ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
Page: 31

COUNTESS.
What have we here?

CLOWN.
E'en that you have there.

[Exit.]

COUNTESS.
[Reads.] 'I have sent you a daughter-in-law; she hath
recovered the king and undone me. I have wedded her, not bedded
her; and sworn to make the "not" eternal. You shall hear I am run
away: know it before the report come. If there be breadth enough
in the world, I will hold a long distance. My duty to you.
Your unfortunate son,
BERTRAM.'

This is not well, rash and unbridled boy,
To fly the favours of so good a king;
To pluck his indignation on thy head
By the misprizing of a maid too virtuous
For the contempt of empire.

[Re-enter CLOWN.]

CLOWN.
O madam, yonder is heavy news within between two soldiers and my
young lady.

COUNTESS.
What is the matter?

CLOWN.
Nay, there is some comfort in the news, some comfort; your son
will not be killed so soon as I thought he would.

COUNTESS.
Why should he be killed?

CLOWN.
So say I, madam, if he run away, as I hear he does: the danger is
in standing to 't; that's the loss of men, though it be the
getting of children. Here they come will tell you more: for my
part, I only hear your son was run away.

[Exit.]

[Enter HELENA and the two Gentlemen.]

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
Save you, good madam.

HELENA.
Madam, my lord is gone, for ever gone.

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
Do not say so.

COUNTESS.
Think upon patience.--Pray you, gentlemen,--
I have felt so many quirks of joy and grief
That the first face of neither, on the start,
Can woman me unto 't.--Where is my son, I pray you?

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
Madam, he's gone to serve the Duke of Florence:
We met him thitherward; for thence we came,
And, after some despatch in hand at court,
Thither we bend again.

HELENA.
Look on this letter, madam; here's my passport.

[Reads.] 'When thou canst get the ring upon my finger, which
never shall come off, and show me a child begotten of thy body
that I am father to, then call me husband; but in such a "then" I
write a "never."
This is a dreadful sentence.

COUNTESS.
Brought you this letter, gentlemen?