All’s Well That Ends Well

1 Enter Bertram, the Countess of Rossillon, Helena, and Lafew, all in
2 black.
3 COUNTESS.
4 In delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband.
5 BERTRAM.
6 And I in going, madam, weep o’er my father’s death anew; but I must
7 attend his majesty’s command, to whom I am now in ward, evermore in
8 subjection.
9 LAFEW.
10 You shall find of the king a husband, madam; you, sir, a father. He
11 that so generally is at all times good, must of necessity hold his
12 virtue to you, whose worthiness would stir it up where it wanted,
13 rather than lack it where there is such abundance.
14 COUNTESS.
15 What hope is there of his majesty’s amendment?
16 LAFEW.
17 He hath abandon’d his physicians, madam; under whose practices he hath
18 persecuted time with hope, and finds no other advantage in the process
19 but only the losing of hope by time.
20 COUNTESS.
21 This young gentlewoman had a father—O that “had!”, how sad a passage
22 ’tis!—whose skill was almost as great as his honesty; had it stretch’d
23 so far, would have made nature immortal, and death should have play for
24 lack of work. Would for the king’s sake he were living! I think it
25 would be the death of the king’s disease.
26 LAFEW.
27 How called you the man you speak of, madam?
28 COUNTESS.
29 He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his great right to be
30 so: Gerard de Narbon.
31 LAFEW.
32 He was excellent indeed, madam; the king very lately spoke of him
33 admiringly, and mourningly; he was skilful enough to have liv’d still,
34 if knowledge could be set up against mortality.
35 BERTRAM.
36 What is it, my good lord, the king languishes of?
37 LAFEW.
38 A fistula, my lord.
39 BERTRAM.
40 I heard not of it before.
41 LAFEW.
42 I would it were not notorious. Was this gentlewoman the daughter of
43 Gerard de Narbon?
44 COUNTESS.
45 His sole child, my lord, and bequeathed to my overlooking. I have those
46 hopes of her good that her education promises her dispositions she
47 inherits, which makes fair gifts fairer; for where an unclean mind
48 carries virtuous qualities, there commendations go with pity, they are
49 virtues and traitors too. In her they are the better for their
50 simpleness; she derives her honesty, and achieves her goodness.
51 LAFEW.
52 Your commendations, madam, get from her tears.
53 COUNTESS.
54 ’Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise in. The remembrance
55 of her father never approaches her heart but the tyranny of her sorrows
56 takes all livelihood from her cheek. No more of this, Helena; go to, no
57 more, lest it be rather thought you affect a sorrow than to have.
58 HELENA.
59 I do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have it too.
60 LAFEW.
61 Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead; excessive grief the
62 enemy to the living.
63 COUNTESS.
64 If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal.
65 BERTRAM.
66 Madam, I desire your holy wishes.
67 LAFEW.
68 How understand we that?
69 COUNTESS.
70 Be thou blest, Bertram, and succeed thy father
71 In manners, as in shape! Thy blood and virtue
72 Contend for empire in thee, and thy goodness
73 Share with thy birthright! Love all, trust a few,
74 Do wrong to none. Be able for thine enemy
75 Rather in power than use; and keep thy friend
76 Under thy own life’s key. Be check’d for silence,
77 But never tax’d for speech. What heaven more will,
78 That thee may furnish and my prayers pluck down,
79 Fall on thy head! Farewell. My lord,
80 ’Tis an unseason’d courtier; good my lord,
81 Advise him.
82 LAFEW.
83 He cannot want the best
84 That shall attend his love.
85 COUNTESS.
86 Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram.
87 [_Exit Countess._]
88 BERTRAM.
89 The best wishes that can be forg’d in your thoughts be servants to you!
90 [_To Helena._] Be comfortable to my mother, your mistress, and make
91 much of her.
92 LAFEW.
93 Farewell, pretty lady, you must hold the credit of your father.
94 [_Exeunt Bertram and Lafew._]
95 HELENA.
96 O, were that all! I think not on my father,
97 And these great tears grace his remembrance more
98 Than those I shed for him. What was he like?
99 I have forgot him; my imagination
100 Carries no favour in’t but Bertram’s.
101 I am undone: there is no living, none,
102 If Bertram be away. ’Twere all one
103 That I should love a bright particular star,
104 And think to wed it, he is so above me.
105 In his bright radiance and collateral light
106 Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.
107 Th’ambition in my love thus plagues itself:
108 The hind that would be mated by the lion
109 Must die for love. ’Twas pretty, though a plague,
110 To see him every hour; to sit and draw
111 His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,
112 In our heart’s table,—heart too capable
113 Of every line and trick of his sweet favour.
114 But now he’s gone, and my idolatrous fancy
115 Must sanctify his relics. Who comes here?
116 Enter Parolles.
117 One that goes with him: I love him for his sake,
118 And yet I know him a notorious liar,
119 Think him a great way fool, solely a coward;
120 Yet these fix’d evils sit so fit in him
121 That they take place when virtue’s steely bones
122 Looks bleak i’ th’ cold wind: withal, full oft we see
123 Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.
124 PAROLLES.
125 Save you, fair queen!
126 HELENA.
127 And you, monarch!
128 PAROLLES.
129 No.
130 HELENA.
131 And no.
132 PAROLLES.
133 Are you meditating on virginity?
134 HELENA.
135 Ay. You have some stain of soldier in you; let me ask you a question.
136 Man is enemy to virginity; how may we barricado it against him?
137 PAROLLES.
138 Keep him out.
139 HELENA.
140 But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant, in the defence, yet
141 is weak. Unfold to us some warlike resistance.
