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

Enter Countess and Fool.

COUNTESS Come on, sir. I shall now put you to the
height of your breeding.

FOOL I will show myself highly fed and lowly taught. I
know my business is but to the court.

COUNTESS “To the court”? Why, what place make you 5
special when you put off that with such contempt?
“But to the court”?

FOOL Truly, madam, if God have lent a man any manners,
he may easily put it off at court. He that cannot
make a leg, put off ’s cap, kiss his hand, and 10
say nothing, has neither leg, hands, lip, nor cap;
and indeed such a fellow, to say precisely, were
not for the court. But, for me, I have an answer
will serve all men.

COUNTESS Marry, that’s a bountiful answer that fits all 15
questions.

FOOL It is like a barber’s chair that fits all buttocks:
the pin-buttock, the quatch-buttock, the brawn-buttock,
or any buttock.

COUNTESS Will your answer serve fit to all questions? 20

FOOL As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney,
as your French crown for your taffety punk, as
Tib’s rush for Tom’s forefinger, as a pancake for
Shrove Tuesday, a morris for May Day, as the nail
to his hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding 25
quean to a wrangling knave, as the nun’s lip to the
friar’s mouth, nay, as the pudding to his skin.

COUNTESS Have you, I say, an answer of such fitness
for all questions?

FOOL From below your duke to beneath your constable, 30
it will fit any question.

COUNTESS It must be an answer of most monstrous
size that must fit all demands.

FOOL But a trifle neither, in good faith, if the learned
should speak truth of it. Here it is, and all that 35
belongs to ’t. Ask me if I am a courtier; it shall do
you no harm to learn.

COUNTESS To be young again, if we could! I will be a
fool in question, hoping to be the wiser by your
answer. I pray you, sir, are you a courtier? 40

FOOL O Lord, sir!—There’s a simple putting off. More,
more, a hundred of them.

COUNTESS Sir, I am a poor friend of yours that loves
you.

FOOL O Lord, sir!—Thick, thick. Spare not me. 45

COUNTESS I think, sir, you can eat none of this homely
meat.

FOOL O Lord, sir!—Nay, put me to ’t, I warrant you.

COUNTESS You were lately whipped, sir, as I think.

FOOL O Lord, sir!—Spare not me. 50

COUNTESS Do you cry “O Lord, sir!” at your whipping,
and “spare not me”? Indeed your “O Lord, sir!” is
very sequent to your whipping. You would answer
very well to a whipping if you were but bound to ’t.

FOOL I ne’er had worse luck in my life in my “O Lord, 55
sir!” I see things may serve long but not serve ever.

COUNTESS I play the noble huswife with the time to
entertain it so merrily with a fool.

FOOL O Lord, sir!—Why, there ’t serves well again.

COUNTESS, giving him a paper
An end, sir. To your business. Give Helen this, 60
And urge her to a present answer back.
Commend me to my kinsmen and my son.
This is not much.

FOOL Not much commendation to them?

COUNTESS
Not much employment for you. You understand me. 65

FOOL Most fruitfully. I am there before my legs.

COUNTESS Haste you again.

They exit.