All's Well That Ends Well E-Book

William Shakespeare

• Herausgeber: Sovereign
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Serie: Timeless Classic
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 122

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

The play opens in Rousillon, a Catalan province of Spain, where young Count Bertram bids farewell to his mother the Countess and Helena, as he leaves for the court of Paris at the French King's order. Bertram's father has recently died and Bertram is to be the King's ward and attendant. Helena, a young minor noblewoman and ward of the Countess, whose father has also recently died, laments her unrequited love for Bertram, and losing him to Paris, which weighs on her though it seems to others that she mourns her father.

Leseprobe

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

All’s Well That Ends Well

LONDON ∙ NEW YORK ∙ TORONTO ∙ SAO PAULO ∙ MOSCOW

PARIS ∙ MADRID ∙ BERLIN ∙ ROME ∙ MEXICO CITY ∙ MUMBAI ∙ SEOUL ∙ DOHA

TOKYO ∙ SYDNEY ∙ CAPE TOWN ∙ AUCKLAND ∙ BEIJING

New Edition

Published by Sovereign Classic

www.sovereignclassic.net

This Edition

First published in 2015

Copyright © 2015 Sovereign Classic

Contents

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

ACT I

ACT II

ACT III

ACT IV

ACT V

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

KING OF FRANCE

THE DUKE OF FLORENCE

BERTRAM, Count of Rousillon

LAFEU, an old lord

PAROLLES, a follower of Bertram

TWO FRENCH LORDS, serving with Bertram

STEWARD, Servant to the Countess of Rousillon

LAVACHE, a clown and 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

A WIDOW OF FLORENCE.

DIANA, daughter to the Widow

VIOLENTA, neighbour and friend to the Widow

MARIANA, neighbour and friend to the Widow

Lords, Officers, Soldiers, etc., French and Florentine

SCENE: Rousillon; Paris; Florence; Marseilles

ACT I

SCENE I. ROUSILLON. THE COUNT’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 deathanew: but I must attend his majesty’s command, towhom 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 timesgood must of necessity hold his virtue to you; whoseworthiness would stir it up where it wanted ratherthan 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 whosepractises he hath persecuted time with hope, andfinds no other advantage in the process but only thelosing of hope by time.

COUNTESS

This young gentlewoman had a father,--O, that‘had’! how sad a passage ‘tis!--whose skill wasalmost as great as his honesty; had it stretched sofar, would have made nature immortal, and deathshould have play for lack of work. Would, for theking’s sake, he were living! I think it would bethe 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 washis great right to be so: Gerard de Narbon.

LAFEU

He was excellent indeed, madam: the king verylately spoke of him admiringly and mourningly: hewas skilful enough to have lived still, if knowledgecould 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 gentlewomanthe daughter of Gerard de Narbon?

COUNTESS

His sole child, my lord, and bequeathed to myoverlooking. I have those hopes of her good thather education promises; her dispositions sheinherits, which makes fair gifts fairer; for wherean unclean mind carries virtuous qualities, therecommendations go with pity; they are virtues andtraitors too; in her they are the better for theirsimpleness; 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 praisein. The remembrance of her father never approachesher heart but the tyranny of her sorrows takes alllivelihood from her cheek. No more of this, Helena;go to, no more; lest it be rather thought you affecta sorrow than have it.

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 excessmakes it soon mortal.

BERTRAM

Madam, I desire your holy wishes.

LAFEU

How understand we that?

COUNTESS

Be thou blest, Bertram, and succeed thy fatherIn manners, as in shape! thy blood and virtueContend for empire in thee, and thy goodnessShare with thy birthright! Love all, trust a few,Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemyRather in power than use, and keep thy friendUnder thy own life’s key: be cheque’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 bestThat shall attend his love.

COUNTESS

Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram.

Exit

BERTRAM

[To HELENA] The best wishes that can be forged inyour thoughts be servants to you! Be comfortableto my mother, your mistress, and make much of her.

