All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare
Act 2 - Scene 1
Paris. The KING’s palace.
King of France : Farewell, young lords; these warlike principles
[p]Do not throw from
you: and you, my lords, farewell:
[p]Share the advice betwixt you; if
both gain, all
[p]The gift doth stretch itself as 'tis
received,
[p]And is enough for both.
First Lord : 'Tis our hope, sir,
[p]After well enter'd soldiers, to return
[p]And
find your grace in health.
King of France : No, no, it cannot be; and yet my heart
[p]Will not confess he owes the
malady
[p]That doth my life besiege. Farewell, young lords;
[p]Whether
I live or die, be you the sons
[p]Of worthy Frenchmen: let higher
Italy,--
[p]Those bated that inherit but the fall
[p]Of the last
monarchy,--see that you come
[p]Not to woo honour, but to wed it;
when
[p]The bravest questant shrinks, find what you seek,
[p]That fame
may cry you loud: I say, farewell.
Second Lord : Health, at your bidding, serve your majesty!
King of France : Those girls of Italy, take heed of them:
[p]They say, our French lack
language to deny,
[p]If they demand: beware of being
captives,
[p]Before you serve.
Both : Our hearts receive your warnings.
King of France : Farewell. Come hither to me.
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
[p]'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,
[p]Creaking my shoes on
the plain masonry,
[p]Till honour be bought up and no sword
worn
[p]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 tortured body.
First Lord : Farewell, captain.
Second Lord : Sweet Monsieur Parolles!
Parolles : Noble heroes, my sword and yours are kin. Good
[p]sparks and lustrous,
a word, good metals: you shall
[p]find in the regiment of the Spinii
one Captain
[p]Spurio, with his cicatrice, an emblem of war,
here
[p]on his sinister cheek; it was this very sword
[p]entrenched
it: say to him, I live; and observe his
[p]reports for me.
First Lord : We shall, noble captain.
Parolles : Mars dote on you for his novices! what will ye do?
Bertram : Stay: the king.
Parolles : [To BERTRAM] Use a more spacious ceremony to the
[p]noble lords; you
have restrained yourself within the
[p]list of too cold an adieu: be
more expressive to
[p]them: for they wear themselves in the cap of
the
[p]time, there do muster true gait, eat, speak, and
[p]move under
the influence of the most received star;
[p]and though the devil lead
the measure, such are to
[p]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.
Lafeu : [Kneeling] Pardon, my lord, for me and for my tidings.
King of France : I'll fee thee to stand up.
Lafeu : Then here's a man stands, that has brought his pardon.
[p]I would you
had kneel'd, my lord, to ask me mercy,
[p]And that at my bidding you
could so stand up.
King of France : I would I had; so I had broke thy pate,
[p]And ask'd thee mercy
for't.
Lafeu : Good faith, across: but, my good lord 'tis thus;
[p]Will you be cured
of your infirmity?
King of France : No.
Lafeu : O, will you eat no grapes, my royal fox?
[p]Yes, but you will my noble
grapes, an if
[p]My royal fox could reach them: I have seen a
medicine
[p]That's able to breathe life into a stone,
[p]Quicken a
rock, and make you dance canary
[p]With spritely fire and motion;
whose simple touch,
[p]Is powerful to araise King Pepin, nay,
[p]To
give great Charlemain a pen in's hand,
[p]And write to her a
love-line.
King of France : What 'her' is this?
Lafeu : Why, Doctor She: my lord, there's one arrived,
[p]If you will see her:
now, by my faith and honour,
[p]If seriously I may convey my
thoughts
[p]In this my light deliverance, I have spoke
[p]With one
that, in her sex, her years, profession,
[p]Wisdom and constancy, hath
amazed me more
[p]Than I dare blame my weakness: will you see
her
[p]For that is her demand, and know her business?
[p]That done,
laugh well at me.
King of France : Now, good Lafeu,
[p]Bring in the admiration; that we with thee
[p]May
spend our wonder too, or take off thine
[p]By wondering how thou
took'st it.
Lafeu : Nay, I'll fit you,
[p]And not be all day neither.
King of France : Thus he his special nothing ever prologues.
Lafeu : Nay, come your ways.
King of France : This haste hath wings indeed.
Lafeu : Nay, come your ways:
[p]This is his majesty; say your mind to
him:
[p]A traitor you do look like; but such traitors
[p]His majesty
seldom fears: I am Cressid's uncle,
[p]That dare leave two together;
fare you well.
King of France : Now, fair one, does your business follow us?
Helena : Ay, my good lord.
[p]Gerard de Narbon was my father;
[p]In what he did
profess, well found.
King of France : I knew him.
Helena : The rather will I spare my praises towards him:
[p]Knowing him is
enough. On's bed of death
[p]Many receipts he gave me: chiefly
one.
