AS YOU LIKE IT.

your body more seeming, Audrey:-as thus, sir.
I did dislike the cut of a certain courtier's beard;
he sent me word, if I said his beard was not cut
well, he was in the mind it was: This is called the
retort courteous. If I sent him word again, it was
not well cut, he would send me word, he cut it to
please himself: This is called the quip modest. If
again, it was not well cut, he disabled my judg-
ment: This is called the reply churlish. If
it was not well cut, he would answer, I spake not
again,
true: This is called the reproof valiant. If again,
it was not well cut, he would say, I lie: This is
called the countercheck quarrelsome: and so to
the lie circumstantial, and the lie direct.

Jaq. And how oft did you say, his beard was not
well cut?

Touch. I durst go no further than the lie circumstantial, nor he durst not give me the lie direct; and so we measured swords, and parted. Jaq. Can you nominate in order now the degrees of the lie?

Touch. O sir, we quarrel in print, by the book; as you have books for good manners: I will name you the degrees. The first, the retort courteous; the second, the quip modest; the third, the reply churlish; the fourth, the reproof valiant; the fifth, the countercheck quarrelsome; the sixth, the lie with circumstance; the seventh, the lie direct. All these you may avoid, but the lie direct; and you may avoid that too, with an if. I knew when seven justices could not take up a quarrel; but when the parties were met themselves, one of them thought but of an if, as, if you said so, then II said so; and they shook hands, and swore brothers. Your if is the only peace-maker; much virtue in if. Jaq. Is not this a rare fellow, my lord? he's as good at any thing, and yet a fool.

Duke S. He uses his folly like a stalking-horse, and under the presentation of that, he shoots his wit. Enter Hymen, leading Rosalind in woman's clothes; and Celia. Still music.

Hym. Then is there mirth in heaven,
When earthly things made even
Atone together.

Good duke, receive thy daughter,
Hymen from heaven brought her,
Yea, brought her hither;
That thou might'st join her hand with his,
Whose heart within her bosom is.
Ros. To you I give myself, for I am yours.
To you I give myself, for I am yours.
[To Duke S.
Duke S. If there be truth in sight, you are my
[To Orl.
daughter.

Act

[To Orlando and Rosalind.

You and you are heart in heart:

You [To Phebe.] to his love must accord,
[To Oliver and Celia.
Or have a woman to your lord:-
You and you are sure together,

[To Touchstone and Audrey.

As the winter to foul weather.
Whiles a wedlock-hymn we sing,
Feed yourselves with questioning;
That reason wonder may diminish,
How thus we met, and these things finish.

Wedding is great Juno's crown;

O blessed bond of board and bed!
'Tis Hymen peoples every town;

High wedlock then be honoured:
Honour, high honour and renown,
To Hymen, god of every town!

Even daughter, welcome in no less degree.
Duke S. Omy dear niece, welcome thou art to me;

Thy faith my fancy to thee doth combine.3
Phe. I will not eat my word, now thou art mine;

[To Silvius.

Jaq. de B. Let me have audience for a word or
two;

am the second son of old sir Rowland,
That bring these tidings to this fair assembly:
Duke Frederick, hearing how that every day
Men of great worth resorted to this forest,
In his own conduct, purposely to take
Address'd a mighty power which were on foot,
His brother here, and put him to the sword:
And to the skirts of this wild wood he came;
Where, meeting with an old religious man,
After some question with him, was converted
Both from his enterprize, and from the world:
His crown bequeathing to his banish'd brother,
And all their lands restor'd to them again
That were with him exíl'd: This to be true,
I do engage my life.

Duke S.
To one, his lands withheld; and to the other,
Welcome, young man;
Thou offer'st fairly to thy brothers' wedding:
A land itself at large, a potent dukedom.
First, in this forest, let us do those ends
That here were well begun, and well begot:
That have endur'd shrewd days and nights with us,
And after, every of this happy number,
Shall share the good of our returned fortune,

Orl. If there be truth in sight, you are my Rosa-According to the measure of their states.

