All’s Well That Ends Well

1 Flourish. Enter the King with young Lords taking leave for the
2 Florentine war; Bertram, Parolles and Attendants.
3 KING.
4 Farewell, young lords; these warlike principles
5 Do not throw from you; and you, my lords, farewell;
6 Share the advice betwixt you; if both gain all,
7 The gift doth stretch itself as ’tis receiv’d,
8 And is enough for both.
9 FIRST LORD.
10 ’Tis our hope, sir,
11 After well-ent’red soldiers, to return
12 And find your grace in health.
13 KING.
14 No, no, it cannot be; and yet my heart
15 Will not confess he owes the malady
16 That doth my life besiege. Farewell, young lords.
17 Whether I live or die, be you the sons
18 Of worthy Frenchmen; let higher Italy,—
19 Those bated that inherit but the fall
20 Of the last monarchy—see that you come
21 Not to woo honour, but to wed it, when
22 The bravest questant shrinks: find what you seek,
23 That fame may cry you loud. I say farewell.
24 SECOND LORD.
25 Health, at your bidding serve your majesty!
26 KING.
27 Those girls of Italy, take heed of them;
28 They say our French lack language to deny
29 If they demand; beware of being captives
30 Before you serve.
31 BOTH.
32 Our hearts receive your warnings.
33 KING.
34 Farewell.—Come hither to me.
35 [_The King retires to a couch._]
36 FIRST LORD.
37 O my sweet lord, that you will stay behind us!
38 PAROLLES.
39 ’Tis not his fault; the spark.
40 SECOND LORD.
41 O, ’tis brave wars!
42 PAROLLES.
43 Most admirable! I have seen those wars.
44 BERTRAM.
45 I am commanded here, and kept a coil with,
46 “Too young”, and “the next year” and “’tis too early”.
47 PAROLLES.
48 An thy mind stand to’t, boy, steal away bravely.
49 BERTRAM.
50 I shall stay here the forehorse to a smock,
51 Creaking my shoes on the plain masonry,
52 Till honour be bought up, and no sword worn
53 But one to dance with. By heaven, I’ll steal away.
54 FIRST LORD.
55 There’s honour in the theft.
56 PAROLLES.
57 Commit it, count.
58 SECOND LORD.
59 I am your accessary; and so farewell.
60 BERTRAM.
61 I grow to you, and our parting is a tortur’d body.
62 FIRST LORD.
63 Farewell, captain.
64 SECOND LORD.
65 Sweet Monsieur Parolles!
66 PAROLLES.
67 Noble heroes, my sword and yours are kin. Good sparks and lustrous, a
68 word, good metals. You shall find in the regiment of the Spinii one
69 Captain Spurio, with his cicatrice, an emblem of war, here on his
70 sinister cheek; it was this very sword entrench’d it. Say to him I
71 live; and observe his reports for me.
72 FIRST LORD.
73 We shall, noble captain.
74 PAROLLES.
75 Mars dote on you for his novices!
76 [_Exeunt Lords._]
77 What will ye do?
78 BERTRAM.
79 Stay the king.
80 PAROLLES.
81 Use a more spacious ceremony to the noble lords; you have restrain’d
82 yourself within the list of too cold an adieu. Be more expressive to
83 them; for they wear themselves in the cap of the time; there do muster
84 true gait; eat, speak, and move, under the influence of the most
85 receiv’d star; and though the devil lead the measure, such are to be
86 followed. After them, and take a more dilated farewell.
87 BERTRAM.
88 And I will do so.
89 PAROLLES.
90 Worthy fellows, and like to prove most sinewy sword-men.
91 [_Exeunt Bertram and Parolles._]
92 Enter Lafew.
93 LAFEW.
94 Pardon, my lord [_kneeling_], for me and for my tidings.
95 KING.
96 I’ll fee thee to stand up.
97 LAFEW.
98 Then here’s a man stands that has brought his pardon.
99 I would you had kneel’d, my lord, to ask me mercy,
100 And that at my bidding you could so stand up.
101 KING.
102 I would I had; so I had broke thy pate,
103 And ask’d thee mercy for’t.
104 LAFEW.
105 Good faith, across;
106 But, my good lord, ’tis thus: will you be cur’d
107 Of your infirmity?
108 KING.
109 No.
110 LAFEW.
111 O, will you eat
112 No grapes, my royal fox? Yes, but you will
113 My noble grapes, and if my royal fox
114 Could reach them. I have seen a medicine
115 That’s able to breathe life into a stone,
116 Quicken a rock, and make you dance canary
117 With sprightly fire and motion; whose simple touch
118 Is powerful to araise King Pippen, nay,
119 To give great Charlemain a pen in’s hand
120 And write to her a love-line.
121 KING.
122 What ‘her’ is this?
123 LAFEW.
124 Why, doctor ‘she’! My lord, there’s one arriv’d,
125 If you will see her. Now, by my faith and honour,
126 If seriously I may convey my thoughts
127 In this my light deliverance, I have spoke
128 With one that in her sex, her years, profession,
129 Wisdom, and constancy, hath amaz’d me more
130 Than I dare blame my weakness. Will you see her,
131 For that is her demand, and know her business?
132 That done, laugh well at me.
133 KING.
134 Now, good Lafew,
135 Bring in the admiration; that we with thee
136 May spend our wonder too, or take off thine
137 By wond’ring how thou took’st it.
138 LAFEW.
139 Nay, I’ll fit you,
140 And not be all day neither.
141 [_Exit Lafew._]
