William Shakespeare

All's Well That Ends Well

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ACT II

SCENE I. Paris. The King's palace.

   Flourish of cornets. Enter the King, attended with divers young Lords

   taking leave for the Florentine war; Bertram, and Parolles

   King

   Farewell, young lords; these warlike principles

   Do not throw from you: and you, my lords, farewell:

   Share the advice betwixt you; if both gain, all

   The gift doth stretch itself as 'tis received,

   And is enough for both.

   First Lord

   'Tis our hope, sir,

   After well enter'd soldiers, to return

   And find your grace in health.

   King

   No, no, it cannot be; and yet my heart

   Will not confess he owes the malady

   That doth my life besiege. Farewell, young lords;

   Whether I live or die, be you the sons

   Of worthy Frenchmen: let higher Italy,--

   Those bated that inherit but the fall

   Of the last monarchy,--see that you come

   Not to woo honour, but to wed it; when

   The bravest questant shrinks, find what you seek,

   That fame may cry you loud: I say, farewell.

   Second Lord

   Health, at your bidding, serve your majesty!

   King

   Those girls of Italy, take heed of them:

   They say, our French lack language to deny,

   If they demand: beware of being captives,

   Before you serve.

   Both

     Our hearts receive your warnings.

   King

   Farewell. Come hither to me.

   Exit, attended

   First Lord

   O, my sweet lord, that you will stay behind us!

   Parolles

   'Tis not his fault, the spark.

   Second Lord

   O, 'tis brave wars!

   Parolles

   Most admirable: I have seen those wars.

   Bertram

   I am commanded here, and kept a coil with

   `Too young' and 'the next year' and ''tis too early.'

   Parolles

   An thy mind stand to't, boy, steal away bravely.

   Bertram

   I shall stay here the forehorse to a smock,

   Creaking my shoes on the plain masonry,

   Till honour be bought up and no sword worn

   But one to dance with! By heaven, I'll steal away.

   First Lord

   There's honour in the theft.

   Parolles

   Commit it, count.

   Second Lord

   I am your accessary; and so, farewell.

   Bertram

   I grow to you, and our parting is a tortured body.

   First Lord

   Farewell, captain.

   Second Lord

   Sweet Monsieur Parolles!

   Parolles

   Noble heroes, my sword and yours are kin. Good sparks and lustrous, a

   word, good metals: you shall find in the regiment of the Spinii one

   Captain Spurio, with his cicatrice, an emblem of war, here on his

   sinister cheek; it was this very sword entrenched it: say to him, I

   live; and observe his reports for me.

   First Lord

   We shall, noble captain.

   Exeunt Lords

   Parolles

   Mars dote on you for his novices! what will ye do?

   Bertram

   Stay: the king.

   Re-enter King. Bertram and Parolles retire

   Parolles

   [To Bertram] Use a more spacious ceremony to the noble lords; you have

   restrained yourself within the list of too cold an adieu: be more

   expressive to them: for they wear themselves in the cap of the time,

   there do muster true gait, eat, speak, and move under the influence of

   the most received star; and though the devil lead the measure, such are

   to be followed: after them, and take a more dilated farewell.

   Bertram

   And I will do so.

   Parolles

   Worthy fellows; and like to prove most sinewy sword-men.

   Exeunt Bertram and Parolles

   Enter Lafeu

   Lafeu

   [Kneeling] Pardon, my lord, for me and for my tidings.

   King

   I'll fee thee to stand up.

   Lafeu

   Then here's a man stands, that has brought his pardon.

   I would you had kneel'd, my lord, to ask me mercy,

   And that at my bidding you could so stand up.

   King

   I would I had; so I had broke thy pate,

   And ask'd thee mercy for't.

   Lafeu

   Good faith, across: but, my good lord 'tis thus;

   Will you be cured of your infirmity?

   King

   No.

   Lafeu

   O, will you eat no grapes, my royal fox?

   Yes, but you will my noble grapes, an if

   My royal fox could reach them: I have seen a medicine

   That's able to breathe life into a stone,

   Quicken a rock, and make you dance canary

   With spritely fire and motion; whose simple touch,

   Is powerful to araise King Pepin, nay,

   To give great Charlemain a pen in's hand,

   And write to her a love-line.

   King

   What `her' is this?

   Lafeu

   Why, Doctor She: my lord, there's one arrived,

   If you will see her: now, by my faith and honour,

   If seriously I may convey my thoughts

   In this my light deliverance, I have spoke

   With one that, in her sex, her years, profession,

   Wisdom and constancy, hath amazed me more

   Than I dare blame my weakness: will you see her

   For that is her demand, and know her business?

   That done, laugh well at me.

   King

   Now, good Lafeu,

   Bring in the admiration; that we with thee

   May spend our wonder too, or take off thine

   By wondering how thou took'st it.

   Lafeu

   Nay, I'll fit you,

   And not be all day neither.

   Exit

   King

   Thus he his special nothing ever prologues.

   Re-enter Lafeu, with Helena

   Lafeu

   Nay, come your ways.

   King

   This haste hath wings indeed.

