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

William Shakespeare
Every note, for your class

The story so far

Earlier in the play

Bertram has left Rossillon to become the King’s ward in Paris. Helena has confessed her love for him to the Countess and gained her support for a journey to treat the King with her father’s medicine. The Clown has asked permission to marry Isbel.

In the last scene: Act 2, Scene 1

Forbidden to join the Italian wars, Bertram declares he will slip away. Lafew introduces Helena to the King. She offers to cure him within two days, staking her life on success. He agrees to try her treatment and promises her, if she succeeds, a husband of her choice from his subjects, excluding the royal family.

SCENE II. Rossillon. A room in the Countess’s palace.

Enter Countess and Clown.
COUNTESS
Come on, sir; I shall now put you to the height of your breeding.
CLOWN
I will show myself highly fed and lowly taught. I know my business is but to the court.
COUNTESS
To the court! Why, what place make you special, when you put off that with such contempt? But to the court!
CLOWN
Truly, madam, if God have lent a man any manners, he may easily put it off at court: he that cannot make a leg, put off’s cap, kiss his hand, and say nothing, has neither leg, hands, lip, nor cap; and indeed such a fellow, to say precisely, were not for the court; but for me, I have an answer will serve all men.
COUNTESS
Marry, that’s a bountiful answer that fits all questions.
CLOWN
It is like a barber’s chair, that fits all buttocks—the pin-buttock, the quatch-buttock, the brawn-buttock, or any buttock.
COUNTESS
Will your answer serve fit to all questions?
CLOWN
As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, as your French crown for your taffety punk, as Tib’s rush for Tom’s forefinger, as a pancake for Shrove-Tuesday, a morris for May-day, as the nail to his hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding quean to a wrangling knave, as the nun’s lip to the friar’s mouth; nay, as the pudding to his skin.
COUNTESS
Have you, I say, an answer of such fitness for all questions?
CLOWN
From below your duke to beneath your constable, it will fit any question.
COUNTESS
It must be an answer of most monstrous size that must fit all demands.
CLOWN
But a trifle neither, in good faith, if the learned should speak truth of it. Here it is, and all that belongs to’t. Ask me if I am a courtier; it shall do you no harm to learn.
COUNTESS
To be young again, if we could: I will be a fool in question, hoping to be the wiser by your answer. I pray you, sir, are you a courtier?
CLOWN
O Lord, sir! There’s a simple putting off. More, more, a hundred of them.
COUNTESS
Sir, I am a poor friend of yours, that loves you.
CLOWN
O Lord, sir! Thick, thick; spare not me.
COUNTESS
I think, sir, you can eat none of this homely meat.
CLOWN
O Lord, sir! Nay, put me to’t, I warrant you.
COUNTESS
You were lately whipp’d, sir, as I think.
CLOWN
O Lord, sir! Spare not me.
COUNTESS
Do you cry ‘O Lord, sir!’ at your whipping, and ‘spare not me’? Indeed your ‘O Lord, sir!’ is very sequent to your whipping. You would answer very well to a whipping, if you were but bound to’t.
CLOWN
I ne’er had worse luck in my life in my ‘O Lord, sir!’ I see things may serve long, but not serve ever.
COUNTESS
I play the noble housewife with the time, to entertain it so merrily with a fool.
CLOWN
O Lord, sir! Why, there’t serves well again.
COUNTESS
An end, sir! To your business. Give Helen this,And urge her to a present answer back.Commend me to my kinsmen and my son.This is not much.
CLOWN
Not much commendation to them?
COUNTESS
Not much employment for you. You understand me?
CLOWN
Most fruitfully. I am there before my legs.
COUNTESS
Haste you again.
Exeunt severally.

Characters

Speaking

  • Countess15 speeches
  • Clown14 speeches

Mentioned

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Themes

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Questions on this scene

  • Reading

    Where does the Clown say his business takes him?

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

Also mentioned

  • Paris4 quotes in this scene · characters travel here or from here