Enter young Bertram Count of Rossillion, his mother
⌜the Countess,⌝ and Helen, Lord Lafew, 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’s5 command, to whom I am now in ward, evermore in subjection.LAFEW 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,10 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?LAFEW He hath abandoned his physicians, madam,15 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.COUNTESS This young gentlewoman had a father—O, that “had,” how sad a passage ’tis!—whose skill20 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
9
All’s Well That Ends Well
ACT 1. SC. 1
the King’s sake he were living! I think it would be the death of the King’s disease.LAFEW 25How 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.LAFEW He was excellent indeed, madam. The King30 very lately spoke of him admiringly, and mourningly. He was skillful enough to have lived still, if knowledge could be set up against mortality.BERTRAM What is it, my good lord, the King languishes of?LAFEW 35A fistula, my lord.BERTRAM I heard not of it before.LAFEW I would it were not notorious.—Was this gentlewoman the daughter of Gerard de Narbon?COUNTESS His sole child, my lord, and bequeathed to40 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 and45 traitors too. In her they are the better for their simpleness. She derives her honesty and achieves her goodness.LAFEW Your commendations, madam, get from her tears.COUNTESS 50’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 be55 rather thought you affect a sorrow than to have—HELEN I do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have it too.LAFEW Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead, excessive grief the enemy to the living.
11
All’s Well That Ends Well
ACT 1. SC. 1
COUNTESS If the living be enemy to the grief, the60 excess makes it soon mortal.BERTRAM Madam, I desire your holy wishes.LAFEW How understand we that?COUNTESS Be thou blessed, Bertram, and succeed thy father In manners as in shape. Thy blood and virtue65 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 checked for silence,70 But never taxed for speech. What heaven more will, That thee may furnish and my prayers pluck down, Fall on thy head. ⌜To Lafew.⌝ Farewell, my lord. ’Tis an unseasoned courtier. Good my lord, Advise him.LAFEW 75 He cannot want the best that shall Attend his love.COUNTESS Heaven bless him.—Farewell, Bertram.BERTRAM The best wishes that can be forged in your thoughts be servants to you.⌜Countess exits.⌝80 ⌜To Helen.⌝ Be comfortable to my mother, your mistress, and make much of her.LAFEW Farewell, pretty lady. You must hold the credit of your father. ⌜Bertram and Lafew exit.⌝HELEN O, were that all! I think not on my father,85 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 favor in ’t but Bertram’s. I am undone. There is no living, none,90 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.
13
All’s Well That Ends Well
ACT 1. SC. 1
In his bright radiance and collateral light Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.95 Th’ ambition in my love thus plagues itself: The hind that would be mated by the lion Must die for love. ’Twas pretty, though a plague, To see him every hour, to sit and draw His archèd brows, his hawking eye, his curls100 In our heart’s table—heart too capable Of every line and trick of his sweet favor. But now he’s gone, and my idolatrous fancy Must sanctify his relics. Who comes here?Enter Parolles. One that goes with him. I love him for his sake,105 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 Looks bleak i’ th’ cold wind. Withal, full oft we see110 Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.PAROLLES Save you, fair queen.HELEN And you, monarch.PAROLLES No.HELEN And no.PAROLLES 115Are you meditating on virginity?HELEN 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.HELEN 120But he assails, and our virginity, though valiant in the defense, yet is weak. Unfold to us some warlike resistance.PAROLLES There is none. Man setting down before you will undermine you and blow you up.HELEN 125Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers-up! Is there no military policy how virgins might blow up men?
15
All’s Well That Ends Well
ACT 1. SC. 1
PAROLLES Virginity being blown down, man will quicklier be blown up. Marry, in blowing him130 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 you135 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.HELEN I will stand for ’t a little, though therefore I140 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;145 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.150 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 year it will make itself two, which is a goodly increase, and the principal155 itself not much the worse. Away with ’t!HELEN 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 with160 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
17
All’s Well That Ends Well
ACT 1. SC. 1
brooch and the toothpick, which wear not now.165 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 dryly; marry, ’tis a withered pear. It was formerly better, marry, yet ’tis a withered170 pear. Will you anything with it?HELEN 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,175 A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign, A counselor, a traitress, and a dear; His humble ambition, proud humility, His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet, His faith, his sweet disaster, with a world180 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?HELEN 185That I wish well. ’Tis pity—PAROLLES What’s pity?HELEN 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,190 Might with effects of them follow our friends And show what we alone must think, which never Returns us thanks.Enter Page.PAGE Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.PAROLLES Little Helen, farewell. If I can remember195 thee, I will think of thee at court.HELEN Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable star.
19
All’s Well That Ends Well
ACT 1. SC. 1
PAROLLES Under Mars, I.HELEN I especially think under Mars.PAROLLES 200Why under Mars?HELEN The wars hath so kept you under that you must needs be born under Mars.PAROLLES When he was predominant.HELEN When he was retrograde, I think rather.PAROLLES 205Why think you so?HELEN You go so much backward when you fight.PAROLLES That’s for advantage.HELEN So is running away, when fear proposes the safety. But the composition that your valor and210 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 naturalize215 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 hast220 none, remember thy friends. Get thee a good husband, and use him as he uses thee. So, farewell.⌜Parolles and Page exit.⌝HELEN Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie Which we ascribe to heaven. The fated sky Gives us free scope, only doth backward pull225 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.230 Impossible be strange attempts to those That weigh their pains in sense and do suppose
21
All’s Well That Ends Well
ACT 1. SC. 2
What hath been cannot be. Who ever strove To show her merit that did miss her love? The King’s disease—my project may deceive me,235 But my intents are fixed and will not leave me.She exits.
All’s Well That Ends Well
