All’s Well That Ends Well

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. ’Twere 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 reliques. Who comes here?


Enter Parolles.




Aside. 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 fixed evils sit so fit in him,

That they take place, when virtue’s steely bones

Look bleak i’ the cold wind: withal, full oft we see

Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.



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, sitting 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’t!


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 loose by’t: out with’t! within ten year it will make itself ten, which is a goodly increase; and the principal itself not much the worse: away with’t!


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 tooth-pick, 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 withered pear; it was formerly better; marry, yet ’tis a withered pear: will you anything with it?


Helena

Not my virginity yet⁠— 1

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

Return us thanks.




Enter Page.


Page
Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you. Exit.


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 have 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 businesses, 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: