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ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

by William Shakespeare




PERSONS REPRESENTED.

KING OF FRANCE.
THE DUKE OF FLORENCE.
BERTRAM, Count of Rousillon.
LAFEU, an old Lord.
PAROLLES, a follower of Bertram.
Several young French Lords, that serve with Bertram in the
Florentine War.
Steward, Servant to the Countess of Rousillon.
Clown, Servant to the Countess of Rousillon.
A Page, Servant to the Countess of Rousillon.
COUNTESS OF ROUSILLON, Mother to Bertram.
HELENA, a Gentlewoman protected by the Countess.
An old Widow of Florence.
DIANA, daughter to the Widow.
VIOLENTA, neighbour and friend to the Widow.
MARIANA, neighbour and friend to the Widow.

Lords attending on the KING; Officers; Soldiers, &c., French and
Florentine.



SCENE:  Partly in France, and partly in Tuscany.



ACT I.

SCENE 1. Rousillon.  A room in the COUNTESS'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 practices 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
liv'd 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 to have.

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 check'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 COUNTESS.]

BERTRAM.
The best wishes that can be forg'd in your thoughts [To HELENA.]
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. It were 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 a 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 relics. Who comes here?
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 fix'd evils sit so fit in him
That they take place when virtue's steely bones
Looks bleak i' the cold wind: withal, full oft we see
Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.

[Enter PAROLLES.]

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, setting 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 it!

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 lose by't: out with't!
within ten years it will make itself ten, which is a goodly
increase; and the principal itself not much the worse: away with
it!

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 toothpick, 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 wither'd pear; it was
formerly better; marry, yet 'tis a wither'd 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
Returns us thanks.

[Enter a PAGE.]

PAGE.
Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.

[Exit PAGE.]

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 hath 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 business 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
To 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 2.  Paris. A room in the King's palace.

[Flourish of cornets. Enter the KING OF FRANCE, with letters;
Lords and others attending.]

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 receive 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,
Approv'd 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 compos'd 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 awak'd 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 us'd 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.

SECOND LORD.
You're lov'd, sir;
They that least lend it you shall lack you first.

KING.
I fill a place, I know't.--How long is't, Count,
Since the physician at your father's died?
He was much fam'd.

BERTRAM.
Some six months since, my lord.

KING.
If he were living, I would try him yet;--
Lend me an arm;--the rest have worn me out
With several applications:--nature and sickness
Debate it at their leisure. Welcome, count;
My son's no dearer.

BERTRAM.
Thank your majesty.

[Exeunt. Flourish.]



SCENE 3.  Rousillon. A Room in the Palace.

[Enter COUNTESS, STEWARD, and CLOWN.]

COUNTESS.
I will now hear: what say you of this gentlewoman?

STEWARD.
Madam, the care I have had to even your content, I wish
might be found in the calendar of my past endeavours; for then we
wound our modesty, and make foul the clearness of our deservings,
when of ourselves we publish them.

COUNTESS.
What does this knave here? Get you gone, sirrah: the
complaints I have heard of you I do not all believe; 'tis my
slowness that I do not; for I know you lack not folly to commit
them, and have ability enough to make such knaveries yours.

CLOWN.
'Tis not unknown to you, madam, I am a poor fellow.

COUNTESS.
Well, sir.

CLOWN.
No, madam, 'tis not so well that I am poor, though many of
the rich are damned: but if I may have your ladyship's good will
to go to the world, Isbel the woman and I will do as we may.

COUNTESS.
Wilt thou needs be a beggar?

CLOWN.
I do beg your good will in this case.

COUNTESS.
In what case?

CLOWN.
In Isbel's case and mine own. Service is no heritage: and I
think I shall never have the blessing of God till I have issue of
my body; for they say bairns are blessings.

COUNTESS.
Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry.

CLOWN.
My poor body, madam, requires it: I am driven on by the
flesh; and he must needs go that the devil drives.

COUNTESS.
Is this all your worship's reason?

