?
Second Lord
Believe it, my lord, in mine own direct knowledge,
without any malice, but to speak of him as my
kinsman, he's a most notable coward, an infinite and
endless liar, an hourly promise-breaker, the owner
of no one good quality worthy your lordship's
entertainment.
First Lord
It were fit you knew him; lest, reposing too far in
his virtue, which he hath not, he might at some
great and trusty business in a main danger fail you.
BERTRAM
I would I knew in what particular action to try him.
First Lord
None better than to let him fetch off his drum,
which you hear him so confidently undertake to do.
Second Lord
I, with a troop of Florentines, will suddenly
surprise him; such I will have, whom I am sure he
knows not from the enemy: we will bind and hoodwink
him so, that he shall suppose no other but that he
is carried into the leaguer of the adversaries, when
we bring him to our own tents. Be but your lordship
present at his examination: if he do not, for the
promise of his life and in the highest compulsion of
base fear, offer to betray you and deliver all the
intelligence in his power against you, and that with
the divine forfeit of his soul upon oath, never
trust my judgment in any thing.
First Lord
O, for the love of laughter, let him fetch his drum;
he says he has a stratagem for't: when your
lordship sees the bottom of his success in't, and to
what metal this counterfeit lump of ore will be
melted, if you give him not John Drum's
entertainment, your inclining cannot be removed.
Here he comes.
Enter PAROLLES

Second Lord
[Aside to BERTRAM] O, for the love of laughter,
hinder not the honour of his design: let him fetch
off his drum in any hand.
BERTRAM
How now, monsieur! this drum sticks sorely in your
disposition.
First Lord
A pox on't, let it go; 'tis but a drum.
PAROLLES
'But a drum'! is't 'but a drum'? A drum so lost!
There was excellent command,--to charge in with our
horse upon our own wings, and to rend our own soldiers!
First Lord
That was not to be blamed in the command of the
service: it was a disaster of war that Caesar
himself could not have prevented, if he had been
there to command.
BERTRAM
Well, we cannot greatly condemn our success: some
dishonour we had in the loss of that drum; but it is
not to be recovered.
PAROLLES
It might have been recovered.
BERTRAM
It might; but it is not now.
PAROLLES
It is to be recovered: but that the merit of
service is seldom attributed to the true and exact
performer, I would have that drum or another, or
'hic jacet.'
BERTRAM
Why, if you have a stomach, to't, monsieur: if you
think your mystery in stratagem can bring this
instrument of honour again into his native quarter,
be magnanimous in the enterprise and go on; I will
grace the attempt for a worthy exploit: if you
speed well in it, the duke shall both speak of it.
and extend to you what further becomes his
greatness, even to the utmost syllable of your
worthiness.
PAROLLES
By the hand of a soldier, I will undertake it.
BERTRAM
But you must not now slumber in it.
PAROLLES
I'll about it this evening: and I will presently
pen down my dilemmas, encourage myself in my
certainty, put myself into my mortal preparation;
and by midnight look to hear further from me.
BERTRAM
May I be bold to acquaint his grace you are gone about it?
PAROLLES
I know not what the success will be, my lord; but
the attempt I vow.
BERTRAM
I know thou'rt valiant; and, to the possibility of
thy soldiership, will subscribe for thee. Farewell.
PAROLLES
I love not many words.
Exit

Second Lord
No more than a fish loves water. Is not this a
strange fellow, my lord, that so confidently seems
to undertake this business, which he knows is not to
be done; damns himself to do and dares better be
damned than to do't?
First Lord
You do not know him, my lord, as we do: certain it
is that he will steal himself into a man's favour and
for a week escape a great deal of discoveries; but
when you find him out, you have him ever after.
BERTRAM
Why, do you think he will make no deed at all of
this that so seriously he does address himself unto?
Second Lord
None in the world; but return with an invention and
clap upon you two or three probable lies: but we
have almost embossed him; you shall see his fall
to-night; for indeed he is not for your lordship's respect.
First Lord
We'll make you some sport with the fox ere we case
him. He was first smoked by the old lord Lafeu:
when his disguise and he is parted, tell me what a
sprat you shall find him; which you shall see this
very night.
Second Lord
I must go look my twigs: he shall be caught.
BERTRAM
Your brother he shall go along with me.
Second Lord
As't please your lordship: I'll leave you.
Exit

BERTRAM
Now will I lead you to the house, and show you
The lass I spoke of.
First Lord
But you say she's honest.
BERTRAM
That's all the fault: I spoke with her but once
And found her wondrous cold; but I sent to her,
By this same coxcomb that we have i' the wind,
Tokens and letters which she did re-send;
And this is all I have done. She's a fair creature:
Will you go see her?
First Lord
With all my heart, my lord.
Exeunt

SCENE VII. Florence. The Widow's house.

Enter HELENA and Widow
HELENA
If you misdoubt me that I am not she,
I know not how I shall assure you further,
But I shall lose the grounds I work upon.
Widow
Though my estate be fallen, I was well born,
Nothing acquainted with these businesses;
And would not put my reputation now
In any staining act.
HELENA
Nor would I wish you.
First, give me trust, the count he is my husband,
And what to your sworn counsel I have spoken
Is so from word to word; and then you cannot,
By the good aid that I of you shall borrow,
Err in bestowing it.
Widow
I should believe you:
For you have show'd me that which well approves
You're great in fortune.
HELENA
Take this purse of gold,
And let me buy your friendly help thus far,
Which I will over-pay and pay again
When I have found it. The count he wooes your daughter,
Lays down his wanton siege before her beauty,
Resolved to carry her: let her in fine consent,
As we'll direct her how 'tis best to bear it.
Now his important blood will nought deny
That she'll demand: a ring the county wears,
That downward hath succeeded in his house
From son to son, some four or five descents
Since the first father wore it: this ring he holds
In most rich choice; yet in his idle fire,
To buy his will, it would not seem too dear,
Howe'er repented after.
Widow
Now I see
The bottom of your purpose.
HELENA
You see it lawful, then: it is no more,
But that your daughter, ere she seems as won,
Desires this ring; appoints him an encounter;
In fine, delivers me to fill the time,
Herself most chastely absent: after this,
To marry her, I'll add three thousand crowns
To what is passed already.
Widow
I have yielded:
Instruct my daughter how she shall persever,
That time and place with this deceit so lawful
May prove coherent. Every night he comes
With musics of all sorts and songs composed
To her unworthiness: it nothing steads us
To chide him from our eaves; for he persists
As if his life lay on't.
HELENA
Why then to-night
Let us assay our plot; which, if it speed,
Is wicked meaning in a lawful deed
And lawful meaning in a lawful act,
Where both not sin, and yet a sinful fact:
But let's about it.
Exeunt

ACT IV

SCENE I. Without the Florentine camp.

