All's Well That Ends Well, Act 1, Scene 3

William Shakespeare

The story so far

Earlier in the play

Bertram has left his mother, the Countess, to become the king’s ward. Helena, the late physician Gerard de Narbon’s daughter, remains in the Countess’s care. She loves Bertram but considers his rank above hers, and has fixed on a plan concerning the king’s illness.

In the last scene: Act 1, Scene 2

The king decides to refuse Florence military aid but allows French gentlemen to fight on either side. He welcomes Bertram to Paris and praises his late father. Learning that Gerard de Narbon has been dead for six months, he says he would still try his treatment if he were alive.

SCENE III. Rossillon. A Room in the 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 of 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 of friends, madam, and I hope to have friends for my wife’s sake.

COUNTESS

Such friends are thine enemies, knave.

CLOWN

Y’are shallow, madam, in great friends; for the knaves come to do that for me which I am a-weary 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 sever’d 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-mouth’d 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

Sings.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’d find no fault with the tithe-woman, if I were the parson. One in ten, quoth ’a! And we might have a good woman born but or every blazing star, or at an earthquake, ’twould mend the lottery well; a man may draw his heart out ere he 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 bequeath’d 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 wish’d me; alone she was, and did communicate to herself her own words to her own ears; she thought, I dare vow for her, they touch’d 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; Diana no queen of virgins, that would suffer her poor knight surpris’d, without rescue in the first assault or ransom afterward. This she deliver’d 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 discharg’d this honestly; keep it to yourself; many likelihoods inform’d 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.

COUNTESS

Even so it was with me when I was young;If ever we are nature’s, these are ours; this thornDoth 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 thoseThat were enwombed mine. ’Tis often seenAdoption strives with nature, and choice breedsA 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 bloodTo say I am thy mother? What’s the matter,That this distempered 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 Rossillon cannot be my brother.I am from humble, he from honoured name;No note upon my parents, his all noble,My master, my dear lord he is; and IHis 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 motherSo strive upon your pulse. What! pale again?My fear hath catch’d your fondness; now I seeThe mystery of your loneliness, and findYour salt tears’ head. Now to all sense ’tis grossYou love my son; invention is asham’d,Against the proclamation of thy passionTo say thou dost not. Therefore tell me true;But tell me then, ’tis so; for, look, thy cheeksConfess it, t’one to th’other; and thine eyesSee it so grossly shown in thy behaviours,That in their kind they speak it; only sinAnd 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,To 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 bondWhereof the world takes note. Come, come, discloseThe state of your affection, for your passionsHave 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 himThat he is lov’d of me; I follow him notBy 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 inteemable sieveI still pour in the waters of my loveAnd lack not to lose still. Thus, Indian-like,Religious in mine error, I adoreThe 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 DianWas both herself and love; O then, give pityTo her whose state is such that cannot chooseBut 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 prescriptionsOf rare and prov’d effects, such as his readingAnd manifest experience had collectedFor general sovereignty; and that he will’d meIn heedfull’st reservation to bestow them,As notes whose faculties inclusive wereMore than they were in note. Amongst the restThere is a remedy, approv’d, set down,To cure the desperate languishings whereofThe king is render’d lost.

COUNTESS

This was your motiveFor 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 thoughtsHaply been absent then.

COUNTESS

But think you, Helen,If you should tender your supposed aid,He would receive it? He and his physiciansAre of a mind; he, that they cannot help him;They, that they cannot help. How shall they creditA poor unlearned virgin, when the schools,Embowell’d of their doctrine, have let offThe danger to itself?

HELENA

There’s something in’tMore than my father’s skill, which was the great’stOf his profession, that his good receiptShall for my legacy be sanctifiedBy th’ luckiest stars in heaven; and would your honourBut give me leave to try success, I’d ventureThe well-lost life of mine on his grace’s cure.By such a day, an 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 greetingsTo those of mine in court. I’ll stay at home,And pray God’s blessing into thy attempt.Be gone tomorrow; and be sure of this,What I can help thee to, thou shalt not miss.

Exeunt.

Characters

Speaking

Countess33 speeches
14 speeches
Clown13 speeches
Steward4 speeches

Mentioned

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Themes

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Questions on this scene

Reading
Whom does the Clown want to marry?
Reading
Reading

Locations

RoussillonScene
The home of Bertram, Count of Roussillon, and his mother, the Countess. Helena grows up in their household; the opening scenes and the final reconciliation take place here. The precise site of the count's house is unspecified.
Set here · 2 quotes in this scene

Also mentioned

Paris5 quotes in this scene · characters travel here or from here