All's Well That Ends Well/Act 1

SCENE 1. Rousillon. A room in the COUNTESS'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
 * liv'd 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 to have.

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 COUNTESS.]

BERTRAM.
 * The best wishes that can be forg'd in your thoughts [To HELENA.]
 * 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 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. It were 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 relics. Who comes here?
 * 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 fix'd evils sit so fit in him
 * That they take place when virtue's steely bones
 * Looks bleak i' the cold wind: withal, full oft we see
 * Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.

[Enter PAROLLES.]

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, setting 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 it!

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 lose by't: out with't!
 * within ten years it will make itself ten, which is a goodly
 * increase; and the principal itself not much the worse: away with
 * it!

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 toothpick, 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 wither'd pear; it was
 * formerly better; marry, yet 'tis a wither'd pear. Will you
 * anything with it?

HELENA.
 * Not my virginity yet.
 * 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
 * Returns us thanks.

[Enter a PAGE.]

PAGE.
 * Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.

[Exit PAGE.]

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 hath 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 business 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: so, farewell.

[Exit.]

HELENA.
 * Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
 * Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky
 * Gives us free scope; only doth backward pull
 * Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull.
 * What power is it which mounts my love so high,—
 * That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?
 * The mightiest space in fortune nature brings
 * To join like likes, and kiss like native things.
 * Impossible be strange attempts to those
 * That weigh their pains in sense, and do suppose
 * What hath been cannot be: who ever strove
 * To show her merit that did miss her love?
 * The king's disease,—my project may deceive me,
 * But my intents are fix'd, and will not leave me.

[Exit.]

SCENE 2. Paris. A room in the King's palace.
[Flourish of cornets. Enter the KING OF FRANCE, with letters; Lords and others attending.]

KING.
 * The Florentines and Senoys are by the ears;
 * Have fought with equal fortune, and continue
 * A braving war.

FIRST LORD.
 * So 'tis reported, sir.

KING.
 * Nay, 'tis most credible; we here receive it,
 * A certainty, vouch'd from our cousin Austria,
 * With caution, that the Florentine will move us
 * For speedy aid; wherein our dearest friend
 * Prejudicates the business, and would seem
 * To have us make denial.

FIRST LORD.
 * His love and wisdom,
 * Approv'd so to your majesty, may plead
 * For amplest credence.

KING.
 * He hath arm'd our answer,
 * And Florence is denied before he comes:
 * Yet, for our gentlemen that mean to see
 * The Tuscan service, freely have they leave
 * To stand on either part.

SECOND LORD.
 * It well may serve
 * A nursery to our gentry, who are sick
 * For breathing and exploit.

KING.
 * What's he comes here?

[Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES.]

FIRST LORD.
 * It is the Count Rousillon, my good lord,
 * Young Bertram.

KING.
 * Youth, thou bear'st thy father's face;
 * Frank nature, rather curious than in haste,
 * Hath well compos'd thee. Thy father's moral parts
 * Mayst thou inherit too! Welcome to Paris.

BERTRAM.
 * My thanks and duty are your majesty's.

KING.
 * I would I had that corporal soundness now,
 * As when thy father and myself in friendship
 * First tried our soldiership! He did look far
 * Into the service of the time, and was
 * Discipled of the bravest: he lasted long;
 * But on us both did haggish age steal on,
 * And wore us out of act. It much repairs me
 * To talk of your good father. In his youth
 * He had the wit which I can well observe
 * To-day in our young lords; but they may jest
 * Till their own scorn return to them unnoted,
 * Ere they can hide their levity in honour
 * So like a courtier: contempt nor bitterness
 * Were in his pride or sharpness; if they were,
 * His equal had awak'd them; and his honour,
 * Clock to itself, knew the true minute when
 * Exception bid him speak, and at this time
 * His tongue obey'd his hand: who were below him
 * He us'd as creatures of another place;
 * And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks,
 * Making them proud of his humility,
 * In their poor praise he humbled. Such a man
 * Might be a copy to these younger times;
 * Which, follow'd well, would demonstrate them now
 * But goers backward.

BERTRAM.
 * His good remembrance, sir,
 * Lies richer in your thoughts than on his tomb;
 * So in approof lives not his epitaph
 * As in your royal speech.

