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WST/2/02. § 2. William Shakespeare Teatro Completo: 1. All’s Well That Ends Well: b) Act I.

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Libero adattamento per finalità autodidattiche di testi e registrazioni di pubblico dominio tratti da Librivox. Acoustical liberation of books in the public domain. Opere complete di William Shakespeare. Nostra numerazione del Brano: 2. Teatro: All’s Well That Ends Well (1603). Testo derivato dal "Gutenberg Project e registrazione da Librivox.org. Serie: 00 Act I:  download oppure Internet Archive Page  su “Act I” (2).  Etext: Gutenberg Online.  - Dizionari: Dicios; Sansoni. Link: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.
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§ 1.
ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
Act I 

SCENE 1. → 2. 3.


Rousillon. The COUNT'S palace
COUNTESS

    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.

LAFEU

    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?

LAFEU

    He hath abandoned his physicians, madam; under whose
    practises 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.

LAFEU

    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.

LAFEU

    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?

LAFEU

    A fistula, my lord.

BERTRAM

    I heard not of it before.

LAFEU

    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.

LAFEU

    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 have it.

HELENA

    I do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have it too.

LAFEU

    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.

LAFEU

    How understand we that?

COUNTESS

    Be thou blest, Bertram, and succeed thy father
    In manners, as in shape! thy blood and virtue
    Contend for empire in thee, and thy goodness
    Share with thy birthright! Love all, trust a few,
    Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy
    Rather in power than use, and keep thy friend
    Under thy own life's key: be cheque'd for silence,
    But never tax'd for speech. What heaven more will,
    That thee may furnish and my prayers pluck down,
    Fall on thy head! Farewell, my lord;
    'Tis an unseason'd courtier; good my lord,
    Advise him.

LAFEU

    He cannot want the best
    That shall attend his love.

COUNTESS

    Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram.

    Exit

BERTRAM

    [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.

LAFEU

    Farewell, pretty lady: you must hold the credit of
    your father.

    Exeunt BERTRAM and LAFEU

HELENA

    O, were that all! I think not on my father;
    And these great tears grace his remembrance more
    Than those I shed for him. What was he like?
    I have forgot him: my imagination
    Carries no favour in't but Bertram's.
    I am undone: there is no living, none,
    If Bertram be away. 'Twere all one
    That I should love a bright particular star
    And think to wed it, he is so above me:
    In his bright radiance and collateral light
    Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.
    The ambition in my love thus plagues itself:
    The hind that would be mated by the lion
    Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, though plague,
    To see him every hour; to sit and draw
    His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,
    In our heart's table; heart too capable
    Of every line and trick of his sweet favour:
    But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
    Must sanctify his reliques. Who comes here?

    Enter PAROLLES

    Aside
    One that goes with him: I love him for his sake;
    And yet I know him a notorious liar,
    Think him a great way fool, solely a coward;
    Yet these fixed evils sit so fit in him,
    That they take place, when virtue's steely bones
    Look bleak i' the cold wind: withal, full oft we see
    Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.

PAROLLES

    Save you, fair queen!

HELENA

    And you, monarch!

PAROLLES

    No.

HELENA

    And no.

PAROLLES

    Are you meditating on virginity?

HELENA

    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.

HELENA

    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, sitting down before you, will
    undermine you and blow you up.

HELENA

    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
    metal 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!

HELENA

    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 loose
    by't: out with 't! within ten year it will make
    itself ten, which is a goodly increase; and the
    principal itself not much the worse: away with 't!

HELENA

    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 tooth-pick, 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 drily; marry,
    'tis a withered pear; it was formerly better;
    marry, yet 'tis a withered pear: will you anything with it?

HELENA

    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 world
    Of pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms,
    That 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?

HELENA

    That I wish well. 'Tis pity--

PAROLLES

    What's pity?

HELENA

    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 never
    Return us thanks.

    Enter Page

Page

    Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.

