the King's sake, he were living! I think it would be the death of

the King's disease.

LAFEU. How call'd you the man you speak of, madam?

COUNTESS. He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his

great right to be so— Gerard de Narbon.

LAFEU. He was excellent indeed, madam; the King very lately spoke

of him admiringly and mourningly; he was skilful enough to have

liv'd still, if knowledge could be set up against mortality.

BERTRAM. What is it, my good lord, the King languishes of?

LAFEU. A fistula, my lord.

BERTRAM. I heard not of it before.

LAFEU. I would it were not notorious. Was this gentlewoman the

daughter of Gerard de Narbon?

COUNTESS. His sole child, my lord, and bequeathed to my

overlooking. I have those hopes of her good that her education

promises; her dispositions she inherits, which makes fair gifts

fairer; for where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities,

there commendations go with pity-they are virtues and traitors

too. In her they are the better for their simpleness; she derives 

her honesty, and achieves her goodness.

LAFEU. Your commendations, madam, get from her tears.

COUNTESS. 'Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise in.

The remembrance of her father never approaches her heart but the

tyranny of her sorrows takes all livelihood from her cheek. No

more of this, Helena; go to, no more, lest it be rather thought

you affect a sorrow than to have-

HELENA. I do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have it too.

LAFEU. Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead: excessive

grief the enemy to the living.

COUNTESS. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it

soon mortal.

BERTRAM. Madam, I desire your holy wishes.