142 KING.
143 Thus he his special nothing ever prologues.
144 Enter Lafew with Helena.
145 LAFEW.
146 Nay, come your ways.
147 KING.
148 This haste hath wings indeed.
149 LAFEW.
150 Nay, come your ways.
151 This is his majesty, say your mind to him.
152 A traitor you do look like, but such traitors
153 His majesty seldom fears; I am Cressid’s uncle,
154 That dare leave two together. Fare you well.
155 [_Exit._]
156 KING.
157 Now, fair one, does your business follow us?
158 HELENA.
159 Ay, my good lord.
160 Gerard de Narbon was my father,
161 In what he did profess, well found.
162 KING.
163 I knew him.
164 HELENA.
165 The rather will I spare my praises towards him.
166 Knowing him is enough. On his bed of death
167 Many receipts he gave me; chiefly one,
168 Which, as the dearest issue of his practice,
169 And of his old experience the only darling,
170 He bade me store up as a triple eye,
171 Safer than mine own two; more dear I have so,
172 And hearing your high majesty is touch’d
173 With that malignant cause, wherein the honour
174 Of my dear father’s gift stands chief in power,
175 I come to tender it, and my appliance,
176 With all bound humbleness.
177 KING.
178 We thank you, maiden,
179 But may not be so credulous of cure,
180 When our most learned doctors leave us, and
181 The congregated college have concluded
182 That labouring art can never ransom nature
183 From her inaidable estate. I say we must not
184 So stain our judgment, or corrupt our hope,
185 To prostitute our past-cure malady
186 To empirics, or to dissever so
187 Our great self and our credit, to esteem
188 A senseless help, when help past sense we deem.
189 HELENA.
190 My duty then shall pay me for my pains.
191 I will no more enforce mine office on you,
192 Humbly entreating from your royal thoughts
193 A modest one to bear me back again.
194 KING.
195 I cannot give thee less, to be call’d grateful.
196 Thou thought’st to help me; and such thanks I give
197 As one near death to those that wish him live.
198 But what at full I know, thou know’st no part;
199 I knowing all my peril, thou no art.
200 HELENA.
201 What I can do can do no hurt to try,
202 Since you set up your rest ’gainst remedy.
203 He that of greatest works is finisher
204 Oft does them by the weakest minister.
205 So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown,
206 When judges have been babes. Great floods have flown
207 From simple sources, and great seas have dried
208 When miracles have by the great’st been denied.
209 Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
210 Where most it promises; and oft it hits
211 Where hope is coldest, and despair most fits.
212 KING.
213 I must not hear thee. Fare thee well, kind maid.
214 Thy pains, not us’d, must by thyself be paid;
215 Proffers, not took, reap thanks for their reward.
216 HELENA.
217 Inspired merit so by breath is barr’d.
218 It is not so with Him that all things knows
219 As ’tis with us that square our guess by shows;
220 But most it is presumption in us when
221 The help of heaven we count the act of men.
222 Dear sir, to my endeavours give consent;
223 Of heaven, not me, make an experiment.
224 I am not an impostor, that proclaim
225 Myself against the level of mine aim,
226 But know I think, and think I know most sure,
227 My art is not past power nor you past cure.
228 KING.
229 Art thou so confident? Within what space
230 Hop’st thou my cure?
231 HELENA.
232 The greatest grace lending grace.
233 Ere twice the horses of the sun shall bring
234 Their fiery torcher his diurnal ring,
235 Ere twice in murk and occidental damp
236 Moist Hesperus hath quench’d her sleepy lamp;
237 Or four and twenty times the pilot’s glass
238 Hath told the thievish minutes how they pass;
239 What is infirm from your sound parts shall fly,
240 Health shall live free, and sickness freely die.
241 KING.
242 Upon thy certainty and confidence
243 What dar’st thou venture?
244 HELENA.
245 Tax of impudence,
246 A strumpet’s boldness, a divulged shame,
247 Traduc’d by odious ballads; my maiden’s name
248 Sear’d otherwise; nay worse of worst extended
249 With vilest torture, let my life be ended.
250 KING.
251 Methinks in thee some blessed spirit doth speak
252 His powerful sound within an organ weak;
253 And what impossibility would slay
254 In common sense, sense saves another way.
255 Thy life is dear, for all that life can rate
256 Worth name of life in thee hath estimate:
257 Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, all
258 That happiness and prime can happy call.
259 Thou this to hazard needs must intimate
260 Skill infinite, or monstrous desperate.
261 Sweet practiser, thy physic I will try,
262 That ministers thine own death if I die.
263 HELENA.
264 If I break time, or flinch in property
265 Of what I spoke, unpitied let me die,
266 And well deserv’d. Not helping, death’s my fee;
267 But if I help, what do you promise me?
268 KING.
269 Make thy demand.
270 HELENA.
271 But will you make it even?
272 KING.
273 Ay, by my sceptre and my hopes of heaven.
274 HELENA.
275 Then shalt thou give me, with thy kingly hand
276 What husband in thy power I will command:
277 Exempted be from me the arrogance
278 To choose from forth the royal blood of France,
279 My low and humble name to propagate
280 With any branch or image of thy state;
281 But such a one, thy vassal, whom I know
282 Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow.
283 KING.
284 Here is my hand; the premises observ’d,
285 Thy will by my performance shall be serv’d;
286 So make the choice of thy own time, for I,
287 Thy resolv’d patient, on thee still rely.
288 More should I question thee, and more I must,
289 Though more to know could not be more to trust:
290 From whence thou cam’st, how tended on; but rest
291 Unquestion’d welcome, and undoubted bless’d.
292 Give me some help here, ho! If thou proceed
293 As high as word, my deed shall match thy deed.
294 [_Flourish. Exeunt._]