CLOWN.
Faith, madam, I have other holy reasons, such as they are.

COUNTESS.
May the world know them?

CLOWN.
I have been, madam, a wicked creature, as you and all flesh
and blood are; and, indeed, I do marry that I may repent.

COUNTESS.
Thy marriage, sooner than thy wickedness.

CLOWN.
I am out of friends, madam, and I hope to have friends for
my wife's sake.

COUNTESS.
Such friends are thine enemies, knave.

CLOWN.
Y'are shallow, madam, in great friends: for the knaves come
to do that for me which I am a-weary of. He that ears my land
spares my team, and gives me leave to in the crop: if I be his
cuckold, he's my drudge: he that comforts my wife is the
cherisher of my flesh and blood; he that cherishes my flesh and
blood loves my flesh and blood; he that loves my flesh and blood
is my friend; ergo, he that kisses my wife is my friend. If men
could be contented to be what they are, there were no fear in
marriage; for young Charbon the puritan and old Poysam the
papist, howsome'er their hearts are severed in religion, their
heads are both one; they may joll horns together like any deer
i' the herd.

COUNTESS.
Wilt thou ever be a foul-mouth'd and calumnious knave?

CLOWN.
A prophet I, madam; and I speak the truth the next way:
   For I the ballad will repeat,
   Which men full true shall find;
   Your marriage comes by destiny,
   Your cuckoo sings by kind.

COUNTESS.
Get you gone, sir; I'll talk with you more anon.

STEWARD.
May it please you, madam, that he bid Helen come to you; of her I
am to speak.

COUNTESS.
Sirrah, tell my gentlewoman I would speak with her; Helen I mean.

CLOWN.
[Sings.]
   Was this fair face the cause, quoth she
     Why the Grecians sacked Troy?
   Fond done, done fond,
      Was this King Priam's joy?
   With that she sighed as she stood,
   With that she sighed as she stood,
      And gave this sentence then:--
   Among nine bad if one be good,
   Among nine bad if one be good,
     There's yet one good in ten.

COUNTESS.
What, one good in ten? you corrupt the song, sirrah.

CLOWN.
One good woman in ten, madam, which is a purifying o' the
song: would God would serve the world so all the year! we'd find
no fault with the tithe-woman, if I were the parson: one in ten,
quoth 'a! an we might have a good woman born before every blazing
star, or at an earthquake, 'twould mend the lottery well: a man
may draw his heart out ere he pluck one.

COUNTESS.
You'll be gone, sir knave, and do as I command you!

CLOWN.
That man should be at woman's command, and yet no hurt done!--
Though honesty be no puritan, yet it will do no hurt; it will
wear the surplice of humility over the black gown of a big
heart.--I am going, forsooth:the business is for Helen to come
hither.

[Exit.]

COUNTESS.
Well, now.

STEWARD.
I know, madam, you love your gentlewoman entirely.

COUNTESS.
Faith I do: her father bequeathed her to me; and she herself,
without other advantage, may lawfully make title to as much love
as she finds: there is more owing her than is paid; and more
shall be paid her than she'll demand.

STEWARD.
Madam, I was very late more near her than I think she wished me:
alone she was, and did communicate to herself her own words to
her own ears; she thought, I dare vow for her, they touched not
any stranger sense. Her matter was, she loved your son: Fortune,
she said, was no goddess, that had put such difference betwixt
their two estates; Love no god, that would not extend his might
only where qualities were level; Diana no queen of virgins, that
would suffer her poor knight surprise, without rescue in the
first assault, or ransom afterward. This she delivered in the
most bitter touch of sorrow that e'er I heard virgin exclaim in;
which I held my duty speedily to acquaint you withal; sithence,
in the loss that may happen, it concerns you something to know
it.

COUNTESS.
You have discharged this honestly; keep it to yourself; many
likelihoods informed me of this before, which hung so
tottering in the balance that I could neither believe nor
misdoubt. Pray you leave me: stall this in your bosom; and I
thank you for your honest care: I will speak with you further
anon.

