| ACT II SCENE II | Rousillon. The COUNT's palace. | |
| [Enter COUNTESS and Clown] |
| COUNTESS | Come on, sir; I shall now put you to the height of |
| your breeding. |
| Clown | I will show myself highly fed and lowly taught: I |
| know my business is but to the court. |
| COUNTESS | To the court! why, what place make you special, | 5 |
| when you put off that with such contempt? But to the court! |
| Clown | Truly, madam, if God have lent a man any manners, he |
| may easily put it off at court: he that cannot make |
| a leg, put off's cap, kiss his hand and say nothing, |
| has neither leg, hands, lip, nor cap; and indeed | 10 |
| such a fellow, to say precisely, were not for the |
| court; but for me, I have an answer will serve all |
| men. |
| COUNTESS | Marry, that's a bountiful answer that fits all |
| questions. | 15 |
| Clown | It is like a barber's chair that fits all buttocks, |
| the pin-buttock, the quatch-buttock, the brawn |
| buttock, or any buttock. |
| COUNTESS | Will your answer serve fit to all questions? |
| Clown | As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, | 20 |
| as your French crown for your taffeta punk, as Tib's |
| rush for Tom's forefinger, as a pancake for Shrove |
| Tuesday, a morris for May-day, as the nail to his |
| hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding queen |
| to a wrangling knave, as the nun's lip to the | 25 |
| friar's mouth, nay, as the pudding to his skin. |
| COUNTESS | Have you, I say, an answer of such fitness for all |
| questions? |
| Clown | From below your duke to beneath your constable, it |
| will fit any question. | 30 |
| COUNTESS | It must be an answer of most monstrous size that |
| must fit all demands. |
| Clown | But a trifle neither, in good faith, if the learned |
| should speak truth of it: here it is, and all that |
| belongs to't. Ask me if I am a courtier: it shall | 35 |
| do you no harm to learn. |
| COUNTESS | To be young again, if we could: I will be a fool in |
| question, hoping to be the wiser by your answer. I |
| pray you, sir, are you a courtier? |
| Clown | O Lord, sir! There's a simple putting off. More, | 40 |
| more, a hundred of them. |
| COUNTESS | Sir, I am a poor friend of yours, that loves you. |
| Clown | O Lord, sir! Thick, thick, spare not me. |
| COUNTESS | I think, sir, you can eat none of this homely meat. |
| Clown | O Lord, sir! Nay, put me to't, I warrant you. | 45 |
| COUNTESS | You were lately whipped, sir, as I think. |
| Clown | O Lord, sir! spare not me. |
| COUNTESS | Do you cry, 'O Lord, sir!' at your whipping, and |
| 'spare not me?' Indeed your 'O Lord, sir!' is very |
| sequent to your whipping: you would answer very well | 50 |
| to a whipping, if you were but bound to't. |
| Clown | I ne'er had worse luck in my life in my 'O Lord, |
| sir!' I see things may serve long, but not serve ever. |
| COUNTESS | I play the noble housewife with the time |
| To entertain't so merrily with a fool. | 55 |
| Clown | O Lord, sir! why, there't serves well again. |
| COUNTESS | An end, sir; to your business. Give Helen this, |
| And urge her to a present answer back: |
| Commend me to my kinsmen and my son: |
| This is not much. | 60 |
| Clown | Not much commendation to them. |
| COUNTESS | Not much employment for you: you understand me? |
| Clown | Most fruitfully: I am there before my legs. |
| COUNTESS | Haste you again. |
| [Exeunt severally] |