Hel. Then, I confess,

youth:

By our remembrances of days foregone,

Such were our faults;-or then we thought

them none.

Her eye is sick on't; I observe her now.
Hel. What is your pleasure, madamı ?
Count. You know, Helen,

I am a mother to you.

Hel. Mine honourable mistress.
Count. Nay, a mother;

Why not a mother? When I said a mother, Methought you saw a serpent: What's a mother,

That you start at it? I say, I am your mother;
And put you in the catalogue of those

That were enwombed mine: 'Tis often seen,
Adoption strives with nature; and choice breeds
A native slip to us from foreign seeds!
You ne'er oppress'd me with a mother's groan,
Yet I express to you a mother's care:-
God's mercy, maiden! does it curd thy blood,
To say, I am thy mother? What's the matter,
That this distemper'd messenger of wet,
The many-colour'd Iris, rounds thine eye?
Why that you are my daughter ?
Hel. That I am not.

Count. I say, I am your mother.
Hel. Pardon, madam;

The count Rousillon cannot be my brother.
I am from humble, he from honour'd name;
No note upou my parents, his all noble :
My master, my dear lord he is; and I
His servant live, and will his vassal die :
He must not be my brother.

Count. Nor I your mother?

Hel. You are my mother, madam; 'Would

you were

mothers,

my

our

I care no more for, than I do for heaven,
So I were not his sister: Can't no other,
But, I your daughter, he must be my brother?
Count. Yes, Helen, you might be my daugh-
ter-in-law;

God shield, you mean it not! daughter, and mother,

So strive upon your pulse: What, pale again? My fear hath catch'd your fondness: Now I see The mystery of your loneliness, and find

Your salt tears' head. Now to all sense 'tis gross,

You love my son; invention is asham'd,
Against the proclamation of thy passion,
To say thou dost not: therefore tell me true;
Bot tell me then, 'tis so :-for, look, thy cheeks
Confess it, one to the other; and thine eyes
See it so grossly shown in thy behaviours,
That in their kind they speak it only sin
And hellish obstinacy tie thy tongue,
That truth should be suspected: Speak, is't so?
If it be so, you have wound a goodly clue;
If it be not, forswear't: howe'er, I charge thee,
As heaven shall work in me for thine avail,
To tell me truly.

Bel. Good madam, pardon me!
Count. Do you love my son?

Hel. Your pardon, noble mistress!
Count. Love you my son ?

Hel. Do not you love him, madam?

Count. Go not about; my love hath in't a

bond,

Whereof the world takes note: come, come, disclose

The state of your affection; for your passions Have to the full appeach'd.

1e. I care as much for: I wish it equally. Contend.

The source, the cause of your grief,
According to their nature.

My friends were poor, but honest; so's my love:

Be not offended; for it hurts not him,
That he is lov'd of me: I follow him not
By any token of presumptuous suit;

Nor would I have him, till I do deserve him;
Yet never know how that desert should be.
I know I love in vain, strive against hope:
Yet, in this captious and intenible sieve,
I still pour in the waters of my love,
And lack not to lose still: thus Indian-like,
Religious in mine error, I adore,

The sun, that looks upon his worshipper
But knows of him no more. My dearest ma-
dam,

Let not your hate encounter with my love,
For loving where you do: but, if yourself,
Whose aged honour cites a virtuous youth,*
Did ever, in so true a flame of liking,
Wish chastely, and love dearly, that your Dian
Was both herself and love; ohi then give

pity

Of rare and prov'd effects, such as his reading,
And manifest experience, had collected

For general sovereignty; and that he will'd me
In heedfullest reservation to bestow them,
As notes, whose faculties inclusive were,
More than they were in note: amongst the
rest,

There is a remedy, approv'd, set down,
To cure the desperate languishes, whereof
The king is render'd lost."

Count. This was your motive
For Paris, was it? speak.

Hel. My lord, your son made me to think of this;

Else Paris, and the medicine, and the king,
Had, from the conversation of my thoughts,
Haply, been absent then.

Count. But think you, Helen,

If you should tender your supposed aid,
He would receive it? He and his physicians
Are of a mind; he, that they cannot help him,
They, that they cannot help: How shall they
credit

A poor unlearned virgin, when the schools,
Embowell'd of their doctrine, have left off
The danger to itself?

Hel. There's something hints,

More than my father's skill, which was the greatest

Of his profession, that his good receipt
Sball, for my legacy, be sanctified

By the luckiest stars in heaven: and, would your honour

But give me leave to try success, I'd venture
The well-lost life of mine on his grace's cure,
By such a day and hour.

