Page 788 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

of our French withered pears: it looks ill, it eats drily; marry, ’tis a withered
pear; it was formerly better; marry, yet ’tis a withered pear. Will you anything
with it? [160]

HELENA
Not my virginity, yet...
There shall your master have a thousand loves,

A mother, and a mistress, and a friend,
A phoenix, captain, and an enemy,
A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign, [165]

A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear;
His humble ambition, proud humility,
His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet,
His faith, his sweet disaster; with a world
Of pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms [170]

That blinking Cupid gossips. Now shall he −
I know not what he shall. God send him well!
The court’s a learning-place, and he is one −

PAROLLES
What one, i’faith?

HELENA

That I wish well. ’Tis pity − [175]

PAROLLES

What’s pity?

HELENA
That wishing well had not a body in’t
Which might be felt, that we, the poorer born,
Whose baser stars do shut us up in wishes,
Might with effects of them follow our friends, [180]

And show what we alone must think, which never
Returns us thanks.
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