ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. PERSONS REPRESENTED. King of France. Duke of Florence. Bertram, Count of Rousillon. Parolles, a follower of Bertram. Lafeu, an old Lord. Countess of Rousillon, mother to Bertram. Diana, daughter to the widow. Violenta, Several young French Lords, that serve with Ber- Mariana, neighbours and friends to the widow. Steward, Clown, A Page. tram in the Florentine war. servants to the Countess of Rousillon. Lords, attending on the King; Officers, Soldiers &c. French and Florentine. Scene, partly in France, and partly in Tuscany. ACT I. SCENE I-Rousillon. A Room in the Countess's Palace. Enter Bertram, the Countess of Rousillon, Helena, and Lafeu, in mourning. Countess. Ber. I heard not of it before. Laf. I would, it were not notorious.-Was this gentlewoman the daughter of Gerard de Narbon? Count. 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 make fair gifts fairer; for where IN delivering my son from me, I bury a second an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities, there husband. commendations go with pity, they are virtues and Ber. And I, in going, madam, weep o'er my traitors too; in her they are the better for their father's death anew but I must attend his majes- simpleness; she derives her honesty, and achieves ty's command, to whom I am now in ward,' ever- her goodness. more in subjection. Laf. Your commendations, madam, get from Laf. You shall find of the king a husband, ma- her tears. dam-you, sir, a father: He that so generally is Count. 'Tis the best brine a maiden can season at all times good, must of necessity hold his virtue her praise in. The remembrance of her father to you; whose worthiness would stir it up where never approaches her heart, but the tyranny of her it wanted, rather than lack it where there is such sorrows takes all livelihoods from her cheek. No abundance. more of this, Helena, go to, no more; lets it be rather thought you affect a sorrow, than to have. Hel. I do affect a sorrow, indeed, but I have it Count. What hope is there of his majesty's amendment? Laf. 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. Count. This young gentlewoman had a father (0, that had 2 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. Laf. How called you the man you speak of, madam? too. Laf. Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead, excessive grief the enemy to the living. Count. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal. Ber. Madam, I desire your holy wishes. Count. Be thou blest, Bertram! and succeed In manners, as in shape! thy blood, and virtue, Count. He was famous, sir, in his profession, and Laf. A fistula, my lord. (1) Under his particular care, as my guardian. (2) The countess recollects her own loss of a husband, and observes how heavily had passes through her mind. (3) Qualities of good breeding and erudition. Virginity That shall attend his love. Par. There's little can be said in't; 'tis against Count. Heaven bless him!-Farewell, Bertram. the rule of nature. To speak on the part of vir [Exit Countess. ginity, is to accuse your mothers: which is most Ber. The best wishes, that can be forged in your infallible disobedience. He, that hangs himself, is thoughts, [To Helena.] be servants to you!! Be a virgin virginity murders itself; and should be comfortable to my mother, your mistress, and make buried in highways, out of all sanctified limit, as much of her. a desperate offendress against nature. 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't. Laf. Farewell, pretty lady: You must hold the One that goes with him: I love him for his sake; That they take place, when virtue's steely bones Hel. And you, monarch. Par, No. Hel. And no. Par. Are you meditating on virginity? Hel. 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? Par. Keep him out. Hel, But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant in the defence, yet is weak: unfold to us some warlike resistance. Par. There is none; man, sitting down before you, will undermine you, and blow you up. Hel. Bless our poor virginity from underminers, and blowers up!-Is there no military policy, how virgins might blow up men? Par. 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. Hel. I will stand for't a little, though therefore I die a virgin. (1) i. e. May you be mistress of your wishes, and have power to bring them to effect. (2) Helena considers her heart as the tablet on which his resemblance was portrayed. (3) Peculiarity of feature. (4) Countenance. Hel. How might one do, sir, to lose it to her own liking? Par. Let me see: Marry, ill, to like him that There shall your master have a thousand loves, Of pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms, I know not what he shall :-God send him well!- Hel. That I wish well.-'Tis pity- Hel. That wishing well had not a body in't, Hel. You go so much backward, when you fight. Hel. 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. King. I would I had that corpora! soundness now, As when thy father, and myself, in friendship First try'd 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, Par. I am so full of businesses, I cannot answer And wore us out of act. It much repairs' me thee acutely: I will return perfect courtier; in the To talk of your good father: In his youth which, my instruction shall serve to naturalize thee, He had the wit, which I can well observe so thou wilt be capable of a courtier's counsel, To-day in our young lords; but they may jest and understand what advice shall thrust upon thee; Till their own scorn return to them unnoted, else thou diest in thine unthankfulness, and thine Ere they can hide their levity in honour. 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. [Erit. Hel. Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, 2 Lord. A nursery to our gentry, who are sick For breathing and exploit. King. What's he comes here? King. Youth, thou bear'st thy father's face; Ber. My thanks and duty are your majesty's. (1) i. e. Thou wilt comprehend it. (2) Things formed by nature for each other. (3) The citizens of the small republic of which Sienna is the capital. (4) To repair, here signifies to renovate. So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness In their poor praise he humbled: Such a man King. 