Alls Wel that ends Well

by William Shakespeare

And that at my bidding you could so stand up.

  KING. I would I had; so I had broke thy pate,

  And ask'd thee mercy for't.

  LAFEU. Good faith, across!

  But, my good lord, 'tis thus: will you be cur'd

  Of your infirmity?

  KING. No.

  LAFEU. O, will you eat

  No grapes, my royal fox? Yes, but you will

  My noble grapes, an if my royal fox

  Could reach them: I have seen a medicine

  That's able to breathe life into a stone,

  Quicken a rock, and make you dance canary

  With spritely fire and motion; whose simple touch

  Is powerful to araise King Pepin, nay,

  To give great Charlemain a pen in's hand

  And write to her a love-line.

  KING. What her is this?

  LAFEU. Why, Doctor She! My lord, there's one arriv'd,

  If you will see her. Now, by my faith and honour,

  If seriously I may convey my thoughts

  In this my light deliverance, I have spoke

  With one that in her sex, her years, profession,

  Wisdom, and constancy, hath amaz'd me more

  Than I dare blame my weakness. Will you see her,

  For that is her demand, and know her business?

  That done, laugh well at me.

  KING. Now, good Lafeu,

  Bring in the admiration, that we with the

  May spend our wonder too, or take off thine

  By wond'ring how thou took'st it.

  LAFEU. Nay, I'll fit you,

  And not be all day neither. Exit LAFEU

  KING. Thus he his special nothing ever prologues.

  Re-enter LAFEU with HELENA

  LAFEU. Nay, come your ways.

  KING. This haste hath wings indeed.

  LAFEU. Nay, come your ways;

  This is his Majesty; say your mind to him.

  A traitor you do look like; but such traitors

  His Majesty seldom fears. I am Cressid's uncle,

  That dare leave two together. Fare you well. Exit

  KING. Now, fair one, does your business follow us?

  HELENA. Ay, my good lord.

  Gerard de Narbon was my father,

  In what he did profess, well found.

  KING. I knew him.

  HELENA. The rather will I spare my praises towards him;

  Knowing him is enough. On's bed of death

  Many receipts he gave me; chiefly one,

  Which, as the dearest issue of his practice,

  And of his old experience th' only darling,

  He bade me store up as a triple eye,

  Safer than mine own two, more dear. I have so:

  And, hearing your high Majesty is touch'd

  With that malignant cause wherein the honour

  Of my dear father's gift stands chief in power,

  I come to tender it, and my appliance,

  With all bound humbleness.

  KING. We thank you, maiden;

  But may not be so credulous of cure,

  When our most learned doctors leave us, and

  The congregated college have concluded

  That labouring art can never ransom nature

  From her inaidable estate-I say we must not

  So stain our judgment, or corrupt our hope,

  To prostitute our past-cure malady

  To empirics; or to dissever so

  Our great self and our credit to esteem

  A senseless help, when help past sense we deem.

  HELENA. My duty then shall pay me for my pains.

  I will no more enforce mine office on you;

  Humbly entreating from your royal thoughts

  A modest one to bear me back again.

  KING. I cannot give thee less, to be call'd grateful.

  Thou thought'st to help me; and such thanks I give

  As one near death to those that wish him live.

  But what at full I know, thou know'st no part;

  I knowing all my peril, thou no art.

  HELENA. What I can do can do no hurt to try,

  Since you set up your rest 'gainst remedy.

  He that of greatest works is finisher

  Oft does them by the weakest minister.

  So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown,

  When judges have been babes. Great floods have flown

  From simple sources, and great seas have dried

  When miracles have by the greatest been denied.

  Oft expectation fails, and most oft there

  Where most it promises; and oft it hits

  Where hope is coldest, and despair most fits.

  KING. I must not hear thee. Fare thee well, kind maid;

  Thy pains, not us'd, must by thyself be paid;

  Proffers not took reap thanks for their reward.

