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PAROLLES*, a follower of Bertram.

Several young French Lords, that serve with Bertram in the Florentine war.

Steward,

Clown, S

A Page.

Servants to the Countess of Rousillon,

Countess of Rousillon, Mother to Bertram.

HELENA, a Gentlewoman protected by the Countess.

An old Widow of Florence.

DIANA, Daughter to the Widow.

VIOLENTA,

MARIANA,

Neighbours and Friends to the Widow.

Lords, attending on the King; Officers, Soldiers, &c. French and Florentine.

SCENE, partly in France, and partly in Tuscany.

* Steevens says that we should write Lefeu and Paroies.

[graphic]

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

ACT I.

SCENE I. Rousillon. A Room in the Countess's

Palace.

Enter BERTRAM, the Countess of Rousillon, HELENA, and LAFEU, all in black.

Countess.

N delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband.

o'er

Ber. And I, in going, madam, weep my father's death anew: but I must attend his majesty's command, to whom I am now in ward1, 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 abandoned his physicians, madam;

The heirs of great fortunes were formerly the king's wards. This prerogative was a branch of the feudal law. The custom, it seems, prevailed in Normandy, but not in the part of France where the scene is laid.

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.

2

Count. 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, 'twould 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 called 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 lived 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?

In the Heautontimorumenos of Terence, which had been translated in Shakespeare's time, is the following passage:"Filium unicum adolescentulum

Habeo. Ah quid dixi Habere me? imo

habui, Chreme,

Nunc habeam incertum est."

In Wily Beguiled, a comedy, 1606:—

"She is not mine, I have no daughter now.

That I should say I had thence comes the grief.” The countess remembers her own loss, and hence her sympathy. Passage is occurrence, circumstance.

3 The old copy by mistake omits the 't before would, although there is space for it. I insert it, for otherwise we have no nominative to the verb.

• In Painter's Novel the King's malady is said to be "a swelling upon his breast, which, by reason of ill cure, was grown to be a fistula."

Count. 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 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 simpleness; she derives her honesty, and achieves her goodness.

Laf. Your commendations, madam, get from her

tears.

Count. 'Tis the best brine a maiden can season 5 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 have7.

Hel. I do affect a sorrow, indeed, but I have it too3. 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 mortal9.

Ber. Madam, I desire your holy wishes.

* We feel regret even in commending such qualities, joined with an evil disposition; they are traitors, because they give the possessors power over others; who, admiring such estimable qualities, are often betrayed by the malevolence of the possessors. Helena's virtues are the better because they are artless and open. 5 So in Chapman's version of the third Iliad :—

"Season'd her tears her joys to see," &c.

6 Takes all livelihood from her cheek, i. e. all appearance of life. 7 This kind of phraseology was not peculiar to Shakespeare, though it appears uncouth to us: it is plain that he meant"lest it be rather thought you affect a sorrow than have it."

8 Helena's affected sorrow was for the death of her father; her real grief related to Bertram and his departure.

This speech is given to the Countess in the folio. It evidently belongs to Helen, as Tieck suggested. Like her last it is enigmatical, and the next words of Lafeu, "How understand we that?" refer to it, and could not have gone unanswered if addressed to the Countess.

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