Helena monologue from All's Well That Ends Well

Helena’s monologue

O! were that all. I think not on my father;

And these great tears grace his remembrance more

Than those I shed for him. What was he like?

I have forgot him: my imagination

5Carries no favour in 't but Bertram's.

I am undone: there is no living, none,

If Bertram be away. It were all one

That I should love a bright particular star

And think to wed it, he is so above me:

10In his bright radiance and collateral light

Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.

The ambition in my love thus plagues itself:

The hind that would be mated by the lion

Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, though a plague,

15To see him every hour; to sit and draw

His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,

In our heart's table; heart too capable

Of every line and trick of his sweet favour:

But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy

20Must sanctify his reliques. Who comes here?

One that goes with him: I love him for his sake;

And yet I know him a notorious liar,

Think him a great way fool, solely a coward;

Yet these fix'd evils sit so fit in him,

25That they take place, when virtue's steely bones

Look bleak in the cold wind: withal, full oft we see

Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.

Public domain text.