  HELENA. Inspired merit so by breath is barr'd.

  It is not so with Him that all things knows,

  As 'tis with us that square our guess by shows;

  But most it is presumption in us when

  The help of heaven we count the act of men.

  Dear sir, to my endeavours give consent;

  Of heaven, not me, make an experiment.

  I am not an impostor, that proclaim

  Myself against the level of mine aim;

  But know I think, and think I know most sure,

  My art is not past power nor you past cure.

  KING. Art thou so confident? Within what space

  Hop'st thou my cure?

  HELENA. The greatest Grace lending grace.

  Ere twice the horses of the sun shall bring

  Their fiery torcher his diurnal ring,

  Ere twice in murk and occidental damp

  Moist Hesperus hath quench'd his sleepy lamp,

  Or four and twenty times the pilot's glass

  Hath told the thievish minutes how they pass,

  What is infirm from your sound parts shall fly,

  Health shall live free, and sickness freely die.

  KING. Upon thy certainty and confidence

  What dar'st thou venture?

  HELENA. Tax of impudence,

  A strumpet's boldness, a divulged shame,

  Traduc'd by odious ballads; my maiden's name

  Sear'd otherwise; ne worse of worst-extended

  With vilest torture let my life be ended.

  KING. Methinks in thee some blessed spirit doth speak

  His powerful sound within an organ weak;

  And what impossibility would slay

  In common sense, sense saves another way.

  Thy life is dear; for all that life can rate

  Worth name of life in thee hath estimate:

  Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, all

  That happiness and prime can happy call.

  Thou this to hazard needs must intimate

  Skill infinite or monstrous desperate.

  Sweet practiser, thy physic I will try,

  That ministers thine own death if I die.

  HELENA. If I break time, or flinch in property

  Of what I spoke, unpitied let me die;

  And well deserv'd. Not helping, death's my fee;

  But, if I help, what do you promise me?

  KING. Make thy demand.

  HELENA. But will you make it even?

  KING. Ay, by my sceptre and my hopes of heaven.

  HELENA. Then shalt thou give me with thy kingly hand

  What husband in thy power I will command.

  Exempted be from me the arrogance

  To choose from forth the royal blood of France,

  My low and humble name to propagate

  With any branch or image of thy state;

  But such a one, thy vassal, whom I know

  Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow.

  KING. Here is my hand; the premises observ'd,

  Thy will by my performance shall be serv'd.

&nbs
p; So make the choice of thy own time, for I,

  Thy resolv'd patient, on thee still rely.

  More should I question thee, and more I must,

  Though more to know could not be more to trust,

  From whence thou cam'st, how tended on. But rest

  Unquestion'd welcome and undoubted blest.

  Give me some help here, ho! If thou proceed

  As high as word, my deed shall match thy deed.

  [Flourish. Exeunt]

  SCENE 2.

  Rousillon. The COUNT'S palace

  Enter COUNTESS and CLOWN

  COUNTESS. Come on, sir; I shall now put you to the height of your

  breeding.

  CLOWN. I will show myself highly fed and lowly taught. I know my

  business is but to the court.

  COUNTESS. To the court! Why, what place make you special, when you

  put off that with such contempt? But to the court!

  CLOWN. Truly, madam, if God have lent a man any manners, he may

  easily put it off at court. He that cannot make a leg, put off's

  cap, kiss his hand, and say nothing, has neither leg, hands, lip,

  nor cap; and indeed such a fellow, to say precisely, were not for

  the court; but for me, I have an answer will serve all men.

  COUNTESS. Marry, that's a bountiful answer that fits all questions.

  CLOWN. It is like a barber's chair, that fits all buttocks-the pin

  buttock, the quatch buttock, the brawn buttock, or any buttock.

  COUNTESS. Will your answer serve fit to all questions?

  CLOWN. As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, as your

  French crown for your taffety punk, as Tib's rush for Tom's

  forefinger, as a pancake for Shrove Tuesday, a morris for Mayday,

  as the nail to his hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding

  quean to a wrangling knave, as the nun's lip to the friar's

  mouth; nay, as the pudding to his skin.