    Exit

PAROLLES

    Little Helen, farewell; if I can remember thee, I
    will think of thee at court.

HELENA

    Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable star.

PAROLLES

    Under Mars, I.

HELENA

    I especially think, under Mars.

PAROLLES

    Why under Mars?

HELENA

    The wars have so kept you under that you must needs
    be born under Mars.

PAROLLES

    When he was predominant.

HELENA

    When he was retrograde, I think, rather.

PAROLLES

    Why think you so?

HELENA

    You go so much backward when you fight.

PAROLLES

    That's for advantage.

HELENA

    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 wilt be 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

HELENA

    Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
    Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky
    Gives us free scope, only doth backward pull
    Our 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 brings
    To join like likes and kiss like native things.
    Impossible be strange attempts to those
    That weigh their pains in sense and do suppose
    What hath been cannot be: who ever strove
    So show her merit, that did miss her love?
    The king's disease--my project may deceive me,
    But my intents are fix'd and will not leave me.

    Exit

1. ← SCENE 2. → 3.

 
Paris. The KING's palace.
    Flourish of cornets. Enter the KING of France, with letters, and divers Attendants

KING

    The Florentines and Senoys are by the ears;
    Have fought with equal fortune and continue
    A braving war.

First Lord

    So 'tis reported, sir.

KING

    Nay, 'tis most credible; we here received it
    A certainty, vouch'd from our cousin Austria,
    With caution that the Florentine will move us
    For speedy aid; wherein our dearest friend
    Prejudicates the business and would seem
    To have us make denial.

First Lord

    His love and wisdom,
    Approved so to your majesty, may plead
    For amplest credence.

KING

    He hath arm'd our answer,
    And Florence is denied before he comes:
    Yet, for our gentlemen that mean to see
    The Tuscan service, freely have they leave
    To stand on either part.

Second Lord

    It well may serve
    A nursery to our gentry, who are sick
    For breathing and exploit.

KING

    What's he comes here?

    Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES

First Lord

    It is the Count Rousillon, my good lord,
    Young Bertram.

KING

    Youth, thou bear'st thy father's face;
    Frank nature, rather curious than in haste,
    Hath well composed thee. Thy father's moral parts
    Mayst 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 friendship
    First tried our soldiership! He did look far
    Into the service of the time and was
    Discipled of the bravest: he lasted long;
    But on us both did haggish age steal on
    And wore us out of act. It much repairs me
    To talk of your good father. In his youth
    He had the wit which I can well observe
    To-day in our young lords; but they may jest
    Till their own scorn return to them unnoted
    Ere they can hide their levity in honour;
    So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness
    Were in his pride or sharpness; if they were,
    His equal had awaked them, and his honour,
    Clock to itself, knew the true minute when
    Exception bid him speak, and at this time
    His tongue obey'd his hand: who were below him
    He used as creatures of another place
    And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks,
    Making them proud of his humility,
    In their poor praise he humbled. Such a man
    Might be a copy to these younger times;
    Which, follow'd well, would demonstrate them now
    But goers backward.

BERTRAM

    His good remembrance, sir,
    Lies richer in your thoughts than on his tomb;
    So in approof lives not his epitaph
    As in your royal speech.

KING

    Would I were with him! He would always say--
    Methinks I hear him now; his plausive words
    He scatter'd not in ears, but grafted them,
    To grow there and to bear,--'Let me not live,'--
    This his good melancholy oft began,
    On the catastrophe and heel of pastime,
    When it was out,--'Let me not live,' quoth he,
    'After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff
    Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses
    All but new things disdain; whose judgments are
    Mere fathers of their garments; whose constancies
    Expire before their fashions.' This he wish'd;
    I after him do after him wish too,
    Since I nor wax nor honey can bring home,
    I quickly were dissolved from my hive,
    To give some labourers room.

Second Lord

    You are 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 out
    With several applications; nature and sickness
    Debate it at their leisure. Welcome, count;
    My son's no dearer.

