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ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. PERSONS REPRESENTED.



 

 

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

by William Shakespeare

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

KING OF FRANCE. THE DUKE OF FLORENCE. 
 BERTRAM, Count of Rousillon. 
 LAFEU, an old Lord. 
 PAROLLES, a follower of Bertram. 
 Several young French Lords, that serve with Bertram in the
 Florentine War. 
 Steward, Servant to the Countess of Rousillon. 
 Clown, Servant to the Countess of Rousillon. 
 A Page, Servant to the Countess of Rousillon. 
 COUNTESS OF ROUSILLON, 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 1. Rousillon. A room in the COUNTESS'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 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 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 liv'd 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 to have.

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 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.

LAFEU. 
 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 [To HELENA. ] 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. It were 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 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? 
 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' the cold wind: withal, full oft we see
 Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.

[Enter PAROLLES. ]

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 ten years it will make itself ten, 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 withered 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 2. 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 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 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, 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 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
 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 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, 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'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 3. Rousillon. 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 bairns 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 severed in religion, their heads are both one; they may joll 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! an we might have a good woman born before 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 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; Diana no queen of virgins, that would suffer her poor knight surprise, 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. ]

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.

[Enter HELENA. ]

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 asham'd, 
 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, one to the other; and thine eyes
 See it so grossly shown in thy behaviours, 
 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 clue; 
 If it be not, forswear't: howe'er, I charge thee, 
 As heaven shall work in me for thine avail, 
 To 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 lov'd 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 prov'd effects, such as his reading
 And manifest experience had collected
 For general sovereignty; and that he will'd me
 In heedfullest reservation to bestow them, 
 As notes whose faculties inclusive were
 More than they were in note: amongst the rest
 There is a remedy, approv'd, 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 let 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 th' luckiest stars in heaven: and, would your honour
 But give me leave to try success, I'd 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. ]



  

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