All Is Well | Act 2.4

2.4 Paris. The KING’s palace.

[Enter HELENA and Clown]

HELENA    My mother greets me kindly; is she well?

Clown    She is not well; but yet
she has her health:
she’s very merry; but yet she is not well:
but thanks be given, she’s very well and wants nothing i’, the world; but yet
she is not well.

HELENA    If she be very well,
what does she ail,
that she’s not very well?

Clown    Truly, she’s very well indeed,
but for two things.

HELENA    What two things?

Clown    One, that she’s not in heaven, whither God send her
quickly! the other that she’s in earth, from whence
God send her quickly!

[Enter PAROLLES]

PAROLLES    Bless you, my fortunate lady!

HELENA    I hope, sir, I have your good will to have mine own
good fortunes.

PAROLLES    You had my prayers to lead them on; and to keep
them on, have them still. O, my knave, how does my old lady?

Clown    So that you had her wrinkles and I her money,
I would she did as you say.

PAROLLES    Why, I say nothing.

Clown    Marry, you are the wiser man; for many a man’s
tongue shakes out his master’s undoing: to say
nothing, to do nothing, to know nothing, and to have
nothing, is to be a great part of your title; which
is within a very little of nothing.

PAROLLES    Away! thou’rt a knave.

Clown    You should have said, sir, before a knave
thou’rt a knave; that’s, before me thou’rt a knave:
this had been truth, sir.

PAROLLES    Go to, thou art a witty fool; I have found thee.

Clown    Did you find me in yourself, sir? or were you
taught to find me? The search, sir, was profitable;
and much fool may you find in you, even to the
world’s pleasure and the increase of laughter.

PAROLLES    A good knave, i’ faith, and well fed.
Madam, my lord will go away to-night;
A very serious business calls on him.
The great prerogative and rite of love,
Which, as your due, time claims, he does acknowledge;
But puts it off to a compell’d restraint;
Whose want, and whose delay, is strew’d with sweets,
Which they distil now in the curbed time,
To make the coming hour o’erflow with joy
And pleasure drown the brim.

HELENA    What’s his will else?

PAROLLES   That you will take your instant leave o’ the king
And make this haste as your own good proceeding,
Strengthen’d with what apology you think
May make it probable need.

HELENA    What more commands he?

PAROLLES    That, having this obtain’d, you presently
Attend his further pleasure.

HELENA    In every thing I wait upon his will.

PAROLLES    I shall report it so.

[Exeunt] Act 2.3 | Act 2.5

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