Act 4 - Scene 5

Rousillon. The COUNT's palace.

Enter COUNTESS, LAFEU, and Clown

LAFEU

No, no, no, your son was misled with a snipt-taffeta
fellow there, whose villanous saffron would have
made all the unbaked and doughy youth of a nation in
his colour: your daughter-in-law had been alive at
this hour, and your son here at home, more advanced
by the king than by that red-tailed humble-bee I speak of.

COUNTESS

I would I had not known him; it was the death of the
most virtuous gentlewoman that ever nature had
praise for creating. If she had partaken of my
flesh, and cost me the dearest groans of a mother, I
could not have owed her a more rooted love.

LAFEU

'Twas a good lady, 'twas a good lady: we may pick a
thousand salads ere we light on such another herb.

Clown

Indeed, sir, she was the sweet marjoram of the
salad, or rather, the herb of grace.

LAFEU

They are not herbs, you knave; they are nose-herbs.

Clown

I am no great Nebuchadnezzar, sir; I have not much
skill in grass.

LAFEU

Whether dost thou profess thyself, a knave or a fool?

Clown

A fool, sir, at a woman's service, and a knave at a man's.

LAFEU

Your distinction?

Clown

I would cozen the man of his wife and do his service.

LAFEU

So you were a knave at his service, indeed.

Clown

And I would give his wife my bauble, sir, to do her service.