KING.
 * Would I were with him! He would always say,—
 * Methinks I hear him now; his plausive words
 * He scatter'd not in ears, but grafted them
 * To grow there, and to bear,—'Let me not live,'—
 * This his good melancholy oft began,
 * On the catastrophe and heel of pastime,
 * When it was out,—'Let me not live' quoth he,
 * 'After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff
 * Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses
 * All but new things disdain; whose judgments are
 * Mere fathers of their garments; whose constancies
 * Expire before their fashions:'—This he wish'd:
 * I, after him, do after him wish too,
 * Since I nor wax nor honey can bring home,
 * I quickly were dissolved from my hive,
 * To give some labourers room.

SECOND LORD.
 * You're lov'd, sir;
 * They that least lend it you shall lack you first.

KING.
 * I fill a place, I know't.—How long is't, Count,
 * Since the physician at your father's died?
 * He was much fam'd.

BERTRAM.
 * Some six months since, my lord.

KING.
 * If he were living, I would try him yet;—
 * Lend me an arm;—the rest have worn me out
 * With several applications:—nature and sickness
 * Debate it at their leisure. Welcome, count;
 * My son's no dearer.

BERTRAM.
 * Thank your majesty.

[Exeunt. Flourish.]

SCENE 3. Rousillon. A Room in the Palace.
[Enter COUNTESS, STEWARD, and CLOWN.]

COUNTESS.
 * I will now hear: what say you of this gentlewoman?

STEWARD.
 * Madam, the care I have had to even your content, I wish
 * might be found in the calendar of my past endeavours; for then we
 * wound our modesty, and make foul the clearness of our deservings,
 * when of ourselves we publish them.

COUNTESS.
 * What does this knave here? Get you gone, sirrah: the
 * complaints I have heard of you I do not all believe; 'tis my
 * slowness that I do not; for I know you lack not folly to commit
 * them, and have ability enough to make such knaveries yours.

CLOWN.
 * 'Tis not unknown to you, madam, I am a poor fellow.

COUNTESS.
 * Well, sir.

CLOWN.
 * No, madam, 'tis not so well that I am poor, though many of
 * the rich are damned: but if I may have your ladyship's good will
 * to go to the world, Isbel the woman and I will do as we may.

COUNTESS.
 * Wilt thou needs be a beggar?

CLOWN.
 * I do beg your good will in this case.

COUNTESS.
 * In what case?

CLOWN.
 * In Isbel's case and mine own. Service is no heritage: and I
 * think I shall never have the blessing of God till I have issue of
 * my body; for they say bairns are blessings.

COUNTESS.
 * Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry.

CLOWN.
 * My poor body, madam, requires it: I am driven on by the
 * flesh; and he must needs go that the devil drives.

COUNTESS.
 * Is this all your worship's reason?

CLOWN.
 * Faith, madam, I have other holy reasons, such as they are.

COUNTESS.
 * May the world know them?

CLOWN.
 * I have been, madam, a wicked creature, as you and all flesh
 * and blood are; and, indeed, I do marry that I may repent.

COUNTESS.
 * Thy marriage, sooner than thy wickedness.

CLOWN.
 * I am out of friends, madam, and I hope to have friends for
 * my wife's sake.

COUNTESS.
 * Such friends are thine enemies, knave.

CLOWN.
 * Y'are shallow, madam, in great friends: for the knaves come
 * to do that for me which I am a-weary 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 joll horns together like any deer
 * i' the herd.

COUNTESS.
 * Wilt thou ever be a foul-mouth'd 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.
 * [Sings.]
 * 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'd 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 before every blazing
 * star, or at an earthquake, 'twould mend the lottery well: a man
 * may draw his heart out ere he 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; Diana no queen of virgins, that
 * would suffer her poor knight surprise, 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.]


 * 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.

[Enter HELENA.]


