All’s Well That Ends Well

1 Enter Helena and Widow.
2 HELENA.
3 If you misdoubt me that I am not she,
4 I know not how I shall assure you further,
5 But I shall lose the grounds I work upon.
6 WIDOW.
7 Though my estate be fall’n, I was well born,
8 Nothing acquainted with these businesses,
9 And would not put my reputation now
10 In any staining act.
11 HELENA.
12 Nor would I wish you.
13 First give me trust, the count he is my husband,
14 And what to your sworn counsel I have spoken
15 Is so from word to word; and then you cannot,
16 By the good aid that I of you shall borrow,
17 Err in bestowing it.
18 WIDOW.
19 I should believe you,
20 For you have show’d me that which well approves
21 Y’are great in fortune.
22 HELENA.
23 Take this purse of gold,
24 And let me buy your friendly help thus far,
25 Which I will over-pay, and pay again
26 When I have found it. The count he woos your daughter
27 Lays down his wanton siege before her beauty,
28 Resolv’d to carry her; let her in fine consent,
29 As we’ll direct her how ’tis best to bear it.
30 Now his important blood will naught deny
31 That she’ll demand; a ring the county wears,
32 That downward hath succeeded in his house
33 From son to son, some four or five descents
34 Since the first father wore it. This ring he holds
35 In most rich choice; yet, in his idle fire,
36 To buy his will, it would not seem too dear,
37 Howe’er repented after.
38 WIDOW.
39 Now I see
40 The bottom of your purpose.
41 HELENA.
42 You see it lawful then; it is no more
43 But that your daughter, ere she seems as won,
44 Desires this ring; appoints him an encounter;
45 In fine, delivers me to fill the time,
46 Herself most chastely absent. After,
47 To marry her, I’ll add three thousand crowns
48 To what is pass’d already.
49 WIDOW.
50 I have yielded.
51 Instruct my daughter how she shall persever,
52 That time and place with this deceit so lawful
53 May prove coherent. Every night he comes
54 With musics of all sorts, and songs compos’d
55 To her unworthiness: it nothing steads us
56 To chide him from our eaves; for he persists
57 As if his life lay on ’t.
58 HELENA.
59 Why then tonight
60 Let us assay our plot; which, if it speed,
61 Is wicked meaning in a lawful deed,
62 And lawful meaning in a lawful act,
63 Where both not sin, and yet a sinful fact.
64 But let’s about it.
65 [_Exeunt._]