'Would, I were with him! He would al ways say, (Methinks, I hear him now; his plausive words Since I nor wax, nor honey, can bring home, 2 Lord. count, Since the physician at your father's died? Ber. Thank your majestv. SCENE III-Rousillon. A Room in the Coun- Count. I will now hear; what say you of this gentlewoman? Stew. 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 de-l servings, when of ourselves we publish them. Count. What does this knave here? Get you gone, sirrah: The complaints, I have heard of you, (do not al 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. Clo. 'Tis not unknown to you, madam, I am a poor fellow. Count. Well, sir. Clo. No, madam, 'tis not so well, that I am poor; though many of the rich are damned: But, if may have your ladyship's good will to go to the world, Isbel the woman and I will do as we may. Count. Wilt thou needs be a beggar? Clo, I do beg your good will in this case. Count. In what case? Clo. 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, bearns are blessings. Count. Tell me the reason why thou wilt marry. Clo. My poor body, madam, requires it: I am driven on by the flesh; and he must needs go, that the devil drives. Count. Is this all your worship's reason? Clo. Faith, madam, I have other holy reasons, such as they are. Count. May the world know them? Clo. I have been, madam, a wicked creature, as you and all flesh and blood are; and, indeed, I do marry, that I may repent. Count. Thy marriage, sooner than thy wicked ness. Clo. I am out of friends, madam; and I hope to have friends for my wife's sake. Was this king Priam's joy? And gave this sentence then; Clo. 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 tythe-woman, if I were the parson: One in ten, quoth a'! an we might have a good woman born but every blazing star, or at an earthquake, 'twould mend the lottery well; a man may draw his heart out, ere he pluck one. Count. You'll be gone, sir knave, and do as I command you? Clo. 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 Clown. Count. Well, now. Stew. I know, madam, you love your gentlewoman entirely. Count. 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. Stew. 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 Count. Such friends are thine enemies, knave. own ears; she thought, I dare vow for her, they Clo. You are shallow, madam; e'en great friends; touched not any stranger sense. Her matter was, for the knaves come to do that for me, which I am she loved your son: Fortune, she said, was no a-weary of. He, that ears' my land, spares my goddess, that had put such difference betwixt their team, and gives me leave to inn the crop: If I be two estates; Love, no god, that would not extend his cuckold, he's my drudge: He, that comforts his might, only where qualities were level; Diana, my wife, is the cherisher of my flesh and blood; no queen of virgins, that would suffer her poor he, that cherishes my flesh and blood, loves my knight to be surprised, without rescue, in the first flesh and blood; he, that loves my flesh and blood, assault, or ransome afterward: This she delivered is my friend: ergo, he that kisses my wife, is my in the most bitter touch of sorrow, that e'er I heard friend. If men could be contented to be what they virgin exclaim in: which I held my duty, speedily are, there were no fear in marriage; for young to acquaint you withal; sithence, in the loss that Charbon the puritan, and old Poysam the papist, may happen, it concerns you something to know it. howsoe'er their hearts are severed in religion, their Count. You have discharged this honestly; keep heads are both one, they may joll horns together, it to yourself: many likelihoods informed me of like any deer i' the herd. this before, which hung so tottering in the balance Count. Wilt thou ever be a foul-mouthed and that I could neither believe, nor misdoubt: Pray calumnious knave? you, leave me: stall this in your bosom, and I Clo. A prophet I, madam; and I speak the thank you for your honest care: I will speak with truth the next way: you further anon. For I the ballad will repeat, Which men full true shall find; Your marriage comes by destiny, Your cuckoo sings by kind. Enter Helena. [Exit Steward. Count. Even so it was with me, when I was young: If we are nature's, these are ours; this thorn Count. Get you gone, sir; I'll talk with you Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong more anon. Our blood to us, this to our blood is born; Stew. May it please you, madam, that he bid It is the show and seal of nature's truth, Helen come to you; of her I am to speak. Where love's strong passion is impress'd in youth: Count. Sirrah, tell my gentlewoman, I would By our remembrances of days foregone, speak with her; Helen I mean. Such were our faults;-or then we thought them Clo. Was this fair face the cause, quoth she, Why the Grecians sacked Troy? [Singing. Fond done, done fond, You know, Helen, I am a mother to you. Nay, a mother; Count. I say, I am your mother. Count. were (So that my lord, your son, were not my brother,) I love your son : My friends were poor, but honest; so's my love: The sun, that looks upon his worshipper, Wish chastely, and love dearly, that your Dian Madam, I had. Hel. Count. Yes, Helen, you might be my daughter-As notes, whose faculties inclusive were, in-law; God shield, you mean it not! daughter, and mother, To say, thou dost not: therefore tell me true; That truth should be suspected: Speak, is't so? Hel. Good madam, pardon me! Count. Do you love my son? Your pardon, noble mistress! Whereof the world takes note: come, come, disclose The state of your affection; for your passions Hel. Then, I confess, Here on my knee, before high heaven and you, (1) i. e. I care as much for: I wish it equally. Contend. The source, the cause of your grief. (4) According to their nature. (5) i. e. Whose respectable conduct in age proves More than they were in note: amongst the rest, Count. For Paris, was it? speak. This was your motive Hel. 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. Count. 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 left off The danger to itself? Hel. There's something hints, More than my father's skill, which was the greatest Of his profession, that his good receipt Shall, for my legacy, be sanctified By the luckiest stars in heaven: and, would your honour |