Enter Second French Lord, with five or six other Soldiers in ambush
Second Lord
He can come no other way but by this hedge-corner.
When you sally upon him, speak what terrible
language you will: though you understand it not
yourselves, no matter; for we must not seem to
understand him, unless some one among us whom we
must produce for an interpreter.
First Soldier
Good captain, let me be the interpreter.
Second Lord
Art not acquainted with him? knows he not thy voice?
First Soldier
No, sir, I warrant you.
Second Lord
But what linsey-woolsey hast thou to speak to us again?
First Soldier
E'en such as you speak to me.
Second Lord
He must think us some band of strangers i' the
adversary's entertainment. Now he hath a smack of
all neighbouring languages; therefore we must every
one be a man of his own fancy, not to know what we
speak one to another; so we seem to know, is to
know straight our purpose: choughs' language,
gabble enough, and good enough. As for you,
interpreter, you must seem very politic. But couch,
ho! here he comes, to beguile two hours in a sleep,
and then to return and swear the lies he forges.
Enter PAROLLES

PAROLLES
Ten o'clock: within these three hours 'twill be
time enough to go home. What shall I say I have
done? It must be a very plausive invention that
carries it: they begin to smoke me; and disgraces
have of late knocked too often at my door. I find
my tongue is too foolhardy; but my heart hath the
fear of Mars before it and of his creatures, not
daring the reports of my tongue.
Second Lord
This is the first truth that e'er thine own tongue
was guilty of.
PAROLLES
What the devil should move me to undertake the
recovery of this drum, being not ignorant of the
impossibility, and knowing I had no such purpose? I
must give myself some hurts, and say I got them in
exploit: yet slight ones will not carry it; they
will say, 'Came you off with so little?' and great
ones I dare not give. Wherefore, what's the
instance? Tongue, I must put you into a
butter-woman's mouth and buy myself another of
Bajazet's mule, if you prattle me into these perils.
Second Lord
Is it possible he should know what he is, and be
that he is?
PAROLLES
I would the cutting of my garments would serve the
turn, or the breaking of my Spanish sword.
Second Lord
We cannot afford you so.
PAROLLES
Or the baring of my beard; and to say it was in
stratagem.
Second Lord
'Twould not do.
PAROLLES
Or to drown my clothes, and say I was stripped.
Second Lord
Hardly serve.
PAROLLES
Though I swore I leaped from the window of the citadel.
Second Lord
How deep?
PAROLLES
Thirty fathom.
Second Lord
Three great oaths would scarce make that be believed.
PAROLLES
I would I had any drum of the enemy's: I would swear
I recovered it.
Second Lord
You shall hear one anon.
PAROLLES
A drum now of the enemy's,--
Alarum within

Second Lord
Throca movousus, cargo, cargo, cargo.
All
Cargo, cargo, cargo, villiando par corbo, cargo.
PAROLLES
O, ransom, ransom! do not hide mine eyes.
They seize and blindfold him

First Soldier
Boskos thromuldo boskos.
PAROLLES
I know you are the Muskos' regiment:
And I shall lose my life for want of language;
If there be here German, or Dane, low Dutch,
Italian, or French, let him speak to me; I'll
Discover that which shall undo the Florentine.
First Soldier
Boskos vauvado: I understand thee, and can speak
thy tongue. Kerely bonto, sir, betake thee to thy
faith, for seventeen poniards are at thy bosom.
PAROLLES
O!
First Soldier
O, pray, pray, pray! Manka revania dulche.
Second Lord
Oscorbidulchos volivorco.
First Soldier
The general is content to spare thee yet;
And, hoodwink'd as thou art, will lead thee on
To gather from thee: haply thou mayst inform
Something to save thy life.
PAROLLES
O, let me live!
And all the secrets of our camp I'll show,
Their force, their purposes; nay, I'll speak that
Which you will wonder at.
First Soldier
But wilt thou faithfully?
PAROLLES
If I do not, damn me.
First Soldier
Acordo linta.
Come on; thou art granted space.
Exit, with PAROLLES guarded. A short alarum within

Second Lord
Go, tell the Count Rousillon, and my brother,
We have caught the woodcock, and will keep him muffled
Till we do hear from them.
Second Soldier
Captain, I will.
Second Lord
A' will betray us all unto ourselves:
Inform on that.
Second Soldier
So I will, sir.
Second Lord
Till then I'll keep him dark and safely lock'd.
Exeunt

SCENE II. Florence. The Widow's house.

