Alls well that ends well: ACT I

Alls 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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

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

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

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.

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.

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,

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,

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.

COUNTESS

Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram.

Exit

BERTRAM

[To HELENA] The best wishes that can be forged in

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.

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.

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

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

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?

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

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.

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?

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

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

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 't!

HELENA

I will stand for 't a little, though therefore I die a virgin.

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

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

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!

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.

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,

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 [ ]

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,

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--

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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?

The king's disease--my project may deceive me,

But my intents are fix'd and will not leave me.

Exit

SCENE II. Paris. The KING's palace.

Flourish of cornets. Enter the KING of France, with letters, and divers Attendants

KING

The Florentines and Senoys are by the ears,

Have fought with equal fortune and continue

A braving war.

First Lord

So 'tis reported, sir.

KING

Nay, 'tis most credible, we here received it

A certainty, vouch'd from our cousin Austria,

With caution that the Florentine will move us

For speedy aid, wherein our dearest friend

Prejudicates the business and would seem

To have us make denial.

First Lord

His love and wisdom,

Approved so to your majesty, may plead

For amplest credence.

KING

He hath arm'd our answer,

And Florence is denied before he comes:

Yet, for our gentlemen that mean to see

The Tuscan service, freely have they leave

To stand on either part.

Second Lord

It well may serve

A nursery to our gentry, who are sick

For breathing and exploit.

KING

What's he comes here?

Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES

First Lord

It is the Count Rousillon, my good lord,

Young Bertram.

KING

Youth, thou bear'st thy father's face,

Frank nature, rather curious than in haste,

Hath well composed thee. Thy father's moral parts

Mayst thou inherit too! Welcome to Paris.

BERTRAM

My thanks and duty are your majesty's.

KING

I would I had that corporal soundness now,

As when thy father and myself in friendship

First tried 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

And wore us out of act. It much repairs me

To talk of your good father. In his youth

He had the wit which I can well observe

To-day in our young lords, but they may jest

Till their own scorn return to them unnoted

Ere they can hide their levity in honour,

So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness

Were in his pride or sharpness, if they were,

His equal had awaked them, and his honour,

Clock to itself, knew the true minute when

Exception bid him speak, and at this time

His tongue obey'd his hand: who were below him

He used as creatures of another place

And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks,

Making them proud of his humility,

In their poor praise he humbled. Such a man

Might be a copy to these younger times,

Which, follow'd well, would demonstrate them now

But goers backward.

BERTRAM

His good remembrance, sir,

Lies richer in your thoughts than on his tomb,

So in approof lives not his epitaph

As in your royal speech.

KING

Would I were with him! He would always say--

Methinks I hear him now, his plausive words

He scatter'd not in ears, but grafted them,

To grow there and to bear,--'Let me not live,'--

This his good melancholy oft began,

On the catastrophe and heel of pastime,

When it was out,--'Let me not live,' quoth he,

'After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff

Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses

All but new things disdain, whose judgments are

Mere fathers of their garments, whose constancies

Expire before their fashions.' This he wish'd,

I after him do after him wish too,

Since I nor wax nor honey can bring home,

I quickly were dissolved from my hive,

To give some labourers room.

Second Lord

You are loved, sir:

They that least lend it you shall lack you first.

KING

I fill a place, I know't. How long is't, count,

Since the physician at your father's died?

He was much famed.

BERTRAM

Some six months since, my lord.

KING

If he were living, I would try him yet.

Lend me an arm, the rest have worn me out

With several applications, nature and sickness

Debate it at their leisure. Welcome, count,

My son's no dearer.

BERTRAM

Thank your majesty.

Exeunt. Flourish

SCENE III. Rousillon. The COUNT's palace.

Enter COUNTESS, Steward, and Clown

COUNTESS

I will now hear, what say you of this gentlewoman?

Steward

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 deservings, when of

ourselves we publish them.

COUNTESS

What does this knave here? Get you gone, sirrah:

the complaints I have heard of you I do not all

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.

Clown

'Tis not unknown to you, madam, I am a poor fellow.

COUNTESS

Well, sir.

Clown

No, madam, 'tis not so well that I am poor, though

many of the rich are damned: but, if I may have

your ladyship's good will to go to the world, Isbel

the woman and I will do as we may.

COUNTESS

Wilt thou needs be a beggar?

Clown

I do beg your good will in this case.