142 PAROLLES.
143 There is none. Man setting down before you will undermine you and blow
144 you up.
145 HELENA.
146 Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers-up! Is there no
147 military policy how virgins might blow up men?
148 PAROLLES.
149 Virginity being blown down, man will quicklier be blown up; marry, in
150 blowing him down again, with the breach yourselves made, you lose your
151 city. It is not politic in the commonwealth of nature to preserve
152 virginity. Loss of virginity is rational increase, and there was never
153 virgin got till virginity was first lost. That you were made of is
154 metal to make virgins. Virginity, by being once lost, may be ten times
155 found; by being ever kept, it is ever lost. ’Tis too cold a companion.
156 Away with it!
157 HELENA.
158 I will stand for’t a little, though therefore I die a virgin.
159 PAROLLES.
160 There’s little can be said in’t; ’tis against the rule of nature. To
161 speak on the part of virginity is to accuse your mothers; which is most
162 infallible disobedience. He that hangs himself is a virgin: virginity
163 murders itself, and should be buried in highways out of all sanctified
164 limit, as a desperate offendress against nature. Virginity breeds
165 mites, much like a cheese; consumes itself to the very paring, and so
166 dies with feeding his own stomach. Besides, virginity is peevish,
167 proud, idle, made of self-love, which is the most inhibited sin in the
168 canon. Keep it not; you cannot choose but lose by’t. Out with’t! Within
169 the year it will make itself two, which is a goodly increase, and the
170 principal itself not much the worse. Away with it!
171 HELENA.
172 How might one do, sir, to lose it to her own liking?
173 PAROLLES.
174 Let me see. Marry, ill, to like him that ne’er it likes. ’Tis a
175 commodity will lose the gloss with lying; the longer kept, the less
176 worth. Off with’t while ’tis vendible; answer the time of request.
177 Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of fashion, richly
178 suited, but unsuitable, just like the brooch and the toothpick, which
179 wear not now. Your date is better in your pie and your porridge than in
180 your cheek. And your virginity, your old virginity, is like one of our
181 French wither’d pears; it looks ill, it eats drily; marry, ’tis a
182 wither’d pear; it was formerly better; marry, yet ’tis a wither’d pear.
183 Will you anything with it?
184 HELENA.
185 Not my virginity yet.
186 There shall your master have a thousand loves,
187 A mother, and a mistress, and a friend,
188 A phoenix, captain, and an enemy,
189 A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign,
190 A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear:
191 His humble ambition, proud humility,
192 His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet,
193 His faith, his sweet disaster; with a world
194 Of pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms
195 That blinking Cupid gossips. Now shall he—
196 I know not what he shall. God send him well!
197 The court’s a learning-place; and he is one.
198 PAROLLES.
199 What one, i’ faith?
200 HELENA.
201 That I wish well. ’Tis pity—
202 PAROLLES.
203 What’s pity?
204 HELENA.
205 That wishing well had not a body in’t
206 Which might be felt, that we, the poorer born,
207 Whose baser stars do shut us up in wishes,
208 Might with effects of them follow our friends,
209 And show what we alone must think, which never
210 Returns us thanks.
211 Enter a Page.
212 PAGE.
213 Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.
214 [_Exit Page._]
215 PAROLLES.
216 Little Helen, farewell. If I can remember thee, I will think of thee at
217 court.
218 HELENA.
219 Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable star.
220 PAROLLES.
221 Under Mars, I.
222 HELENA.
223 I especially think, under Mars.
224 PAROLLES.
225 Why under Mars?
226 HELENA.
227 The wars hath so kept you under, that you must needs be born under
228 Mars.
229 PAROLLES.
230 When he was predominant.
231 HELENA.
232 When he was retrograde, I think rather.
233 PAROLLES.
234 Why think you so?
235 HELENA.
236 You go so much backward when you fight.
237 PAROLLES.
238 That’s for advantage.
239 HELENA.
240 So is running away, when fear proposes the safety: but the composition
241 that your valour and fear makes in you is a virtue of a good wing, and
242 I like the wear well.
243 PAROLLES.
244 I am so full of business I cannot answer thee acutely. I will return
245 perfect courtier; in the which my instruction shall serve to naturalize
246 thee, so thou wilt be capable of a courtier’s counsel, and understand
247 what advice shall thrust upon thee; else thou diest in thine
248 unthankfulness, and thine ignorance makes thee away. Farewell. When
249 thou hast leisure, say thy prayers; when thou hast none, remember thy
250 friends. Get thee a good husband, and use him as he uses thee. So,
251 farewell.
252 [_Exit._]
253 HELENA.
254 Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
255 Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky
256 Gives us free scope; only doth backward pull
257 Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull.
258 What power is it which mounts my love so high,
259 That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?
260 The mightiest space in fortune nature brings
261 To join like likes, and kiss like native things.
262 Impossible be strange attempts to those
263 That weigh their pains in sense, and do suppose
264 What hath been cannot be. Who ever strove
265 To show her merit that did miss her love?
266 The king’s disease,—my project may deceive me,
267 But my intents are fix’d, and will not leave me.
268 [_Exit._]