Enter BERTRAM and DIANA
BERTRAM
They told me that your name was Fontibell.
DIANA
No, my good lord, Diana.
BERTRAM
Titled goddess;
And worth it, with addition! But, fair soul,
In your fine frame hath love no quality?
If quick fire of youth light not your mind,
You are no maiden, but a monument:
When you are dead, you should be such a one
As you are now, for you are cold and stem;
And now you should be as your mother was
When your sweet self was got.
DIANA
She then was honest.
BERTRAM
So should you be.
DIANA
No:
My mother did but duty; such, my lord,
As you owe to your wife.
BERTRAM
No more o' that;
I prithee, do not strive against my vows:
I was compell'd to her; but I love thee
By love's own sweet constraint, and will for ever
Do thee all rights of service.
DIANA
Ay, so you serve us
Till we serve you; but when you have our roses,
You barely leave our thorns to prick ourselves
And mock us with our bareness.
BERTRAM
How have I sworn!
DIANA
'Tis not the many oaths that makes the truth,
But the plain single vow that is vow'd true.
What is not holy, that we swear not by,
But take the High'st to witness: then, pray you, tell me,
If I should swear by God's great attributes,
I loved you dearly, would you believe my oaths,
When I did love you ill? This has no holding,
To swear by him whom I protest to love,
That I will work against him: therefore your oaths
Are words and poor conditions, but unseal'd,
At least in my opinion.
BERTRAM
Change it, change it;
Be not so holy-cruel: love is holy;
And my integrity ne'er knew the crafts
That you do charge men with. Stand no more off,
But give thyself unto my sick desires,
Who then recover: say thou art mine, and ever
My love as it begins shall so persever.
DIANA
I see that men make ropes in such a scarre
That we'll forsake ourselves. Give me that ring.
BERTRAM
I'll lend it thee, my dear; but have no power
To give it from me.
DIANA
Will you not, my lord?
BERTRAM
It is an honour 'longing to our house,
Bequeathed down from many ancestors;
Which were the greatest obloquy i' the world
In me to lose.
DIANA
Mine honour's such a ring:
My chastity's the jewel of our house,
Bequeathed down from many ancestors;
Which were the greatest obloquy i' the world
In me to lose: thus your own proper wisdom
Brings in the champion Honour on my part,
Against your vain assault.
BERTRAM
Here, take my ring:
My house, mine honour, yea, my life, be thine,
And I'll be bid by thee.
DIANA
When midnight comes, knock at my chamber-window:
I'll order take my mother shall not hear.
Now will I charge you in the band of truth,
When you have conquer'd my yet maiden bed,
Remain there but an hour, nor speak to me:
My reasons are most strong; and you shall know them
When back again this ring shall be deliver'd:
And on your finger in the night I'll put
Another ring, that what in time proceeds
May token to the future our past deeds.
Adieu, till then; then, fail not. You have won
A wife of me, though there my hope be done.
BERTRAM
A heaven on earth I have won by wooing thee.
Exit

DIANA
For which live long to thank both heaven and me!
You may so in the end.
My mother told me just how he would woo,
As if she sat in 's heart; she says all men
Have the like oaths: he had sworn to marry me
When his wife's dead; therefore I'll lie with him
When I am buried. Since Frenchmen are so braid,
Marry that will, I live and die a maid:
Only in this disguise I think't no sin
To cozen him that would unjustly win.
Exit

SCENE III. The Florentine camp.

Enter the two French Lords and some two or three Soldiers
First Lord
You have not given him his mother's letter?
Second Lord
I have delivered it an hour since: there is
something in't that stings his nature; for on the
reading it he changed almost into another man.
First Lord
He has much worthy blame laid upon him for shaking
off so good a wife and so sweet a lady.
Second Lord
Especially he hath incurred the everlasting
displeasure of the king, who had even tuned his
bounty to sing happiness to him. I will tell you a
thing, but you shall let it dwell darkly with you.
First Lord
When you have spoken it, 'tis dead, and I am the
grave of it.
Second Lord
He hath perverted a young gentlewoman here in
Florence, of a most chaste renown; and this night he
fleshes his will in the spoil of her honour: he hath
given her his monumental ring, and thinks himself
made in the unchaste composition.
First Lord
Now, God delay our rebellion! as we are ourselves,
what things are we!
Second Lord
Merely our own traitors. And as in the common course
of all treasons, we still see them reveal
themselves, till they attain to their abhorred ends,
so he that in this action contrives against his own
nobility, in his proper stream o'erflows himself.
First Lord
Is it not meant damnable in us, to be trumpeters of
our unlawful intents? We shall not then have his
company to-night?
Second Lord
Not till after midnight; for he is dieted to his hour.
First Lord
That approaches apace; I would gladly have him see
his company anatomized, that he might take a measure
of his own judgments, wherein so curiously he had
set this counterfeit.
Second Lord
We will not meddle with him till he come; for his
presence must be the whip of the other.
First Lord
In the mean time, what hear you of these wars?
Second Lord
I hear there is an overture of peace.
First Lord
Nay, I assure you, a peace concluded.
Second Lord
What will Count Rousillon do then? will he travel
higher, or return again into France?
First Lord
I perceive, by this demand, you are not altogether
of his council.
Second Lord
Let it be forbid, sir; so should I be a great deal
of his act.
First Lord
Sir, his wife some two months since fled from his
house: her pretence is a pilgrimage to Saint Jaques
le Grand; which holy undertaking with most austere
sanctimony she accomplished; and, there residing the
tenderness of her nature became as a prey to her
grief; in fine, made a groan of her last breath, and
now she sings in heaven.
Second Lord
How is this justified?
First Lord
The stronger part of it by her own letters, which
makes her story true, even to the point of her
death: her death itself, which could not be her
office to say is come, was faithfully confirmed by
the rector of the place.
Second Lord
Hath the count all this intelligence?
First Lord
Ay, and the particular confirmations, point from
point, so to the full arming of the verity.
Second Lord
I am heartily sorry that he'll be glad of this.
First Lord
How mightily sometimes we make us comforts of our losses!
Second Lord
And how mightily some other times we drown our gain
in tears! The great dignity that his valour hath
here acquired for him shall at home be encountered
with a shame as ample.
First Lord
The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and
ill together: our virtues would be proud, if our
faults whipped them not; and our crimes would
despair, if they were not cherished by our virtues.
Enter a Messenger

How now! where's your master?
Servant
He met the duke in the street, sir, of whom he hath
taken a solemn leave: his lordship will next
morning for France. The duke hath offered him
letters of commendations to the king.
Second Lord
They shall be no more than needful there, if they
were more than they can commend.
First Lord
They cannot be too sweet for the king's tartness.
Here's his lordship now.
Enter BERTRAM

