_Dia._ Good mother, fetch my bail. Stay, royal sir: [_Exit Widow._ The jeweller that owes the ring is sent for, 290 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: 295 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? _Hel._ No, my good lord; 300 'Tis but the shadow of a wife you see, The name and not the thing. _Ber._ Both, both. O, pardon! _Hel._ 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: 305 '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? _Ber._ If she, my liege, can make me know this clearly, I'll love her dearly, ever, ever dearly. 310 _Hel._ If it appear not plain and prove untrue, Deadly divorce step between me and you! O my dear mother, do I see you living? _Laf._ Mine eyes smell onions; I shall weep anon: [_To Parolles_] Good Tom Drum, lend me a handkercher: so, 315 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, 320 Choose thou thy husband, and I'll pay thy dower; For I can guess that by thy honest aid Thou kept'st a wife herself, thyself a maid. Of that and all the progress, more or less, Resolvedly more leisure shall express: 325 All yet seems well; and if it end so meet, The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet. [_Flourish._ LINENOTES: SCENE III. The Count's palace.] A Room of State in the Palace. Capell. COUNTESS] old Lady Ff. [1] _of her_] F1 F2. om. F3 F4. _esteem_] _estate_ Warburton conj. (withdrawn). [6] _blaze_] Warburton. _blade_ Ff. [8] _O'erbears ... burns_] _O'er-bear ... burn_ Hanmer. [12, 13] _But ... lady_] Hanmer these lines at _did ... lady_. [21] _We are_] _We're_ Pope. [23] _nature_] _matter_ Hanmer. [24] _we do_] _do we_ Reed. [28] _What ... spoke?_] As two lines in Ff, ending _daughter ... spoke?_ [30, 31] Printed as prose in Ff. First as verse by Pope. [31] _set_] Rowe. _sets_ Ff.