QUOTES FROM THE BARD

PLAY: All’s Well that Ends Well
ACT/SCENE: 1.1
SPEAKER: Lafew
CONTEXT:
COUNTESS
What hope is there of his majesty’s amendment?
LAFEW
He hath abandoned 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.
COUNTESS
This young gentlewoman had a father, —O, that
‘had’! how sad a passage ’tis! —whose skill was
almost as great as his honesty; had it stretched 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.

DUTCH:
Hij heeft aan zijne artsen hun afscheid gegeven, mevrouw, nadat hij onder hunne behandeling den tijd met hoop vervolgd had, en er op den duur geen ander voordeel van heeft, dan dat hij met den tijd de hoop verloor.

MORE:
Amendment=Recovery
Persecute=To afflict, to harass; not very intelligibly used.
Persecuted time with hope=Wasted his time hoping for a cure.
Passage=Punning on passing
Compleat:
Persecute=Lastig vallen; vervolgen.

Topics: hope/optimism, remedy, time, trust, life, death