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