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    All's Well That Ends Well
    All's Well That Ends Well
    All's Well That Ends Well
    Ebook135 pages1 hour

    All's Well That Ends Well

    By William Shakespeare and Sheba Blake

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    All's Well That Ends Well is a play by William Shakespeare.
    Helena, the low-born ward of a Spanish countess, is in love with the countess' son Bertram, who is indifferent to her. Bertram goes to Paris to replace his late father as attendant to the ailing King of France. Helena, the daughter of a recently deceased doctor, follows Bertram, ostensibly to offer the King her services as a healer. The King is sceptical, and she guarantees the cure with her life: if he dies, she will be put to death, but if he lives, she may choose a husband from the court. The King is cured and Helena chooses Bertram, who rejects her, owing to her poverty and low status.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSheba Blake Publishing
    Release dateOct 26, 2017
    ISBN9781387272600
    Author

    William Shakespeare

    William Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest playwright the world has seen. He produced an astonishing amount of work; 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and 5 poems. He died on 23rd April 1616, aged 52, and was buried in the Holy Trinity Church, Stratford.

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      Book preview

      All's Well That Ends Well - William Shakespeare

      2017

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      PERSONS REPRESENTED.

      ACT I.

      SCENE I.

      SCENE II.

      SCENE III.

      ACT II.

      SCENE I.

      SCENE II.

      SCENE III.

      SCENE IV.

      SCENE V.

      ACT III.

      SCENE I.

      SCENE II.

      SCENE III.

      SCENE IV.

      SCENE V.

      SCENE VI.

      SCENE VII.

      ACT IV.

      SCENE I.

      SCENE II.

      SCENE III.

      SCENE IV.

      SCENE V.

      ACT V.

      SCENE I.

      SCENE II.

      SCENE III.

      PERSONS REPRESENTED.

      KING OF FRANCE.

      THE DUKE OF FLORENCE.

      BERTRAM, Count of Rousillon.

      LAFEU, an old Lord.

      PAROLLES, a follower of Bertram.

      Several young French Lords, that serve with Bertram in the Florentine War.

      Steward, Servant to the Countess of Rousillon.

      Clown, Servant to the Countess of Rousillon.

      A Page, Servant to the Countess of Rousillon.

      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 attending on the KING; Officers; Soldiers, &c., French and Florentine.

      ACT I.

      SCENE I.

      Rousillon. A room in the COUNTESS'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 liv'd 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 to have.

      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 COUNTESS.]

      BERTRAM. The best wishes that can be forg'd in your thoughts [To HELENA.] 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 all!--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. 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. The 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 Looks bleak i' the cold wind: withal, full oft we see Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.

      [Enter PAROLLES.]

      PAROLLES. Save you, fair queen!

      HELENA. And you, monarch!

      PAROLLES. No.

      HELENA. And no.

      PAROLLES. Are you meditating on virginity?

      HELENA. 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?

      PAROLLES. Keep him out.

      HELENA. But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant in the defence, yet is weak: unfold to us some warlike resistance.

      PAROLLES. There is none: man, setting down before you, will undermine you and blow you up.

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

      PAROLLES. 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 increase; and there was never virgin got till virginity was first lost. That you were made of is metal to make virgins. Virginity

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