All's Well That Ends Well (11 page)

To you that know them not. This to my mother.

'Twill be two days ere I shall see you, so

I leave you to your wisdom.

HELEN
    Sir, I can nothing say,

But that I am your most obedient servant.

BERTRAM
    Come, come, no more of that.

HELEN
    And ever shall

With true
observance
seek to
eke out
⁷⁵
that

Wherein toward me my
homely stars
⁷⁶
have failed

To equal my
great fortune.
⁷⁷

BERTRAM
    Let that go.

My haste is very great. Farewell.
Hie
⁷⁹
home.

HELEN
    Pray, sir, your pardon.

BERTRAM
    Well, what would you say?

HELEN
    I am not worthy of the wealth I
owe
⁸²
,

Nor dare I say 'tis mine, and yet it is.

But, like a timorous thief, most
fain
⁸⁴
would steal

What law does
vouch
⁸⁵
mine own.

BERTRAM
    What would you have?

HELEN
    Something, and scarce so much: nothing, indeed.

I
would
⁸⁸
not tell you what I would, my lord.

Faith yes:

Strangers and foes do
sunder
⁹⁰
, and not kiss.

BERTRAM
    I pray you
stay
⁹¹
not, but in haste to horse.

HELEN
    I shall not break your bidding, good my lord.—

Where are my other men?—

                                          Monsieur, farewell.

BERTRAM
    Go thou toward home, where I will never come

Whilst I can shake my sword or hear the drum.

Away, and for our flight.

PAROLLES
    Bravely,
corragio
⁹⁸
!

DUKE
    So that
from point to point
¹
now have you heard

The fundamental reasons of this war,

Whose great decision
³
hath much blood let forth

And more thirsts after.

FIRST LORD
    Holy seems the quarrel

Upon your grace's part,
black
⁶
and fearful

On the
opposer.
⁷

DUKE
    Therefore we marvel much our
cousin
⁸
France

Would in so just a business shut his
bosom
⁹

Against our
borrowing prayers.
¹⁰

SECOND LORD
    Good my lord,

The reasons of our state I cannot
yield
¹²
,

But
like a
common and an outward man
¹³

That the great
figure
of a council
frames
¹⁴

By
self-unable motion
¹⁵
: therefore dare not

Say what I think of it, since I have found

Myself in my incertain grounds to fail

As often as I guessed.

DUKE
    Be it
his pleasure.
¹⁹

FIRST LORD
    But I am sure the
younger of our nature
²⁰
,

That
surfeit on their ease
²¹
, will day by day

Come here for
physic.
²²

DUKE
    Welcome shall they be,

And all the honours that can
fly from
²⁴
us

Shall on them settle. You know your places well.

When
better fall
, for your
avails
²⁶
they fell.

Tomorrow to th'field.

COUNTESS
    It hath happened all as I would have had it, save

that he comes not along with her.

LAVATCH
    By my
troth
³
, I take my young lord to be a very

melancholy man.

COUNTESS
    By what
observance
⁵
, I pray you?

LAVATCH
    Why, he will look upon his boot and sing:
mend
⁶
the

ruff and sing: ask questions and sing: pick his teeth and sing.

I know a man that had this trick of melancholy
sold
⁸
a goodly

manor for a song.

COUNTESS
    Let me see what he writes, and when

he means to come.

LAVATCH
    I have no
mind to
¹²
Isbel since I was at court. Our old

lings
¹³
and our Isbels o'th'country are nothing like your old

ling and your Isbels o'th'court. The
brains
¹⁴
of my Cupid's

knocked out, and I begin to love, as an old man loves money,

with no
stomach.
¹⁶

COUNTESS
    What have we here?

LAVATCH
    
E'en
¹⁸
that you have there.

COUNTESS

[
Reads
]
a letter

‘I have sent you a daughter-in-law. She hath
recovered
¹⁹
the

king, and undone me. I have wedded her, not bedded her,

and sworn to make the
“not”
²¹
eternal. You shall hear I am

run away: know it before the report come. If there be

breadth enough in the world, I will
hold
²³
a long distance. My

duty to you. Your unfortunate son, Bertram.'

This is not well, rash and unbridled boy.

To
fly
²⁶
the favours of so good a king,

To pluck his indignation on thy head

By the
misprizing
²⁸
of a maid too virtuous

For the contempt
of empire.
²⁹

LAVATCH
    O, madam, yonder is
heavy
news
within
³⁰
, between

two soldiers and my young lady!

COUNTESS
    What is the matter?

LAVATCH
    Nay, there is some comfort in the news, some

comfort. Your son will not be killed so soon as I thought he

would.

COUNTESS
    Why should he be killed?

LAVATCH
    So say I, madam, if he run away, as I hear he does.

The danger is in
standing to't.
³⁸
That's the loss of men, though

it be the
getting
³⁹
of children. Here they come will tell you

more. For my part, I only hear your son was run away.