BERTRAM

    Thank your majesty.

    Exeunt. Flourish

1. ← 2. ← SCENE 3.


Rousillon. The COUNT’s palace


    Enter COUNTESS, Steward, and Clown

COUNTESS

    I will now hear; what say you of this gentlewoman?

Steward

    Madam, the care I have had to even your content, I
    wish might be found in the calendar of my past
    endeavours; for then we wound our modesty and make
    foul the clearness of our deservings, when of
    ourselves we publish them.

COUNTESS

    What does this knave here? Get you gone, sirrah:
    the complaints I have heard of you I do not all
    believe: 'tis my slowness that I do not; for I know
    you lack not folly to commit them, and have ability
    enough to make such knaveries yours.

Clown

    'Tis not unknown to you, madam, I am a poor fellow.

COUNTESS

    Well, sir.

Clown

    No, madam, 'tis not so well that I am poor, though
    many of the rich are damned: but, if I may have
    your ladyship's good will to go to the world, Isbel
    the woman and I will do as we may.

COUNTESS

    Wilt thou needs be a beggar?

Clown

    I do beg your good will in this case.

COUNTESS

    In what case?

Clown

    In Isbel's case and mine own. Service is no
    heritage: and I think I shall never have the
    blessing of God till I have issue o' my body; for
    they say barnes are blessings.

COUNTESS

    Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry.

Clown

    My poor body, madam, requires it: I am driven on
    by the flesh; and he must needs go that the devil drives.

COUNTESS

    Is this all your worship's reason?

Clown

    Faith, madam, I have other holy reasons such as they
    are.

COUNTESS

    May the world know them?

Clown

    I have been, madam, a wicked creature, as you and
    all flesh and blood are; and, indeed, I do marry
    that I may repent.

COUNTESS

    Thy marriage, sooner than thy wickedness.

Clown

    I am out o' friends, madam; and I hope to have
    friends for my wife's sake.

COUNTESS

    Such friends are thine enemies, knave.

Clown

    You're shallow, madam, in great friends; for the
    knaves come to do that for me which I am aweary of.
    He that ears my land spares my team and gives me
    leave to in the crop; if I be his cuckold, he's my
    drudge: he that comforts my wife is the cherisher
    of my flesh and blood; he that cherishes my flesh
    and blood loves my flesh and blood; he that loves my
    flesh and blood is my friend: ergo, he that kisses
    my wife is my friend. If men could be contented to
    be what they are, there were no fear in marriage;
    for young Charbon the Puritan and old Poysam the
    Papist, howsome'er their hearts are severed in
    religion, their heads are both one; they may jowl
    horns together, like any deer i' the herd.

COUNTESS

    Wilt thou ever be a foul-mouthed and calumnious knave?

Clown

    A prophet I, madam; and I speak the truth the next
    way:
    For I the ballad will repeat,
    Which men full true shall find;
    Your marriage comes by destiny,
    Your cuckoo sings by kind.

COUNTESS

    Get you gone, sir; I'll talk with you more anon.

Steward

    May it please you, madam, that he bid Helen come to
    you: of her I am to speak.

COUNTESS

    Sirrah, tell my gentlewoman I would speak with her;
    Helen, I mean.

Clown

    Was this fair face the cause, quoth she,
    Why the Grecians sacked Troy?
    Fond done, done fond,
    Was this King Priam's joy?
    With that she sighed as she stood,
    With that she sighed as she stood,
    And gave this sentence then;
    Among nine bad if one be good,
    Among nine bad if one be good,
    There's yet one good in ten.

COUNTESS

    What, one good in ten? you corrupt the song, sirrah.

Clown

    One good woman in ten, madam; which is a purifying
    o' the song: would God would serve the world so all
    the year! we'ld find no fault with the tithe-woman,
    if I were the parson. One in ten, quoth a'! An we
    might have a good woman born but one every blazing
    star, or at an earthquake, 'twould mend the lottery
    well: a man may draw his heart out, ere a' pluck
    one.