(1) Seemly. (2) Unless truth fails of veracity.

Meantime, forget this new-fall'n dignity,
And fall into our rustic revelry:-

Play, music;-and you brides and bridegrooms all,
With measure heap'd in joy, to the measures fall.
Jaq. Sir, by your patience; If I heard you rightly,
The duke hath put on a religious life,
And thrown into neglect the pompous court?
Jaq. de B. He hath.

Jaq. To him will I: out of these convertites
There is much matter to be heard and learn'd.-
You to your former honour I bequeath;

Your patience, and your virtue, well deserves it :-
[To Duke S.
You [To Orlando.] to a love, that your true faith
doth merit:-

(3) Bind.

EPILOGUE.

A dance.

[not become me: my way is, to conjure you; and I'll begin with the women. I charge you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of this play as please them: and so I charge you, men, for the love you bear to women (as I perceive by your simpering, none of you hate them,) that between you and the women, the play may please. If I were a woman, I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me, complexions that liked me,2 and breaths that 1 defied not: and, I am sure, as many as have good beards, or good faces, or sweet breaths, will, for my kind offer, when I make curt'sy, bid me farewell. [Exeunt.

Of this play the fable is wild and pleasing. 1 know not how the ladies will approve the facility with which both Rosalind and Celia give away Ros. It is not the fashion to see the lady the epi- their hearts. To Celia much may be forgiven, for logue: but it is no more unhandsome, than to see the heroism of her friendship. The character of the lord the prologue. If it be true, that good wine Jaques is natural and well preserved. The comic needs no bush, 'tis true, that a good play needs no dialogue is very sprightly, with less mixture of low epilogue: Yet to good wine they do use good buffoonery than in some other plays; and the graver bushes; and good plays prove the better by the part is elegant and harmonious. By hastening to help of good epilogues. What a case am I in then, the end of this work, Shakspeare suppressed the that am neither a good epilogue, nor cannot insin-dialogue between the usurper and the hermit, and uate with you in the behalf of a good play? I am lost an opportunity of exhibiting a moral lesson, in not furnished1 like a beggar, therefore to beg will which he might have found matter worthy of his

highest powers.

JOHNSON.

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

King of France.

Duke of Florence.

Bertram, Count of Rousillon.

Lafeu, an old Lord.

Parolles, a follower of Bertram.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

Countess of Rousillon, mother to Bertram.
Helena, a gentlewoman protected by the Countess.
An old Widow of Florence.

Diana, daughter to the widow.
Violenta,

Several young French Lords, that serve with Ber- Mariana, neighbours and friends to the widow.

tram in the Florentine war.

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

Scene, partly in France, and partly in Tuscany.

ACT I.

SCENE I-Rousillon. A Room in the Coun-
tess's Palace. Enter Bertram, the Countess of
Rousillon, Helena, and Lafeu, in mourning.
Countess.

IN delivering my son from me, I bury a second

husband.

Ber. I heard not of it before.

Laf. I would, it were not notorious.-Was this gentlewoman the daughter of Gerard de Narbon?

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,3 there commendations go with pity, they are virtues and traitors too; in her they are the better for their simpleness4 she derives her honesty, and

Ber. 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, ever-achieves her goodness. more 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; 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.

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, 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.

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.

(1) Under his particular care, as my guardian. (2) The countess recollects her own loss of a husband, and observes how heavily had passes through her mind.

(3) Qualities of good breeding and erudition.

Laf. Your commendations, madam, get from her tears.

Count. '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 livelihoods from her cheek. No more of this, Helena, go to, no more; lest it be rather thought you affect a sorrow, than to have. Hel. I do affect a sorrow, indeed, but I have it too.

Laf. Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead, excessive grief the enemy to the living. Count. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal.

Ber. Madam, I desire your holy wishes.
Laf. How understand we that?

