All’s Well That Ends Well
ACT II SCENE II | Rousillon. The COUNT’s palace. | |
[Enter COUNTESS and Clown] | ||
COUNTESS | Come on, sir; I shall now put you to the height of | |
your breeding. | ||
Clown | I will show myself highly fed and lowly taught: I | |
know my business is but to the court. | ||
COUNTESS | To the court! why, what place make you special, | 5 |
when you put off that with such contempt? But to the court! | ||
Clown | Truly, madam, if God have lent a man any manners, he | |
may easily put it off at court: he that cannot make | ||
a leg, put off’s cap, kiss his hand and say nothing, | ||
has neither leg, hands, lip, nor cap; and indeed | 10 | |
such a fellow, to say precisely, were not for the | ||
court; but for me, I have an answer will serve all | ||
men. | ||
COUNTESS | Marry, that’s a bountiful answer that fits all | |
questions. | 15 | |
Clown | It is like a barber’s chair that fits all buttocks, | |
the pin-buttock, the quatch-buttock, the brawn | ||
buttock, or any buttock. | ||
COUNTESS | Will your answer serve fit to all questions? | |
Clown | As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, | 20 |
as your French crown for your taffeta punk, as Tib’s | ||
rush for Tom’s forefinger, as a pancake for Shrove | ||
Tuesday, a morris for May-day, as the nail to his | ||
hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding queen | ||
to a wrangling knave, as the nun’s lip to the | 25 | |
friar’s mouth, nay, as the pudding to his skin. | ||
COUNTESS | Have you, I say, an answer of such fitness for all | |
questions? | ||
Clown | From below your duke to beneath your constable, it | |
will fit any question. | 30 | |
COUNTESS | It must be an answer of most monstrous size that | |
must fit all demands. | ||
Clown | But a trifle neither, in good faith, if the learned | |
should speak truth of it: here it is, and all that | ||
belongs to’t. Ask me if I am a courtier: it shall | 35 | |
do you no harm to learn. | ||
COUNTESS | To be young again, if we could: I will be a fool in | |
question, hoping to be the wiser by your answer. I | ||
pray you, sir, are you a courtier? | ||
Clown | O Lord, sir! There’s a simple putting off. More, | 40 |
more, a hundred of them. | ||
COUNTESS | Sir, I am a poor friend of yours, that loves you. | |
Clown | O Lord, sir! Thick, thick, spare not me. | |
COUNTESS | I think, sir, you can eat none of this homely meat. | |
Clown | O Lord, sir! Nay, put me to’t, I warrant you. | 45 |
COUNTESS | You were lately whipped, sir, as I think. | |
Clown | O Lord, sir! spare not me. | |
COUNTESS | Do you cry, ‘O Lord, sir!’ at your whipping, and | |
‘spare not me?’ Indeed your ‘O Lord, sir!’ is very | ||
sequent to your whipping: you would answer very well | 50 | |
to a whipping, if you were but bound to’t. | ||
Clown | I ne’er had worse luck in my life in my ‘O Lord, | |
sir!’ I see things may serve long, but not serve ever. | ||
COUNTESS | I play the noble housewife with the time | |
To entertain’t so merrily with a fool. | 55 | |
Clown | O Lord, sir! why, there’t serves well again. | |
COUNTESS | An end, sir; to your business. Give Helen this, | |
And urge her to a present answer back: | ||
Commend me to my kinsmen and my son: | ||
This is not much. | 60 | |
Clown | Not much commendation to them. | |
COUNTESS | Not much employment for you: you understand me? | |
Clown | Most fruitfully: I am there before my legs. | |
COUNTESS | Haste you again. | |
[Exeunt severally] |
Next: All’s Well That Ends Well, Act 2, Scene 3