All’s Well That Ends Well
ACT I SCENE III | Rousillon. The COUNT’s 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 | 5 | |
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 | 10 | |
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 | 15 | |
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? | 20 |
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 o’ my body; for | ||
they say barnes are blessings. | ||
COUNTESS | Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry. | 25 |
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. | 30 | |
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. | 35 |
Clown | I am out o’ friends, madam; and I hope to have | |
friends for my wife’s sake. | ||
COUNTESS | Such friends are thine enemies, knave. | |
Clown | You’re shallow, madam, in great friends; for the | |
knaves come to do that for me which I am aweary of. | 40 | |
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 | 45 | |
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 | 50 | |
religion, their heads are both one; they may jowl | ||
horns together, like any deer i’ the herd. | ||
COUNTESS | Wilt thou ever be a foul-mouthed and calumnious knave? | |
Clown | A prophet I, madam; and I speak the truth the next | |
way: | 55 | |
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. | 60 |
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 | Was this fair face the cause, quoth she, | 65 |
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, | 70 | |
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. | 75 |
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’ld 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 but one every blazing | 80 | |
star, or at an earthquake, ‘twould mend the lottery | ||
well: a man may draw his heart out, ere a’ 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 | 85 |
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. | 90 |
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 | 95 | |
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 | 100 | |
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; Dian no queen of virgins, that | 105 | |
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: which I | ||
held my duty speedily to acquaint you withal; | 110 | |
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 | 115 | |
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 | 120 | |
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, | 125 | |
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. | 130 | |
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; | 135 | |
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, | 140 | |
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? | 145 | |
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: | 150 | |
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. | 155 | |
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, | 160 | |
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? | 165 | |
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 ashamed, | ||
Against the proclamation of thy passion, | 170 | |
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 behaviors | ||
That in their kind they speak it: only sin | 175 | |
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, | ||
As heaven shall work in me for thine avail, | 180 | |
Tell me truly. | ||
HELENA | Good madam, pardon me! | |
COUNTESS | Do you love my son? | |
HELENA | Your pardon, noble mistress! | |
COUNTESS | Love you my son? | 185 |
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. | 190 | |
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: | 195 | |
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; | ||
Yet never know how that desert should be. | 200 | |
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 | 205 | |
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, | 210 | |
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; | 215 | |
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. | 220 |
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 proved effects, such as his reading | ||
And manifest experience had collected | 225 | |
For general sovereignty; and that he will’d me | ||
In heedfull’st reservation to bestow them, | ||
As notes whose faculties inclusive were | ||
More than they were in note: amongst the rest, | ||
There is a remedy, approved, set down, | 230 | |
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; | 235 |
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, | 240 | |
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 left off | 245 | |
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 | 250 | |
By the luckiest stars in heaven: and, would your honour | ||
But give me leave to try success, I’ld venture | ||
The well-lost life of mine on his grace’s cure | ||
By such a day and hour. | ||
COUNTESS | Dost thou believe’t? | 255 |
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: | 260 | |
Be gone to-morrow; and be sure of this, | ||
What I can help thee to thou shalt not miss. | ||
[Exeunt] |
Next: All’s Well That Ends Well, Act 2, Scene 1