[Exit STEWARD.]

Even so it was with me when I was young:
  If ever we are nature's, these are ours; this thorn
Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong;
  Our blood to us, this to our blood is born;
It is the show and seal of nature's truth,
Where love's strong passion is impress'd in youth:
By our remembrances of days foregone,
Such were our faults:--or then we thought them none.

[Enter HELENA.]

Her eye is sick on't;--I observe her now.

HELENA.
What is your pleasure, madam?

COUNTESS.
You know, Helen,
I am a mother to you.

HELENA.
Mine honourable mistress.

COUNTESS.
Nay, a mother.
Why not a mother? When I said a mother,
Methought you saw a serpent: what's in mother,
That you start at it? I say I am your mother;
And put you in the catalogue of those
That were enwombed mine. 'Tis often seen
Adoption strives with nature; and choice breeds
A native slip to us from foreign seeds:
You ne'er oppress'd me with a mother's groan,
Yet I express to you a mother's care:--
God's mercy, maiden! does it curd thy blood
To say I am thy mother? What's the matter,
That this distemper'd messenger of wet,
The many-colour'd iris, rounds thine eye?
Why,--that you are my daughter?

HELENA.
That I am not.

COUNTESS.
I say, I am your mother.

HELENA.
Pardon, madam;
The Count Rousillon cannot be my brother:
I am from humble, he from honour'd name;
No note upon my parents, his all noble;
My master, my dear lord he is; and I
His servant live, and will his vassal die:
He must not be my brother.

COUNTESS.
Nor I your mother?

HELENA.
You are my mother, madam; would you were,--
So that my lord your son were not my brother,--
Indeed my mother!--or were you both our mothers,
I care no more for than I do for heaven,
So I were not his sister. Can't no other,
But, I your daughter, he must be my brother?

COUNTESS.
Yes, Helen, you might be my daughter-in-law:
God shield you mean it not! daughter and mother
So strive upon your pulse. What! pale again?
My fear hath catch'd your fondness: now I see
The mystery of your loneliness, and find
Your salt tears' head. Now to all sense 'tis gross
You love my son; invention is asham'd,
Against the proclamation of thy passion,
To say thou dost not: therefore tell me true;
But tell me then, 'tis so;--for, look, thy cheeks
Confess it, one to the other; and thine eyes
See it so grossly shown in thy behaviours,
That in their kind they speak it; only sin
And hellish obstinacy tie thy tongue,
That truth should be suspected. Speak, is't so?
If it be so, you have wound a goodly clue;
If it be not, forswear't: howe'er, I charge thee,
As heaven shall work in me for thine avail,
To tell me truly.

HELENA.
Good madam, pardon me!

COUNTESS.
Do you love my son?

HELENA.
Your pardon, noble mistress!

COUNTESS.
Love you my son?

HELENA.
Do not you love him, madam?

COUNTESS.
Go not about; my love hath in't a bond
Whereof the world takes note: come, come, disclose
The state of your affection; for your passions
Have to the full appeach'd.

HELENA.
Then I confess,
Here on my knee, before high heaven and you,
That before you, and next unto high heaven,
I love your son:--
My friends were poor, but honest; so's my love:
Be not offended; for it hurts not him
That he is lov'd of me: I follow him not
By any token of presumptuous suit;
Nor would I have him till I do deserve him;
Yet never know how that desert should be.
I know I love in vain, strive against hope;
Yet in this captious and intenible sieve
I still pour in the waters of my love,
And lack not to lose still: thus, Indian-like,
Religious in mine error, I adore
The sun, that looks upon his worshipper,
But knows of him no more. My dearest madam,
Let not your hate encounter with my love,
For loving where you do; but if yourself,
Whose aged honour cites a virtuous youth,
Did ever, in so true a flame of liking,
Wish chastely, and love dearly, that your Dian
Was both herself and love; O, then, give pity
To her whose state is such that cannot choose
But lend and give where she is sure to lose;
That seeks not to find that her search implies,
But, riddle-like, lives sweetly where she dies!