COUNTESS

In what case?

Clown

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 o' my body, for

they say barnes are blessings.

COUNTESS

Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry.

Clown

My poor body, madam, requires it: I am driven on

by the flesh, and he must needs go that the devil drives.

COUNTESS

Is this all your worship's reason?

Clown

Faith, madam, I have other holy reasons such as they

are.

COUNTESS

May the world know them?

Clown

I have been, madam, a wicked creature, as you and

all flesh and blood are, and, indeed, I do marry

that I may repent.

COUNTESS

Thy marriage, sooner than thy wickedness.

Clown

I am out o' friends, madam, and I hope to have

friends for my wife's sake.

COUNTESS

Such friends are thine enemies, knave.

Clown

You're shallow, madam, in great friends, for the

knaves come to do that for me which I am aweary of.

He that ears my land spares my team and gives me

leave to in the crop, if I be his cuckold, he's my

drudge: he that comforts my wife is the cherisher

of my flesh and blood, he that cherishes my flesh

and blood loves my flesh and blood, he that loves my

flesh and blood is my friend: ergo, he that kisses

my wife is my friend. If men could be contented to

be what they are, there were no fear in marriage,

for young Charbon the Puritan and old Poysam the

Papist, howsome'er their hearts are severed in

religion, their heads are both one, they may jowl

horns together, like any deer i' the herd.

COUNTESS

Wilt thou ever be a foul-mouthed and calumnious knave?

Clown

A prophet I, madam, and I speak the truth the next

way:

For I the ballad will repeat,

Which men full true shall find,

Your marriage comes by destiny,

Your cuckoo sings by kind.

COUNTESS

Get you gone, sir, I'll talk with you more anon.

Steward

May it please you, madam, that he bid Helen come to

you: of her I am to speak.

COUNTESS

Sirrah, tell my gentlewoman I would speak with her,

Helen, I mean.

Clown

Was this fair face the cause, quoth she,

Why the Grecians sacked Troy?

Fond done, done fond,

Was this King Priam's joy?

With that she sighed as she stood,

And gave this sentence then,

Among nine bad if one be good,

There's yet one good in ten.

COUNTESS

What, one good in ten? you corrupt the song, sirrah.

Clown

One good woman in ten, madam, which is a purifying

o' the song: would God would serve the world so all

the year! we'ld find no fault with the tithe-woman,

if I were the parson. One in ten, quoth a'! An we

might have a good woman born but one every blazing

star, or at an earthquake, 'twould mend the lottery

well: a man may draw his heart out, ere a' pluck

one.

COUNTESS

You'll be gone, sir knave, and do as I command you.

Clown

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

COUNTESS

Well, now.

Steward

I know, madam, you love your gentlewoman entirely.

COUNTESS

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.

Steward

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 own ears, she

thought, I dare vow for her, they touched not any

stranger sense. Her matter was, she loved your son:

Fortune, she said, was no goddess, that had put

such difference betwixt their two estates, Love no

god, that would not extend his might, only where

qualities were level, Dian no queen of virgins, that

would suffer her poor knight surprised, without

rescue in the first assault or ransom afterward.

This she delivered in the most bitter touch of

sorrow that e'er I heard virgin exclaim in: which I

held my duty speedily to acquaint you withal,

sithence, in the loss that may happen, it concerns

you something to know it.

COUNTESS

You have discharged this honestly, keep it to

yourself: many likelihoods informed me of this

before, which hung so tottering in the balance that

I could neither believe nor misdoubt. Pray you,

leave me: stall this in your bosom, and I thank you

for your honest care: I will speak with you further anon.

Exit Steward

Enter HELENA

Even so it was with me when I was young:

If ever we are nature's, these are ours, this thorn

Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong,

Our blood to us, this to our blood is born,

It is the show and seal of nature's truth,

Where love's strong passion is impress'd in youth:

By our remembrances of days foregone,

Such were our faults, or then we thought them none.

Her eye is sick on't: I observe her now.

HELENA

What is your pleasure, madam?

COUNTESS

You know, Helen,

I am a mother to you.

HELENA

Mine honourable mistress.

