William Shakespeare
-
Tragedies
- Antony and Cleopatra
- Coriolanus
- Hamlet
- Julius Caesar
- King Lear
- Macbeth
- Othello
- Romeo and Juliet
- Timon of Athens
- Titus Andronicus
-
Histories
- King Henry IV Part 1
- King Henry IV Part 2
- King Henry V
- King Henry VI Part 1
- King Henry VI Part 2
- King Henry VI Part 3
- King Henry VIII
- King John
- Richard II
- Richard III
-
Comedies
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- All's Well That Ends Well
- As You Like It
- Cymbeline
- Love's Labour's Lost
- Measure for Measure
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Pericles, Prince of Tyre
- The Comedy of Errors
- The Merchant of Venice
- The Merry Wives of Windsor
- The Taming of the Shrew
- The Tempest
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona
- The Winter's Tale
- Troilus and Cressida
- Twelfth Night
-
Poetry
- A Lover's Complaint
- Sonnets 1 to 50
- Sonnets 50 to 100
- Sonnets 100 to 154
- The Passionate Pilgrim
- The Phoenix and the Turtle
- The Rape of Lucrece
- Venus and Adonis
All's Well That Ends Well (1603)
Francis Wheatley, Helena and Count Bertram before the King of France, 1793" style="width: 207px; height: 300px; float: right;" class="PopBoxImageSmall" title="Click to magnify/shrink" onclick="Pop(this,50,'/');"/>ACT ONE
[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.]