Count. Dost thou believe it?
Hel. Ay, madam, knowingly.

Count. Why, Helen, thou shalt have my leave
and love,

1. e. Whose respectable conduct in age proves that you were no less virtuous when young. + e. Veaus. 1 Receipts in which greater virtues were enclosed than appeared. Exhausted of their skill.

Means and attendants, and my loving greetings
To those of mine own court: I'll stay at home,
And pray God's blessing into thy attempt:
Be gone to-morrow; and be sure of this,
What I can help thee to, thou shalt not miss.
[Exeunt.

ACT II.

SCENE 1.-Paris.-A Room in the King's

Palace.

Flourish. Enter KING, with young LORDS, taking leave for the Florentine war; BERTRAM, PAROLLES, and Attendants.

King. Farewell, young lord, these warlike principles

Do not throw from you:-And you, my lord, farewell;

Share the advice betwixt you; if both gain all,
The gift doth stretch itself as 'tis receiv'd,
And is enough for both.

1 Lord. It is our hope, Sir,

After well-enter'd soldiers, to return
And find your grace in health.

King. No, no, it cannot be; and yet my

kin. Good sparks and lustrous, a word, good metals:-You shall find in the regiment of the Spinii, one captain Spurio, with his cicatrice, an emblem of war, here on his sinister cheek; it was this very sword entrenched it: say to hira, I live; and observe his reports for me. 2 Lord. We shall, noble captain.

Par. Mars dote on you for bis novices! [Exeunt LORDS.] What will you do?"

Ber. Stay; the king-- [Seeing him rist. Par. Use a more spacious ceremony to the noble lords; you have restrained yourself wildin the list of too cold an adien: "be more expressive to them; for they wear themselves in the cap of the time, there, do muster true gait, ↑ eat, speak, and move under the influence of the most received star; and though the devil lead the measure, such are to be followed: after them, and take a more dilated farewell. Ber. And I will do so. Par. Worthy fellows; and like to prove most sinewy swordmen.

[Exeunt BERTRAM and PAROLLIS.

King. No.

Laf. Oh! will you eat

No grapes, my royal fox? yes, but you will,
My noble grapes, an if my royal fox

Could reach them: I have seen a medicine, {
That's able to breathe life into a stone;
Quicken a rock, and make you dance canary,"
With sprightly fire and motion; whose simple
touch

Is powerful to araise king Pepin, nay,
To give great Charlemain a pen in his hand,
And write to her a love-line.

King. What her is this?

Laf. Why, doctor she: My lord, there's ase arriv'd,

If you will see her, now, by my faith and bo nour,

If seriously I may convey my thoughts
In this my light deliverance, I have spoke
With one, that, in her sex, her years, profes
sion,

Wisdom, and constancy, hath amazed me more Than I dare blame my weakness: Will you ser ber

(For that is her demand,) and know her business?

That done, laugh well at me.

King. Now, good Lafeu,

Bring in the admiration: that we with thee
May spend our wonder too, or take off thine,
By wond'ring how thou took'st it.
Laf. Nay, I'll fit you,

And not be all day neither.

[Frit LAPEC. King. Thus he his special nothing ever prologues.

'Re-enter LAFEU with HELENA.

Laf. Nay, come your ways.

J

And, hearing your high majesty is touch'd
With that malignant cause wherein the hoaður
Of my dear father's gift stands chief in power,
I come to tender it, and my appliance,
With all bound humbleness.

King. We thank you, maiden;
But may not be so credulous of cure,
When our most learned doctors leave ns; and
The congregated college have concluded
That labouring art can never ranson nature
From her inaidable estate,-I say we must not
So stain our judgment, or corrupt our hope,
To prostitute our past-cure malady
To empirics; or to dissever so

Our great self and our credit, to esteem

A sensel ss help, when help past sense we deem.
Het. My duty then shall pay me for my
pains:

I will no more enforce mine office on you;
Humbly entreating from your royal thoughts
A modest one, to bear me back again.
King. I cannot give thee less, to be call'd
grateful:

Thou thought'st to help me; and such thanks I
give,

As one near death to those that wish him live: But, what at full I know, thou know'st no part; I knowing all my per!!, thou no art.

Hel. What I can do, can do no hurt to try, Since you set up your rest 'gainst remedy: He that of greatest works is finisher, Oft does them by the weakest minister : So holy writ in babes bath judginent shown, When judges have been babes. Great floods bave flown

From simple sources; and great seas have dried,

When miracles have by the greatest been denied.¶

oft expectation fails, and most oft there Where most it promises; and oft it bits, Where hope is coldest, and despair most sits. King. I must not hear thee; fare thee well, kind maid;

Thy pains, not us'd, must by thyself be paid: Proffers, not took, reap thanks for their reward.

