All's Well That Ends Well (Signet Classic Shakespeare)
Category: Books,Literature & Fiction,History & Criticism
All's Well That Ends Well (Signet Classic Shakespeare) Details
Review “A remarkable edition, one that makes Shakespeare’s extraordinary accomplishment more vivid than ever.”—James Shapiro, professor, Columbia University, bestselling author of A Year in the Life of Shakespeare: 1599 “A feast of literary and historical information.”—The Wall Street Journal Read more About the Author William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was a poet, playwright, and actor who is widely regarded as one of the most influential writers in the history of the English language. Often referred to as the Bard of Avon, Shakespeare's vast body of work includes comedic, tragic, and historical plays; poems; and 154 sonnets. His dramatic works have been translated into every major language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Read more Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Act 1 Scene 1 running scene 1Enter young Bertram, [the] Count of Rossillion, his mother [the Countess], and Helena, Lord Lafew, all in blackCOUNTESS 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.LAFEW 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?LAFEW 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.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.LAFEW 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.LAFEW 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?LAFEW A fistula, my lord.BERTRAM I heard not of it before.LAFEW 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.LAFEW 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 to have.HELEN I do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have it too.LAFEW 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.LAFEW 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 checked for silence,But never taxed for speech. What heaven more will,That thee may furnish and my prayers pluck down,Fall on thy head! Farewell.- My lord, To Lafew'Tis an unseasoned courtier. Good my lord,Advise him.LAFEW He cannot want the bestThat shall attend his love.COUNTESS Heaven bless him.- Farewell, Bertram. [Exit]BERTRAM The best wishes that can be forged in your To Helenthoughts be servants to you! Be comfortable to my mother, your mistress, and make much of her.LAFEW Farewell, pretty lady. You must hold the credit of your father. [Exeunt Bertram and Lafew]HELEN 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;Th'ambition in my love thus plagues itself:The hind that would be mated by the lionMust die for love. 'Twas pretty, though a plague,To see him every hour, to sit and drawHis archèd brows, his hawking eye, his curlsIn 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 relics. Who comes here?Enter ParollesOne that goes with him: I love him for his sake, AsideAnd yet I know him a notorious liar,Think him a great way fool, solely a coward.Yet these fixed evils sit so fit in himThat they take place when virtue's steely bonesLooks bleak i'th'cold wind. Withal, full oft we seeCold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.PAROLLES Save you, fair queen!HELEN And you, monarch!PAROLLES No.HELEN And no.PAROLLES Are you meditating on virginity?HELEN 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.HELEN 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 setting down before you will undermine you and blow you up.HELEN 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 mettle 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!HELEN 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 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 lose by't. Out with't! Within ten year it will make itself two, which is a goodly increase, and the principal itself not much the worse. Away with't!HELEN 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. Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of fashion: richly suited but unsuitable, just like the brooch and the toothpick, 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 dryly. Marry, 'tis a withered pear: it was formerly better: marry, yet 'tis a withered pear. Will you anything with it?HELEN 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 christendomsThat 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?HELEN That I wish well. 'Tis pity-PAROLLES What's pity?HELEN 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 neverReturns us thanks.Enter PagePAGE Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you. [Exit]PAROLLES Little Helen, farewell. If I can remember thee, I will think of thee at court.HELEN Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable star.PAROLLES Under Mars, ay.HELEN I especially think, under Mars.PAROLLES Why under Mars?HELEN The wars hath so kept you under that you must needs be born under Mars.PAROLLES When he was predominant.HELEN When he was retrograde, I think rather.PAROLLES Why think you so?HELEN You go so much backward when you fight.PAROLLES That's for advantage.HELEN 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.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 wiltbe 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, and use him as he uses thee. So, farewell. [Exit]HELEN 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 stroveTo show her merit that did miss her love?The king's disease - my project may deceive me,But my intents are fixed and will not leave me.Exit[Act 1 Scene 2] running scene 2Flourish cornets. Enter the King of France, with letters, and divers AttendantsKING The Florentines and Senoys are by th'ears,Have fought with equal fortune and continueA braving war.FIRST LORD So 'tis reported, sir.KING Nay, 'tis most credible. We here receive itA certainty, vouched 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 armed 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, Lafew and ParollesFIRST LORD It is the Count Rossillion, my good lord,Young Bertram.KING Youth, thou bear'st thy father's face. To BertramFrank 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 observeToday 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 obeyed his hand. Who were below himHe used as creatures of another placeAnd bowed 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, followed 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 scattered not in ears, but grafted them,To grow there and to bear - 'Let me not live' -This his good melancholy oft beganOn the catastrophe and heel of pastime,When it was out - 'Let me not live,' quoth he,'After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuffOf younger spirits, whose apprehensive sensesAll but new things disdain; whose judgements areMere fathers of their garments, whose constanciesExpire before their fashions.' This he wished.I, after him, do after him wish too,Since I nor wax nor honey can bring home,I quickly were dissolvèd from my hiveTo give some labourers room.SECOND LORD You're loved, sir.They that least lend it you shall lack you first.KING I fill a place, I know't. How long is't, count,Since the physician at your father's died?He was much famed.BERTRAM Some six months since, my lord.KING If he were living, I would try him yet.Lend me an arm: the rest have worn me outWith several applications. Nature and sicknessDebate it at their leisure. Welcome, count.My son's no dearer.BERTRAM Thank your majesty. Exeunt. Flourish Read more
Reviews
As you would expect from Oxford, this is a very well done edition of the play, with a comprehensive introduction (though I wished for a little more theatre history myself) that covers the major issues in this "problem" comedy (though it is not nearly so much a problem play as, say, Troilus and Cressida, in fact being much closer in many ways to Measure for Measure), several textual appendices, an index, useful textual- and foot-notes (there seem to be a great many phrasings in this play that need explanation--a result of revision?), and two of Shakespeare's direct sources in Erasmus and Painter. There were a few points when I disagreed with the interpreations offered in the footnotes, but overall, the apparatus is excellent.As for the play itself, the main action concerns the efforts of Helen to recapture her husband Bertram, who is given to her by the King as a reward for curing his fistula. He does not think she, as a physician's daughter, is worthy of his station and flees to the wars in Italy without consumating the marriage. The comic subplot involves the exposure of the cowardice of his companion, Paroles. Helen evnetually fulfills the requirements Bertram sets out in a letter--to obtain his ring and bear a child by him--through a bed trick, and the play ends where it began, with the King (echoes of Lear?) offering Diana, who helped in the trick, her choice of husband.Overall, a very good edition of a less popular play.