All's Well That Ends Well: Act 2, Scene 1 Translation

Flourish cornets. Enter the King, attended, with divers
young Lords, taking leave for the Florentine war;
Bertram Count Rossillion, and Parolles.

KING
Farewell, young lords. These warlike principles
Do not throw from you.—And you, my lords,
farewell.
Share the advice betwixt you. If both gain all,
The gift doth stretch itself as ’tis received 5
And is enough for both.

FIRST LORD ’Tis our hope, sir,
After well-entered soldiers, to return
And find your Grace in health.

KING
No, no, it cannot be. And yet my heart 10
Will not confess he owes the malady
That doth my life besiege. Farewell, young lords.
Whether I live or die, be you the sons
Of worthy Frenchmen. Let higher Italy—
Those bated that inherit but the fall 15
Of the last monarchy—see that you come
Not to woo honor but to wed it. When
The bravest questant shrinks, find what you seek,
That fame may cry you loud. I say farewell.

FIRST LORD
Health at your bidding serve your Majesty! 20

KING
Those girls of Italy, take heed of them.
They say our French lack language to deny
If they demand. Beware of being captives
Before you serve.

LORDS Our hearts receive your warnings. 25

KING Farewell.—Come hither to me.

The King speaks to Attendants, while Bertram,
Parolles, and other Lords come forward.

FIRST LORD, to Bertram
O my sweet lord, that you will stay behind us!

PAROLLES
’Tis not his fault, the spark.

SECOND LORD O, ’tis brave wars.

PAROLLES
Most admirable. I have seen those wars. 30

BERTRAM
I am commanded here and kept a coil
With “Too young,” and “The next year,” and “’Tis
too early.”

PAROLLES
An thy mind stand to ’t, boy, steal away bravely.

BERTRAM
I shall stay here the forehorse to a smock, 35
Creaking my shoes on the plain masonry
Till honor be bought up, and no sword worn
But one to dance with. By heaven, I’ll steal away!

FIRST LORD
There’s honor in the theft.

PAROLLES Commit it, count. 40

SECOND LORD
I am your accessory. And so, farewell.

BERTRAM I grow to you, and our parting is a tortured
body.

FIRST LORD Farewell, captain.

SECOND LORD Sweet Monsieur Parolles. 45

PAROLLES Noble heroes, my sword and yours are kin.
Good sparks and lustrous, a word, good metals.
You shall find in the regiment of the Spinii one
Captain Spurio with his cicatrice, an emblem of
war, here on his sinister cheek. It was this very 50
sword entrenched it. Say to him I live, and observe
his reports for me.

FIRST LORD We shall, noble captain.

PAROLLES Mars dote on you for his novices.

Lords exit.

To Bertram. What will you do? 55

BERTRAM Stay the King.

PAROLLES Use a more spacious ceremony to the noble
lords. You have restrained yourself within the list
of too cold an adieu. Be more expressive to them,
for they wear themselves in the cap of the time; 60
there do muster true gait; eat, speak, and move
under the influence of the most received star, and,
though the devil lead the measure, such are to be
followed. After them, and take a more dilated
farewell. 65

BERTRAM And I will do so.

PAROLLES Worthy fellows, and like to prove most
sinewy swordmen.

Bertram and Parolles exit.

Enter Lafew, to the King.

LAFEW, kneeling
Pardon, my lord, for me and for my tidings.

KING I’ll fee thee to stand up. 70

LAFEW, standing
Then here’s a man stands that has brought his
pardon.
I would you had kneeled, my lord, to ask me mercy,
And that at my bidding you could so stand up.

KING
I would I had, so I had broke thy pate 75
And asked thee mercy for ’t.

LAFEW Good faith, across.
But, my good lord, ’tis thus: will you be cured
Of your infirmity?

KING No. 80

LAFEW O, will you eat
No grapes, my royal fox? Yes, but you will
My noble grapes, an if my royal fox
Could reach them. I have seen a medicine
That’s able to breathe life into a stone, 85
Quicken a rock, and make you dance canary
With sprightly fire and motion, whose simple touch
Is powerful to araise King Pippen, nay,
To give great Charlemagne a pen in ’s hand
And write to her a love line. 90

KING What “her” is this?

LAFEW
Why, Doctor She. My lord, there’s one arrived,
If you will see her. Now, by my faith and honor,
If seriously I may convey my thoughts
In this my light deliverance, I have spoke 95
With one that in her sex, her years, profession,
Wisdom, and constancy hath amazed me more
Than I dare blame my weakness. Will you see her—
For that is her demand—and know her business?
That done, laugh well at me. 100

KING Now, good Lafew,
Bring in the admiration, that we with thee
May spend our wonder too, or take off thine
By wond’ring how thou took’st it.

LAFEW Nay, I’ll fit you, 105
And not be all day neither.

He goes to bring in Helen.

KING
Thus he his special nothing ever prologues.

Enter Helen.