How now, my lord! is't not after midnight?
BERTRAM
I have to-night dispatched sixteen businesses, a
month's length a-piece, by an abstract of success:
I have congied with the duke, done my adieu with his
nearest; buried a wife, mourned for her; writ to my
lady mother I am returning; entertained my convoy;
and between these main parcels of dispatch effected
many nicer needs; the last was the greatest, but
that I have not ended yet.
Second Lord
If the business be of any difficulty, and this
morning your departure hence, it requires haste of
your lordship.
BERTRAM
I mean, the business is not ended, as fearing to
hear of it hereafter. But shall we have this
dialogue between the fool and the soldier? Come,
bring forth this counterfeit module, he has deceived
me, like a double-meaning prophesier.
Second Lord
Bring him forth: has sat i' the stocks all night,
poor gallant knave.
BERTRAM
No matter: his heels have deserved it, in usurping
his spurs so long. How does he carry himself?
Second Lord
I have told your lordship already, the stocks carry
him. But to answer you as you would be understood;
he weeps like a wench that had shed her milk: he
hath confessed himself to Morgan, whom he supposes
to be a friar, from the time of his remembrance to
this very instant disaster of his setting i' the
stocks: and what think you he hath confessed?
BERTRAM
Nothing of me, has a'?
Second Lord
His confession is taken, and it shall be read to his
face: if your lordship be in't, as I believe you
are, you must have the patience to hear it.
Enter PAROLLES guarded, and First Soldier

BERTRAM
A plague upon him! muffled! he can say nothing of
me: hush, hush!
First Lord
Hoodman comes! Portotartarosa
First Soldier
He calls for the tortures: what will you say
without 'em?
PAROLLES
I will confess what I know without constraint: if
ye pinch me like a pasty, I can say no more.
First Soldier
Bosko chimurcho.
First Lord
Boblibindo chicurmurco.
First Soldier
You are a merciful general. Our general bids you
answer to what I shall ask you out of a note.
PAROLLES
And truly, as I hope to live.
First Soldier
[Reads] 'First demand of him how many horse the
duke is strong.' What say you to that?
PAROLLES
Five or six thousand; but very weak and
unserviceable: the troops are all scattered, and
the commanders very poor rogues, upon my reputation
and credit and as I hope to live.
First Soldier
Shall I set down your answer so?
PAROLLES
Do: I'll take the sacrament on't, how and which way you will.
BERTRAM
All's one to him. What a past-saving slave is this!
First Lord
You're deceived, my lord: this is Monsieur
Parolles, the gallant militarist,--that was his own
phrase,--that had the whole theoric of war in the
knot of his scarf, and the practise in the chape of
his dagger.
Second Lord
I will never trust a man again for keeping his sword
clean. nor believe he can have every thing in him
by wearing his apparel neatly.
First Soldier
Well, that's set down.
PAROLLES
Five or six thousand horse, I said,-- I will say
true,--or thereabouts, set down, for I'll speak truth.
First Lord
He's very near the truth in this.
BERTRAM
But I con him no thanks for't, in the nature he
delivers it.
PAROLLES
Poor rogues, I pray you, say.
First Soldier
Well, that's set down.
PAROLLES
I humbly thank you, sir: a truth's a truth, the
rogues are marvellous poor.
First Soldier
[Reads] 'Demand of him, of what strength they are
a-foot.' What say you to that?
PAROLLES
By my troth, sir, if I were to live this present
hour, I will tell true. Let me see: Spurio, a
hundred and fifty; Sebastian, so many; Corambus, so
many; Jaques, so many; Guiltian, Cosmo, Lodowick,
and Gratii, two hundred and fifty each; mine own
company, Chitopher, Vaumond, Bentii, two hundred and
fifty each: so that the muster-file, rotten and
sound, upon my life, amounts not to fifteen thousand
poll; half of the which dare not shake snow from off
their cassocks, lest they shake themselves to pieces.
BERTRAM
What shall be done to him?
First Lord
Nothing, but let him have thanks. Demand of him my
condition, and what credit I have with the duke.
First Soldier
Well, that's set down.
Reads

