All's Well That Ends Well (version 2) — Act Two
Flourish.
Enter the King with young Lords taking leave for the Florentine war; Bertram, Parolles and Attendants.
KING.
Farewell, young lords; these warlike principles Do not throw from you; and you, my lords, farewell;
Share the advice betwixt you; if both gain all, The gift doth stretch itself as ’tis receiv’d, And is enough for both.
FIRST LORD.
’Tis our hope, sir, After well-ent’red soldiers, to return And find your grace in health.
KING.
No, no, it cannot be; and yet my heart Will not confess he owes the malady That doth my life besiege.
Farewell, young lords.
Whether I live or die, be you the sons Of worthy Frenchmen; let higher Italy,— Those bated that inherit but the fall Of the last monarchy—see that you come Not to woo honour, but to wed it, when The bravest questant shrinks: find what you seek, That fame may cry you loud.
I say farewell.
SECOND LORD.
Health, at your bidding serve your majesty!
KING.
Those girls of Italy, take heed of them;
They say our French lack language to deny If they demand; beware of being captives Before you serve.
BOTH.
Our hearts receive your warnings.
KING.
Farewell.
—Come hither to me.
[_The King retires to a couch.
_] FIRST LORD.
O my sweet lord, that you will stay behind us!
PAROLLES.
’Tis not his fault; the spark.
SECOND LORD.
O, ’tis brave wars!
PAROLLES.
Most admirable!
I have seen those wars.
BERTRAM.
I am commanded here, and kept a coil with, “Too young”, and “the next year” and “’tis too early”.
PAROLLES.
An thy mind stand to’t, boy, steal away bravely.
BERTRAM.
I shall stay here the forehorse to a smock, Creaking my shoes on the plain masonry, Till honour be bought up, and no sword worn But one to dance with.
By heaven, I’ll steal away.
FIRST LORD.
There’s honour in the theft.
PAROLLES.
Commit it, count.
SECOND LORD.
I am your accessary; and so farewell.
BERTRAM.
I grow to you, and our parting is a tortur’d body.
FIRST LORD.
Farewell, captain.
SECOND LORD.
Sweet Monsieur Parolles!
PAROLLES.
Noble heroes, my sword and yours are kin.
Good sparks and lustrous, a word, good metals.
You shall find in the regiment of the Spinii one Captain Spurio, with his cicatrice, an emblem of war, here on his sinister cheek; it was this very sword entrench’d it.
Say to him I live; and observe his reports for me.
FIRST LORD.
We shall, noble captain.
PAROLLES.
Mars dote on you for his novices!
[_Exeunt Lords.
_] What will ye do?
BERTRAM.
Stay the king.
PAROLLES.
Use a more spacious ceremony to the noble lords; you have restrain’d yourself within the list of too cold an adieu.
Be more expressive to them; for they wear themselves in the cap of the time; there do muster true gait; eat, speak, and move, under the influence of the most receiv’d star; and though the devil lead the measure, such are to be followed.
After them, and take a more dilated farewell.
BERTRAM.
And I will do so.
PAROLLES.
Worthy fellows, and like to prove most sinewy sword-men.
[_Exeunt Bertram and Parolles.
_] Enter Lafew.
LAFEW.
Pardon, my lord [_kneeling_], for me and for my tidings.
KING.
I’ll fee thee to stand up.
LAFEW.
Then here’s a man stands that has brought his pardon.
I would you had kneel’d, my lord, to ask me mercy, And that at my bidding you could so stand up.
KING.
I would I had; so I had broke thy pate, And ask’d thee mercy for’t. LAFEW.
Good faith, across;
But, my good lord, ’tis thus: will you be cur’d Of your infirmity?
KING.
No. LAFEW.
O, will you eat No grapes, my royal fox?
Yes, but you will My noble grapes, and if my royal fox Could reach them.
I have seen a medicine That’s able to breathe life into a stone, Quicken a rock, and make you dance canary With sprightly fire and motion; whose simple touch Is powerful to araise King Pippen, nay, To give great Charlemain a pen in’s hand And write to her a love-line.
KING.
What ‘her’ is this?
LAFEW.
Why, doctor ‘she’!
My lord, there’s one arriv’d, If you will see her.
Now, by my faith and honour, If seriously I may convey my thoughts In this my light deliverance, I have spoke With one that in her sex, her years, profession, Wisdom, and constancy, hath amaz’d me more Than I dare blame my weakness.
Will you see her, For that is her demand, and know her business?
That done, laugh well at me.
KING.
Now, good Lafew, Bring in the admiration; that we with thee May spend our wonder too, or take off thine By wond’ring how thou took’st it.
LAFEW.
Nay, I’ll fit you, And not be all day neither.
[_Exit Lafew.
_] KING.
Thus he his special nothing ever prologues.
Enter Lafew with Helena.
LAFEW.
Nay, come your ways.
KING.
This haste hath wings indeed.
LAFEW.
Nay, come your ways.
This is his majesty, say your mind to him.
A traitor you do look like, but such traitors His majesty seldom fears; I am Cressid’s uncle, That dare leave two together.
Fare you well.
[_Exit.
_] KING.
Now, fair one, does your business follow us?
HELENA.
Ay, my good lord.
Gerard de Narbon was my father, In what he did profess, well found.
KING.
I knew him.
HELENA.
The rather will I spare my praises towards him.