COUNTESS.
Had you not lately an intent,--speak truly,--
To go to Paris?

HELENA.
Madam, I had.

COUNTESS.
Wherefore? tell true.

HELENA.
I will tell truth; by grace itself I swear.
You know my father left me some prescriptions
Of rare and prov'd effects, such as his reading
And manifest experience had collected
For general sovereignty; and that he will'd me
In heedfullest reservation to bestow them,
As notes whose faculties inclusive were
More than they were in note: amongst the rest
There is a remedy, approv'd, set down,
To cure the desperate languishings whereof
The king is render'd lost.

COUNTESS.
This was your motive
For Paris, was it? speak.

HELENA.
My lord your son made me to think of this;
Else Paris, and the medicine, and the king,
Had from the conversation of my thoughts
Haply been absent then.

COUNTESS.
But think you, Helen,
If you should tender your supposed aid,
He would receive it? He and his physicians
Are of a mind; he, that they cannot help him;
They, that they cannot help: how shall they credit
A poor unlearned virgin, when the schools,
Embowell'd of their doctrine, have let off
The danger to itself?

HELENA.
There's something in't
More than my father's skill, which was the greatest
Of his profession, that his good receipt
Shall, for my legacy, be sanctified
By th' luckiest stars in heaven: and, would your honour
But give me leave to try success, I'd venture
The well-lost life of mine on his grace's cure.
By such a day and hour.

COUNTESS.
Dost thou believe't?

HELENA.
Ay, madam, knowingly.

COUNTESS.
Why, Helen, thou shalt have my leave, and love,
Means, and attendants, and my loving greetings
To those of mine in court: I'll stay at home,
And pray God's blessing into thy attempt:
Be gone to-morrow; and be sure of this,
What I can help thee to thou shalt not miss.

[Exeunt.]



ACT II.

SCENE 1.  Paris. A room in the King's palace.

[Flourish. Enter the King, with young LORDS taking leave for the
Florentine war; BERTRAM, PAROLLES, and Attendants.]

KING.
Farewell, young lord; these war-like principles
Do not throw from you:--and you, my lord, 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.
It is 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 aloud: 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.

[The king retires to a couch.]

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 next year' and ''tis too early.'

PAROLLES.
An thy mind stand to it, 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.

PAROLLES.
Mars dote on you for his novices!

[Exeunt LORDS.]

What will ye do?

BERTRAM.
Stay; the king--

PAROLLES.
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.
Pardon, my lord [kneeling], for me and for my tidings.

KING.
I'll fee thee to stand up.

LAFEU.
Then here's a man stands that has bought 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, and 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 Pipin, nay,
To give great Charlemain a pen in his hand
And write to her a love-line.

KING.
What 'her' is that?

LAFEU.
Why, doctor 'she': my lord, there's one arriv'd,
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 amaz'd 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 the
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 LAFEU.]

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 his bed of death
Many receipts he gave me; chiefly one,
Which, as the dearest issue of his practice,
And of his old experience the only 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 inaidable 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 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 barred:
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.
Art thou so confident? Within what space
Hop'st thou my cure?

HELENA.
The greatest 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 dar'st thou venture?

HELENA.
Tax of impudence,--
A strumpet's boldness, a divulged shame,--
Traduc'd by odious ballads; my maiden's name
Sear'd otherwise; ne worse of worst 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 deserv'd. 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 observ'd,
Thy will by my performance shall be serv'd;
So make the choice of thy own time, for I,
Thy resolv'd 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 cam'st, 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 deed.

[Flourish. Exeunt.]



SCENE 2.  Rousillon. A room in the COUNTESS'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 taffety punk, as Tib's rush for Tom's
forefinger, as a pancake for Shrove-Tuesday, a morris for Mayday,
as the nail to his hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding
quean 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.
O Lord, sir!--Nay, put me to't, I warrant you.