'You shall demand of him, whether one Captain Dumain
be i' the camp, a Frenchman; what his reputation is
with the duke; what his valour, honesty, and
expertness in wars; or whether he thinks it were not
possible, with well-weighing sums of gold, to
corrupt him to revolt.' What say you to this? what
do you know of it?
PAROLLES
I beseech you, let me answer to the particular of
the inter'gatories: demand them singly.
First Soldier
Do you know this Captain Dumain?
PAROLLES
I know him: a' was a botcher's 'prentice in Paris,
from whence he was whipped for getting the shrieve's
fool with child,--a dumb innocent, that could not
say him nay.
BERTRAM
Nay, by your leave, hold your hands; though I know
his brains are forfeit to the next tile that falls.
First Soldier
Well, is this captain in the duke of Florence's camp?
PAROLLES
Upon my knowledge, he is, and lousy.
First Lord
Nay look not so upon me; we shall hear of your
lordship anon.
First Soldier
What is his reputation with the duke?
PAROLLES
The duke knows him for no other but a poor officer
of mine; and writ to me this other day to turn him
out o' the band: I think I have his letter in my pocket.
First Soldier
Marry, we'll search.
PAROLLES
In good sadness, I do not know; either it is there,
or it is upon a file with the duke's other letters
in my tent.
First Soldier
Here 'tis; here's a paper: shall I read it to you?
PAROLLES
I do not know if it be it or no.
BERTRAM
Our interpreter does it well.
First Lord
Excellently.
First Soldier
[Reads] 'Dian, the count's a fool, and full of gold,'--
PAROLLES
That is not the duke's letter, sir; that is an
advertisement to a proper maid in Florence, one
Diana, to take heed of the allurement of one Count
Rousillon, a foolish idle boy, but for all that very
ruttish: I pray you, sir, put it up again.
First Soldier
Nay, I'll read it first, by your favour.
PAROLLES
My meaning in't, I protest, was very honest in the
behalf of the maid; for I knew the young count to be
a dangerous and lascivious boy, who is a whale to
virginity and devours up all the fry it finds.
BERTRAM
Damnable both-sides rogue!
First Soldier
[Reads] 'When he swears oaths, bid him drop gold, and take it;
After he scores, he never pays the score:
Half won is match well made; match, and well make it;
He ne'er pays after-debts, take it before;
And say a soldier, Dian, told thee this,
Men are to mell with, boys are not to kiss:
For count of this, the count's a fool, I know it,
Who pays before, but not when he does owe it.
Thine, as he vowed to thee in thine ear,
PAROLLES.'
BERTRAM
He shall be whipped through the army with this rhyme
in's forehead.
Second Lord
This is your devoted friend, sir, the manifold
linguist and the armipotent soldier.
BERTRAM
I could endure any thing before but a cat, and now
he's a cat to me.
First Soldier
I perceive, sir, by the general's looks, we shall be
fain to hang you.
PAROLLES
My life, sir, in any case: not that I am afraid to
die; but that, my offences being many, I would
repent out the remainder of nature: let me live,
sir, in a dungeon, i' the stocks, or any where, so I may live.
First Soldier
We'll see what may be done, so you confess freely;
therefore, once more to this Captain Dumain: you
have answered to his reputation with the duke and to
his valour: what is his honesty?
PAROLLES
He will steal, sir, an egg out of a cloister: for
rapes and ravishments he parallels Nessus: he
professes not keeping of oaths; in breaking 'em he
is stronger than Hercules: he will lie, sir, with
such volubility, that you would think truth were a
fool: drunkenness is his best virtue, for he will
be swine-drunk; and in his sleep he does little
harm, save to his bed-clothes about him; but they
know his conditions and lay him in straw. I have but
little more to say, sir, of his honesty: he has
every thing that an honest man should not have; what
an honest man should have, he has nothing.
First Lord
I begin to love him for this.
BERTRAM
For this description of thine honesty? A pox upon
him for me, he's more and more a cat.
First Soldier
What say you to his expertness in war?
PAROLLES
Faith, sir, he has led the drum before the English
tragedians; to belie him, I will not, and more of
his soldiership I know not; except, in that country
he had the honour to be the officer at a place there
called Mile-end, to instruct for the doubling of
files: I would do the man what honour I can, but of
this I am not certain.
First Lord
He hath out-villained villany so far, that the
rarity redeems him.
BERTRAM
A pox on him, he's a cat still.
First Soldier
His qualities being at this poor price, I need not
to ask you if gold will corrupt him to revolt.
PAROLLES
Sir, for a quart d'ecu he will sell the fee-simple
of his salvation, the inheritance of it; and cut the
entail from all remainders, and a perpetual
succession for it perpetually.
First Soldier
What's his brother, the other Captain Dumain?
Second Lord
Why does be ask him of me?
First Soldier
What's he?
PAROLLES
E'en a crow o' the same nest; not altogether so
great as the first in goodness, but greater a great
deal in evil: he excels his brother for a coward,
yet his brother is reputed one of the best that is:
in a retreat he outruns any lackey; marry, in coming
on he has the cramp.
First Soldier
If your life be saved, will you undertake to betray
the Florentine?
PAROLLES
Ay, and the captain of his horse, Count Rousillon.
First Soldier
I'll whisper with the general, and know his pleasure.
PAROLLES
[Aside] I'll no more drumming; a plague of all
drums! Only to seem to deserve well, and to
beguile the supposition of that lascivious young boy
the count, have I run into this danger. Yet who
would have suspected an ambush where I was taken?
First Soldier
There is no remedy, sir, but you must die: the
general says, you that have so traitorously
discovered the secrets of your army and made such
pestiferous reports of men very nobly held, can
serve the world for no honest use; therefore you
must die. Come, headsman, off with his head.
PAROLLES
O Lord, sir, let me live, or let me see my death!
First Lord
That shall you, and take your leave of all your friends.
Unblinding him

So, look about you: know you any here?
BERTRAM
Good morrow, noble captain.
Second Lord
God bless you, Captain Parolles.
First Lord
God save you, noble captain.
Second Lord
Captain, what greeting will you to my Lord Lafeu?
I am for France.
First Lord
Good captain, will you give me a copy of the sonnet
you writ to Diana in behalf of the Count Rousillon?
an I were not a very coward, I'ld compel it of you:
but fare you well.
Exeunt BERTRAM and Lords

First Soldier
You are undone, captain, all but your scarf; that
has a knot on't yet
PAROLLES
Who cannot be crushed with a plot?
First Soldier
If you could find out a country where but women were
that had received so much shame, you might begin an
impudent nation. Fare ye well, sir; I am for France
too: we shall speak of you there.
Exit with Soldiers

PAROLLES
Yet am I thankful: if my heart were great,
'Twould burst at this. Captain I'll be no more;
But I will eat and drink, and sleep as soft
As captain shall: simply the thing I am
Shall make me live. Who knows himself a braggart,
Let him fear this, for it will come to pass
that every braggart shall be found an ass.
Rust, sword? cool, blushes! and, Parolles, live
Safest in shame! being fool'd, by foolery thrive!
There's place and means for every man alive.
I'll after them.
Exit

SCENE IV. Florence. The Widow's house.

Enter HELENA, Widow, and DIANA
HELENA
That you may well perceive I have not wrong'd you,
One of the greatest in the Christian world
Shall be my surety; 'fore whose throne 'tis needful,
Ere I can perfect mine intents, to kneel:
Time was, I did him a desired office,
Dear almost as his life; which gratitude
Through flinty Tartar's bosom would peep forth,
And answer, thanks: I duly am inform'd
His grace is at Marseilles; to which place
We have convenient convoy. You must know
I am supposed dead: the army breaking,
My husband hies him home; where, heaven aiding,
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 wagon is prepared, 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

SCENE V. Rousillon. The COUNT's palace.

Enter COUNTESS, LAFEU, and Clown
LAFEU
No, no, no, your son was misled with a snipt-taffeta
fellow there, whose villanous saffron would have
made all the unbaked 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 advanced
by the king than by that red-tailed 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 salads ere we light on such another herb.
Clown
Indeed, sir, she was the sweet marjoram of the
salad, or rather, the herb of grace.
LAFEU
They are not 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 talkest 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 flowery 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
looked 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 he 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; 'tis not amiss. And I was about to
tell you, since I heard of the good lady's death and
that my lord your son was upon his return home, I
moved the king my master to speak in the behalf of
my daughter; which, in the minority of them both,
his majesty, out of a self-gracious remembrance, did
first propose: his highness hath promised me to do
it: and, to stop up the displeasure he hath
conceived against your son, there is no fitter
matter. How does your ladyship like it?
COUNTESS
With very much content, my lord; and I wish it
happily effected.
LAFEU
His highness comes post from Marseilles, of as able
body as when he numbered thirty: he will be here
to-morrow, or I am deceived by him that in such
intelligence hath seldom failed.
COUNTESS
It rejoices me, that I hope I shall see him ere I
die. I have letters that my son will be here
to-night: I shall beseech your lordship to remain
with me till they meet together.
LAFEU
Madam, I was thinking with what manners I might
safely be admitted.
COUNTESS
You need but plead your honourable privilege.
LAFEU
Lady, of that I have made a bold charter; but I
thank my God it holds yet.
Re-enter Clown

Clown
O madam, yonder's my lord your son with a patch of
velvet on's face: whether there be a scar under't
or no, the velvet knows; but 'tis a goodly patch of
velvet: his left cheek is a cheek of two pile and a
half, but his right cheek is worn bare.
LAFEU
A scar nobly got, or a noble scar, is a good livery
of honour; so belike is that.
Clown
But it is your carbonadoed face.
LAFEU
Let us go see your son, I pray you: I long to talk
with the young noble soldier.
Clown
Faith there's a dozen of 'em, with delicate fine
hats and most courteous feathers, which bow the head
and nod at every man.
Exeunt

ACT V

SCENE I. Marseilles. A street.

