William Shakespeare: All's Well That Ends Well

ACT II. SCENE 2. Rousillon. A room in the COUNTESS'S palace.

[Enter COUNTESS and CLOWN.]

COUNTESS.
Come on, sir; I shall now put you to the height of your
breeding.

CLOWN.
I will show myself highly fed and lowly taught: I know my
business is but to the court.

COUNTESS.
To the court! why, what place make you special, when you
put off that with such contempt? But to the court!

CLOWN.
Truly, madam, if God have lent a man any manners, he may
easily put it off at court: he that cannot make a leg, put off's
cap, kiss his hand, and say nothing, has neither leg, hands, lip,
nor cap; and indeed such a fellow, to say precisely, were not for
the court; but for me, I have an answer will serve all men.

COUNTESS.
Marry, that's a bountiful answer that fits all questions.

CLOWN.
It is like a barber's chair, that fits all buttocks--the pin-
buttock, the quatch-buttock, the brawn-buttock, or any buttock.

COUNTESS.
Will your answer serve fit to all questions?

CLOWN.
As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, as your
French crown for your taffety punk, as Tib's rush for Tom's
forefinger, as a pancake for Shrove-Tuesday, a morris for Mayday,
as the nail to his hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding
quean to a wrangling knave, as the nun's lip to the friar's
mouth; nay, as the pudding to his skin.

COUNTESS.
Have you, I, say, an answer of such fitness for all questions?

CLOWN.
From below your duke to beneath your constable, it will fit any
question.

COUNTESS.
It must be an answer of most monstrous size that must fit all
demands.

CLOWN.
But a trifle neither, in good faith, if the learned should
speak truth of it: here it is, and all that belongs to't. Ask me
if I am a courtier: it shall do you no harm to learn.