All’s Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare (sight word books .txt) 📕
Description
All’s Well That Ends Well was not popular during Shakespeare’s time, and is still considered to be a play without renown even today. It’s also one of the three “problem plays,” in that it deals with controversial social issues. Although it remains unloved by the public, productions have featured star-studded casts, including actresses like Dame Judi Dench and Claudie Blakley.
Helena, daughter of a skilled doctor and adopted child of the Countess of Rousillon, is in love with Bertram, the Countess’s son. Helena cures the King of France and is rewarded with a husband of her choice, so she selects Bertram. He contests the legitimacy of their marriage, and insists on demanding that she complete two tasks before he can consider their marriage legitimate: She must wear his family ring, and provide him an heir.
This Standard Ebooks production is based on William George Clark and William Aldis Wright’s 1887 Victoria edition, which is taken from the Globe edition.
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- Author: William Shakespeare
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That will speak any thing? King She hath that ring of yours. Bertram
I think she has: certain it is I liked her,
And boarded her i’ the wanton way of youth:
She knew her distance and did angle for me,
Madding my eagerness with her restraint,
As all impediments in fancy’s course
Are motives of more fancy; and, in fine,
Her infinite cunning, with her modern grace,
Subdued me to her rate: she got the ring;
And I had that which any inferior might
At market-price have bought.
I must be patient:
You, that have turn’d off a first so noble wife,
May justly diet me. I pray you yet;
Since you lack virtue, I will lose a husband;
Send for your ring, I will return it home,
And give me mine again.
Sir, much like
The same upon your finger.
The story then goes false, you threw it him
Out of a casement.
You boggle shrewdly, every feather stars you.
Is this the man you speak of?
Tell me, sirrah, but tell me true, I charge you,
Not fearing the displeasure of your master,
Which on your just proceeding I’ll keep off,
By him and by this woman here what know you?
Thou hast spoken all already, unless thou canst say they are married: but thou art too fine in thy evidence; therefore stand aside.
This ring, you say, was yours?
Diana Ay, my good lord. King Where did you buy it? or who gave it you? Diana It was not given me, nor I did not buy it. King Who lent it you? Diana It was not lent me neither. King Where did you find it, then? Diana I found it not. KingIf it were yours by none of all these ways,
How could you give it him?
Take her away; I do not like her now;
To prison with her: and away with him.
Unless thou tell’st me where thou hadst this ring,
Thou diest within this hour.
Because he’s guilty, and he is not guilty:
He knows I am no maid, and he’ll swear to’t;
I’ll swear I am a maid, and he knows not.
Great king, I am no strumpet, by my life;
I am either maid, or else this old man’s wife.
Good mother, fetch my bail. Stay, royal sir: Exit Widow.
The jeweller that owes the ring is sent for,
And he shall surety me. But for this lord,
Who hath abused me, as he knows himself,
Though yet he never harm’d me, here I quit him:
He knows himself my bed he hath defiled;
And at that time he got his wife with child:
Dead though she be, she feels her young one kick:
So there’s my riddle: one that’s dead is quick:
And now behold the meaning.
Is there no exorcist
Beguiles the truer office of mine eyes?
Is’t real that I see?
No, my good lord;
’Tis but the shadow of a wife you see,
The name and not the thing.
O my good lord, when I was like this maid,
I found you wondrous kind. There is your ring;
And, look you, here’s your letter; this it says:
“When from my finger you can get this ring
And are by me with child,” etc. This is done:
Will you be mine, now you are doubly won?
If she, my liege, can make me know this clearly,
I’ll love her dearly, ever, ever dearly.
If it appear not plain and prove untrue,
Deadly divorce step between me and you!
O my dear mother, do I see you living?
Mine eyes smell onions; I shall weep anon:
To Parolles. Good Tom Drum, lend me a handkercher: so,
I thank thee: wait on me home, I’ll make sport with thee:
Let thy courtesies alone, they are scurvy ones.
Let us from point to point this story know,
To make the even truth in pleasure flow.
To Diana. If thou be’st yet a fresh uncropped flower,
Choose thou thy husband, and I’ll pay thy dower;
For I can guess that by thy honest aid
Thou keep’st a wife herself, thyself a
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