Knowing him is enough.
On his bed of death Many receipts he gave me; chiefly one, Which, as the dearest issue of his practice, And of his old experience the only darling, He bade me store up as a triple eye, Safer than mine own two; more dear I have so, And hearing your high majesty is touch’d With that malignant cause, wherein the honour Of my dear father’s gift stands chief in power, I come to tender it, and my appliance, With all bound humbleness.
KING.
We thank you, maiden, But may not be so credulous of cure, When our most learned doctors leave us, and The congregated college have concluded That labouring art can never ransom nature From her inaidable estate.
I say we must not So stain our judgment, or corrupt our hope, To prostitute our past-cure malady To empirics, or to dissever so Our great self and our credit, to esteem A senseless help, when help past sense we deem.
HELENA.
My duty then shall pay me for my pains.
I will no more enforce mine office on you, Humbly entreating from your royal thoughts A modest one to bear me back again.
KING.
I cannot give thee less, to be call’d grateful.
Thou thought’st to help me; and such thanks I give As one near death to those that wish him live.
But what at full I know, thou know’st no part;
I knowing all my peril, thou no art.
HELENA.
What I can do can do no hurt to try, Since you set up your rest ’gainst remedy.
He that of greatest works is finisher Oft does them by the weakest minister.
So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown, When judges have been babes.
Great floods have flown From simple sources, and great seas have dried When miracles have by the great’st been denied.
Oft expectation fails, and most oft there Where most it promises; and oft it hits Where hope is coldest, and despair most fits.
KING.
I must not hear thee.
Fare thee well, kind maid.
Thy pains, not us’d, must by thyself be paid;
Proffers, not took, reap thanks for their reward.
HELENA.
Inspired merit so by breath is barr’d. It is not so with Him that all things knows As ’tis with us that square our guess by shows;
But most it is presumption in us when The help of heaven we count the act of men.
Dear sir, to my endeavours give consent;
Of heaven, not me, make an experiment.
I am not an impostor, that proclaim Myself against the level of mine aim, But know I think, and think I know most sure, My art is not past power nor you past cure.
KING.
Art thou so confident?
Within what space Hop’st thou my cure?
HELENA.
The greatest grace lending grace.
Ere twice the horses of the sun shall bring Their fiery torcher his diurnal ring, Ere twice in murk and occidental damp Moist Hesperus hath quench’d her sleepy lamp;
Or four and twenty times the pilot’s glass Hath told the thievish minutes how they pass;
What is infirm from your sound parts shall fly, Health shall live free, and sickness freely die.
KING.
Upon thy certainty and confidence What dar’st thou venture?
HELENA.
Tax of impudence, A strumpet’s boldness, a divulged shame, Traduc’d by odious ballads; my maiden’s name Sear’d otherwise; nay worse of worst extended With vilest torture, let my life be ended.
KING.
Methinks in thee some blessed spirit doth speak His powerful sound within an organ weak;
And what impossibility would slay In common sense, sense saves another way.
Thy life is dear, for all that life can rate Worth name of life in thee hath estimate: Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, all That happiness and prime can happy call.
Thou this to hazard needs must intimate Skill infinite, or monstrous desperate.
Sweet practiser, thy physic I will try, That ministers thine own death if I die.
HELENA.
If I break time, or flinch in property Of what I spoke, unpitied let me die, And well deserv’d. Not helping, death’s my fee;
But if I help, what do you promise me?
KING.
Make thy demand.
HELENA.
But will you make it even?
KING.
Ay, by my sceptre and my hopes of heaven.
HELENA.
Then shalt thou give me, with thy kingly hand What husband in thy power I will command: Exempted be from me the arrogance To choose from forth the royal blood of France, My low and humble name to propagate With any branch or image of thy state;
But such a one, thy vassal, whom I know Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow.
KING.
Here is my hand; the premises observ’d, Thy will by my performance shall be serv’d;
So make the choice of thy own time, for I, Thy resolv’d patient, on thee still rely.
More should I question thee, and more I must, Though more to know could not be more to trust: From whence thou cam’st, how tended on; but rest Unquestion’d welcome, and undoubted bless’d. Give me some help here, ho!
If thou proceed As high as word, my deed shall match thy deed.
[_Flourish.
Exeunt.
_] SCENE II.
Rossillon.
A room in the Countess’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, 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 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.
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, as your French crown for your taffety 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 quean to a wrangling knave, as the nun’s lip to the 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.
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 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, 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.
COUNTESS.
You were lately whipp’d, 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 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 it so merrily with a fool.
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.
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.
_] SCENE III.
Paris.
The King’s palace.
Enter Bertram, Lafew and Parolles.
LAFEW.
They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons to make modern and familiar things supernatural and causeless.
Hence is it that we make trifles of terrors, ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear.
PAROLLES.
Why, ’tis the rarest argument of wonder that hath shot out in our latter times.
BERTRAM.
And so ’tis.
LAFEW.
To be relinquish’d of the artists,— PAROLLES.
So I say; both of Galen and Paracelsus.
LAFEW.
Of all the learned and authentic fellows,— PAROLLES.
Right; so I say.
LAFEW.
That gave him out incurable,— PAROLLES.
Why, there ’tis; so say I too.
LAFEW.
Not to be helped.
PAROLLES.
Right; as ’twere a man assur’d of a— LAFEW.
