Page 787 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

HELENA

Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers-up! Is there no military
policy how virgins might blow up men? [120]

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 [125] never virgin got till virginity was first
lost. That you were made of is mettle 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! [130]

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. [135] 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 [140] 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 lose
by’t. Out with’t! Within ten year it will make itself two, which is a goodly
increase, and the principal itself not much [145] 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 [150] 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
toothpick, which wear not now. Your date is better in your pie and your [155]

porridge than in your cheek; and your virginity, your old virginity, is like one