Enter HELENA, Widow, and DIANA, with two Attendants
HELENA
But this exceeding posting day and night
Must wear your spirits low; we cannot help it:
But since you have made the days and nights as one,
To wear your gentle limbs in my affairs,
Be bold you do so grow in my requital
As nothing can unroot you. In happy time;
Enter a Gentleman

This man may help me to his majesty's ear,
If he would spend his power. God save you, sir.
Gentleman
And you.
HELENA
Sir, I have seen you in the court of France.
Gentleman
I have been sometimes there.
HELENA
I do presume, sir, that you are not fallen
From the report that goes upon your goodness;
An therefore, goaded with most sharp occasions,
Which lay nice manners by, I put you to
The use of your own virtues, for the which
I shall continue thankful.
Gentleman
What's your will?
HELENA
That it will please you
To give this poor petition to the king,
And aid me with that store of power you have
To come into his presence.
Gentleman
The king's not here.
HELENA
Not here, sir!
Gentleman
Not, indeed:
He hence removed last night and with more haste
Than is his use.
Widow
Lord, how we lose our pains!
HELENA
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL yet,
Though time seem so adverse and means unfit.
I do beseech you, whither is he gone?
Gentleman
Marry, as I take it, to Rousillon;
Whither I am going.
HELENA
I do beseech you, sir,
Since you are like to see the king before me,
Commend the paper to his gracious hand,
Which I presume shall render you no blame
But rather make you thank your pains for it.
I will come after you with what good speed
Our means will make us means.
Gentleman
This I'll do for you.
HELENA
And you shall find yourself to be well thank'd,
Whate'er falls more. We must to horse again.
Go, go, provide.
Exeunt

SCENE II. Rousillon. Before the COUNT's palace.

Enter Clown, and PAROLLES, following
PAROLLES
Good Monsieur Lavache, give my Lord Lafeu this
letter: I have ere now, sir, been better known to
you, when I have held familiarity with fresher
clothes; but I am now, sir, muddied in fortune's
mood, and smell somewhat strong of her strong
displeasure.
Clown
Truly, fortune's displeasure is but sluttish, if it
smell so strongly as thou speakest of: I will
henceforth eat no fish of fortune's buttering.
Prithee, allow the wind.
PAROLLES
Nay, you need not to stop your nose, sir; I spake
but by a metaphor.
Clown
Indeed, sir, if your metaphor stink, I will stop my
nose; or against any man's metaphor. Prithee, get
thee further.
PAROLLES
Pray you, sir, deliver me this paper.
Clown
Foh! prithee, stand away: a paper from fortune's
close-stool to give to a nobleman! Look, here he
comes himself.
Enter LAFEU

Here is a purr of fortune's, sir, or of fortune's
cat,--but not a musk-cat,--that has fallen into the
unclean fishpond of her displeasure, and, as he
says, is muddied withal: pray you, sir, use the
carp as you may; for he looks like a poor, decayed,
ingenious, foolish, rascally knave. I do pity his
distress in my similes of comfort and leave him to
your lordship.
Exit

PAROLLES
My lord, I am a man whom fortune hath cruelly
scratched.
LAFEU
And what would you have me to do? 'Tis too late to
pare her nails now. Wherein have you played the
knave with fortune, that she should scratch you, who
of herself is a good lady and would not have knaves
thrive long under her? There's a quart d'ecu for
you: let the justices make you and fortune friends:
I am for other business.
PAROLLES
I beseech your honour to hear me one single word.
LAFEU
You beg a single penny more: come, you shall ha't;
save your word.
PAROLLES
My name, my good lord, is Parolles.
LAFEU
You beg more than 'word,' then. Cox my passion!
give me your hand. How does your drum?
PAROLLES
O my good lord, you were the first that found me!
LAFEU
Was I, in sooth? and I was the first that lost thee.
PAROLLES
It lies in you, my lord, to bring me in some grace,
for you did bring me out.
LAFEU
Out upon thee, knave! dost thou put upon me at once
both the office of God and the devil? One brings
thee in grace and the other brings thee out.
Trumpets sound

The king's coming; I know by his trumpets. Sirrah,
inquire further after me; I had talk of you last
night: though you are a fool and a knave, you shall
eat; go to, follow.
PAROLLES
I praise God for you.
Exeunt

SCENE III. Rousillon. The COUNT's palace.

Flourish. Enter KING, COUNTESS, LAFEU, the two French Lords, with Attendants
KING
We lost a jewel of her; and our esteem
Was made much poorer by it: but your son,
As mad in folly, lack'd the sense to know
Her estimation home.
COUNTESS
'Tis past, my liege;
And I beseech your majesty to make it
Natural rebellion, done i' the blaze of youth;
When oil and fire, too strong for reason's force,
O'erbears it and burns on.
KING
My honour'd lady,
I have forgiven and forgotten all;
Though my revenges were high bent upon him,
And watch'd the time to shoot.
LAFEU
This I must say,
But first I beg my pardon, the young lord
Did to his majesty, his mother and his lady
Offence of mighty note; but to himself
The greatest wrong of all. He lost a wife
Whose beauty did astonish the survey
Of richest eyes, whose words all ears took captive,
Whose dear perfection hearts that scorn'd to serve
Humbly call'd mistress.
KING
Praising what is lost
Makes the remembrance dear. Well, call him hither;
We are reconciled, and the first view shall kill
All repetition: let him not ask our pardon;
The nature of his great offence is dead,
And deeper than oblivion we do bury
The incensing relics of it: let him approach,
A stranger, no offender; and inform him
So 'tis our will he should.
Gentleman
I shall, my liege.
Exit