COUNTESS

    You'll be gone, sir knave, and do as I command you.

Clown

    That man should be at woman's command, and yet no
    hurt done! Though honesty be no puritan, yet it
    will do no hurt; it will wear the surplice of
    humility over the black gown of a big heart. I am
    going, forsooth: the business is for Helen to come hither.

    Exit

COUNTESS

    Well, now.

Steward

    I know, madam, you love your gentlewoman entirely.

COUNTESS

    Faith, I do: her father bequeathed her to me; and
    she herself, without other advantage, may lawfully
    make title to as much love as she finds: there is
    more owing her than is paid; and more shall be paid
    her than she'll demand.

Steward

    Madam, I was very late more near her than I think
    she wished me: alone she was, and did communicate
    to herself her own words to her own ears; she
    thought, I dare vow for her, they touched not any
    stranger sense. Her matter was, she loved your son:
    Fortune, she said, was no goddess, that had put
    such difference betwixt their two estates; Love no
    god, that would not extend his might, only where
    qualities were level; Dian no queen of virgins, that
    would suffer her poor knight surprised, without
    rescue in the first assault or ransom afterward.
    This she delivered in the most bitter touch of
    sorrow that e'er I heard virgin exclaim in: which I
    held my duty speedily to acquaint you withal;
    sithence, in the loss that may happen, it concerns
    you something to know it.

COUNTESS

    You have discharged this honestly; keep it to
    yourself: many likelihoods informed me of this
    before, which hung so tottering in the balance that
    I could neither believe nor misdoubt. Pray you,
    leave me: stall this in your bosom; and I thank you
    for your honest care: I will speak with you further anon.

    Exit Steward

    Enter HELENA
    Even so it was with me when I was young:
    If ever we are nature's, these are ours; this thorn
    Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong;
    Our blood to us, this to our blood is born;
    It is the show and seal of nature's truth,
    Where love's strong passion is impress'd in youth:
    By our remembrances of days foregone,
    Such were our faults, or then we thought them none.
    Her eye is sick on't: I observe her now.

HELENA

    What is your pleasure, madam?

COUNTESS

    You know, Helen,
    I am a mother to you.

HELENA

    Mine honourable mistress.

COUNTESS

    Nay, a mother:
    Why not a mother? When I said 'a mother,'
    Methought you saw a serpent: what's in 'mother,'
    That you start at it? I say, I am your mother;
    And put you in the catalogue of those
    That were enwombed mine: 'tis often seen
    Adoption strives with nature and choice breeds
    A native slip to us from foreign seeds:
    You ne'er oppress'd me with a mother's groan,
    Yet I express to you a mother's care:
    God's mercy, maiden! does it curd thy blood
    To say I am thy mother? What's the matter,
    That this distemper'd messenger of wet,
    The many-colour'd Iris, rounds thine eye?
    Why? that you are my daughter?

HELENA

    That I am not.

COUNTESS

    I say, I am your mother.

HELENA

    Pardon, madam;
    The Count Rousillon cannot be my brother:
    I am from humble, he from honour'd name;
    No note upon my parents, his all noble:
    My master, my dear lord he is; and I
    His servant live, and will his vassal die:
    He must not be my brother.

COUNTESS

    Nor I your mother?

HELENA

    You are my mother, madam; would you were,--
    So that my lord your son were not my brother,--
    Indeed my mother! or were you both our mothers,
    I care no more for than I do for heaven,
    So I were not his sister. Can't no other,
    But, I your daughter, he must be my brother?

