Act One Scene One
In All’s Well the Ends Well, one of Shakespeare’s later plays, this duologue between the Countess and Helen is a keen demonstration of how the very regular blank verse of his early plays eventually shifted and morphed into creative rhythmic irregularity. This piece would be a good selection for a comparitvie scansion study to see if what you discern in the lines of iambic pentameter up with what we see in this video clip and thus how it would inform any performance choices you might make that would differ from what you see here. .
HELEN What is your pleasure, madam?
COUNTESS You know, Helen, I am a mother to you.
HELEN Mine honorable mistress.
COUNTESS Nay, a mother.
Why not a mother? When I said “a mother,”
Methought you saw a serpent. What’s in “mother”
That you start at it? I say I am your mother
And put you in the catalogue of those
That were enwombèd mine.
You ne’er oppressed me with a mother’s groan,
Yet I express to you a mother’s care.
God’s mercy, maiden, does it curd thy blood
To say I am thy mother? What’s the matter,
That this distempered messenger of wet,
The many-colored Iris, rounds thine eye?
Why? That you are my daughter?
HELEN That I am not.
COUNTESS I say I am your mother.
HELEN Pardon, madam.
The Count Rossillion cannot be my brother.
I am from humble, he from honored name;
No note upon my parents, his all noble.
My master, my dear lord he is, and I
His servant live and will his vassal die.
He must not be my brother.
COUNTESS Nor I your mother?
HELEN You are my mother, madam. Would you were—
So that my lord your son were not my brother—
Indeed my mother! Or were you both our mothers,
I care no more for than I do for heaven,
So I were not his sister. Can ’t no other
But, I your daughter, he must be my brother?
COUNTESS Yes, Helen, you might be my daughter-in-law.
God shield you mean it not! “Daughter” and “mother”
So strive upon your pulse. What, pale again?
My fear hath catched your fondness! Now I see
The mystery of your loneliness and find
Your salt tears’ head. Now to all sense ’tis gross:
You love my son. Invention is ashamed
Against the proclamation of thy passion
To say thou dost not. Therefore tell me true,
But tell me then ’tis so, for, look, thy cheeks
Confess it th’ one to th’ other, and thine eyes
See it so grossly shown in thy behaviors
That in their kind they speak it. 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.
HELEN Good madam, pardon me.
COUNTESS Do you love my son?
HELEN Your pardon, noble mistress.
COUNTESS Love you my son?
HELEN Do not you love him, madam?
COUNTESS Go not about. My love hath in ’t a bond
Whereof the world takes note. Come, come, disclose
The state of your affection, for your passions
Have to the full appeached.
HELEN Then I confess
Here on my knee before high heaven and you
That before you and next unto high heaven.
I love your son.
Performance Approaches to Shakespeare 