DRAMATIS PERSONE.

King of France.

Duke of Florence.

BERTRAM, Count of Rousillon.

LAFEU, an old lord.

PAROLLES, a follower of Bertram.

Several young French Lords, who serve with Bertram in the Florentine war.

Countess of Rousillon, mother to Bertram.

HELENA, a gentlewoman protected by the Countess.

A Widow of Florence.

DIANA, her daughter.

VIOLENTA, neighbours and friends to the Widow.

MARIANA,

Lords attending on the King; Officers, Soldiers, &c., French and

Florentine.

SCENE-partly in France, and partly in Tuscany.

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

ACT I.

SCENE I. Rousillon. A hall in the house of the Countess.

Enter BERTRAM, the Countess of Rousillon, HELENA, and Lafeu, all in black.

Count. In delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband.

Ber. 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.

Laf. 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.

Count. What hope is there of his majesty's amendment? Laf. 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.

Count. This young gentlewoman had a father,―0, that "had"! how sad a passage 'tis !—whose skill was almost as great as his honesty; had it stretched so far, 't would(2) 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.

Laf. How called you the man you speak of, madam?

Count. He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his great right to be so,-Gerard de Narbon. (3)

Laf. 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.

Ber. What is it, my good lord, the king languishes of?
Laf. A fistula, my lord.

Ber. I heard not of it before.

Laf. I would it were not notorious.-Was this gentlewoman the daughter of Gerard de Narbon?

Count. His sole child, my lord; and bequeathed to my overlooking. I have those hopes of her good that her education promises her dispositions(4) 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(5) simpleness; she derives her honesty, and achieves her goodness.

Laf. Your commendations, madam, get from her tears. Count. '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,(6)-go to, no more; lest it be rather thought you affect a sorrow than to have it.(7)

Hel. I do affect a sorrow, indeed; but I have it too. Laf. Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead; excessive grief the enemy to the living.

Hel. If the living be enemy(8) to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal.

Ber. Madam, I desire your holy wishes.

Laf. How understand we that ?(9)

Count. 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.

Laf. He cannot want the best that shall attend His love.

Count. Heaven bless him!-Farewell, Bertram.

[Exit.

Ber. [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.

Laf. Farewell, pretty lady: you must hold the credit of your father. [Exeunt Bertram and Lafeu. Hel. O, were that all !(10)—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. (11)

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.
Th' 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(12)
Look bleak i' the cold wind: withal, full oft we see
Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.(13)

Hel. And no.

Par. Are you meditating on virginity?

Hel. 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?

Par. Keep him out.

Hel. But he assails;(14) and our virginity, though valiant in the defence, yet is weak: unfold to us some warlike resist

ance.

Par. There is none: man, sitting down before you, will undermine you, and blow you up.

Hel. Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers-up!-Is there no military policy, how virgins might blow up men?

Par. 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(15) 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 't!

Hel. I will stand for 't a little, though therefore I die a virgin.

Par. 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 one year it will make itself two,(16) which is a goodly increase; and the principal itself not much the worse: away with 't!

Hel. How might one do, sir, to lose it to her own liking? Par. Let me see: marry, ill, to like him that ne'er it