COUNTESS.
You were lately whipped, sir, as I think.

CLOWN.
O Lord, sir!--Spare not me.

COUNTESS.
Do you cry 'O Lord, sir!' at your whipping, and 'spare not me'?
Indeed your 'O Lord, sir!' is very sequent to your whipping. You
would answer very well to a whipping, if you were but bound to't.

CLOWN.
I ne'er had worse luck in my life in my--'O Lord, sir!' I see
thing's may serve long, but not serve ever.

COUNTESS.
I play the noble housewife with the time, to entertain it so
merrily with a fool.

CLOWN.
O Lord, sir!--Why, there't serves well again.

COUNTESS.
An end, sir! To your business. Give Helen this,
And urge her to a present answer back:
Commend me to my kinsmen and my son:
This is not much.

CLOWN.
Not much commendation to them.

COUNTESS.
Not much employment for you: you understand me?

CLOWN.
Most fruitfully: I am there before my legs.

COUNTESS.
Haste you again.

[Exeunt severally.]



SCENE 3.  Paris. The KING'S palace.

[Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES.]

LAFEU.
They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical
persons to make modern and familiar things supernatural and
causeless. Hence is it that we make trifles of terrors,
ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge when we should submit
ourselves to an unknown fear.

PAROLLES.
Why, 'tis the rarest argument of wonder that hath shot out in our
latter times.

BERTRAM.
And so 'tis.

LAFEU.
To be relinquish'd of the artists,--

PAROLLES.
So I say; both of Galen and Paracelsus.

LAFEU.
Of all the learned and authentic fellows,--

PAROLLES.
Right; so I say.

LAFEU.
That gave him out incurable,--

PAROLLES.
Why, there 'tis; so say I too.

LAFEU.
Not to be helped,--

PAROLLES.
Right; as 'twere a man assured of a,--

LAFEU.
Uncertain life and sure death.

PAROLLES.
Just; you say well: so would I have said.

LAFEU.
I may truly say, it is a novelty to the world.

PAROLLES.
It is indeed: if you will have it in showing, you shall read it
in,--What do you call there?--

LAFEU.
A showing of a heavenly effect in an earthly actor.

PAROLLES.
That's it; I would have said the very same.

LAFEU.
Why, your dolphin is not lustier: 'fore me, I speak in
respect,--

PAROLLES.
Nay, 'tis strange, 'tis very strange; that is the brief and the
tedious of it; and he's of a most facinerious spirit that will
not acknowledge it to be the,--

LAFEU.
Very hand of heaven.

PAROLLES.
Ay; so I say.

LAFEU.
In a most weak,--

PAROLLES.
And debile minister, great power, great transcendence: which
should, indeed, give us a further use to be made than alone
the recov'ry of the king, as to be,--

LAFEU.
Generally thankful.

PAROLLES.
I would have said it; you say well. Here comes the king.

[Enter KING, HELENA, and Attendants.]

LAFEU.
Lustic, as the Dutchman says: I'll like a maid the better, whilst
I have a tooth in my head: why, he's able to lead her a coranto.

PAROLLES.
'Mort du vinaigre!' is not this Helen?

LAFEU.
'Fore God, I think so.

KING.
Go, call before me all the lords in court.--

[Exit an Attendant.]

Sit, my preserver, by thy patient's side;
And with this healthful hand, whose banish'd sense
Thou has repeal'd, a second time receive
The confirmation of my promis'd gift,
Which but attends thy naming.

[Enter severaol Lords.]

Fair maid, send forth thine eye: this youthful parcel
Of noble bachelors stand at my bestowing,
O'er whom both sovereign power and father's voice
I have to use: thy frank election make;
Thou hast power to choose, and they none to forsake.

HELENA.
To each of you one fair and virtuous mistress
Fall, when love please!--marry, to each, but one!