LAFEW, to Helen Nay, come your ways.

KING This haste hath wings indeed.

LAFEW Nay, come your ways. 110
This is his Majesty. Say your mind to him.
A traitor you do look like, but such traitors
His Majesty seldom fears. I am Cressid’s uncle
That dare leave two together. Fare you well.

He exits.

KING
Now, fair one, does your business follow us? 115

HELEN Ay, my good lord,
Gerard de Narbon was my father,
In what he did profess well found.

KING I knew him.

HELEN
The rather will I spare my praises towards him. 120
Knowing him is enough. On ’s bed of death
Many receipts he gave me, chiefly one
Which, as the dearest issue of his practice,
And of his old experience th’ only darling,
He bade me store up as a triple eye, 125
Safer than mine own two, more dear. I have so,
And hearing your high Majesty is touched
With that malignant cause wherein the honor
Of my dear father’s gift stands chief in power,
I come to tender it and my appliance 130
With all bound humbleness.

KING We thank you, maiden,
But may not be so credulous of cure,
When our most learnèd doctors leave us and
The congregated college have concluded 135
That laboring art can never ransom nature
From her inaidible estate. I say we must not
So stain our judgment or corrupt our hope
To prostitute our past-cure malady
To empirics, or to dissever so 140
Our great self and our credit to esteem
A senseless help when help past sense we deem.

HELEN
My duty, then, shall pay me for my pains.
I will no more enforce mine office on you,
Humbly entreating from your royal thoughts 145
A modest one to bear me back again.

KING
I cannot give thee less, to be called grateful.
Thou thought’st to help me, and such thanks I give
As one near death to those that wish him live.
But what at full I know, thou know’st no part, 150
I knowing all my peril, thou no art.

HELEN
What I can do can do no hurt to try
Since you set up your rest ’gainst remedy.
He that of greatest works is finisher
Oft does them by the weakest minister. 155
So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown
When judges have been babes. Great floods have flown
From simple sources, and great seas have dried
When miracles have by the great’st been denied.
Oft expectation fails, and most oft there 160
Where most it promises, and oft it hits
Where hope is coldest and despair most shifts.

KING
I must not hear thee. Fare thee well, kind maid.
Thy pains, not used, must by thyself be paid.
Proffers not took reap thanks for their reward. 165

HELEN
Inspirèd merit so by breath is barred.
It is not so with Him that all things knows
As ’tis with us that square our guess by shows;
But most it is presumption in us when
The help of heaven we count the act of men. 170
Dear sir, to my endeavors give consent.
Of heaven, not me, make an experiment.
I am not an impostor that proclaim
Myself against the level of mine aim,
But know I think and think I know most sure 175
My art is not past power nor you past cure.

KING
Art thou so confident? Within what space
Hop’st thou my cure?

HELEN The greatest grace lending grace,
Ere twice the horses of the sun shall bring 180
Their fiery torcher his diurnal ring;
Ere twice in murk and occidental damp
Moist Hesperus hath quenched her sleepy lamp;
Or four and twenty times the pilot’s glass
Hath told the thievish minutes, how they pass, 185
What is infirm from your sound parts shall fly,
Health shall live free, and sickness freely die.

KING
Upon thy certainty and confidence
What dar’st thou venture?

HELEN Tax of impudence, 190
A strumpet’s boldness, a divulgèd shame;
Traduced by odious ballads, my maiden’s name
Seared otherwise; nay, worse of worst, extended
With vilest torture let my life be ended.

KING
Methinks in thee some blessèd spirit doth speak 195
His powerful sound within an organ weak,
And what impossibility would slay
In common sense, sense saves another way.
Thy life is dear, for all that life can rate
Worth name of life in thee hath estimate: 200
Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, all
That happiness and prime can happy call.
Thou this to hazard needs must intimate
Skill infinite or monstrous desperate.
Sweet practicer, thy physic I will try, 205
That ministers thine own death if I die.

HELEN
If I break time or flinch in property
Of what I spoke, unpitied let me die,
And well deserved. Not helping, death’s my fee.
But if I help, what do you promise me? 210

KING
Make thy demand.

HELEN But will you make it even?

KING
Ay, by my scepter and my hopes of heaven.

HELEN
Then shalt thou give me with thy kingly hand
What husband in thy power I will command. 215
Exempted be from me the arrogance
To choose from forth the royal blood of France,
My low and humble name to propagate
With any branch or image of thy state;
But such a one, thy vassal, whom I know 220
Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow.

KING
Here is my hand. The premises observed,
Thy will by my performance shall be served.
So make the choice of thy own time, for I,
Thy resolved patient, on thee still rely. 225
More should I question thee, and more I must,
Though more to know could not be more to trust:
From whence thou cam’st, how tended on; but rest
Unquestioned welcome and undoubted blessed.—
Give me some help here, ho!—If thou proceed 230
As high as word, my deed shall match thy deed.

Flourish. They exit, the King assisted.