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# THE story of All's well that ends well, or, as I suppose it to have been sometimes called, Love's Labour wonne, is originally indeed the property of Boccace, but it came immediately to Shakspeare from Painter's Gilletta of Narbon, in the first Vol. of the Palace of Pleasure, quarto, 1566, p. 88. FARMER.

Shakspeare is indebted to the novel only for a few leading circumstances in the graver parts of the piece. The comick business appears to be entirely of his own formation. STEEVENS.

This comedy, I imagine, was written in 1598.
MALONE.

A 2

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Persons Represented 1).

King of France.

Duke of Florence.

BERTRAM, Count of Rousillon.

LAFEU, an old Lord.

PAROLLES 2), a follower of Bertram.

Several young French Lords, that serve with Bertrain in the Florentine war.

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Countess of Rousillon, mother to Bertram.

HELENA, a gentlewoman protected by the Countess. An old widow of Florence.

DIANA, daughter to the widow.

VIOLENTA 5), Neighbours and friends to the widow.

Lords, attending on the King; Officers, Soldiers, etc. French and Florentine.

SCENE, partly in France, and partly in Tuscany.

1) There is no enumeration of persons in the old

copy.

2) Parolles,] I suppose we should write this name Paroles, i. e. a creature made up of empty words.

STEEVENS. 3) Violenta only enters once, and then she neither speaks, nor is spoken to. STEEVENS.

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS

WELL.

ACT I.

SCENE I.

Rousillon. A Room in the Count's Palace.

Enter BERTRAM, the Countess of ROUSILLON, Helena, and LAFEU, in mourning.

In delivering my son from me, I bury

Count. a second husband.

Ber. And I, in going, madam, weep o'er my father's death anew: but I must attend his majesty's command, to whom I am now in ward, evermore in subjection.

Laf. You shall find of the king a husband, madam; you, sir, a father: He that so generally is at all times good, must of necessity hold his virtue to you; whose worthiness would stir it up where it wanted, rather than lack it where there is such abundance.

Count. What hope is there of his majesty's amendment?

Laf. He hath abandon'd his physicians, madam; under whose practices he hath persecuted time with hope; and finds no other advantage in the process, but only the losing of hope by time.

1

Count. This young gentlewoman had a father (0, that had! how sad a passage 'tis!) whose skill was almost as great as his honesty; had it stretch'd so far, would have made nature immortal, and death should have play for lack of work. 'Would, for the king's sake, he were living! I think, it would be the death of the king's disease.

Laf. How call'd you the man you speak of,

madam?

Count. He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his great right to be so; Gerard de Narbon.

Laf. He was excellent, indeed, madam; the king very lately spoke of him, admiringly, and mourningly he was skilful enough to have liv'd still, if knowledge could be set up against mortality.

Ber. What is it, my good lord, the king languishes of?

Laf. A fistula, my lord.

Ber. I heard not of it before. Tab

Laf. I would, it were not notorious. - Was this gentlewoman the daughter of Gerard de Narbon?

Count, His sole child, my lord; and bequeathed to my overlooking. I have those hopes of her, good, that her education promises: her dispositions she inherits, which make fair gifts fairer: for where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities, there commendations go with pity, they are virtues and traitors too; in her they are the better for their simplenefs; she derives her honesty, and atchieves her goodness.

Laf. Your commendations, madam, get from her tears.

Count. Tis the best brine a maiden can seasor her praise in. The remembrance of her fathe never approaches her heart, but the tyranny o.

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