ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL ACT I. SCENE I. Rousillon. A Room in the COUNTESS's Palace. Enter BERTRAM, the COUNTESS of Rousillon, Count. In delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband. Ber. 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. Laf. 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. Count. What hope is there of his majesty's amendment? Laf. He hath abandon'd his physicians, madam ; 1 Under the old feudal law of England, the heirs of great for tunes were the king's wards. The same was also the case in Normandy, and Shakespeare but extends a law of a province over the whole nation. H. 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. Count. This young gentlewoman had a father, —O, that had! how sad a passage 2 'tis ! whose skill was almost as great as his honesty; had it stretch'd 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. Laf. How call'd you the man you speak of, madam ? Count. He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his great right to be so, 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 set up against mortality. Ber. What is it, my good lord, the king languishes of? Laf. A fistula, 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 sole child, my lord; and bequeathed to my overlooking. I have those hopes of her good, hat her education promises: her dispositions she inherits, which make 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 Passage is occurrence, event, any thing that passes; a good old use of the word, now obsolete. H simpleness; she derives her honesty, and achieves her goodness.3 Laf. Your commendations, madam, get from her tears. 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 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. Hel. I do affect a sorrow, indeed; but I have it too." Laf. Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead, excessive grief the enemy to the living. Hel. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal. 3 Some of the terms in this passage are used in such senses as to render the meaning of the whole rather obscure. Dispositions are what belongs to her nature; the clean mind that was born with aer fair gifts are the same as virtuous qualities; the results of education and breeding. And such graces of art, if grafted into a vicious nature, are traitors, inasmuch as they lodge power in hands that are apt to use it for evil ends: the unclean mind yields motives to turn the fruits of good culture into a snare. But in Helena these fair gifts and virtuous qualities are the better for their simpleness, that is, for being unmixed with any such native ugliness. Thus she is naturally honest; her nature is framed to truth, as yielding no motive to seem other than she is; whereas goodness, as the term is here used, is a thing that cannot be, unless it be achieved. H. 4 Of course to keep it fresh and sweet. Some editors think this "a coarse and vulgar metaphor:" alas, what a pity! For this use of season, see Twelfth Night, Act i. sc. 1, note 7. H. 5 Helena's affected sorrow was for the death of her father; her real grief related to Bertram and his departure. 6 This speech, enigmatical enough at best, is rendered quite unintelligible, both in the original and in modern editions, by being put into the mouth of the Countess. We therefore concur with Tieck and Knight in assigning it to Helena. It is in the same style of significant obscurity as her preceding speech; and we can see no meaning in it apart from her state of mind; absorbed, as Ber Madam, I desire your holy wishes. Count. Be thou blest, Bertram; and succeed thy father and thy goodness Love all, trust a few, for thine enemy In manners, as in shape! thy blood, and virtue, will, That thee may furnish, and my prayers pluck down, Fall on thy head! Farewell.—[To LAF.] My lord. 'Tis an unseason'd courtier; good my lord, Advise him. Laf. He cannot want the best That shall attend his love. Count. Farewell, Bertram. Heaven bless him! [Exit. Ber. [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. Laf. Farewell, pretty lady: You must hold the credit of your father. [Exeunt BER. and LAF. she is, with a feeling which she dare not show and cannot suppress. Of course she refers to Bertram, and means that the grief of her unrequited love for him makes mortal, that is, kills the grief she felt at her father's death. The speech is so mysterious that none but the quick, sagacious mind of Lafeu is arrested by it: he at once understands that he does not understand the speaker. Coleridg says, -"Bertram and Lafeu, I imagine, both speak together." Whether this be the case or not, there can be no doubt that Lafeu's question refers to what Helena has just said. H. 7 That is, may you be mistress of your wishes, and have power to bring them to effect. Hel. O, were that all! — I think not on my father; And these great tears grace his remembrance more Than those I shed for him.3 What was he like? I have forgot him: my imagination 9 To see him every hour; to sit and draw Enter PAROLLES. 10 One that goes with him: I love him for his sake; Think him a great way fool, solely a coward; That is, they grace his remembrance, in that they are thought to flow for him; whereas Bertram's departure is the real cause of them. H. Helena considers her heart as the tablet on which his picture was drawn. 10 Favour is here used, as a little before, for countenance. Trick, the commentators say, here bears the sense of trace; an heraldic use of the word, found in Ben Jonson: but why may it not have the ordinary nieaning of a snare, or any taking device that captivates the beholder? Capable is susceptible, apt to re ceive. H |