[p]Which, as the dearest issue of his practise,
[p]And of his old
experience the oily darling,
[p]He bade me store up, as a triple
eye,
[p]Safer than mine own two, more dear; I have so;
[p]And hearing
your high majesty is touch'd
[p]With that malignant cause wherein the
honour
[p]Of my dear father's gift stands chief in power,
[p]I come to
tender it and my appliance
[p]With all bound humbleness.
King of France : We thank you, maiden;
[p]But may not be so credulous of cure,
[p]When
our most learned doctors leave us and
[p]The congregated college have
concluded
[p]That labouring art can never ransom nature
[p]From her
inaidible estate; I say we must not
[p]So stain our judgment, or
corrupt our hope,
[p]To prostitute our past-cure malady
[p]To
empirics, or to dissever so
[p]Our great self and our credit, to
esteem
[p]A senseless help when help past sense we deem.
Helena : My duty then shall pay me for my pains:
[p]I will no more enforce mine
office on you.
[p]Humbly entreating from your royal thoughts
[p]A
modest one, to bear me back a again.
King of France : I cannot give thee less, to be call'd grateful:
[p]Thou thought'st to
help me; and such thanks I give
[p]As one near death to those that
wish him live:
[p]But what at full I know, thou know'st no part,
[p]I
knowing all my peril, thou no art.
Helena : What I can do can do no hurt to try,
[p]Since you set up your rest
'gainst remedy.
[p]He that of greatest works is finisher
[p]Oft does
them by the weakest minister:
[p]So holy writ in babes hath judgment
shown,
[p]When judges have been babes; great floods have flown
[p]From
simple sources, and great seas have dried
[p]When miracles have by the
greatest been denied.
[p]Oft expectation fails and most oft
there
[p]Where most it promises, and oft it hits
[p]Where hope is
coldest and despair most fits.
King of France : I must not hear thee; fare thee well, kind maid;
[p]Thy pains not used
must by thyself be paid:
[p]Proffers not took reap thanks for their
reward.
Helena : Inspired merit so by breath is barr'd:
[p]It is not so with Him that
all things knows
[p]As 'tis with us that square our guess by
shows;
[p]But most it is presumption in us when
[p]The help of heaven
we count the act of men.
[p]Dear sir, to my endeavours give
consent;
[p]Of heaven, not me, make an experiment.
[p]I am not an
impostor that proclaim
[p]Myself against the level of mine aim;
[p]But
know I think and think I know most sure
[p]My art is not past power
nor you past cure.
King of France : Are thou so confident? within what space
[p]Hopest thou my cure?
Helena : The great'st grace lending grace
[p]Ere twice the horses of the sun
shall bring
[p]Their fiery torcher his diurnal ring,
[p]Ere twice in
murk and occidental damp
[p]Moist Hesperus hath quench'd his sleepy
lamp,
[p]Or four and twenty times the pilot's glass
[p]Hath told the
thievish minutes how they pass,
[p]What is infirm from your sound
parts shall fly,
[p]Health shall live free and sickness freely die.
King of France : Upon thy certainty and confidence
[p]What darest thou venture?
Helena : Tax of impudence,
[p]A strumpet's boldness, a divulged
shame
[p]Traduced by odious ballads: my maiden's name
[p]Sear'd
otherwise; nay, worse--if worse--extended
[p]With vilest torture let
my life be ended.
King of France : Methinks in thee some blessed spirit doth speak
[p]His powerful sound
within an organ weak:
[p]And what impossibility would slay
[p]In
common sense, sense saves another way.
[p]Thy life is dear; for all
that life can rate
[p]Worth name of life in thee hath
estimate,
[p]Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, all
[p]That happiness and
prime can happy call:
[p]Thou this to hazard needs must
intimate
[p]Skill infinite or monstrous desperate.
[p]Sweet practiser,
thy physic I will try,
[p]That ministers thine own death if I die.
Helena : If I break time, or flinch in property
[p]Of what I spoke, unpitied
let me die,
[p]And well deserved: not helping, death's my fee;
[p]But,
if I help, what do you promise me?
King of France : Make thy demand.
Helena : But will you make it even?
King of France : Ay, by my sceptre and my hopes of heaven.
Helena : Then shalt thou give me with thy kingly hand
[p]What husband in thy
power I will command:
[p]Exempted be from me the arrogance
[p]To
choose from forth the royal blood of France,
[p]My low and humble name
to propagate
[p]With any branch or image of thy state;
[p]But such a
one, thy vassal, whom I know
[p]Is free for me to ask, thee to
bestow.
King of France : Here is my hand; the premises observed,
[p]Thy will by my performance
shall be served:
[p]So make the choice of thy own time, for I,
[p]Thy
resolved patient, on thee still rely.
[p]More should I question thee,
and more I must,
[p]Though more to know could not be more to
trust,
[p]From whence thou camest, how tended on: but
rest
[p]Unquestion'd welcome and undoubted blest.
[p]Give me some help
here, ho! If thou proceed
[p]As high as word, my deed shall match thy
meed.
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Next: Act 2 - Scene 2