 * 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 shield you mean it not! daughter and mother
 * So strive upon your pulse. What! pale again?
 * My fear hath catch'd your fondness: now I see
 * The mystery of your loneliness, and find
 * Your salt tears' head. Now to all sense 'tis gross
 * You love my son; invention is asham'd,
 * Against the proclamation of thy passion,
 * To say thou dost not: therefore tell me true;
 * But tell me then, 'tis so;—for, look, thy cheeks
 * Confess it, one to the other; and thine eyes
 * See it so grossly shown in thy behaviours,
 * That in their kind they speak it; only sin
 * And hellish obstinacy tie thy tongue,
 * That truth should be suspected. Speak, is't so?
 * If it be so, you have wound a goodly clue;
 * If it be not, forswear't: howe'er, I charge thee,
 * As heaven shall work in me for thine avail,
 * To tell me truly.

HELENA.
 * Good madam, pardon me!

COUNTESS.
 * Do you love my son?

HELENA.
 * Your pardon, noble mistress!

COUNTESS.
 * Love you my son?

HELENA.
 * Do not you love him, madam?

COUNTESS.
 * Go not about; my love hath in't a bond
 * Whereof the world takes note: come, come, disclose
 * The state of your affection; for your passions
 * Have to the full appeach'd.

HELENA.
 * Then I confess,
 * Here on my knee, before high heaven and you,
 * That before you, and next unto high heaven,
 * I love your son:—
 * My friends were poor, but honest; so's my love:
 * Be not offended; for it hurts not him
 * That he is lov'd of me: I follow him not
 * By any token of presumptuous suit;
 * Nor would I have him till I do deserve him;
 * Yet never know how that desert should be.
 * I know I love in vain, strive against hope;
 * Yet in this captious and intenible sieve
 * I still pour in the waters of my love,
 * And lack not to lose still: thus, Indian-like,
 * Religious in mine error, I adore
 * The sun, that looks upon his worshipper,
 * But knows of him no more. My dearest madam,
 * Let not your hate encounter with my love,
 * For loving where you do; but if yourself,
 * Whose aged honour cites a virtuous youth,
 * Did ever, in so true a flame of liking,
 * Wish chastely, and love dearly, that your Dian
 * Was both herself and love; O, then, give pity
 * To her whose state is such that cannot choose
 * But lend and give where she is sure to lose;
 * That seeks not to find that her search implies,
 * But, riddle-like, lives sweetly where she dies!

COUNTESS.
 * Had you not lately an intent,—speak truly,—
 * To go to Paris?

HELENA.
 * Madam, I had.

COUNTESS.
 * Wherefore? tell true.

HELENA.
 * I will tell truth; by grace itself I swear.
 * You know my father left me some prescriptions
 * Of rare and prov'd effects, such as his reading
 * And manifest experience had collected
 * For general sovereignty; and that he will'd me
 * In heedfullest reservation to bestow them,
 * As notes whose faculties inclusive were
 * More than they were in note: amongst the rest
 * There is a remedy, approv'd, set down,
 * To cure the desperate languishings whereof
 * The king is render'd lost.

COUNTESS.
 * This was your motive
 * For Paris, was it? speak.

HELENA.
 * My lord your son made me to think of this;
 * Else Paris, and the medicine, and the king,
 * Had from the conversation of my thoughts
 * Haply been absent then.

COUNTESS.
 * But think you, Helen,
 * If you should tender your supposed aid,
 * He would receive it? He and his physicians
 * Are of a mind; he, that they cannot help him;
 * They, that they cannot help: how shall they credit
 * A poor unlearned virgin, when the schools,
 * Embowell'd of their doctrine, have let off
 * The danger to itself?

HELENA.
 * There's something in't
 * More than my father's skill, which was the greatest
 * Of his profession, that his good receipt
 * Shall, for my legacy, be sanctified
 * By th' luckiest stars in heaven: and, would your honour
 * But give me leave to try success, I'd venture
 * The well-lost life of mine on his grace's cure.
 * By such a day and hour.

COUNTESS.
 * Dost thou believe't?

HELENA.
 * Ay, madam, knowingly.

COUNTESS.
 * Why, Helen, thou shalt have my leave, and love,
 * Means, and attendants, and my loving greetings
 * To those of mine in court: I'll stay at home,
 * And pray God's blessing into thy attempt:
 * Be gone to-morrow; and be sure of this,
 * What I can help thee to thou shalt not miss.

[Exeunt.]