All's Well That Ends Well: Act 1

What is it, my good lord, the King languishes of?

Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead, excessive grief the enemy to the living.

Thy blood and virtue
Contend for empire in thee, and thy goodness
Share with thy birthright.

Farewell, my lord.
’Tis an unseasoned courtier. Good my lord,
Advise him.

Withal, full oft we see
Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.

But he assails, and our virginity, though valiant in the defense, yet is weak. Unfold to us some warlike resistance.

Marry, in blowing him down again, with the breach yourselves made you lose your city.

It is not politic in the commonwealth of nature to preserve virginity.

It is not politic in the commonwealth of nature to preserve virginity.

Virginity breeds mites, much like a cheese, consumes itself 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.

Besides, virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made of self-love, which is the most inhibited sin in the canon.

His humble ambition, proud humility,
His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet,
His faith, his sweet disaster

His humble ambition, proud humility,
His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet,
His faith, his sweet disaster

PAROLLES: Why under Mars?
HELEN: The wars hath so kept you under that you must needs be born under Mars.
PAROLLES: When he was predominant.
HELEN: When he was retrograde, I think rather.

Flourish cornets. Enter the King of France with letters, two Lords, and divers Attendants.

His love and wisdom,
Approved so to your Majesty, may plead
For amplest credence.

It well may serve
A nursery to our gentry, who are sick
For breathing and exploit.

In his youth
He had the wit which I can well observe
Today in our young lords; but they may jest
Till their own scorn return to them unnoted
Ere they can hide their levity in honor.

Who were below him
He used as creatures of another place
And bowed his eminent top to their low ranks,
Making them proud of his humility,
In their poor praise he humbled.

His good remembrance, sir,
Lies richer in your thoughts than on his tomb.
So in approof lives not his epitaph
As in your royal speech.

He would always say—
Methinks I hear him now; his plausive words
He scattered not in ears, but grafted them
To grow there and to bear.

“Let me not live,” quoth he,
“After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff
Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses
All but new things disdain, whose judgments are
Mere fathers of their garments, whose constancies
Expire before their fashions.”

Enter Countess, Steward, and Fool.

Madam, the care I have had to even your content I wish might be found in the calendar of my past endeavors, for then we wound our modesty and make foul the clearness of our deservings when of ourselves we publish them.

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 ears my land spares my team and gives me leave to in the crop; if I be his cuckold, he’s my drudge.

Ergo, he that kisses my wife is my friend.

I’ll talk with you more anon.

Would God would serve the world so all the year! We’d find no fault with the tithe-woman if I were the parson.

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.

My master, my dear lord he is, and I
His servant live and will his vassal die.

Only sin
And 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.

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.

I follow him not
By any token of presumptuous suit,
Nor would I have him till I do deserve him,
Yet never know how that desert should be.

...but if yourself,
Whose agèd honor cites a virtuous youth,
Did ever in so true a flame of liking
Wish chastely and love dearly, that your Dian
Was both herself and Love

You know my father left me some prescriptions
Of rare and proved effects, such as his reading
And manifest experience had collected
For general sovereignty; and that he willed me
In heedfull’st reservation to bestow them
As notes whose faculties inclusive were
More than they were in note.

You know my father left me some prescriptions
Of rare and proved effects, such as his reading
And manifest experience had collected
For general sovereignty; and that he willed me
In heedfull’st reservation to bestow them
As notes whose faculties inclusive were
More than they were in note.

You know my father left me some prescriptions
Of rare and proved effects, such as his reading
And manifest experience had collected
For general sovereignty; and that he willed me
In heedfull’st reservation to bestow them
As notes whose faculties inclusive were
More than they were in note.