  COUNTESS. Have you, I, say, an answer of such fitness for all

  questions?

  CLOWN. From below your duke to beneath your constable, it will fit

  any question.

  COUNTESS. It must be an answer of most monstrous size that must fit

  all demands.

  CLOWN. But a trifle neither, in good faith, if the learned should

  speak truth of it. Here it is, and all that belongs to't. Ask me

  if I am a courtier: it shall do you no harm to learn.

  COUNTESS. To be young again, if we could, I will be a fool in

  question, hoping to be the wiser by your answer. I pray you, sir,

  are you a courtier?

  CLOWN. O Lord, sir!-There's a simple putting off. More, more, a

  hundred of them.

  COUNTESS. Sir, I am a poor friend of yours, that loves you.

  CLOWN. O Lord, sir!-Thick, thick; spare not me.

  COUNTESS. I think, sir, you can eat none of this homely meat.

  CLOWN. O Lord, sir!-Nay, put me to't, I warrant you.

  COUNTESS. You were lately whipp'd, sir, as I think.

  CLOWN. O Lord, sir!-Spare not me.

  COUNTESS. Do you cry 'O Lord, sir!' at your whipping, and 'spare

  not me'? Indeed your 'O Lord, sir!' is very sequent to your

  whipping. You would answer very well to a whipping, if you were

  but bound to't.

  CLOWN. I ne'er had worse luck in my life in my 'O Lord, sir!' I see

  thing's may serve long, but not serve ever.

  COUNTESS. I play the noble housewife with the time,

  To entertain it so merrily with a fool.

  CLOWN. O Lord, sir!-Why, there't serves well again.

  COUNTESS. An end, sir! To your business: give Helen this,

  And urge her to a present answer back;

  Commend me to my kinsmen and my son. This is not much.

  CLOWN. Not much commendation to them?

  COUNTESS. Not much employment for you. You understand me?

  CLOWN. Most fruitfully; I am there before my legs.

  COUNTESS. Haste you again. Exeunt

  SCENE 3.

  Paris. The KING'S palace

  Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES

  LAFEU. They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical

  persons to make modern and familiar things supernatural and

  causeless. Hence is it that we make trifles of terrors,

  ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge when we should submit

  ourselves to an unknown fear.

  PAROLLES. Why, 'tis the rarest argument of wonder that hath shot

  out in our latter times.

  BERTRAM. And so 'tis.

  LAFEU. To be relinquish'd of the artists-

  PAROLLES. So I say-both of Galen and Paracelsus.

  LAFEU. Of all the learned and authentic fellows-

  PAROLLES. Right; so I say.

  LAFEU. That gave him out incurable-

  PAROLLES. Why, there 'tis; so say I too.

  LAFEU. Not to be help'd-

  PAROLLES. Right; as 'twere a man assur'd of a-

  LAFEU. Uncertain life and sure death.

  PAROLLES. Just; you say well; so would I have said.

  LAFEU. I may truly say it is a novelty to the world.

  PAROLLES. It is indeed. If you will have it in showing, you shall

  read it in what-do-ye-call't here.

  LAFEU. [Reading the ballad title] 'A Showing of a Heavenly

  Effect in an Earthly Actor.'

  PAROLLES. That's it; I would have said the very same.

  LAFEU. Why, your dolphin is not lustier. 'Fore me, I speak in

  respect-

  PAROLLES. Nay, 'tis strange, 'tis very strange; that is the brief

  and the tedious of it; and he's of a most facinerious spirit that

  will not acknowledge it to be the-

  LAFEU. Very hand of heaven.

  PAROLLES. Ay; so I say.

  LAFEU. In a most weak-

  PAROLLES. And debile minister, great power, great transcendence;

  which should, indeed, give us a further use to be made than alone

  the recov'ry of the King, as to be-

  LAFEU. Generally thankful.

