All’s Well That Ends Well · Act 1, Scene 1

Helena: “Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie”

What is happening, what every line means, how to perform it, and how to use it in an audition, with the full text.

The Offbook team

Oct 8, 2026

What is happening

The play opens in Roussillon, in France. Helena is the orphaned daughter of a famous doctor, Gerard de Narbon, and has been brought up in the household of the Countess of Roussillon. She is in love with the Countess’s son, Bertram, who is far above her in rank.

The King of France is dying of a fistula, and his doctors have given up on him. In this first scene Bertram leaves for the king’s court in Paris. Left alone, Helena despairs in her first soliloquy: loving Bertram is like loving a bright star she could never marry. Then Bertram’s swaggering friend Parolles teases her about her virginity, and goes off to join him.

Alone again, Helena turns herself around in this speech, which ends the scene. The fault, she decides, lies not in the stars but in people who don’t act. Her “project” is the king’s illness: her father left her his remedies, including one for exactly this disease. In Act 2 she goes to Paris, cures the king, and is rewarded with the right to choose a husband from among his wards. She chooses Bertram, who does not want her.

Lines: 14
Words: 116
At 150 wpm: 48 sec
Form: Verse

The speech, beat by beat

The full text in 5 beats. Under each beat: what it means in plain English, and a note for playing it.

Lines 1–4 · It’s up to us

1Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky
Gives us free scope, only doth backward pull
Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull.

In plain English The cures we put down to heaven often lie in ourselves. The sky that decides our fate gives us room to act; it only holds back our plans when we ourselves are slow and lazy.

Acting note She is answering her own first soliloquy, where she blamed fate and Bertram’s “bright particular star.” Line 1 sounds like a proverb; make it a discovery instead.

Lines 5–6 · Why so high?

5What power is it which mounts my love so high,
That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?

In plain English What power makes my love aim so high, lets me see the man I want, and won’t let my eyes have him?

Acting note The doubt comes back for a moment. This is the problem the rest of the speech has to solve.

Lines 7–8 · Nature can join us

7The mightiest space in fortune nature brings
To join like likes and kiss like native things.

In plain English Nature can take two people separated by the widest gap in fortune and bring them together as equals, like things born to belong together.

Acting note Her first argument: rank is only fortune, but love is nature, and nature is stronger.

Lines 9–12 · Nothing is impossible

9Impossible be strange attempts to those
10That weigh their pains in sense and do suppose
What hath been cannot be: who ever strove
So show her merit, that did miss her love?

In plain English Bold, unusual attempts are impossible only to people who measure their efforts by plain common sense and assume that what has happened before can’t happen again. What woman ever tried so hard to show her worth and still missed out on her love?

Acting note Her second argument. The question at the end needs no answer: she is daring the audience to name one woman who failed.

Lines 13–14 · The plan

13The king’s disease—my project may deceive me,
But my intents are fix’d and will not leave me.

In plain English The king’s illness. My plan may let me down, but my mind is made up, and it won’t let me go.

Acting note The idea breaks in at the start of line 13, and she names it without spelling it out, as if saying the rest aloud would be too bold. The final couplet is a vow.

Hard words

Word	Line	Meaning
ascribe to heaven	2	put down to heaven, credit to fate
the fated sky	2	the heavens, where people believed their fate was written in the stars
free scope	3	freedom to act
backward pull	3	hold back, pull back
slow designs	4	plans we are slow to carry out
dull	4	sluggish, lazy
feed mine eye	6	satisfy my eyes, have what I can only look at
The mightiest space in fortune	7	the widest gap in rank and wealth
kiss like native things	8	join like things born to belong together
weigh their pains in sense	10	measure their efforts by common sense
miss her love	12	fail to win the one she loves
project	13	plan, scheme
intents	14	intentions, resolve

How to perform it

Play the change. Bell Shakespeare’s expert panel picked this as one of ten great Shakespeare soliloquies, and Dr Anna Kamaralli, explaining the choice, says the best soliloquies end somewhere different from where they began. Helena’s does: her first soliloquy is hopeless, this one is all resolve. Start low, from where Parolles left her, and climb.
Talk to the audience. A soliloquy can be thinking aloud or speaking straight to the house. This one works well as confiding a daring plan to people you trust; Kamaralli describes it as sending the audience off on an adventure with her.
Handle the couplets. The speech is seven rhyming couplets, which Kamaralli calls a sonnet built of couplets. Each couplet is a step in the argument, so let the rhyme close each thought and then move on. Lean on the sense, not the rhyming words, or it turns sing-song.
Find the break in line 13. “The king’s disease” is a plan she has not yet said aloud. Give it a beat. Whether the idea arrives now or is an old one she finally dares to name is your choice, but the audience should see it land.
Know exactly what lines 7 to 12 mean. They are compressed and easy to blur. Be able to say each sentence in modern English before you speak it, and stress the words that carry the argument: space, join, impossible, strove, merit, miss.
Common mistakes: playing her as meek, which is exactly what this speech overturns; reciting line 1 as a famous quotation; and ending softly. “Will not leave me” is a promise.

Using it in an audition

At 14 lines, about 47 seconds, it is short on its own. It works well where a brief classical piece is wanted, or as a quick second piece. For a fuller piece, use both of Helena’s soliloquies from this scene: the first, from “O, were that all! I think not on my father” to “Must sanctify his relics” (about 160 words), then straight into this one. Together they run a little under two minutes and show the whole turn from despair to decision. The play does not give Helena’s age; the speech suits young actors who can play intelligence and steel under a modest surface. Pair it with something more openly emotional, such as Hermione’s “Sir, spare your threats” or Juliet’s potion speech.

Helena, All’s Well That Ends Well, Act 1, Scene 1. William Shakespeare. Public domain text.

How long it runs

Pace	Words a minute	Run time
Deliberate	130	54 seconds
Conversational	150	48 seconds
Brisk	170	42 seconds

These are speech times before pauses. To time your own run, paste the text into the monologue timer.

Practice it: first-letter version

Each word is cut to its first letter. Say the whole line from the letters, then check the text. Make cues from any script with the first-letter memorizer.

O r o i o d l,

W w a t h: t f s

G u f s, o d b p

O s d w w o a d.

W p i i w m m l s h,

T m m s, a c f m e?

T m s i f n b

T j l l a k l n t.

I b s a t t

T w t p i s a d s

W h b c b: w e s

S s h m, t d m h l?

T k d—m p m d m,

B m i a f a w n l m.

More from All’s Well That Ends Well

More lists: Shakespeare monologues, Monologues for women, Comedic monologues, Short monologues, one minute or less.

Sources

Questions actors ask

How long is Helena’s Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie speech?

14 lines and 116 words. At 150 words a minute it runs about 48 seconds; a slower, more deliberate delivery at 130 takes about 54 seconds. Pauses add time, so time a full run out loud.

Is it a good audition monologue?

What is the fastest way to memorize it?

Learn it in sense units, not line by line: say each thought out loud until you can do it without looking, then add the next. The first-letter version below keeps the shape of every line in view while you test yourself.