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All's Well That Ends Well, Act 2, Scene 1

William Shakespeare
Every note, for your class

The story so far

Earlier in the play

Bertram has gone to Paris as the King’s ward, accompanied by Lafew and Parolles. The King is gravely ill and has abandoned his physicians. He refuses aid to Florence in its war but permits French gentlemen to fight on either side.

In the last scene: Act 1, Scene 3

The Steward tells the Countess that Helena loves Bertram. Helena admits her love and explains her plan to take her late father’s remedy to Paris to cure the King. The Countess gives her permission to leave the next day, promising money, attendants and greetings to friends at court.

SCENE I. Paris. A room in the King’s palace.

Flourish. Enter the King with young Lords taking leave for the Florentine war; Bertram, Parolles and Attendants.
KING
Farewell, young lords; these warlike principlesDo not throw from you; and you, my lords, farewell;Share the advice betwixt you; if both gain all,The gift doth stretch itself as ’tis receiv’d,And is enough for both.
FIRST LORD
’Tis our hope, sir,After well-ent’red soldiers, to returnAnd find your grace in health.
KING
No, no, it cannot be; and yet my heartWill not confess he owes the maladyThat doth my life besiege. Farewell, young lords.Whether I live or die, be you the sonsOf worthy Frenchmen; let higher Italy,—Those bated that inherit but the fallOf the last monarchy—see that you comeNot to woo honour, but to wed it, whenThe bravest questant shrinks: find what you seek,That fame may cry you loud. I say farewell.
SECOND LORD
Health, at your bidding serve your majesty!
KING
Those girls of Italy, take heed of them;They say our French lack language to denyIf they demand; beware of being captivesBefore you serve.
BOTH
Our hearts receive your warnings.
KING
Farewell.—Come hither to me.
The King retires to a couch.
FIRST LORD
O my sweet lord, that you will stay behind us!
PAROLLES
’Tis not his fault; the spark.
SECOND LORD
O, ’tis brave wars!
PAROLLES
Most admirable! I have seen those wars.
BERTRAM
I am commanded here, and kept a coil with,“Too young”, and “the next year” and “’tis too early”.
PAROLLES
An thy mind stand to’t, boy, steal away bravely.
BERTRAM
I shall stay here the forehorse to a smock,Creaking my shoes on the plain masonry,Till honour be bought up, and no sword wornBut one to dance with. By heaven, I’ll steal away.
FIRST LORD
There’s honour in the theft.
PAROLLES
Commit it, count.
SECOND LORD
I am your accessary; and so farewell.
BERTRAM
I grow to you, and our parting is a tortur’d body.
FIRST LORD
Farewell, captain.
SECOND LORD
Sweet Monsieur Parolles!
PAROLLES
Noble heroes, my sword and yours are kin. Good sparks and lustrous, a word, good metals. You shall find in the regiment of the Spinii one Captain Spurio, with his cicatrice, an emblem of war, here on his sinister cheek; it was this very sword entrench’d it. Say to him I live; and observe his reports for me.
FIRST LORD
We shall, noble captain.
PAROLLES
Mars dote on you for his novices!
Exeunt Lords.
PAROLLES
What will ye do?
BERTRAM
Stay the king.
PAROLLES
Use a more spacious ceremony to the noble lords; you have restrain’d yourself within the list of too cold an adieu. Be more expressive to them; for they wear themselves in the cap of the time; there do muster true gait; eat, speak, and move, under the influence of the most receiv’d star; and though the devil lead the measure, such are to be followed. After them, and take a more dilated farewell.
BERTRAM
And I will do so.
PAROLLES
Worthy fellows, and like to prove most sinewy sword-men.
Exeunt Bertram and Parolles.
Enter Lafew.
LAFEW
Pardon, my lord , for me and for my tidings.
KING
I’ll fee thee to stand up.
LAFEW
Then here’s a man stands that has brought his pardon.I would you had kneel’d, my lord, to ask me mercy,And that at my bidding you could so stand up.
KING
I would I had; so I had broke thy pate,And ask’d thee mercy for’t.
LAFEW
Good faith, across;But, my good lord, ’tis thus: will you be cur’dOf your infirmity?
KING
No.
LAFEW
O, will you eatNo grapes, my royal fox? Yes, but you willMy noble grapes, and if my royal foxCould reach them. I have seen a medicineThat’s able to breathe life into a stone,Quicken a rock, and make you dance canaryWith sprightly fire and motion; whose simple touchIs powerful to araise King Pippen, nay,To give great Charlemain a pen in’s handAnd write to her a love-line.
KING
What ‘her’ is this?
LAFEW
Why, doctor ‘she’! My lord, there’s one arriv’d,If you will see her. Now, by my faith and honour,If seriously I may convey my thoughtsIn this my light deliverance, I have spokeWith one that in her sex, her years, profession,Wisdom, and constancy, hath amaz’d me moreThan I dare blame my weakness. Will you see her,For that is her demand, and know her business?That done, laugh well at me.
KING
Now, good Lafew,Bring in the admiration; that we with theeMay spend our wonder too, or take off thineBy wond’ring how thou took’st it.
LAFEW
Nay, I’ll fit you,And not be all day neither.
Exit Lafew.
KING
Thus he his special nothing ever prologues.
Enter Lafew with Helena.
LAFEW
Nay, come your ways.
KING
This haste hath wings indeed.
LAFEW
Nay, come your ways.This is his majesty, say your mind to him.A traitor you do look like, but such traitorsHis majesty seldom fears; I am Cressid’s uncle,That dare leave two together. Fare you well.
Exit.