LAFEU.
I'd give bay Curtal and his furniture,
My mouth no more were broken than these boys',
And writ as little beard.

KING.
Peruse them well:
Not one of those but had a noble father.

HELENA.
Gentlemen,
Heaven hath through me restor'd the king to health.

ALL.
We understand it, and thank heaven for you.

HELENA.
I am a simple maid, and therein wealthiest
That I protest I simply am a maid.--
Please it, your majesty, I have done already:
The blushes in my cheeks thus whisper me--
'We blush that thou shouldst choose; but, be refus'd,
Let the white death sit on thy cheek for ever;
We'll ne'er come there again.'

KING.
Make choice; and, see:
Who shuns thy love shuns all his love in me.

HELENA.
Now, Dian, from thy altar do I fly,
And to imperial Love, that god most high,
Do my sighs stream.--Sir, will you hear my suit?

FIRST LORD.
And grant it.

HELENA.
Thanks, sir; all the rest is mute.

LAFEU.
I had rather be in this choice than throw ames-ace for my life.

HELENA.
The honour, sir, that flames in your fair eyes,
Before I speak, too threateningly replies:
Love make your fortunes twenty times above
Her that so wishes, and her humble love!

SECOND LORD.
No better, if you please.

HELENA.
My wish receive,
Which great Love grant; and so I take my leave.

LAFEU.
Do all they deny her? An they were sons of mine I'd have them
whipped; or I would send them to the Turk to make eunuchs of.

HELENA.
[To third Lord.] Be not afraid that I your hand should take;
I'll never do you wrong for your own sake:
Blessing upon your vows! and in your bed
Find fairer fortune, if you ever wed!

LAFEU.
These boys are boys of ice: they'll none have her:
Sure, they are bastards to the English; the French ne'er got 'em.

HELENA.
You are too young, too happy, and too good,
To make yourself a son out of my blood.

FOURTH LORD.
Fair one, I think not so.

LAFEU.
There's one grape yet,--I am sure thy father drank wine.--But
if thou beest not an ass, I am a youth of fourteen; I have known
thee already.

HELENA.
[To BERTRAM.] I dare not say I take you; but I give
Me and my service, ever whilst I live,
Into your guiding power.--This is the man.

KING.
Why, then, young Bertram, take her; she's thy wife.

BERTRAM.
My wife, my liege! I shall beseech your highness,
In such a business give me leave to use
The help of mine own eyes.

KING.
Know'st thou not, Bertram,
What she has done for me?

BERTRAM.
Yes, my good lord;
But never hope to know why I should marry her.

KING.
Thou know'st she has rais'd me from my sickly bed.

BERTRAM.
But follows it, my lord, to bring me down
Must answer for your raising? I know her well;
She had her breeding at my father's charge:
A poor physician's daughter my wife!--Disdain
Rather corrupt me ever!

KING.
'Tis only title thou disdain'st in her, the which
I can build up. Strange is it that our bloods,
Of colour, weight, and heat, pour'd all together,
Would quite confound distinction, yet stand 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:
From lowest place when virtuous things proceed,
The place is dignified by the doer's deed:
Where great additions swell's, and virtue none,
It is a dropsied honour: good alone
Is good without a name; vileness is so:
The property by what it is should go,
Not by the title. She is young, wise, fair;
In these to nature she's immediate heir;
And these breed honour: that is honour's scorn
Which challenges itself as honour's born,
And is not like the sire: honours thrive
When rather from our acts we them derive
Than our fore-goers: the mere word's a slave,
Debauch'd on every tomb; on every grave
A lying trophy; and as oft is dumb
Where dust and damn'd oblivion is the tomb
Of honour'd bones indeed. What should be said?
If thou canst like this creature as a maid,
I can create the rest: virtue and she
Is her own dower; honour and wealth from me.

BERTRAM.
I cannot love her, nor will strive to do 't.

KING.
Thou wrong'st thyself, if thou shouldst strive to choose.

