William Shakespeare

All's Well That Ends Well

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ACT I

SCENE I. Rousillon. The Count's palace.

   Enter Bertram, the Countess of Rousillon, Helena, and Lafeu, all in

   black

   Countess

   In delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband.

   Bertram

   And I in going, madam, weep o'er my father's death anew: but I must

   attend his majesty's command, to whom I am now in ward, evermore in

   subjection.

   Lafeu

   You shall find of the king a husband, madam; you, sir, a father: he

   that so generally is at all times good must of necessity hold his

   virtue to you; whose worthiness would stir it up where it wanted rather

   than lack it where there is such abundance.

   Countess

   What hope is there of his majesty's amendment?

   Lafeu

   He hath abandoned his physicians, madam; under whose practises he hath

   persecuted time with hope, and finds no other advantage in the process

   but only the losing of hope by time.

   Countess

   This young gentlewoman had a father,--O, that `had'! how sad a passage

   'tis!--whose skill was almost as great as his honesty; had it stretched

   so far, would have made nature immortal, and death should have play for

   lack of work. Would, for the king's sake, he were living! I think it

   would be the death of the king's disease.

   Lafeu

   How called you the man you speak of, madam?

   Countess

   He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his great right to be

   so: Gerard de Narbon.

   Lafeu

   He was excellent indeed, madam: the king very lately spoke of him

   admiringly and mourningly: he was skilful enough to have lived still,

   if knowledge could be set up against mortality.

   Bertram

   What is it, my good lord, the king languishes of?

   Lafeu

   A fistula, my lord.

   Bertram

   I heard not of it before.

   Lafeu

   I would it were not notorious. Was this gentlewoman the daughter of

   Gerard de Narbon?

   Countess

   His sole child, my lord, and bequeathed to my overlooking. I have those

   hopes of her good that her education promises; 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.

   Lafeu

   Your commendations, madam, get from her tears.

   Countess

   'Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise in. The remembrance

   of her father never approaches her heart but the tyranny of her sorrows

   takes all livelihood from her cheek. No more of this, Helena; go to, no

   more; lest it be rather thought you affect a sorrow than have it.

   Helena

   I do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have it too.

   Lafeu

   Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead, excessive grief the

   enemy to the living.

   Countess

   If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal.

   Bertram

   Madam, I desire your holy wishes.

   Lafeu

   How understand we that?

   Countess

   Be thou blest, Bertram, and succeed thy father

   In manners, as in shape! thy blood and virtue

   Contend for empire in thee, and thy goodness

   Share with thy birthright! Love all, trust a few,

   Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy

   Rather in power than use, and keep thy friend

   Under thy own life's key: be cheque'd for silence,

   But never tax'd for speech. What heaven more will,

   That thee may furnish and my prayers pluck down,

   Fall on thy head! Farewell, my lord;

   'Tis an unseason'd courtier; good my lord,

   Advise him.

   Lafeu

     He cannot want the best

   That shall attend his love.

   Countess

   Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram.

   Exit

   Bertram

   [To Helena] The best wishes that can be forged in your thoughts be

   servants to you! Be comfortable to my mother, your mistress, and make

   much of her.

   Lafeu

   Farewell, pretty lady: you must hold the credit of your father.

   Exeunt Bertram and Lafeu

   Helena

   O, were that all! I think not on my father;

   And these great tears grace his remembrance more

   Than those I shed for him. What was he like?

   I have forgot him: my imagination

   Carries no favour in't but Bertram's.

   I am undone: there is no living, none,

   If Bertram be away. 'Twere all one

   That I should love a bright particular star

   And think to wed it, he is so above me:

   In his bright radiance and collateral light

   Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.

   The ambition in my love thus plagues itself:

   The hind that would be mated by the lion

   Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, though plague,

   To see him every hour; to sit and draw

   His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,

   In our heart's table; heart too capable

   Of every line and trick of his sweet favour:

   But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy

   Must sanctify his reliques. Who comes here?

   Enter Parolles

   [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 fixed evils sit so fit in him,

   That they take place, when virtue's steely bones

   Look bleak i' the 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, sitting 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 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?

   Helena

   Not my virginity yet.

   There shall your master have a thousand loves,

   A mother and a mistress and a friend,

   A phoenix, captain and an enemy,

   A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign,

   A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear;

   His humble ambition, proud humility,

   His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet,

   His faith, his sweet disaster; with a world

   Of pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms,

   That blinking Cupid gossips. Now shall he--

   I know not what he shall. God send him well!

   The court's a learning place, and he is one--

   Parolles

   What one, i' faith?

   Helena

   That I wish well. 'Tis pity--

   Parolles

   What's pity?

   Helena

   That wishing well had not a body in't,

   Which might be felt; that we, the poorer born,

   Whose baser stars do shut us up in wishes,

   Might with effects of them follow our friends,

   And show what we alone must think, which never

   Return us thanks.