Hel. Inspired merit so by breath is barr'd: It is not so with him that all things knows,

Hel. The greatest grace lending grace, Ere twice the horses of the sun shall bring Their fiery torcher his diurnal ring; Ere twice in murk and occidental damp Moist Hesperus + bath quench'd his sleepy lamp; Or four and twenty times the pilot's glass Hath told the thievish minutes how they pass; What is infirm from your sound parts shall tiy, Health shall live free, and sickness freely die. King. Upon thy certainty and confidence, What dar'st thou venture?

Hel. Tax of impudence,

A strumpet's boldness, a divulged shame,Traduc'd by odious ballads my maiden's name Sear'd otherwise; no worse of worst extended, With vilest torture let my life be ended.

King. Methinks, in thee some blessed spirit doth speak;

His powerful sound, within an organ weak:
And what impossibility would slay

In common sense, sense saves another way.
Thy life is dear for all, that life can rate
Worth name of life, in thee hath estimate; t
Youth, beanty, wisdom, courage, virtue, all
That happiness and prime can happy call:
Thou this to hazard, needs must intimate
Skill influite, or monstrous desperate.
Sweet practiser, thy physic I will try;
That ministers thine own death, if I die.

Hel. If I break time, or flinch in property
Of what I spoke, unpitied let me die;
And well deserv'd: Not helping, death's my fee;
But, if I help, what do you promise me ?
King. Make thy demand.

Hel. But will you make it even?

King. Ay, by my sceptre, and my hopes of heaven.

Hel. Then shalt thou give me, with thy kingly hand,

What husband in thy power, I will command:
Exempted be from me the arrogance

To choose from forth the royal blood of France;
My low and humble name to propagate
With any branch or image of thy state:
But such a one, thy vassal, whom I know
Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow.

King. Here is my hand; the premises observ'd,

Thy will by my performance shall be serv'd ;
So make the choice of thy own time; for 1,
Thy resolv'd patient, on thee still rely.
More should I question thee, and more I must:
Though more, to know, could not be more to
trust;

From whence thou cam'st, how tended on,-
But rest

Unquestiou'd welcome, and undoubted blest.Give me some belp here, ho!-If thou proceed As high as word, my deed shall match thy deed. [Flourish. Exeunt.

SCENE II.-Rousillon.-A Room in the Countess Palace.

Enter COUNTESS and CLOWN. Count. Come on, Sir; I shall now put you to the height of your breeding.

Clo. I will show myself highly fed, and lowly taught; I know my business is but to the

court.

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

I. e. Pretend to greater things than be fits the mediocrity of my condition. + The evening tear. 1 I. e. May be counted among the gifts enjored by thee. 91 he spring or morning of life.

Clo. 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.

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

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

Count. Will your answer serve fit to all questions?

Clo. As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, as your French crown for your taffata 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 kuave, as the nun's lip to the friar's mouth; nay, as the pudding to his skin.

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

Clo. From below your duke, to beneath your constable, it will fit any question. Count. It must be an answer of most monstrous size, that must fit all demands.

Clo. 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.

terrors; ensconcing ourselves into seeming know. ledge, when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear.

Par. Why, 'tis the rarest argument of wonder, that hath shot out in our latter times. Ber. And so 'tis.

Laf. To be relinquished of the artists,-Par. So I say; both of Galen and Paracelsus. Laj. Of all the learned and authentic fellows,

Par. Right, so I say

Laf. That gave him out incurable,—
Par. Why, there 'tis; so say I too.
Laf. Not to be helped,—

Par. Right: as 'twere a man assured of an—
Laf. Uncertain life, and sure death.
Par. Just, you say well; so would I have
said.

Laf. I may truly say, it is a novelty to the world.

Par. It is, indeed: if you will have it in showing, you shall read it in,-What do you call there?—

Laj. A showing of a heavenly effect in an earthly actor.

Par. That's it I would have said; the very

same.

Laf. Why, your dolphin † is not lustier : "fore me I speak in respect

Par. Nay 'tis strange, 'tis very strange, that is the brief and the tedious of it; and he is of a most facinorious spirit, that will not acknow.

Laf. Very hand of heaven.

me.

Count. I think, Sir, you can eat none of this homely meat.

Clo. O Lord, Sir,-Nay, put me to't, I war. rant you.

Count. You were lately whipped, Sir, as I think.

Clo. O Lord, Sir,-Spare not me.

