But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy

Must sanctify his relics. Who comes here?

[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; 

Yet these fix'd evils sit so fit in him

That they take place when virtue's steely bones

Looks bleak i' th' cold wind; withal, full oft we see

Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.

PAROLLES. Save you, fair queen!

HELENA. And you, monarch!

PAROLLES. No.

HELENA. And no.

PAROLLES. Are you meditating on virginity?

HELENA. Ay. You have some stain of soldier in you; let me ask you a

question. Man is enemy to virginity; how may we barricado it

against him?

PAROLLES. Keep him out.

HELENA. But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant in the

defence, yet is weak. Unfold to us some warlike resistance.

PAROLLES. There is none. Man, setting down before you, will

undermine you and blow you up.

HELENA. Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers-up!

Is there no military policy how virgins might blow up men?

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 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.

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