TPTT All's Well That Ends Well: ACT I
Introduction
ACT I
SCENE I. Rousillon. The COUNT's palace.
SCENE II. Paris. The KING's palace.
SCENE III. Rousillon. The COUNT's palace.
ACT II
ACT III
ACT IV
ACT V
About the Play
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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
5     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
10    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
15    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
20    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
25    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
30    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
35    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
40    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
45    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
50    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
55    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,
60    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,
65    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
70    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
75    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
80    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:
85    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,
90    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
95    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,
100   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
105   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
110   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
115   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
120   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
125   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
130   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:
135   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.
140   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
145   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
150   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
155   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
160   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,
165   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,
170   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
175   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,
180   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
185   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
190   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
195   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
200   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
205   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,
210   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?
215   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
220   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
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