All's Well That Ends Well, with line numbers E-Book

William Shakespeare

• Herausgeber: Seltzer Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 125

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

The classic comedy. According to Wikipedia: "All's Well That Ends Well is a play by William Shakespeare. It was probably written between 1601 and 1608, and it was first published in the First Folio in 1623. Though originally the play was classified as a comedy, the play is now often considered one of his problem plays.[citation needed] These plays of Shakespeare's are so named because they cannot be neatly classified as tragedy or comedy."

Leseprobe

All's Well That Ends Well By William Shakespeare

published by Samizdat Express, Orange, CT, USA

established in 1974, offering over 14,000 books

Other comedies by William Shakespeare:

As You Like It

The Comedy of Errors

Love's Labour's Lost

Measure for Measure

The Merchant of Venice

The Merry Wives of Windsor

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Much Ado About Nothing

The Taming of the Shrew

Twelfth Night

Two Gentlemen of Verona

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Dramatis Personae

All's Well That Ends Well

Act I

Scene I Rousillon. The Count's palace.

Scene II Paris. The King's palace.

Scene III Rousillon. The Count's palace.

Act II

Scene I Paris. The King's palace.

Scene II Rousillon. The Count's palace.

Scene III Paris. The King's palace.

Scene IV Paris. The King's palace.

Scene V Paris. The King's palace.

Act III

Scene I Florence. The Duke's palace.

Scene II Rousillon. The Count's palace.

Scene III Florence. Before the Duke's palace.

Scene IV Rousillon. The Count's palace.

Scene V Florence. Without the walls. A tucket afar off.

Scene VI Camp before Florence.

Scene VII Florence. The Widow's house.

Act IV

Scene I Without the Florentine camp.

Scene II Rousillon. Before the Count's palace.

Scene III The Florentine camp.

Scene IV Florence. The Widow's house.

Scene V Rousillon. The Count's palace.

Act V

Scene I Marseilles. A street.

Scene II Rousillon. Before the Count's palace.

Scene III Rousillon. The Count's palace.

Epilogue

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

King of France (King:)

Duke of Florence (Duke:)

Bertram, Count of Rousillon.

Lafeu, an old Lord.

Parolles, a follower of Bertram.

Servants to the Countess of Rousillon

Steward

Clown

A Page. (Page:)

Countess Of Rousillon, Mother to Bertram. (Countess:)

Helena, a gentlewoman protected by the Countess.

An old Widow of Florence. (Widow:)

Diana, daughter to the Widow.

Neighbours and friends to the Widow

Violenta

Mariana

Lords, Officers, Soldiers, &c., French and Florentine.

 (First Lord:)

 (Second Lord:)

 (Fourth Lord:)

 (First Gentleman:)

 (Second Gentleman:)

 (First Soldier:)

 (Gentleman:)

SCENE Rousillon; Paris; Florence; Marseilles.

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

ACT I

SCENE I Rousillon. The COUNT's palace.

 [Enter BERTRAM, the COUNTESS of Rousillon, HELENA, and LAFEU, all in black]

(1) 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

(10) 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

 practises 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

(20) '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

(30) 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 lived 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.

(40) 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

(50) 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;

(60) go to, no more; lest it be rather thought you affect

 a 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 excess

 makes it soon mortal.

BERTRAM Madam, I desire your holy wishes.

LAFEU How understand we that?

(70) 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 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;

(80) '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]

BERTRAM [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.

LAFEU Farewell, pretty lady: you must hold the credit of

 your father.

 [Exeunt BERTRAM and LAFEU]

(90) 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. 'Twere 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

(100) 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 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 reliques. Who comes here?

 [Enter PAROLLES]

 [Aside]

(110) 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 bones

 Look bleak i' the cold wind: withal, full oft we see

 Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.

PAROLLES Save you, fair queen!

HELENA And you, monarch!

PAROLLES No.

(120) 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.

(130) PAROLLES There is none: man, sitting 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

(140) 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!

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 the

 rule of nature. To speak on the part of virginity,

(150) 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 loose

(160) by't: out with 't! within ten year it will make

 itself ten, which is a goodly increase; and the

 principal 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 it

 likes. 'Tis a commodity will lose the gloss with

 lying; the longer kept, the less worth: off with 't

 while 'tis vendible; answer the time of request.

(170) Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out

 of fashion: richly suited, but unsuitable: just

 like the brooch and the tooth-pick, which wear not

 now. Your date is better in your pie and your

 porridge than in your cheek; and your virginity,

 your old virginity, is like one of our French

 withered 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 [         ]

(180) 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 world

 Of pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms,

 That blinking Cupid gossips. Now shall he--

(190) 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 never

(200) Return us thanks.

 [Enter PAGE]

PAGE Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.

 [Exit]

PAROLLES Little Helen, farewell; if I can remember thee, I

 will 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 needs

(210) be 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 makes

 in you is a virtue of a good wing, and I like the wear well.

(220) PAROLLES I am so full of businesses, I cannot answer thee

 acutely. I will return perfect courtier; in the

 which, my instruction shall serve to naturalize

 thee, so thou wilt be capable of a courtier's

 counsel and understand what advice shall thrust upon

 thee; else thou diest in thine unthankfulness, and

 thine ignorance makes thee away: farewell. When

 thou hast leisure, say thy prayers; when thou hast

 none, remember thy friends; get thee a good husband,

(230) 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 sky

 Gives us free scope, only doth backward pull

 Our 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 brings

 To join like likes and kiss like native things.

 Impossible be strange attempts to those

(240) That weigh their pains in sense and do suppose

 What hath been cannot be: who ever strove

 So 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]

(1) KING The Florentines and Senoys are by the ears;

 Have fought with equal fortune and continue

 A braving war.

FIRST LORD                   So 'tis reported, sir.

KING Nay, 'tis most credible; we here received it

 A certainty, vouch'd from our cousin Austria,

 With caution that the Florentine will move us

 For speedy aid; wherein our dearest friend

 Prejudicates the business and would seem

 To have us make denial.

FIRST LORD His love and wisdom,

(10) Approved so to your majesty, may plead

 For amplest credence.

KING He hath arm'd our answer,

 And Florence is denied before he comes:

 Yet, for our gentlemen that mean to see

 The Tuscan service, freely have they leave

 To stand on either part.

SECOND LORD It well may serve

 A nursery to our gentry, who are sick

 For 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;

(20) Frank nature, rather curious than in haste,

 Hath well composed thee. Thy father's moral parts

 Mayst 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 friendship

 First tried our soldiership! He did look far

 Into the service of the time and was

 Discipled of the bravest: he lasted long;