KING
What says he to your daughter? have you spoke?
LAFEU
All that he is hath reference to your highness.
KING
Then shall we have a match. I have letters sent me
That set him high in fame.
Enter BERTRAM

LAFEU
He looks well on't.
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.
BERTRAM
My high-repented blames,
Dear sovereign, pardon to me.
KING
All is whole;
Not one word more of the consumed time.
Let's take the instant by the forward top;
For we are old, and on our quick'st decrees
The inaudible and noiseless foot of Time
Steals ere we can effect them. You remember
The daughter of this lord?
BERTRAM
Admiringly, my liege, at first
I stuck my choice upon her, ere my heart
Durst make too bold a 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 praised and whom myself,
Since I have lost, have loved, was in mine eye
The dust that did offend it.
KING
Well excused:
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 shame full late 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!
LAFEU
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

By my old beard,
And every 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 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't.
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.
LAFEU
I am sure I saw her wear it.
BERTRAM
You are deceived, my lord; she never saw it:
In Florence was it from a casement thrown me,
Wrapp'd in a paper, which contain'd the name
Of her that threw it: noble she was, and thought
I stood engaged: but when I had subscribed
To mine own fortune and inform'd her fully
I could not answer in that course of honour
As she had made the overture, she ceased
In heavy satisfaction and would never
Receive the ring again.
KING
Plutus himself,
That knows the tinct and multiplying medicine,
Hath not in nature's mystery more science
Than I have in this ring: 'twas mine, 'twas Helen's,
Whoever gave it you. Then, if you know
That you are well acquainted with yourself,
Confess 'twas hers, and by what rough enforcement
You got it from her: she call'd the saints to surety
That she would never put it from her finger,
Unless she gave it to yourself in bed,
Where you have never come, or sent it us
Upon her great disaster.
BERTRAM
She never saw it.
KING
Thou speak'st it falsely, as I love mine honour;
And makest conjectural fears to come into me
Which I would fain shut out. If it should prove
That thou art so inhuman,--'twill not prove so;--
And yet I know not: thou didst hate her deadly,
And she is dead; which nothing, but to close
Her eyes myself, could win me to believe,
More than to see this ring. Take him away.
Guards seize BERTRAM

My fore-past proofs, howe'er the matter fall,
Shall tax my fears of little vanity,
Having vainly fear'd too little. Away with him!
We'll sift this matter further.
BERTRAM
If you shall prove
This ring was ever hers, you shall as easy
Prove that I husbanded her bed in Florence,
Where yet she never was.
Exit, guarded

KING
I am wrapp'd in dismal thinkings.
Enter a Gentleman

Gentleman
Gracious sovereign,
Whether I have been to blame or no, I know not:
Here's a petition from a Florentine,
Who hath for four or five removes come short
To tender it herself. I undertook it,
Vanquish'd thereto by the fair grace and speech
Of the poor suppliant, who by this I know
Is here attending: her business looks in her
With an importing visage; and she told me,
In a sweet verbal brief, it did concern
Your highness with herself.
KING
[Reads] Upon his many protestations to marry me
when his wife was dead, I blush to say it, he won
me. Now is the Count Rousillon a widower: his vows
are forfeited to me, and my honour's paid to him. He
stole from Florence, taking no leave, and I follow
him to his country for justice: grant it me, O
king! in you it best lies; otherwise a seducer
flourishes, and a poor maid is undone.
DIANA CAPILET.
LAFEU
I will buy me a son-in-law in a fair, and toll for
this: I'll none of him.
KING
The heavens have thought well on thee Lafeu,
To bring forth this discovery. Seek these suitors:
Go speedily and bring again the count.
I am afeard the life of Helen, lady,
Was foully snatch'd.
COUNTESS
Now, justice on the doers!
Re-enter BERTRAM, guarded

KING
I wonder, sir, sith wives are monsters to you,
And that you fly them as you swear them lordship,
Yet you desire to marry.
Enter Widow and DIANA

What woman's that?
DIANA
I am, my lord, a wretched Florentine,
Derived from the ancient Capilet:
My suit, as I do understand, you know,
And therefore know how far I may be pitied.
Widow
I am her mother, sir, whose age and honour
Both suffer under this complaint we bring,
And both shall cease, without your remedy.
KING
Come hither, count; do you know these women?
BERTRAM
My lord, I neither can nor will deny
But that I know them: do they charge me further?
DIANA
Why do you look so strange upon your wife?
BERTRAM
She's none of mine, my lord.
DIANA
If you shall marry,
You give away this hand, and that is mine;
You give away heaven's vows, and those are mine;
You give away myself, which is known mine;
For I by vow am so embodied yours,
That she which marries you must marry me,
Either both or none.
LAFEU
Your reputation comes too short for my daughter; you
are no husband for her.
BERTRAM
My lord, this is a fond and desperate creature,
Whom sometime I have laugh'd with: let your highness
Lay a more noble thought upon mine honour
Than for to think that I would sink it here.
KING
Sir, for my thoughts, you have them ill to friend
Till your deeds gain them: fairer prove your honour
Than in my thought it lies.
DIANA
Good my lord,
Ask him upon his oath, if he does think
He had not my virginity.
KING
What say'st thou to her?
BERTRAM
She's impudent, my lord,
And was a common gamester to the camp.
DIANA
He does me wrong, my lord; if I were so,
He might have bought me at a common price:
Do not believe him. O, behold this ring,
Whose high respect and rich validity
Did lack a parallel; yet for all that
He gave it to a commoner o' the camp,
If I be one.
COUNTESS
He blushes, and 'tis it:
Of six preceding ancestors, that gem,
Conferr'd by testament to the sequent issue,
Hath it been owed and worn. This is his wife;
That ring's a thousand proofs.
KING
Methought you said
You saw one here in court could witness it.
DIANA
I did, my lord, but loath am to produce
So bad an instrument: his name's Parolles.
LAFEU
I saw the man to-day, if man he be.
KING
Find him, and bring him hither.
Exit an Attendant

