All’s Well That Ends Well

All’s Well That Ends Well
By William Shakespeare.




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Dramatis Personae


King of France


Duke of Florence


Bertram, Count of Rousillon


Lafeu, an old lord


Parolles, a follower of Bertram


Steward, servant to the Countess of Rousillon


Clown, servant to the Countess of Rousillon


A Page


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, officers, soldiers,  etc., French and Florentine


Scene: Rousillon; Paris; Florence; Marseilles.


All’s Well That Ends Well


Act I

Scene I
Rousillon. The Count’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 lived 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 have it.


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.


Bertram
To Helena. The best wishes that can be forged in your thoughts 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