Part 5

In loving thee thou know’st I am forsworn, But thou art twice forsworn to me love swearing, In act thy bed-vow broke and new faith torn, In vowing new hate after new love bearing: But why of two oaths’ breach do I accuse thee, When I break twenty? I am perjured most, For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee: And all my honest faith in thee is lost. For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness: Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy, And to enlighten thee gave eyes to blindness, Or made them swear against the thing they see. For I have sworn thee fair: more perjured I, To swear against the truth so foul a lie.

153

Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep, A maid of Dian’s this advantage found, And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep In a cold valley-fountain of that ground: Which borrowed from this holy fire of Love, A dateless lively heat still to endure, And grew a seething bath which yet men prove, Against strange maladies a sovereign cure: But at my mistress’ eye Love’s brand new-fired, The boy for trial needs would touch my breast, I sick withal the help of bath desired, And thither hied a sad distempered guest. But found no cure, the bath for my help lies, Where Cupid got new fire; my mistress’ eyes.

154

The little Love-god lying once asleep, Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand, Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep, Came tripping by, but in her maiden hand, The fairest votary took up that fire, Which many legions of true hearts had warmed, And so the general of hot desire, Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarmed. This brand she quenched in a cool well by, Which from Love’s fire took heat perpetual, Growing a bath and healthful remedy, For men diseased; but I, my mistress’ thrall, Came there for cure and this by that I prove, Love’s fire heats water, water cools not love.

THE END

ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

Contents

ACT I Scene I. Rossillon. A room in the Countess’s palace. Scene II. Paris. A room in the King’s palace. Scene III. Rossillon. A Room in the Palace.

ACT II Scene I. Paris. A room in the King’s palace. Scene II. Rossillon. A room in the Countess’s palace. Scene III. Paris. The King’s palace. Scene IV. Paris. The King’s palace. Scene V. Another room in the same.

ACT III Scene I. Florence. A room in the Duke’s palace. Scene II. Rossillon. A room in the Countess’s palace. Scene III. Florence. Before the Duke’s palace. Scene IV. Rossillon. A room in the Countess’s palace. Scene V. Without the walls of Florence. Scene VI. Camp before Florence. Scene VII. Florence. A room in the Widow’s house.

ACT IV Scene I. Without the Florentine camp. Scene II. Florence. A room in the Widow’s house. Scene III. The Florentine camp. Scene IV. Florence. A room in the Widow’s house. Scene V. Rossillon. A room in the Countess’s palace.

ACT V Scene I. Marseilles. A street. Scene II. Rossillon. The inner court of the Countess’s palace. Scene III. The same. A room in the Countess’s palace.

Dramatis Personæ

KING OF FRANCE. THE DUKE OF FLORENCE. BERTRAM, Count of Rossillon. LAFEW, an old Lord. PAROLLES, a follower of Bertram. Several young French Lords, that serve with Bertram in the Florentine War. RYNALDO, servant to the Countess of Rossillon. Clown, servant to the Countess of Rossillon. A Page, servant to the Countess of Rossillon. COUNTESS OF ROSSILLON, mother to Bertram. HELENA, a Gentlewoman protected by the Countess. An old WIDOW of Florence. DIANA, daughter to the Widow. VIOLENTA, neighbour and friend to the Widow. MARIANA, neighbour and friend to the Widow.

Lords attending on the KING; Officers; Soldiers, &c., French and Florentine.

SCENE: Partly in France, and partly in Tuscany.

ACT I

SCENE I. Rossillon. A room in the Countess’s palace.

Enter Bertram, the Countess of Rossillon, Helena, and 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’s 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, 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 abandon’d 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.

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 stretch’d 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.

LAFEW. 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.

LAFEW. He was excellent indeed, madam; the king very lately spoke of him admiringly, and mourningly; he was skilful enough to have liv’d still, if knowledge could be set up against mortality.

BERTRAM. What is it, my good lord, the king languishes of?

LAFEW. A 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 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.

LAFEW. 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 to have.

HELENA. 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.

COUNTESS. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal.

BERTRAM. Madam, I desire your holy wishes.

LAFEW. 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 check’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.

LAFEW. He cannot want the best That shall attend his love.

COUNTESS. Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram.

[_Exit Countess._]

BERTRAM. The best wishes that can be forg’d in your thoughts be servants to you! [_To Helena._] Be comfortable to my mother, your mistress, and make much of her.

LAFEW. Farewell, pretty lady, you must hold the credit of your father.

[_Exeunt Bertram and Lafew._]

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. 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 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 relics. Who comes here?

Enter Parolles.

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 fix’d 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 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 setting 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 it!

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 lose by’t. Out with’t! Within the year it will make itself two, which is a goodly increase, and the principal itself not much the worse. Away with it!

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 toothpick, 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 wither’d pears; it looks ill, it eats drily; marry, ’tis a wither’d pear; it was formerly better; marry, yet ’tis a wither’d 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 Returns us thanks.

Enter a Page.

PAGE. Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.

[_Exit Page._]

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 hath 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 business 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 To 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. A room in the King’s palace.

Flourish of cornets. Enter the King of France, with letters; Lords and others attending.

KING. The Florentines and Senoys are by th’ ears; Have fought with equal fortune, and continue A braving war.

FIRST LORD. So ’tis reported, sir.

KING. Nay, ’tis most credible, we here receive 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, Approv’d 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, Lafew and Parolles.

FIRST LORD. It is the Count Rossillon, my good lord, Young Bertram.

KING. Youth, thou bear’st thy father’s face; Frank nature, rather curious than in haste, Hath well compos’d 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 Today 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 awak’d 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 us’d 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, followed 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’re lov’d, 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 fam’d.

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. Rossillon. A Room in the 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 of 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 of friends, madam, and I hope to have friends for my wife’s sake.

COUNTESS. Such friends are thine enemies, knave.

CLOWN. Y’are shallow, madam, in great friends; for the knaves come to do that for me which I am a-weary 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 sever’d 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-mouth’d 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. [_Sings._] _ 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, With that she sighed as she stood, And gave this sentence then: Among nine bad if one be good, 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’d find no fault with the tithe-woman, if I were the parson. One in ten, quoth ’a! And 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 his heart out ere he 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 bequeath’d 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 wish’d me; alone she was, and did communicate to herself her own words to her own ears; she thought, I dare vow for her, they touch’d 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; Diana no queen of virgins, that would suffer her poor knight surpris’d, without rescue in the first assault or ransom afterward. This she deliver’d 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 discharg’d this honestly; keep it to yourself; many likelihoods inform’d 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.