payment page
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. (1.1.41–47)
The Countess addresses these words to Lafew in the play’s opening scene. The subject of conversation is Helen, whom the Countess praises for her nobility of character. The Countess begins by noting that Helen has inherited her virtuous qualities—or “dispositions”—through her late father. Since her father was a physician, however, whatever nobility he passed on was a matter of character rather than social class. Curiously, the quote ends with the Countess saying that Helen “derives her honesty and achieves her goodness,” meaning that she is personally responsible for further cultivating the nobility of character inherited from her father.
’Tis only title thou disdain’st in her, the which
I can build up. Strange is it that our bloods,
Of color, weight, and heat, poured all together,
Would quite confound distinction, yet stands off
In differences so mighty. If she be
All that is virtuous, save what thou dislik’st—
“A poor physician’s daughter”—thou dislik’st
Of virtue for the name. But do not so. (2.3.128–35)
With these lines, the King of France responds to Bertram’s complaint about Helen’s class status as “a poor physician’s daughter.” Bertram has mentioned her social class as a way of contesting the marriage, but the King, thinking this is the only reason Bertram would deny Helen, attempts to dispel his concern. The King begins by stating that if Bertram’s main concern is that Helen isn’t a noble, then he has the power to change her status, which he can simply “build up” with wealth. The King insists that for someone like Helen, who already possesses “all that is virtuous,” the matter of nobility mustn’t be reduced to the mere accident of birth. If Bertram rejects Helen, the King implies, he does so because titles are worth more to him than true worthiness.
Marry, you are the wiser man, for many a man’s tongue shakes out his master’s undoing. To say nothing, to do nothing, to know nothing, and to have nothing is to be a great part of your title, which is within a very little of nothing. (2.4.22–26)
The Fool addresses these lines to Parolles, a man whose name derives from the French paroles, meaning “words.” True to his name, Parolles is a man of many words, but as others tend to understand quickly, he’s all talk and no action. The Fool understands this well, and his comment about men who are undone by their own tongues ominously foreshadows Parolles’s downfall in act 4. Equally powerful, though, is the Fool’s second sentence, which begins with him counseling Parolles to hold his tongue and “to say nothing, to do nothing.” Quickly, however, the advice to say, do, and even know nothing transitions into a pointed joke about the pointlessness of the nobility in general. It is “a great part of your title,” the Fool says, “to have nothing.” Inherited titles therefore have no inherent substance.
