ALL'S well that ENDS well.

ACT I. SCENE I

Roufillon in France.

Enter Bertram, the Countess of Roufillon, Helena, and Lafeu: in mourning.

COUNTES S.

N delivering my fon from me, I bury a fecond husband.

Ber. And in going, madam, I 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 fo generally is at all times good, must of neceffity hold his virtue to you, whose worthiness would ftir it up where it wanted, rather than lack it where there is fuch abundance.

Count. What hope is there of his Majesty's amendment?

Laf. He hath abandon'd his physicians, madam, under whose practices he hath perfecuted time with hope, and finds no other advantage in the procefs, but only the lofing of hope by time. Count. This young gentlewoman had a father, (O that had! how fad a paffage 'tis!) whofe skill was almost as great as his honesty.

honefty; had it stretch'd so far, it would have made nature immortal, and death fhould have play for lack of work. Would, for the King's fake, he were living, I think it would be the death of the King's disease.

Laf. How call'd you the man you speak of, madam ?

Count. He was famous, Sir, in his profeffion, and it was his great right to be fo: 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 liv'd still, if knowledge could be fet up against mortality.

Ber. What is it, my good lord, the King languishes of?
Laf. A fiftula, 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 fole child, my lord, and bequeathed to my overlooking, I have thofe hopes of her good, that her education promises her; disposition 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 fimpleness, she derives her honefty, and atchieves her goodness.

Laf. Your commendations, madam, get tears from her.

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 forrows takes all livelihood from her cheek. No more of this, Helena, go to, no more, left it be rather thought you affect a forrow, than to have----

Hel. I do affect a forrow indeed, but I have it too.

Laf. Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead, excessive grief the enemy to the living.

Count. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it foon mortal.

Ber.

Ber. Madam, I defire your holy wishes.

Laf. How understand we that?

Count. Be thou blest, Bertram, and fucceed thy father
In manners as in fhape: thy blood and virtue
Contend for empire in thee, and thy goodness
Share with thy birth-right. 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 filence,
But never tax'd for speech. What heav'n more will,
That thee may furnish, and my prayers pluck down,
Fall on thy head. Farewel, my lord;

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

Laf. He cannot want the best

That shall attend his love.

Count. Heav'n blefs him. Farewel, Bertram. [Exit Count. Ber. [to Hel.] The best wishes that can be forg'd in your thoughts be servants to you: be comfortable to my mother, your mistress, and make much of her.

Laf. Farewel, pretty lady, you must hold the credit of your father. [Exeunt Ber. and Laf.

SCENE II.

Hel. Oh 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 it, but my Bertram's.
I am undone, there is no living, none,
If Bertram be away. It were all one
That I should love a bright partic'lar far,

VOL. II.

A a a

And

And think to wed it; he is fo above me:
In his bright radiance and collateral light
Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.
Th'ambition in my love thus plagues it self;
The hind that would be mated by the lion,
Muft die for love. 'Twas pretty, tho' a plague,
To see him every hour, to fit 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 fweet favour.
But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
Muft fanctifie his relicks. Who comes here?

Enter Parolles.

One that goes with him: I love him for his fake,
And yet I know him a notorious liar;

Think him a great way fool, folely a coward;
Yet these fix'd evils fit fo fit in him,

That they take place, when virtue's steely bones
Look bleak in the cold wind; full oft we fee
Cold wisdom waiting on fuperfluous folly.

SCENE III.

Par. Save you, fair Queen.

Hel. And you, monarch.

Par. No.

Hel. And no.

Par. Are you meditating on virginity?

Hel. Ay: you have some stain of foldier in you; let me ask you a question. Man is enemy to virginity, how may we barricado it against him?

Par. Keep him out.

Hel.

Hel. But he affails; and our virginity, though valiant, in the defence yet is weak: unfold to us some warlike resistance.

Par. There is none: man fetting down before you, will undermine you and blow you up.

Hel. Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers up. Is there no military policy how virgins might blow up

men ?

Par. Virginity being blown down, man will quicklier be blown up: marry, in blowing him down again, with the breach your felves made, you lofe your city. It is not politick in the commonwealth of nature, to preserve virginity. Lofs of virginity is rational encrease, and there was never virgin got, 'till virginity was first loft. That you were made of is metal to make virgins. Virginity, by being once loft, may be ten times found: by being ever kept, it is ever loft; 'tis too cold a companion; away with't.

Hel. I will stand for't a little, though therefore I die a virgin.

Par. 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 mother; which is most infallible disobedience. He that hangs ' himself is a virgin: virginity murthers it self, and should be 'buried in high-ways out of all fanctified limit, as a desperate 'offendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites; much like ' a cheese, consumes it felf to the very paring, and so dies with feeding its own stomach. Befides, virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made of self-love, which is the moft prohibited fin in the canon. Keep it not, you cannot chufe but lofe by't. Out ' with't; within ten years it will make it felf two, which is a goodly increase, and the principal it felf not much the worse. Away with't.

6

Hel. How might one do, Sir, to lose it to her own liking? Par. Let me fee. Marry ill, to like him that ne'er it likes.