All's Well That Ends Well - Act 2 - Scene 1

SCENE I. Paris. The KING's palace.

    Flourish of cornets. Enter the KING, attended with divers young Lords taking leave for the Florentine war; BERTRAM, and PAROLLES

KING

    Farewell, young lords; these warlike principles
    Do not throw from you: and you, my lords, farewell:
    Share the advice betwixt you; if both gain, all
    The gift doth stretch itself as 'tis received,
    And is enough for both.

First Lord

    'Tis our hope, sir,
    After well enter'd soldiers, to return
    And find your grace in health.

KING

    No, no, it cannot be; and yet my heart
    Will not confess he owes the malady
    That doth my life besiege. Farewell, young lords;
    Whether I live or die, be you the sons
    Of worthy Frenchmen: let higher Italy,--
    Those bated that inherit but the fall
    Of the last monarchy,--see that you come
    Not to woo honour, but to wed it; when
    The bravest questant shrinks, find what you seek,
    That fame may cry you loud: I say, farewell.

Second Lord

    Health, at your bidding, serve your majesty!

KING

    Those girls of Italy, take heed of them:
    They say, our French lack language to deny,
    If they demand: beware of being captives,
    Before you serve.

Both

    Our hearts receive your warnings.

KING

    Farewell. Come hither to me.

    Exit, attended

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
    '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,
    Creaking my shoes on the plain masonry,
    Till honour be bought up and no sword worn
    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
    sparks and lustrous, a word, good metals: you shall
    find in the regiment of the Spinii one Captain
    Spurio, with his cicatrice, an emblem of war, here
    on his sinister cheek; it was this very sword
    entrenched it: say to him, I live; and observe his
    reports for me.

First Lord

    We shall, noble captain.

    Exeunt Lords

PAROLLES

    Mars dote on you for his novices! what will ye do?

BERTRAM

    Stay: the king.

    Re-enter KING. BERTRAM and PAROLLES retire

PAROLLES

    [To BERTRAM] Use a more spacious ceremony to the
    noble lords; you have restrained yourself within the
    list of too cold an adieu: be more expressive to
    them: for they wear themselves in the cap of the
    time, there do muster true gait, eat, speak, and
    move under the influence of the most received star;
    and though the devil lead the measure, such are to
    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.

    Exeunt BERTRAM and PAROLLES

    Enter LAFEU

LAFEU

    [Kneeling] Pardon, my lord, for me and for my tidings.

KING

    I'll fee thee to stand up.

LAFEU

    Then here's a man stands, that has brought his pardon.
    I would you had kneel'd, my lord, to ask me mercy,
    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 cured 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 arrived,
    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 amazed 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 thee
    May spend our wonder too, or take off thine
    By wondering how thou took'st it.

LAFEU

    Nay, I'll fit you,
    And not be all day neither.

    Exit

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 practise,
    And of his old experience the oily 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 inaidible 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 used 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

    Are thou so confident? within what space
    Hopest thou my cure?

HELENA

    The great'st 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 darest thou venture?

HELENA

    Tax of impudence,
    A strumpet's boldness, a divulged shame
    Traduced by odious ballads: my maiden's name
    Sear'd otherwise; nay, worse--if worse--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 deserved: 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 observed,
    Thy will by my performance shall be served:
    So make the choice of thy own time, for I,
    Thy resolved 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 camest, 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 meed.

    Flourish. Exeunt