Count. Do you cry, O Lord, Sir, at your whipping, and spare not me? Indeed, your O Lord, Sir, is very sequent to your whipping; you would answer very well to a whipping, if you were but bound to't.

Clo. I ne'er had worse luck in my life, in my -O Lord, Sir: I see, things may serve long, but

not serve ever.

Count. I play the noble housewife with the time, to entertain it so merrily with a fool.

Clo. O Lord, Sir,-Why, there't serves well again.

Count. An end, Sir, to your business: Give
Helen this,

And urge her to a present answer back :
Commend ber to my kinsmen and my son;
This is not much.

Clo. Not much commendation to them.

Count. Not much employment for you: You

understand me?

Clo. Most fruitfully; I am there before my legs.

Count. Haste you again.

[Exeunt severally.

Par. Ay, so I say.

Laf. In a most weak

Par. And debile minister, great power, great transcendence: which should, indeed, give us a further use to be made, than alone the recovery of the king, as to be

Laf. Generally thankful.

Enter KING, HELENA, and Attendants. Par. I would have said it; you say well: Here comes the king.

Laf. Lustic, as the Dutchman says: 【D like a maid the better, whilst I have a tooth in my head: Why, he's able to lead her a coranto.

Par. Mort du Vinaigre! Is not this Helen! Laf. 'Fore God, I think so. King. Go, call before me all the lords in court.[Exit an Attendent. Sit, my preserver, by thy patient's side! And with this healthful band, whose banish'd

Palace.

Before I speak, too threateningly replies:
Love make your fortunes twenty times above
Her that so wishes, and her humble love!
2 Lord. No better, if you please.
Hel. My wish receive,

Which great love grant! and so I take my leave.

Laf. Do all they deny her? An they were sons of mine, I'd have them whipped or I would send them to the Turk, to make eunuchs of.

Hel. Be not afraid [To a LORD] that I your hand should take;

I'll never do you wrong for your own sake :
Blessing upon your vows! and in your bed
Find fairer fortune, if you ever wed!

Laf. These boys are boys of ice, they'll none have her sure, they are bastards to the English; the French ne'er got them.

All that is virtuons, (save what thon dislik'st
A poor physician's daughter,) thou dislik'st
Of virtue for the name: but do not so:
From lowest place when virtuous things pro-
ceed,

The place is dignified by the doer's deed:
Where great additions swell, and virtue none,
It is a dropsied honour: good alone

Is good, without a name: vileness is so:t
The property by what it is should go,
Not by the title. She is young, wise, fair;
In these to nature she's immediate heir;
And these breed honour that is honour's
scorn,

Which challenges itself as honour's born,
And is not like the sire: Honours best thrive,
When rather from our acts we them derive
Than our fore-goers: the mere word's a slave
Debauch'd on every tomb on every grave,
A lying trophy, and as oft is dumb,
Where dust, and damn'd oblivion, is the tomb
Of honour'd bones indeed. What should be
said?

If thou canst like this creature as a maid,

I can create the rest: virtue, and she,
Is her own dower; honour and wealth, from

me.

To make yourself a son out of my blood. 4 Lord. Fair one, I think not so.

Laf. There's one grape yet,-I am sure, thy father drank wine.-But if thou be'st not an ass, I am a youth of fourteen; I have known thee already.

Hel. I dare not say, I take you; [To BER-
TRAM) but I give

Me, and my service, ever whilst I live,
lato your guiding power.-This is the man.
king. Why then, young Bertram, take her, she's
thy wife.

Ber. My wife, my liege? I shall beseech your highness,

In such a business give me leave to use

The help of mine own eyes.

King, Know'st thou not, Bertram,

What she has done for me?

Ber. Yes, my good lord;

But never hope to know why I should marry ber.

King. Thou know'st, she has rais'd me from my sickly bed.

Ber. But follows it, my lord, to bring me

down

Most answer for your raising? I know her well;
She bad her breeding at my father's charge:
A poor physician's daughter my wife!-Disdain
Rather corrupt me ever!

King, 'Tis only title thou disdain'st in her,
the which

I can build up. Strange is it, that our bloods, Of colour, weight, and heat, pour'd all together,

Would quite confound distinction, yet stand off in ditierences so mighty: If she be

1e. I have no more to say to you.

+ The lowest chance of the dice. 21.e. The want of title.

tempt: Obey our will, which travails in thy good : Believe not thy disdain, but presently Do thine own fortunes that obedient right, Which both thy duty owes, and our power claims;

Or I will throw thee from my care for ever,
Into the staggers, and the careless lapse
Of youth and ignorance; both my revenge and
hate,

Loosing upon thee in the name of justice,
Without all terms of pity: Speak; thine an-