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

SCENE: Rousillon; Paris; Florence; Marseilles.

All's Well that Ends Well,

ACT FIRST.

Scene I.

Rousillon. The Count's palace.

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, O,

that had'! how sad a passage 'tis !—whose

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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.

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.
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 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.

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Laf. Your commendations, madam, get from her 50

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, go to, no more; lest
it be rather thought you affect a sorrow than to
have-

Hel. I do affect a sorrow, indeed, but I have it too.
Laf. Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead; 60
excessive grief the enemy to the living.

Count. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess

makes it soon mortal.

Ber. Madam, I desire your holy wishes.

Laf. How understand we that?

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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;

Laf.

'Tis an unseason'd courtier; good my lord,
Advise him.

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 80

in your thoughts be servants to you! Be com-
fortable 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! 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
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 reliques. Who comes here?

Enter Parolles.

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[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 fix'd evils sit so fit in him,

That they take place, when virtue's steely bones IIO

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

Par. Save you, fair queen!