All’s Well That Ends Well

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. 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 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:

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


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’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 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 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; Dian no queen of virgins, that 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; 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.



Enter Helena.




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.

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