KING
Now, fair one, does your business follow us?
HELENA
Ay, my good lord.Gerard de Narbon was my father,In what he did profess, well found.
KING
I knew him.
HELENA
The rather will I spare my praises towards him.Knowing him is enough. On his bed of deathMany receipts he gave me; chiefly one,Which, as the dearest issue of his practice,And of his old experience the only darling,He bade me store up as a triple eye,Safer than mine own two; more dear I have so,And hearing your high majesty is touch’dWith that malignant cause, wherein the honourOf my dear father’s gift stands chief in power,I come to tender it, and my appliance,With all bound humbleness.
KING
We thank you, maiden,But may not be so credulous of cure,When our most learned doctors leave us, andThe congregated college have concludedThat labouring art can never ransom natureFrom her inaidable estate. I say we must notSo stain our judgment, or corrupt our hope,To prostitute our past-cure maladyTo empirics, or to dissever soOur great self and our credit, to esteemA senseless help, when help past sense we deem.
HELENA
My duty then shall pay me for my pains.I will no more enforce mine office on you,Humbly entreating from your royal thoughtsA modest one to bear me back again.
KING
I cannot give thee less, to be call’d grateful.Thou thought’st to help me; and such thanks I giveAs one near death to those that wish him live.But what at full I know, thou know’st no part;I knowing all my peril, thou no art.
HELENA
What I can do can do no hurt to try,Since you set up your rest ’gainst remedy.He that of greatest works is finisherOft does them by the weakest minister.So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown,When judges have been babes. Great floods have flownFrom simple sources, and great seas have driedWhen miracles have by the great’st been denied.Oft expectation fails, and most oft thereWhere most it promises; and oft it hitsWhere hope is coldest, and despair most fits.
KING
I must not hear thee. Fare thee well, kind maid.Thy pains, not us’d, must by thyself be paid;Proffers, not took, reap thanks for their reward.
HELENA
Inspired merit so by breath is barr’d.It is not so with Him that all things knowsAs ’tis with us that square our guess by shows;But most it is presumption in us whenThe help of heaven we count the act of men.Dear sir, to my endeavours give consent;Of heaven, not me, make an experiment.I am not an impostor, that proclaimMyself against the level of mine aim,But know I think, and think I know most sure,My art is not past power nor you past cure.
KING
Art thou so confident? Within what spaceHop’st thou my cure?
HELENA
The greatest grace lending grace.Ere twice the horses of the sun shall bringTheir fiery torcher his diurnal ring,Ere twice in murk and occidental dampMoist Hesperus hath quench’d her sleepy lamp;Or four and twenty times the pilot’s glassHath told the thievish minutes how they pass;What is infirm from your sound parts shall fly,Health shall live free, and sickness freely die.
KING
Upon thy certainty and confidenceWhat dar’st thou venture?
HELENA
Tax of impudence,A strumpet’s boldness, a divulged shame,Traduc’d by odious ballads; my maiden’s nameSear’d otherwise; nay worse of worst extendedWith vilest torture, let my life be ended.
KING
Methinks in thee some blessed spirit doth speakHis powerful sound within an organ weak;And what impossibility would slayIn common sense, sense saves another way.Thy life is dear, for all that life can rateWorth name of life in thee hath estimate:Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, allThat happiness and prime can happy call.Thou this to hazard needs must intimateSkill infinite, or monstrous desperate.Sweet practiser, thy physic I will try,That ministers thine own death if I die.
HELENA
If I break time, or flinch in propertyOf what I spoke, unpitied let me die,And well deserv’d. Not helping, death’s my fee;But if I help, what do you promise me?
KING
Make thy demand.
HELENA
But will you make it even?
KING
Ay, by my sceptre and my hopes of heaven.
HELENA
Then shalt thou give me, with thy kingly handWhat husband in thy power I will command:Exempted be from me the arroganceTo choose from forth the royal blood of France,My low and humble name to propagateWith any branch or image of thy state;But such a one, thy vassal, whom I knowIs free for me to ask, thee to bestow.
KING
Here is my hand; the premises observ’d,Thy will by my performance shall be serv’d;So make the choice of thy own time, for I,Thy resolv’d patient, on thee still rely.More should I question thee, and more I must,Though more to know could not be more to trust:From whence thou cam’st, how tended on; but restUnquestion’d welcome, and undoubted bless’d.Give me some help here, ho! If thou proceedAs high as word, my deed shall match thy deed.
Flourish. Exeunt.

Characters

Speaking

  • King22 speeches
  • 10 speeches
  • 9 speeches
  • Lafew8 speeches
  • 5 speeches
  • 5 speeches

All the characters ›

Themes

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Questions on this scene

  • Reading

    What does Parolles urge Bertram to do about the war?

Locations

  • ParisScene

    The setting of the French royal court. Helena cures the King and claims Bertram as her husband; he subsequently refuses to accept their marriage.

    Set here · 5 quotes in this scene

Also mentioned

  • Florence1 quote in this scene · characters travel here or from here