COUNTESS

    Yes, Helen, you might be my daughter-in-law:
    God shield you mean it not! daughter and mother
    So strive upon your pulse. What, pale again?
    My fear hath catch'd your fondness: now I see
    The mystery of your loneliness, and find
    Your salt tears' head: now to all sense 'tis gross
    You love my son; invention is ashamed,
    Against the proclamation of thy passion,
    To say thou dost not: therefore tell me true;
    But tell me then, 'tis so; for, look thy cheeks
    Confess it, th' one to th' other; and thine eyes
    See it so grossly shown in thy behaviors
    That in their kind they speak it: only sin
    And hellish obstinacy tie thy tongue,
    That truth should be suspected. Speak, is't so?
    If it be so, you have wound a goodly clew;
    If it be not, forswear't: howe'er, I charge thee,
    As heaven shall work in me for thine avail,
    Tell me truly.

HELENA

    Good madam, pardon me!

COUNTESS

    Do you love my son?

HELENA

    Your pardon, noble mistress!

COUNTESS

    Love you my son?

HELENA

    Do not you love him, madam?

COUNTESS

    Go not about; my love hath in't a bond,
    Whereof the world takes note: come, come, disclose
    The state of your affection; for your passions
    Have to the full appeach'd.

HELENA

    Then, I confess,
    Here on my knee, before high heaven and you,
    That before you, and next unto high heaven,
    I love your son.
    My friends were poor, but honest; so's my love:
    Be not offended; for it hurts not him
    That he is loved of me: I follow him not
    By any token of presumptuous suit;
    Nor would I have him till I do deserve him;
    Yet never know how that desert should be.
    I know I love in vain, strive against hope;
    Yet in this captious and intenible sieve
    I still pour in the waters of my love
    And lack not to lose still: thus, Indian-like,
    Religious in mine error, I adore
    The sun, that looks upon his worshipper,
    But knows of him no more. My dearest madam,
    Let not your hate encounter with my love
    For loving where you do: but if yourself,
    Whose aged honour cites a virtuous youth,
    Did ever in so true a flame of liking
    Wish chastely and love dearly, that your Dian
    Was both herself and love: O, then, give pity
    To her, whose state is such that cannot choose
    But lend and give where she is sure to lose;
    That seeks not to find that her search implies,
    But riddle-like lives sweetly where she dies!

COUNTESS

    Had you not lately an intent,--speak truly,--
    To go to Paris?

HELENA

    Madam, I had.

COUNTESS

    Wherefore? tell true.

HELENA

    I will tell truth; by grace itself I swear.
    You know my father left me some prescriptions
    Of rare and proved effects, such as his reading
    And manifest experience had collected
    For general sovereignty; and that he will'd me
    In heedfull'st reservation to bestow them,
    As notes whose faculties inclusive were
    More than they were in note: amongst the rest,
    There is a remedy, approved, set down,
    To cure the desperate languishings whereof
    The king is render'd lost.

COUNTESS

    This was your motive
    For Paris, was it? speak.

HELENA

    My lord your son made me to think of this;
    Else Paris and the medicine and the king
    Had from the conversation of my thoughts
    Haply been absent then.

COUNTESS

    But think you, Helen,
    If you should tender your supposed aid,
    He would receive it? he and his physicians
    Are of a mind; he, that they cannot help him,
    They, that they cannot help: how shall they credit
    A poor unlearned virgin, when the schools,
    Embowell'd of their doctrine, have left off
    The danger to itself?

HELENA

    There's something in't,
    More than my father's skill, which was the greatest
    Of his profession, that his good receipt
    Shall for my legacy be sanctified
    By the luckiest stars in heaven: and, would your honour
    But give me leave to try success, I'ld venture
    The well-lost life of mine on his grace's cure
    By such a day and hour.

COUNTESS

    Dost thou believe't?

HELENA

    Ay, madam, knowingly.

COUNTESS

    Why, Helen, thou shalt have my leave and love,
    Means and attendants and my loving greetings
    To those of mine in court: I'll stay at home
    And pray God's blessing into thy attempt:
    Be gone to-morrow; and be sure of this,
    What I can help thee to thou shalt not miss.

    Exeunt

Dramatis personae ↔  Act II.

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