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    All's Well That Ends Well
    All's Well That Ends Well
    All's Well That Ends Well
    Ebook157 pages1 hour

    All's Well That Ends Well

    By William Shakespeare

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    All's Well That Ends Well is a play by William Shakespeare, originally classified as a comedy, though now often counted as one of his problem plays, so-called because they cannot be easily classified as tragedy or comedy. It was probably written in later middle part of Shakespeare's career, between 1601 and 1608, and was first published in the First Folio in 1623.

    The name of the play comes from the proverb All's well that ends well, which means that problems do not matter so long as the outcome is good.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWS
    Release dateJun 13, 2018
    ISBN9782291040453
    Author

    William Shakespeare

    William Shakespeare was born in April 1564 in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon, on England’s Avon River. When he was eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway. The couple had three children—an older daughter Susanna and twins, Judith and Hamnet. Hamnet, Shakespeare’s only son, died in childhood. The bulk of Shakespeare’s working life was spent in the theater world of London, where he established himself professionally by the early 1590s. He enjoyed success not only as a playwright and poet, but also as an actor and shareholder in an acting company. Although some think that sometime between 1610 and 1613 Shakespeare retired from the theater and returned home to Stratford, where he died in 1616, others believe that he may have continued to work in London until close to his death.

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      Book preview

      All's Well That Ends Well - William Shakespeare

      All's Well That Ends Well

      William Shakespeare

       Copyright © 2018 by OPU

      All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

      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 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

      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

      '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 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.

      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 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?

      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;

      '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

      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

      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

      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.

      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, 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

      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,

      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

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