HELENA.
That you are well restor'd, my lord, I am glad:
Let the rest go.

KING.
My honour's at the stake; which to defeat,
I must produce my power. Here, take her hand,
Proud scornful boy, unworthy this good gift;
That dost in vile misprision shackle up
My love and her desert; that canst not dream
We, poising us in her defective scale,
Shall weigh thee to the beam; that wilt not know
It is in us to plant thine honour where
We please to have it grow. Check thy contempt:
Obey our will, which travails in thy good;
Believe not thy disdain, but presently
Do thine own fortunes that obedient right
Which both thy duty owes and our power claims
Or I will throw thee from my care for ever,
Into the staggers and the careless lapse
Of youth and ignorance; both my revenge and hate
Loosing upon thee in the name of justice,
Without all terms of pity. Speak! thine answer!

BERTRAM.
Pardon, my gracious lord; for I submit
My fancy to your eyes: when I consider
What great creation, and what dole of honour
Flies where you bid it, I find that she, which late
Was in my nobler thoughts most base, is now
The praised of the king; who, so ennobled,
Is as 'twere born so.

KING.
Take her by the hand,
And tell her she is thine: to whom I promise
A counterpoise; if not to thy estate,
A balance more replete.

BERTRAM.
I take her hand.

KING.
Good fortune and the favour of the king
Smile upon this contract; whose ceremony
Shall seem expedient on the now-born brief,
And be perform'd to-night: the solemn feast
Shall more attend upon the coming space,
Expecting absent friends. As thou lov'st her,
Thy love's to me religious; else, does err.

[Exeunt KING, BERTAM, HELENA, Lords, and Attendants.]

LAFEU.
Do you hear, monsieur? a word with you.

PAROLLES.
Your pleasure, sir?

LAFEU.
Your lord and master did well to make his recantation.

PAROLLES.
Recantation!--my lord! my master!

LAFEU.
Ay; is it not a language I speak?

PAROLLES.
A most harsh one, and not to be understood without bloody
succeeding. My master!

LAFEU.
Are you companion to the Count Rousillon?

PAROLLES.
To any count; to all counts; to what is man.

LAFEU.
To what is count's man: count's master is of another style.

PAROLLES.
You are too old, sir; let it satisfy you, you are too old.

LAFEU.
I must tell thee, sirrah, I write man; to which title age cannot
bring thee.

PAROLLES.
What I dare too well do, I dare not do.

LAFEU.
I did think thee, for two ordinaries, to be a pretty wise
fellow; thou didst make tolerable vent of thy travel; it might
pass: yet the scarfs and the bannerets about thee did manifoldly
dissuade me from believing thee a vessel of too great a burden. I
have now found thee; when I lose thee again I care not: yet art
thou good for nothing but taking up; and that thou art scarce
worth.

PAROLLES.
Hadst thou not the privilege of antiquity upon thee,--

LAFEU.
Do not plunge thyself too far in anger, lest thou hasten thy
trial; which if--Lord have mercy on thee for a hen! So, my good
window of lattice, fare thee well: thy casement I need not open,
for I look through thee. Give me thy hand.

PAROLLES.
My lord, you give me most egregious indignity.

LAFEU.
Ay, with all my heart; and thou art worthy of it.

PAROLLES.
I have not, my lord, deserved it.

LAFEU.
Yes, good faith, every dram of it: and I will not bate thee
a scruple.

PAROLLES.
Well, I shall be wiser.

LAFEU.
E'en as soon as thou canst, for thou hast to pull at a smack
o' th' contrary. If ever thou beest bound in thy scarf and
beaten, thou shalt find what it is to be proud of thy bondage. I
have a desire to hold my acquaintance with thee, or rather my
knowledge, that I may say in the default, he is a man I know.

PAROLLES.
My lord, you do me most insupportable vexation.

LAFEU.
I would it were hell-pains for thy sake, and my poor doing
eternal: for doing I am past; as I will by thee, in what motion
age will give me leave.