COUNTESS. It hath happen’d 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 lings and our Isbels o’ th’ country are nothing like your old ling and your Isbels o’ th’ court. The brains of my Cupid’s knock’d 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 misprizing of a maid too virtuous For the contempt of empire. 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 kill’d so soon as I thought he would. COUNTESS. Why should he be kill’d? 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 the 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 despatch in hand at court, Thither we bend again. HELENA. Look on this 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 pains.