The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [Vol. 3 of 9]Shakespeare, William
General
The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [Vol. 3 of 9]
Shakespeare, William
English drama
_Hel._ 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? 75
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 80
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 85
Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, though a 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: 90
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; 95
Yet these fix'd 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.
_Par._ Save you, fair queen! 100
_Hel._ And you, monarch!
_Par._ No.
_Hel._ And no.
_Par._ Are you meditating on virginity?
_Hel._ Ay. You have some stain of soldier in you: let 105
me ask you a question. Man is enemy to virginity; how
may we barricado it against him?
_Par._ Keep him out.
_Hel._ But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant,
in the defence yet is weak: unfold to us some warlike 110
resistance.
_Par._ There is none: man, sitting down before you, will
undermine you and blow you up.
_Hel._ Bless our poor virginity from underminers and
blowers up! Is there no military policy, how virgins 115
might blow up men?
_Par._ 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. 120
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! 125
_Hel._ I will stand for 't a little, though therefore I die a
virgin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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