   Enter Page

   Page

   Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.

   Exit

   Parolles

   Little Helen, farewell; if I can remember thee, I will think of thee at

   court.

   Helena

   Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable star.

   Parolles

   Under Mars, I.

   Helena

   I especially think, under Mars.

   Parolles

   Why under Mars?

   Helena

   The wars have so kept you under that you must needs be born under Mars.

   Parolles

   When he was predominant.

   Helena

   When he was retrograde, I think, rather.

   Parolles

   Why think you so?

   Helena

   You go so much backward when you fight.

   Parolles

   That's for advantage.

   Helena

   So is running away, when fear proposes the safety; but the composition

   that your valour and fear makes in you is a virtue of a good wing, and

   I like the wear well.

   Parolles

   I am so full of businesses, I cannot answer thee acutely. I will return

   perfect courtier; in the which, my instruction shall serve to

   naturalize thee, so thou wilt be capable of a courtier's counsel and

   understand what advice shall thrust upon thee; else thou diest in thine

   unthankfulness, and thine ignorance makes thee away: farewell. When

   thou hast leisure, say thy prayers; when thou hast none, remember thy

   friends; get thee a good husband, and use him as he uses thee; so,

   farewell.

   Exit

   Helena

   Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,

   Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky

   Gives us free scope, only doth backward pull

   Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull.

   What power is it which mounts my love so high,

   That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?

   The mightiest space in fortune nature brings

   To join like likes and kiss like native things.

   Impossible be strange attempts to those

   That weigh their pains in sense and do suppose

   What hath been cannot be: who ever strove

   So show her merit, that did miss her love?

   The king's disease--my project may deceive me,

   But my intents are fix'd and will not leave me.

   Exit

SCENE II. Paris. The King's palace.

   Flourish of cornets. Enter the King of France, with letters, and divers

   Attendants

   King

   The Florentines and Senoys are by the ears;

   Have fought with equal fortune and continue

   A braving war.

   First Lord

     So 'tis reported, sir.

   King

   Nay, 'tis most credible; we here received it

   A certainty, vouch'd from our cousin Austria,

   With caution that the Florentine will move us

   For speedy aid; wherein our dearest friend

   Prejudicates the business and would seem

   To have us make denial.

   First Lord

   His love and wisdom,

   Approved so to your majesty, may plead

   For amplest credence.

   King

   He hath arm'd our answer,

   And Florence is denied before he comes:

   Yet, for our gentlemen that mean to see

   The Tuscan service, freely have they leave

   To stand on either part.

   Second Lord

   It well may serve

   A nursery to our gentry, who are sick

   For breathing and exploit.

   King

   What's he comes here?

   Enter Bertram, Lafeu, and Parolles

   First Lord

   It is the Count Rousillon, my good lord,

   Young Bertram.

   King

     Youth, thou bear'st thy father's face;

   Frank nature, rather curious than in haste,

   Hath well composed thee. Thy father's moral parts

   Mayst thou inherit too! Welcome to Paris.

   Bertram

   My thanks and duty are your majesty's.

   King

   I would I had that corporal soundness now,

   As when thy father and myself in friendship

   First tried our soldiership! He did look far

   Into the service of the time and was

   Discipled of the bravest: he lasted long;

   But on us both did haggish age steal on

   And wore us out of act. It much repairs me

   To talk of your good father. In his youth

   He had the wit which I can well observe

   To-day in our young lords; but they may jest

   Till their own scorn return to them unnoted

   Ere they can hide their levity in honour;

   So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness

   Were in his pride or sharpness; if they were,

   His equal had awaked them, and his honour,

   Clock to itself, knew the true minute when

   Exception bid him speak, and at this time

   His tongue obey'd his hand: who were below him

   He used as creatures of another place

   And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks,

   Making them proud of his humility,

   In their poor praise he humbled. Such a man

   Might be a copy to these younger times;

   Which, follow'd well, would demonstrate them now

   But goers backward.

   Bertram

   His good remembrance, sir,

   Lies richer in your thoughts than on his tomb;

   So in approof lives not his epitaph

   As in your royal speech.

   King

   Would I were with him! He would always say--

   Methinks I hear him now; his plausive words

   He scatter'd not in ears, but grafted them,

   To grow there and to bear,--`Let me not live,'--

   This his good melancholy oft began,

   On the catastrophe and heel of pastime,

   When it was out,--`Let me not live,' quoth he,

   `After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff

   Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses

   All but new things disdain; whose judgments are

   Mere fathers of their garments; whose constancies

   Expire before their fashions.' This he wish'd;

   I after him do after him wish too,

   Since I nor wax nor honey can bring home,

   I quickly were dissolved from my hive,

   To give some labourers room.