* * * * * "Advise him.--He cannot want the best _advice_." * * * * * "And these great tears grace his remembrance more Than those I shed for him.... What was he like?" For 'his' I read _this_, i.e. that of Bertram, whose departure has caused her tears to flow. There is an evident aposiopesis of _graced his_, arising from the perturbation of her mind, as is proved by the falling of the metric _ictus_ on 'him,' and which also proves that 'his' could not have been the poet's word. * * * * * "Carries no favour in it but Bertram's _only_." Bertram is _always_ a dissyllable. We might also read 'but _only_,' but with less force. * * * * * "He that hangs himself is a virgin." This is sheer nonsense; 'virgin,' suggested by the following 'virginity,' should be _self-murderer_, as I have given it in my Edition, or rather perhaps the legal term _felo de se_; for what Parolles means is that as suicides were 'buried in highways,' Virginity being such should be treated in the same manner. * * * * * "Out with it; within ten years it will make itself two." For 'two' Hanmer read _ten_, and Steevens for 'ten' _two_. The best reading seems to be that of Singer's folio, _months_ for 'years,' which I have given in my Edition. * * * * * "Not my virginity yet." This is complementary to the preceding speech, of which it completes the metre. The emphasis is to be on 'my,' as her meaning is that her virginity is not yet old and withered. She stops there, and enters on a new subject, and it is evident that at least the first line is lost. It may have been like this, "_Monsieur Parolles, you are for the Court_," which I have ventured to insert in my Edition; it seems so essential to the sense. * * * * * "A mother, and a mistress, and a friend." None of the editors seem to have perceived that in this and the six following lines Helena is enumerating the titles, mostly Euphuistic, that lovers at that time used to give their mistresses (comp. L.L.L. iii. 1 _ad fin._), "Christendoms," _i.e._ baptismal names, as she styles them, to which Cupid stood gossip. As 'mother' could hardly have been one of these, I feel almost certain that the original word was _lover_, which being damaged and only _er_ remaining (see on ii. 1), the printer made 'mother' of it. There is, however, it seems a term _mauther_ or _mother_ still in use in the Eastern counties, and signifying young girl. In Fletcher's Maid in the Mill (iii. 2), the miller says of his daughter, "A pretty child she is, although I say it, A handsome _mother_." In the Alchemist (iv. 4) Kastrill says to his sister, "You talk like a foolish _mauther_." Tusser has in his Husbandry,