LAFEU

Farewell, pretty lady: you must hold the credit ofyour father.

Exeunt BERTRAM and LAFEU

HELENA

O, were that all! I think not on my father;And these great tears grace his remembrance moreThan those I shed for him. What was he like?I have forgot him: my imaginationCarries no favour in’t but Bertram’s.I am undone: there is no living, none,If Bertram be away. ‘Twere all oneThat I should love a bright particular starAnd think to wed it, he is so above me:In his bright radiance and collateral lightMust I be comforted, not in his sphere.The ambition in my love thus plagues itself:The hind that would be mated by the lionMust die for love. ‘Twas pretty, though plague,To see him every hour; to sit and drawHis arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,In our heart’s table; heart too capableOf every line and trick of his sweet favour:But now he’s gone, and my idolatrous fancyMust sanctify his reliques. Who comes here?

Enter PAROLLES

Aside

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 fixed evils sit so fit in him,That they take place, when virtue’s steely bonesLook bleak i’ the cold wind: withal, full oft we seeCold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.

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 meask you a question. Man is enemy to virginity; howmay 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 somewarlike resistance.

PAROLLES

There is none: man, sitting down before you, willundermine you and blow you up.

HELENA

Bless our poor virginity from underminers andblowers up! Is there no military policy, howvirgins might blow up men?

PAROLLES

Virginity being blown down, man will quicklier beblown up: marry, in blowing him down again, withthe breach yourselves made, you lose your city. Itis not politic in the commonwealth of nature topreserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rationalincrease and there was never virgin got tillvirginity was first lost. That you were made of ismetal to make virgins. Virginity by being once lostmay be ten times found; by being ever kept, it isever lost: ‘tis too cold a companion; away with ‘t!

HELENA

I will stand for ‘t a little, though therefore I die a virgin.

PAROLLES

There’s little can be said in ‘t; ‘tis against therule of nature. To speak on the part of virginity,is to accuse your mothers; which is most infallibledisobedience. He that hangs himself is a virgin:virginity murders itself and should be buried inhighways out of all sanctified limit, as a desperateoffendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites,much like a cheese; consumes itself to the veryparing, and so dies with feeding his own stomach.Besides, virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made ofself-love, which is the most inhibited sin in thecanon. Keep it not; you cannot choose but looseby’t: out with ‘t! within ten year it will makeitself ten, which is a goodly increase; and theprincipal itself not much the worse: away with ‘t!

HELENA

How might one do, sir, to lose it to her own liking?

PAROLLES

Let me see: marry, ill, to like him that ne’er itlikes. ‘Tis a commodity will lose the gloss withlying; the longer kept, the less worth: off with ‘twhile ‘tis vendible; answer the time of request.Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap outof fashion: richly suited, but unsuitable: justlike the brooch and the tooth-pick, which wear notnow. Your date is better in your pie and yourporridge than in your cheek; and your virginity,your old virginity, is like one of our Frenchwithered pears, it looks ill, it eats drily; marry,‘tis a withered pear; it was formerly better;marry, yet ‘tis a withered pear: will you anything with it?

HELENA

Not my virginity yet [ ]There shall your master have a thousand loves,A mother and a mistress and a friend,A phoenix, captain and an enemy,A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign,A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear;His humble ambition, proud humility,His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet,His faith, his sweet disaster; with a worldOf pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms,That blinking Cupid gossips. Now shall he--I know not what he shall. God send him well!The court’s a learning place, and he is one--

PAROLLES

What one, i’ faith?

HELENA

That I wish well. ‘Tis pity--

PAROLLES

What’s pity?

HELENA

That wishing well had not a body in’t,Which might be felt; that we, the poorer born,Whose baser stars do shut us up in wishes,Might with effects of them follow our friends,And show what we alone must think, which neverReturn us thanks.

Enter Page

Page

Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.

Exit

PAROLLES

Little Helen, farewell; if I can remember thee, Iwill think of thee at court.

HELENA

Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable star.