SECOND LORD
    
Save
⁴¹
you, good madam.

HELEN
    Madam, my lord is gone, forever gone.

FIRST LORD
    Do not say so.

COUNTESS
    Think upon patience. Pray you, gentlemen,

I have felt so many
quirks
⁴⁵
of joy and grief

That the first
face
of neither,
on the start
⁴⁶

Can
woman
⁴⁷
me unto't. Where is my son, I pray you?

FIRST LORD
    Madam, he's gone to serve the Duke of Florence:

We met him
thitherward
, for
thence
⁴⁹
we came,

And after some
dispatch in hand
⁵⁰
at court,

Thither we
bend
⁵¹
again.

HELEN
    Look on his letter, madam, here's my
passport.
⁵²

‘When thou canst get the ring upon my finger,

which never shall come off, and show me a child begotten of

thy body that I am father to, then call me husband. But in

such a “then” I write a “never”.' This is a dreadful
sentence.
⁵⁶

COUNTESS
    Brought you this letter, gentlemen?

FIRST LORD
    Ay, madam, and for the contents' sake are sorry for

our pains.

COUNTESS
    I prithee, lady,
have a better cheer.
⁶⁰

If thou
engrossest
all the griefs
are
⁶¹
thine,

Thou robb'st me of a
moiety
⁶²
: he was my son,

But I do wash his name out of my blood,

And thou art
all my
⁶⁴
child. Towards Florence is he?

FIRST LORD
    Ay, madam.

COUNTESS
    And to be a soldier?

FIRST LORD
    Such is his noble purpose, and believe't,

The duke will lay upon him all the honour

That good
convenience
⁶⁹
claims.

COUNTESS
    Return you thither?

SECOND LORD
    Ay, madam, with the swiftest wing of speed.

HELEN
    ‘Till I have no wife I have nothing in France.'

'Tis bitter.

COUNTESS
    Find you that there?

HELEN
    Ay, madam.

SECOND LORD
    'Tis but the boldness of his hand,
haply
⁷⁶
, which his

heart was not consenting to.

COUNTESS
    Nothing in France, until he have no wife!

There's nothing here that is too good for him

But only she, and she deserves a lord

That twenty such
rude
⁸¹
boys might tend upon

And call her hourly mistress. Who was with him?

SECOND LORD
    A servant only, and a gentleman

Which I have sometime known.

COUNTESS
    Parolles, was it not?

SECOND LORD
    Ay, my good lady, he.

COUNTESS
    A very tainted fellow, and full of wickedness.

My son corrupts
a well-derivèd
⁸⁸
nature

With
his inducement.
⁸⁹

SECOND LORD
    Indeed, good lady,

The fellow has a
deal
of
that
⁹¹
too much,

Which
holds him much to have.
⁹²

COUNTESS
    You're welcome, gentlemen.

I will entreat you, when you see my son,

To tell him that his sword can never win

The honour that he loses: more I'll entreat you

Written
⁹⁷
to bear along.

FIRST LORD
    We serve you, madam,

In that and all your worthiest affairs.

COUNTESS
    Not so,
but as we
change
¹⁰⁰
our courtesies.

Will you
draw near?
¹⁰¹

HELEN
    ‘Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France.'

Nothing in France, until he has no wife!

Thou shalt have none,
Rossillion
¹⁰⁴
, none in France.

Then hast thou all again. Poor lord, is't I

That chase thee from thy country and expose

Those tender limbs of thine to the
event
¹⁰⁷

Of the none-sparing war? And is it I

That drive thee from the
sportive
¹⁰⁹
court, where thou

Wast shot at with fair eyes, to be the
mark
¹¹⁰

Of smoky muskets? O you
leaden messengers
¹¹¹

That ride upon the violent speed of fire,

Fly with false aim,
move
the
still-peering
¹¹³
air

That
sings
¹¹⁴
with piercing. Do not touch my lord.

Whoever shoots at him, I
set him there.
¹¹⁵

Whoever charges on his
forward
¹¹⁶
breast,

I am the
caitiff
¹¹⁷
that do hold him to't,

And though I kill him not, I am the cause

His death was so effected. Better 'twere

I met the
ravin
¹²⁰
lion when he roared

With sharp
constraint
¹²¹
of hunger: better 'twere

That all the miseries which nature
owes
¹²²

Were mine at once. No, come thou home, Rossillion,

Whence honour but of danger wins a scar
¹²⁴
,

As
oft
it loses
all.
¹²⁵
I will be gone:

My being here it is that holds thee hence.

Shall I stay here to
do't?
No, no,
although
¹²⁷

The air of paradise did fan the house

And angels
officed all.
¹²⁹
I will be gone,

That
pitiful
¹³⁰
rumour may report my flight,

To
consolate
¹³¹
thine ear. Come night, end day!

For with the dark, poor thief, I'll
steal
¹³²
away.