COUNTESS

Nay, a mother:

Why not a mother? When I said 'a mother,'

Methought you saw a serpent: what's in 'mother,'

That you start at it? I say, I am your mother,

And put you in the catalogue of those

That were enwombed mine: 'tis often seen

Adoption strives with nature and choice breeds

A native slip to us from foreign seeds:

You ne'er oppress'd me with a mother's groan,

Yet I express to you a mother's care:

God's mercy, maiden! does it curd thy blood

To say I am thy mother? What's the matter,

That this distemper'd messenger of wet,

The many-colour'd Iris, rounds thine eye?

Why? that you are my daughter?

HELENA

That I am not.

COUNTESS

I say, I am your mother.

HELENA

Pardon, madam,

The Count Rousillon cannot be my brother:

I am from humble, he from honour'd name,

No note upon my parents, his all noble:

My master, my dear lord he is, and I

His servant live, and will his vassal die:

He must not be my brother.

COUNTESS

Nor I your mother?

HELENA

You are my mother, madam, would you were,--

So that my lord your son were not my brother,--

Indeed my mother! or were you both our mothers,

I care no more for than I do for heaven,

So I were not his sister. Can't no other,

But, I your daughter, he must be my brother?

COUNTESS

Yes, Helen, you might be my daughter-in-law:

God shield you mean it not! daughter and mother

So strive upon your pulse. What, pale again?

My fear hath catch'd your fondness: now I see

The mystery of your loneliness, and find

Your salt tears' head: now to all sense 'tis gross

You love my son, invention is ashamed,

Against the proclamation of thy passion,

To say thou dost not: therefore tell me true,

But tell me then, 'tis so, for, look thy cheeks

Confess it, th' one to th' other, and thine eyes

See it so grossly shown in thy behaviors

That in their kind they speak it: only sin

And hellish obstinacy tie thy tongue,

That truth should be suspected. Speak, is't so?

If it be so, you have wound a goodly clew,

If it be not, forswear't: howe'er, I charge thee,

As heaven shall work in me for thine avail,

Tell me truly.

HELENA

Good madam, pardon me!

COUNTESS

Do you love my son?

HELENA

Your pardon, noble mistress!

COUNTESS

Love you my son?

HELENA

Do not you love him, madam?

COUNTESS

Go not about, my love hath in't a bond,

Whereof the world takes note: come, come, disclose

The state of your affection, for your passions

Have to the full appeach'd.

HELENA

Then, I confess,

Here on my knee, before high heaven and you,

That before you, and next unto high heaven,

I love your son.

My friends were poor, but honest, so's my love:

Be not offended, for it hurts not him

That he is loved of me: I follow him not

By any token of presumptuous suit,

Nor would I have him till I do deserve him,

Yet never know how that desert should be.

I know I love in vain, strive against hope,

Yet in this captious and intenible sieve

I still pour in the waters of my love

And lack not to lose still: thus, Indian-like,

Religious in mine error, I adore

The sun, that looks upon his worshipper,

But knows of him no more. My dearest madam,

Let not your hate encounter with my love

For loving where you do: but if yourself,

Whose aged honour cites a virtuous youth,

Did ever in so true a flame of liking

Wish chastely and love dearly, that your Dian

Was both herself and love: O, then, give pity

To her, whose state is such that cannot choose

But lend and give where she is sure to lose,

That seeks not to find that her search implies,

But riddle-like lives sweetly where she dies!

COUNTESS

Had you not lately an intent,--speak truly,--

To go to Paris?

HELENA

Madam, I had.

COUNTESS

Wherefore? tell true.

HELENA

I will tell truth, by grace itself I swear.

You know my father left me some prescriptions

Of rare and proved effects, such as his reading

And manifest experience had collected

For general sovereignty, and that he will'd me

In heedfull'st reservation to bestow them,

As notes whose faculties inclusive were

More than they were in note: amongst the rest,

There is a remedy, approved, set down,

To cure the desperate languishings whereof

The king is render'd lost.

COUNTESS

This was your motive

For Paris, was it? speak.

HELENA

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.

COUNTESS

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?

HELENA

There's something in't,

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

But give me leave to try success, I'ld venture

The well-lost life of mine on his grace's cure

By such a day and hour.

COUNTESS

Dost thou believe't?

HELENA

Ay, madam, knowingly.

COUNTESS

Why, Helen, thou shalt have my leave and love,

Means and attendants and my loving greetings

To those of mine in court: I'll stay at home

And pray God's blessing into thy attempt:

Be gone to-morrow, and be sure of this,

What I can help thee to thou shalt not miss.

Exeunt