All's Well That Ends Well

by William Shakespeare

HELENA.
You see it lawful then; it is no more
But that your daughter, ere she seems as won,
Desires this ring; appoints him an encounter;
In fine, delivers me to fill the time,
Herself most chastely absent. After,
To marry her, I’ll add three thousand crowns
To what is pass’d already.

WIDOW.
I have yielded.
Instruct my daughter how she shall persever,
That time and place with this deceit so lawful
May prove coherent. Every night he comes
With musics of all sorts, and songs compos’d
To her unworthiness: it nothing steads us
To chide him from our eaves; for he persists
As if his life lay on ’t.

HELENA.
Why then tonight
Let us assay our plot; which, if it speed,
Is wicked meaning in a lawful deed,
And lawful meaning in a lawful act,
Where both not sin, and yet a sinful fact.
But let’s about it.

[Exeunt.]

ACT IV

SCENE I. Without the Florentine camp.

Enter first Lord with five or six Soldiers in ambush.

FIRST LORD.
He can come no other way but by this hedge-corner. When you sally upon him, speak what terrible language you will; though you understand it not yourselves, no matter; for we must not seem to understand him, unless someone among us, whom we must produce for an interpreter.

FIRST SOLDIER.
Good captain, let me be th’ interpreter.

FIRST LORD.
Art not acquainted with him? Knows he not thy voice?