Count. 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 check'd for silence,
But never tax'd for speech. What heaven more will,
That thee may furnish,6 and my prayers pluck
down,

Fall on thy head! Farewell.-My lord,
'Tis an unseason'd courtier; good my lord,
Advise him.
Laf.

He cannot want the best

(4) i. e. Her excellencies are the better because they are artless.

(5) All appearance of life.

(6) i. e. That may help thee with more and better qualifications,

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

That shall attend his love.
Count. Heaven bless him!-Farewell, Bertram.
Ber. The best wishes, that can be forged in your
[Exit Countess.
thoughts, [To Helena] be servants to you! Be
comfortable to my mother, your mistress, and make
much of her.

Laf. Farewell, pretty lady: You must hold the
credit of your father. [Exe. Bertram and Lafeu.
Hel. 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 it, but Bertram's.
I am undone; there is no living, none,
If Bertram be away. It were 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 a
To see him every hour; to sit and draw
His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,
In our heart's table ;2 heart, too capable
Of

Act I.

the rule of nature. To speak on the part of virPar. There's little can be said in't; 'tis against infallible disobedience. He, that hangs himself, is ginity, is to accuse your mothers; which is most a virgin virginity murders itself; and should be buried in highways, out of all sanctified limit, as breeds mites, much like a cheese; consumes itself a desperate offendress against nature. Virginity 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 lose by't: Out with't: within ten years it will make itself ten, which is a goodly increase; and the principal itself not much the worse: Hel. How might one do, sir, to lose it to her Away with't. own liking?

Par. 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 replague,cap out of fashion; richly suited, but unsuitable: quest. Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her just like the brooch and toothpick, which wear not now: Your dates 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 dryly; marry, 'tis a withered pear; it was formerly better; marry, yet, 'tis a withered pear: Will you any thing with it? Hel. Not my virginity yet.

every line and trick3 of his sweet favour:4
But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
Must sanctify his relics. Who comes here?
Enter Parolles.

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 fix'd evils sit so fit in him,

That they take place, when virtue's steely bones
Look bleak in the cold wind: withal, full oft we see
Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.
Par. Save you, fair queen.

Hel. And you, monárch.

Par. No.

Hel. And no.

Par. Are you meditating on virginity? Hel. 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?

Par. Keep him out.

Hel. But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant in the defence, yet is weak: unfold to us some warlike resistance.

Par. There is none; man, sitting down before you, will undermine you, and blow you up.

Hel. Bless our poor virginity from underminers,| and blowers up!-Is there no military policy, how virgins might blow up men?

Par. Virginity, being blown down, man will quicklier be blown up: marry, down again, with the breach yourselves made, you blowing him 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 it.

Hel. I will stand for't a little, though therefore I die a virgin.

(1) i. c. May you be mistress of your wishes, and have power to bring them to effect.

(2) Helena considers her heart as the tablet on which his resemblance was portrayed.

(3) Peculiarity of feature. (4) Countenance.

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,
His humble ambition, proud humility,
A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear;
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-
Par. What one, i'faith?

Hel. That I wish well.-'Tis pity-
Par. What's pity?

Which might be felt: that we, the poorer born,
Hel. That wishing well had not a body in't,
Whose baser stars do shut us up in wishes,
And show what we alone must think ;7 which never
Might with effects of them follow our friends,
Returns us thanks.

Enter a Page.

Page. Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.
thee, I will think of thee at court.
Par. Little Helen, farewell: if I can remember
(Exit Page.

charitable star.
Hel. Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a

Par. Under Mars, I.

Hel. I especially think, under Mars.
Par. Why under Mars?

must needs be born under Mars.

Hel. The wars have so kept you under, that you

Par. When he was predominant.
Hel. When he was retrograde, I think, rather.
Par. Why think you so?

(5) Forbidden.

candied fruit.
(6) A quibble on date, which means age, and

(7) i.e. And show by realities what we now must only think.