All's Well that Ends Well

All's Well that Ends Well

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.	5
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.	10
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.	15
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	20
	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.	25
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?	30
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	35
	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	40
	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	45
	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.	50
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.	55
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,	60
	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,	65
	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.	70
COUNTESS	Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram.
	Exit
BERTRAM	To HELENA
	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.	75
	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.	80
	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	85
	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	90
	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?	95
	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	100
	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.	105
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?	110
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	115
	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	120
	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	125
	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.	130
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	135
	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	140
	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!	145
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.	150
	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,	155
	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 [ ]	160
	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;	165
	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--	170
	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?	175
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	180
	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.	185
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.	190
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.	195
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	200
	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	205
	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	210
	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	215
	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?	220
	The king's disease--my project may deceive me,
	But my intents are fix'd and will not leave me.
	Exit