  Enter KING, HELENA, and ATTENDANTS

  PAROLLES. I would have said it; you say well. Here comes the King.

  LAFEU. Lustig, as the Dutchman says. I'll like a maid the better,

  whilst I have a tooth in my head. Why, he's able to lead her a

  coranto.

  PAROLLES. Mort du vinaigre! Is not this Helen?

  LAFEU. 'Fore God, I think so.

  KING. Go, call before me all the lords in court.

  Exit an ATTENDANT

  Sit, my preserver, by thy patient's side;

  And with this healthful hand, whose banish'd sense

  Thou has repeal'd, a second time receive

  The confirmation of my promis'd gift,

  Which but attends thy naming.

  Enter three or four LORDS

  Fair maid, send forth thine eye. This youthful parcel

  Of noble bachelors stand at my bestowing,

  O'er whom both sovereign power and father's voice

  I have to use. Thy frank election make;

  Thou hast power to choose, and they none to forsake.

  HELENA. To each of you one fair and virtuous mistress

  Fall, when love please. Marry, to each but one!

  LAFEU. I'd give bay Curtal and his furniture

  My mouth no more were broken than these boys',

  And writ as little beard.

  KING. Peruse them well.

  Not one of those but had a noble father.

  HELENA. Gentlemen,

  Heaven hath through me restor'd the King to health.

  ALL. We understand it, and thank heaven for you.

  HELENA. I am a simple maid, and th
erein wealthiest

  That I protest I simply am a maid.

  Please it your Majesty, I have done already.

  The blushes in my cheeks thus whisper me:

  'We blush that thou shouldst choose; but, be refused,

  Let the white death sit on thy cheek for ever,

  We'll ne'er come there again.'

  KING. Make choice and see:

  Who shuns thy love shuns all his love in me.

  HELENA. Now, Dian, from thy altar do I fly,

  And to imperial Love, that god most high,

  Do my sighs stream. Sir, will you hear my suit?

  FIRST LORD. And grant it.

  HELENA. Thanks, sir; all the rest is mute.

  LAFEU. I had rather be in this choice than throw ames-ace for my

  life.

  HELENA. The honour, sir, that flames in your fair eyes,

  Before I speak, too threat'ningly replies.

  Love make your fortunes twenty times above

  Her that so wishes, and her humble love!

  SECOND LORD. No better, if you please.

  HELENA. My wish receive,

  Which great Love grant; and so I take my leave.

  LAFEU. Do all they deny her? An they were sons of mine I'd have

  them whipt; or I would send them to th' Turk to make eunuchs of.

  HELENA. Be not afraid that I your hand should take;

  I'll never do you wrong for your own sake.

  Blessing upon your vows; and in your bed

  Find fairer fortune, if you ever wed!

  LAFEU. These boys are boys of ice; they'll none have her.

  Sure, they are bastards to the English; the French ne'er got 'em.

  HELENA. You are too young, too happy, and too good,

  To make yourself a son out of my blood.

  FOURTH LORD. Fair one, I think not so.

  LAFEU. There's one grape yet; I am sure thy father drunk wine-but

  if thou be'st not an ass, I am a youth of fourteen; I have known

  thee already.

  HELENA. [To BERTRAM] I dare not say I take you; but I give

  Me and my service, ever whilst I live,

  Into your guiding power. This is the man.

  KING. Why, then, young Bertram, take her; she's thy wife.

  BERTRAM. My wife, my liege! I shall beseech your Highness,

  In such a business give me leave to use

  The help of mine own eyes.

  KING. Know'st thou not, Bertram,

  What she has done for me?

  BERTRAM. Yes, my good lord;

  But never hope to know why I should marry her.

  KING. Thou know'st she has rais'd me from my sickly bed.

  BERTRAM. But follows it, my lord, to bring me down

  Must answer for your raising? I know her well:

  She had her breeding at my father's charge.