PAROLLES

Under Mars, I.

HELENA

I especially think, under Mars.

PAROLLES

Why under Mars?

HELENA

The wars have so kept you under that you must needsbe born under Mars.

PAROLLES

When he was predominant.

HELENA

When he was retrograde, I think, rather.

PAROLLES

Why think you so?

HELENA

You go so much backward when you fight.

PAROLLES

That’s for advantage.

HELENA

So is running away, when fear proposes the safety;but the composition that your valour and fear makesin you is a virtue of a good wing, and I like the wear well.

PAROLLES

I am so full of businesses, I cannot answer theeacutely. I will return perfect courtier; in thewhich, my instruction shall serve to naturalizethee, so thou wilt be capable of a courtier’scounsel and understand what advice shall thrust uponthee; else thou diest in thine unthankfulness, andthine ignorance makes thee away: farewell. Whenthou hast leisure, say thy prayers; when thou hastnone, remember thy friends; get thee a good husband,and use him as he uses thee; so, farewell.

Exit

HELENA

Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated skyGives us free scope, only doth backward pullOur slow designs when we ourselves are dull.What power is it which mounts my love so high,That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?The mightiest space in fortune nature bringsTo join like likes and kiss like native things.Impossible be strange attempts to thoseThat weigh their pains in sense and do supposeWhat hath been cannot be: who ever stroveSo show her merit, that did miss her love?The king’s disease--my project may deceive me,But my intents are fix’d and will not leave me.

Exit

SCENE II. PARIS. THE KING’S PALACE.

Flourish of cornets. Enter the KING of France, with letters, and divers Attendants

KING

The Florentines and Senoys are by the ears;Have fought with equal fortune and continueA braving war.

First Lord

So ‘tis reported, sir.

KING

Nay, ‘tis most credible; we here received itA certainty, vouch’d from our cousin Austria,With caution that the Florentine will move usFor speedy aid; wherein our dearest friendPrejudicates the business and would seemTo have us make denial.

First Lord

His love and wisdom,Approved so to your majesty, may pleadFor amplest credence.

KING

He hath arm’d our answer,And Florence is denied before he comes:Yet, for our gentlemen that mean to seeThe Tuscan service, freely have they leaveTo stand on either part.

Second Lord

It well may serveA nursery to our gentry, who are sickFor breathing and exploit.

KING

What’s he comes here?

Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES

First Lord

It is the Count Rousillon, my good lord,Young Bertram.

KING

Youth, thou bear’st thy father’s face;Frank nature, rather curious than in haste,Hath well composed thee. Thy father’s moral partsMayst thou inherit too! Welcome to Paris.

BERTRAM

My thanks and duty are your majesty’s.

KING

I would I had that corporal soundness now,As when thy father and myself in friendshipFirst tried our soldiership! He did look farInto the service of the time and wasDiscipled of the bravest: he lasted long;But on us both did haggish age steal onAnd wore us out of act. It much repairs meTo talk of your good father. In his youthHe had the wit which I can well observeTo-day in our young lords; but they may jestTill their own scorn return to them unnotedEre they can hide their levity in honour;So like a courtier, contempt nor bitternessWere in his pride or sharpness; if they were,His equal had awaked them, and his honour,Clock to itself, knew the true minute whenException bid him speak, and at this timeHis tongue obey’d his hand: who were below himHe used as creatures of another placeAnd bow’d his eminent top to their low ranks,Making them proud of his humility,In their poor praise he humbled. Such a manMight be a copy to these younger times;Which, follow’d well, would demonstrate them nowBut goers backward.

BERTRAM

His good remembrance, sir,Lies richer in your thoughts than on his tomb;So in approof lives not his epitaphAs in your royal speech.

KING

Would I were with him! He would always say--Methinks I hear him now; his plausive wordsHe scatter’d not in ears, but grafted them,To grow there and to bear,--’Let me not live,’--This his good melancholy oft began,On the catastrophe and heel of pastime,