   Lafeu

   Nay, come your ways:

   This is his majesty; say your mind to him:

   A traitor you do look like; but such traitors

   His majesty seldom fears: I am Cressid's uncle,

   That dare leave two together; fare you well.

   Exit

   King

   Now, fair one, does your business follow us?

   Helena

   Ay, my good lord.

   Gerard de Narbon was my father;

   In what he did profess, well found.

   King

   I knew him.

   Helena

   The rather will I spare my praises towards him:

   Knowing him is enough. On's bed of death

   Many receipts he gave me: chiefly one.

   Which, as the dearest issue of his practise,

   And of his old experience the oily darling,

   He bade me store up, as a triple eye,

   Safer than mine own two, more dear; I have so;

   And hearing your high majesty is touch'd

   With that malignant cause wherein the honour

   Of my dear father's gift stands chief in power,

   I come to tender it and my appliance

   With all bound humbleness.

   King

   We thank you, maiden;

   But may not be so credulous of cure,

   When our most learned doctors leave us and

   The congregated college have concluded

   That labouring art can never ransom nature

   From her inaidible estate; I say we must not

   So stain our judgment, or corrupt our hope,

   To prostitute our past-cure malady

   To empirics, or to dissever so

   Our great self and our credit, to esteem

   A senseless help when help past sense we deem.

   Helena

   My duty then shall pay me for my pains:

   I will no more enforce mine office on you.

   Humbly entreating from your royal thoughts

   A modest one, to bear me back a again.

   King

   I cannot give thee less, to be call'd grateful:

   Thou thought'st to help me; and such thanks I give

   As one near death to those that wish him live:

   But what at full I know, thou know'st no part,

   I knowing all my peril, thou no art.

   Helena

   What I can do can do no hurt to try,

   Since you set up your rest 'gainst remedy.

   He that of greatest works is finisher

   Oft does them by the weakest minister:

   So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown,

   When judges have been babes; great floods have flown

   From simple sources, and great seas have dried

   When miracles have by the greatest been denied.

   Oft expectation fails and most oft there

   Where most it promises, and oft it hits

   Where hope is coldest and despair most fits.

   King

   I must not hear thee; fare thee well, kind maid;

   Thy pains not used must by thyself be paid:

   Proffers not took reap thanks for their reward.

   Helena

   Inspired merit so by breath is barr'd:

   It is not so with Him that all things knows

   As 'tis with us that square our guess by shows;

   But most it is presumption in us when

   The help of heaven we count the act of men.

   Dear sir, to my endeavours give consent;

   Of heaven, not me, make an experiment.

   I am not an impostor that proclaim

   Myself against the level of mine aim;

   But know I think and think I know most sure

   My art is not past power nor you past cure.

   King

   Are thou so confident? within what space

   Hopest thou my cure?

   Helena

   The great'st grace lending grace

   Ere twice the horses of the sun shall bring

   Their fiery torcher his diurnal ring,

   Ere twice in murk and occidental damp

   Moist Hesperus hath quench'd his sleepy lamp,

   Or four and twenty times the pilot's glass

   Hath told the thievish minutes how they pass,

   What is infirm from your sound parts shall fly,

   Health shall live free and sickness freely die.

   King

   Upon thy certainty and confidence

   What darest thou venture?

   Helena

   Tax of impudence,

   A strumpet's boldness, a divulged shame

   Traduced by odious ballads: my maiden's name

   Sear'd otherwise; nay, worse--if worse--extended

   With vilest torture let my life be ended.

   King

   Methinks in thee some blessed spirit doth speak

   His powerful sound within an organ weak:

   And what impossibility would slay

   In common sense, sense saves another way.

   Thy life is dear; for all that life can rate

   Worth name of life in thee hath estimate,

   Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, all

   That happiness and prime can happy call:

   Thou this to hazard needs must intimate

   Skill infinite or monstrous desperate.

   Sweet practiser, thy physic I will try,

   That ministers thine own death if I die.

   Helena

   If I break time, or flinch in property

   Of what I spoke, unpitied let me die,

   And well deserved: not helping, death's my fee;

   But, if I help, what do you promise me?

   King

   Make thy demand.

   Helena

     But will you make it even?

   King

   Ay, by my sceptre and my hopes of heaven.

   Helena

   Then shalt thou give me with thy kingly hand

   What husband in thy power I will command:

   Exempted be from me the arrogance

   To choose from forth the royal blood of France,

   My low and humble name to propagate

   With any branch or image of thy state;

   But such a one, thy vassal, whom I know

   Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow.

   King

   Here is my hand; the premises observed,

   Thy will by my performance shall be served:

   So make the choice of thy own time, for I,

   Thy resolved patient, on thee still rely.

   More should I question thee, and more I must,

   Though more to know could not be more to trust,

   From whence thou camest, how tended on: but rest

   Unquestion'd welcome and undoubted blest.

   Give me some help here, ho! If thou proceed

   As high as word, my deed shall match thy meed.

   Flourish. Exeunt

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, 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 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.

   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, 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 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.

   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 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, 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