SCENE I. Paris. The KING's palace. All's Well That Ends Well  Shakespeare homepage  |  All's Well That Ends Well  | Act 2, Scene 1 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  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. 



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