All's Well That Ends Well (3 of 36)

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SCENE 1. (CONT'D)

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 toothpick, 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 wither'd pear; it was
formerly better; marry, yet 'tis a wither'd 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
Returns us thanks.

[Enter a PAGE.]

PAGE.
Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.

[Exit PAGE.]

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 hath 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 business 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
To 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.]

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