Enter Countess, Steward, and ⌜Fool.⌝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 of5 my past endeavors, 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? ⌜To Fool.⌝ Get you gone, sirrah. The complaints I have heard of10 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.FOOL ’Tis not unknown to you, madam, I am a poor15 fellow.COUNTESS Well, sir.FOOL 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,20 Isbel the woman and I will do as we may.COUNTESS Wilt thou needs be a beggar?FOOL I do beg your good will in this case.COUNTESS In what case?FOOL In Isbel’s case and mine own. Service is no heritage,25 and I think I shall never have the blessing of God till I have issue o’ my body, for they say bairns are blessings.COUNTESS Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry.FOOL My poor body, madam, requires it. I am driven30 on by the flesh, and he must needs go that the devil drives.COUNTESS Is this all your Worship’s reason?FOOL Faith, madam, I have other holy reasons, such as they are.
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COUNTESS 35May the world know them?FOOL 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.FOOL 40I am out o’ friends, madam, and I hope to have friends for my wife’s sake.COUNTESS Such friends are thine enemies, knave.FOOL You’re shallow, madam, in great friends, for the knaves come to do that for me which I am aweary45 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 loves50 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 are55 severed in religion, their heads are both one; they may jowl horns together like any deer i’ th’ herd.COUNTESS Wilt thou ever be a foul-mouthed and calumnious knave?FOOL A prophet I, madam, and I speak the truth the60 next way:⌜Sings.⌝ For I the ballad will repeat
Which men full true shall find:
Your marriage comes by destiny;
Your cuckoo sings by kind.COUNTESS 65Get 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 speak70 with her—Helen, I mean.
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FOOL ⌜sings⌝ “Was this fair face the cause,” quoth she,
“Why the Grecians sackèd Troy?
Fond done, done fond.
Was this King Priam’s joy?”
75 With that she sighèd as she stood,
With that she sighèd as she stood,
And gave this sentence then:
“Among nine bad if one be good,
Among nine bad if one be good,
80 There’s yet one good in ten.”COUNTESS What, one good in ten? You corrupt the song, sirrah.FOOL One good woman in ten, madam, which is a purifying o’ th’ song. Would God would serve the85 world so all the year! We’d find no fault with the tithe-woman if I were the parson. One in ten, quoth he? An we might have a good woman born but ⌜or⌝ every blazing star or at an earthquake, ’twould mend the lottery well. A man may draw his90 heart out ere he pluck one.COUNTESS You’ll be gone, sir knave, and do as I command you!FOOL That man should be at woman’s command, and yet no hurt done! Though honesty be no Puritan,95 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.He exits.COUNTESS Well, now.STEWARD 100I 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.105 There is more owing her than is paid, and more shall be paid her than she’ll demand.
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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 own110 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 only115 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, which120 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 this125 before, which hung so tott’ring 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.Steward exits.Enter Helen.⌜Aside.⌝130 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,135 Where love’s strong passion is impressed 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.HELEN What is your pleasure, madam?
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COUNTESS 140 You know, Helen, I am a mother to you.HELEN Mine honorable mistress.COUNTESS Nay, a mother. Why not a mother? When I said “a mother,” Methought you saw a serpent. What’s in “mother”145 That you start at it? I say I am your mother And put you in the catalogue of those That were enwombèd mine. ’Tis often seen Adoption strives with nature, and choice breeds A native slip to us from foreign seeds.150 You ne’er oppressed 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 distempered messenger of wet,155 The many-colored Iris, rounds thine eye? Why? That you are my daughter?HELEN That I am not.COUNTESS I say I am your mother.HELEN Pardon, madam.160 The Count Rossillion cannot be my brother. I am from humble, he from honored 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.165 He must not be my brother.COUNTESS Nor I your mother?HELEN 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,170 I care no more for than I do for heaven, So I were not his sister. Can ’t no other
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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”175 So strive upon your pulse. What, pale again? My fear hath catched 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 ashamed180 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 behaviors185 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,190 As heaven shall work in me for thine avail, To tell me truly.HELEN Good madam, pardon me.COUNTESS Do you love my son?HELEN Your pardon, noble mistress.COUNTESS 195 Love you my son?HELEN 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 passions200 Have to the full appeached.HELEN, ⌜kneeling⌝ Then I confess Here on my knee before high heaven and you That before you and next unto high heaven
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I love your son.205 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,210 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,215 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,220 Whose agèd honor 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 choose225 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?HELEN 230 Madam, I had.COUNTESS Wherefore? Tell true.HELEN, ⌜standing⌝ I will tell truth, by grace itself I swear. You know my father left me some prescriptions235 Of rare and proved effects, such as his reading And manifest experience had collected For general sovereignty; and that he willed me
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In heedfull’st reservation to bestow them As notes whose faculties inclusive were240 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 rendered lost.COUNTESS This was your motive for Paris, was it? Speak.HELEN 245 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,250 If you should tender your supposèd 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 unlearnèd virgin, when the schools255 Emboweled of their doctrine have left off The danger to itself?HELEN There’s something in ’t More than my father’s skill, which was the great’st Of his profession, that his good receipt260 Shall for my legacy be sanctified By th’ luckiest stars in heaven; and would your Honor But give me leave to try success, I’d venture The well-lost life of mine on his Grace’s cure265 By such a day, an hour.COUNTESS Dost thou believe ’t?HELEN Ay, madam, knowingly.COUNTESS Why, Helen, thou shalt have my leave and love, Means and attendants, and my loving greetings270 To those of mine in court. I’ll stay at home
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And pray God’s blessing into thy attempt. Be gone tomorrow, and be sure of this: What I can help thee to thou shalt not miss.They exit.
All’s Well That Ends Well
