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| Character | Parolles | |
|---|---|---|
| Gender | Male | |
| Age Range(s) | Young Adult (20-35), Adult (36-50) | |
| Type of monologue / Character is | Persuasive | |
| Type | Comic | |
| Period | Renaissance | |
| Genre | Romance, Comedy | |
| Description | Parolles talks to Helena about virginity | |
| Location | ACT I, Scene 1 | |
Summary
Helena is a beautiful young woman who lives with the Countess of Rousillon. Her father, a famous doctor, has just died and she is now the protege´ of the Countess. The play starts with the Countess' son, Bertram, leaving for France where he is supposed to attend the King who is dying. Helena, we find out, is madly in love with Bertram and laments the fact that he is leaving and also that he is above her since he is a nobleman and she is a commoner. In the first scene of the play Helena and Parolles, a shady friend of Bertram's, have a discussion about virginity. Helena wants to keep her virginity but Parolles suggests she find another husband and lose her virginity.
Written by Administrator
| Excerpt |
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| 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 of nature. To speak on the part of virginity, is to accuse your mothers; which is most infallible disobedience. He that hangs himself is a virgin: virginity murders itself and should be buried in highways out of all sanctified limit, as a desperate offendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites, much like a cheese; consumes itself to the very paring, and so dies with feeding his own stomach. Besides, virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made of self-love, which is the most inhibited sin in the canon. Keep it not; you cannot choose but loose by't: out with 't! within ten year it will make itself ten, which is a goodly increase; and the principal itself not much the worse: away with 't! [HELENA How might one do, sir, to lose it to her own liking?] PAROLLES Let me see: marry, ill, to like him that ne'er it likes. 'Tis a commodity will lose the gloss with lying; the longer kept, the less worth: off with 't while 'tis vendible; answer the time of request. Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of fashion: richly suited, but unsuitable: just like the brooch and the tooth-pick, which wear not now. Your date is better in your pie and your porridge than in your cheek; and your virginity, your old virginity, is like one of our French withered pears, it looks ill, it eats drily; marry, 'tis a withered pear; it was formerly better; marry, yet 'tis a withered pear: will you anything with it? |