BERTRAM
What of him?
He's quoted for a most perfidious slave,
With all the spots o' the world tax'd and debosh'd;
Whose nature sickens but to speak a truth.
Am I or that or this for what he'll utter,
That will speak any thing?
KING
She hath that ring of yours.
BERTRAM
I think she has: certain it is I liked her,
And boarded her i' the wanton way of youth:
She knew her distance and did angle for me,
Madding my eagerness with her restraint,
As all impediments in fancy's course
Are motives of more fancy; and, in fine,
Her infinite cunning, with her modern grace,
Subdued me to her rate: she got the ring;
And I had that which any inferior might
At market-price have bought.
DIANA
I must be patient:
You, that have turn'd off a first so noble wife,
May justly diet me. I pray you yet;
Since you lack virtue, I will lose a husband;
Send for your ring, I will return it home,
And give me mine again.
BERTRAM
I have it not.
KING
What ring was yours, I pray you?
DIANA
Sir, much like
The same upon your finger.
KING
Know you this ring? this ring was his of late.
DIANA
And this was it I gave him, being abed.
KING
The story then goes false, you threw it him
Out of a casement.
DIANA
I have spoke the truth.
Enter PAROLLES

BERTRAM
My lord, I do confess the ring was hers.
KING
You boggle shrewdly, every feather stars you.
Is this the man you speak of?
DIANA
Ay, my lord.
KING
Tell me, sirrah, but tell me true, I charge you,
Not fearing the displeasure of your master,
Which on your just proceeding I'll keep off,
By him and by this woman here what know you?
PAROLLES
So please your majesty, my master hath been an
honourable gentleman: tricks he hath had in him,
which gentlemen have.
KING
Come, come, to the purpose: did he love this woman?
PAROLLES
Faith, sir, he did love her; but how?
KING
How, I pray you?
PAROLLES
He did love her, sir, as a gentleman loves a woman.
KING
How is that?
PAROLLES
He loved her, sir, and loved her not.
KING
As thou art a knave, and no knave. What an
equivocal companion is this!
PAROLLES
I am a poor man, and at your majesty's command.
LAFEU
He's a good drum, my lord, but a naughty orator.
DIANA
Do you know he promised me marriage?
PAROLLES
Faith, I know more than I'll speak.
KING
But wilt thou not speak all thou knowest?
PAROLLES
Yes, so please your majesty. I did go between them,
as I said; but more than that, he loved her: for
indeed he was mad for her, and talked of Satan and
of Limbo and of Furies and I know not what: yet I
was in that credit with them at that time that I
knew of their going to bed, and of other motions,
as promising her marriage, and things which would
derive me ill will to speak of; therefore I will not
speak what I know.
KING
Thou hast spoken all already, unless thou canst say
they are married: but thou art too fine in thy
evidence; therefore stand aside.
This ring, you say, was yours?
DIANA
Ay, my good lord.
KING
Where did you buy it? or who gave it you?
DIANA
It was not given me, nor I did not buy it.
KING
Who lent it you?
DIANA
It was not lent me neither.
KING
Where did you find it, then?
DIANA
I found it not.
KING
If it were yours by none of all these ways,
How could you give it him?
DIANA
I never gave it him.
LAFEU
This woman's an easy glove, my lord; she goes off
and on at pleasure.
KING
This ring was mine; I gave it his first wife.
DIANA
It might be yours or hers, for aught I know.
KING
Take her away; I do not like her now;
To prison with her: and away with him.
Unless thou tell'st me where thou hadst this ring,
Thou diest within this hour.
DIANA
I'll never tell you.
KING
Take her away.
DIANA
I'll put in bail, my liege.
KING
I think thee now some common customer.
DIANA
By Jove, if ever I knew man, 'twas you.
KING
Wherefore hast thou accused him all this while?
DIANA
Because he's guilty, and he is not guilty:
He knows I am no maid, and he'll swear to't;
I'll swear I am a maid, and he knows not.
Great king, I am no strumpet, by my life;
I am either maid, or else this old man's wife.
KING
She does abuse our ears: to prison with her.
DIANA
Good mother, fetch my bail. Stay, royal sir:
Exit Widow

The jeweller that owes the ring is sent for,
And he shall surety me. But for this lord,
Who hath abused me, as he knows himself,
Though yet he never harm'd me, here I quit him:
He knows himself my bed he hath defiled;
And at that time he got his wife with child:
Dead though she be, she feels her young one kick:
So there's my riddle: one that's dead is quick:
And now behold the meaning.
Re-enter Widow, with HELENA

KING
Is there no exorcist
Beguiles the truer office of mine eyes?
Is't real that I see?
HELENA
No, my good lord;
'Tis but the shadow of a wife you see,
The name and not the thing.
BERTRAM
Both, both. O, pardon!
HELENA
O my good lord, when I was like this maid,
I found you wondrous kind. There is your ring;
And, look you, here's your letter; this it says:
'When from my finger you can get this ring
And are by me with child,' & c. This is done:
Will you be mine, now you are doubly won?
BERTRAM
If she, my liege, can make me know this clearly,
I'll love her dearly, ever, ever dearly.
HELENA
If it appear not plain and prove untrue,
Deadly divorce step between me and you!
O my dear mother, do I see you living?
LAFEU
Mine eyes smell onions; I shall weep anon:
To PAROLLES

Good Tom Drum, lend me a handkercher: so,
I thank thee: wait on me home, I'll make sport with thee:
Let thy courtesies alone, they are scurvy ones.
KING
Let us from point to point this story know,
To make the even truth in pleasure flow.
To DIANA

If thou be'st yet a fresh uncropped flower,
Choose thou thy husband, and I'll pay thy dower;
For I can guess that by thy honest aid
Thou keep'st a wife herself, thyself a maid.
Of that and all the progress, more or less,
Resolvedly more leisure shall express:
All yet seems well; and if it end so meet,
The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.
Flourish

EPILOGUE
KING
The king's a beggar, now the play is done:
All is well ended, if this suit be won,
That you express content; which we will pay,
With strife to please you, day exceeding day:
Ours be your patience then, and yours our parts;
Your gentle hands lend us, and take our hearts.
Exeunt