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keep it to yourself: many likelihoods informed me of this before, which hung so tottering in the balance that I could neither believe nor misdoubt. Pray you, leave me stall this in your bosom; and I thank you for your honest care I will speak with you further anon. [Exit Steward.

Enter HELENA.

Even so it was with me when I was young: If ever we are nature's, these are ours; this thorn

Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong;

Our blood to us, this to our blood is born; It is the show and seal of nature's truth, Where love's strong passion is impress'd in youth:

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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, madam?
Count.
You know, Helen,

I am a mother to you.

Hel. Mine honorable mistress.

Count. Nay, a mother: Why not a mother? When I said, mother,' Methought you saw a serpent: what's in '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 150
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-color'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; 160
The Count Rousillon cannot be my brother:
I am from humble, he from honor'd name;
No note upon 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,-
[ther,-

So that my lord your son were not my broIndeed my mother! or were you both our mothers,

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The mystery of your loneliness, and find Your salt tears' head: now to all sense 'tis gross

You love my son; invention is ashamed,
Against the proclamation of thy passion, 180
To say thou dost not therefore tell me true;
But tell me then, 'tis so; for, look, thy cheeks
Confess it, th' one to th' other; and thine eyes
See it so grossly shown in thy behaviors
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 clew;
If it be not, forswear't: howe'er, I charge
thee,

As heaven shall work in me for thine avail, Tell me truly.

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Hel.
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 a bond,

Whereof the world takes note: come, come,

disclose

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

Hel. Then, I confess, Here on my knee, before high heaven and you, That before you, and next unto high heaven, I love your son.

200

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

Be not offended; for it hurts not him
That he is loved 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

madam,

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Let not your hate encounter with my love
For loving where you do but if yourself,
Whose aged honor 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: Ö, then, give pity
To her, whose state is such that cannot choose
But lend and give where she is sure to lose ;
That seeks not to find that her search implies,
But riddle-like lives sweetly where she dies!
Count. Had you not lately an intent,-speak
truly,-
To go to Paris?
Hel.

Count.

Madam, I had.

Wherefore? tell true. Hel. I will tell truth; by grace itself I swear. You know my father left me some prescrip

tions

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

Will not confess he owes the malady That doth my life besiege. Farewell, young lords;

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Whether I live or die, be you the sons Of worthy Frenchmen: let higher Italy,†Those bated that inherit but the fall Of the last monarchy, see that you come Not to woo honor, but to wed it; when The bravest questant shrinks, find what you seek, That fame may cry you loud: I say, farewell. Sec. Lord. Health, at your bidding, serve your majesty!

King. Those girls of Italy, take heed of them:

They say, our French lack language to deny, If they demand: beware of being captives, 21 Before you serve.

Both. Our hearts receive your warnings.
King. Farewell. Come hither to me.
[Exit, attended.
First Lord. O my sweet lord, that you will
stay behind us!

Par. "Tis not his fault, the spark.
Sec. Lord.

O, 'tis brave wars! Par. Most admirable: I have seen those [with Ber. I am commanded here, and kept a coil 'Too young' and 'the next year' and "tis too

wars.

early.'

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First Lord. There's honor in the theft,
Par.
Commit it, count.
Sec. Lord. I am your accessary; and so,
farewell.

Ber. I grow to you, and our parting is a tortured body.

First Lord. Farewell, captain.

Sec. Lord. Sweet Monsieur Parolles ! Par. Noble heroes, my sword and yours are 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 him, I live; and observe his reports for me. First Lord. We shall, noble captain. [Exeunt Lords. Pur. Mars dote on you for his novices' what will ye do ?

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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.

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Ber. And I will do so. Par. Worthy fellows; and like to prove most sinewy sword-men.

[Exeunt Bertram and Parolles. Enter LAFEU.

Laf. [Kneeling] Pardon, my lord, for me and for my tidings.

King. I'll fee thee to stand up.

Laf. Then here's a man stands, that has brought his pardon.

I would you had kneel'd, my lord, to ask me mercy,

And that at my bidding you could so stand up. King. I would I had; so I had broke thy pate,

And ask'd thee mercy for't.

Laf. Good faith, across : but, my good lord 'tis thus ;

Will you be cured of your infirmity?
King. No.

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Laf. O, 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 spritely fire and motion; whose simple touch,

Is powerful to araise King Pepin, nay,

To give great Charlemain a pen in's hand. 80 And write to her a love-line."

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Laf. Why, Doctor She: my lord, there's one arrived.

If you will see her: now, by my faith and honor,

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 see her,

For that is her demand, and know her business? That done, laugh well at me.

King. Now, good Lafeu, 90 Bring in the admiration; that we with thee May spend our wonder too, or take off thine By wondering how thou took'st it.

Laf.

Nay, I'll fit you, [Exit.

And not be all day neither.

King. Thus he his special nothing ever prologues.

Re-enter LAFEU, with HELENA

Laf. Nay, come your ways.

King,

This haste hath wings indeed.

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That dare leave two together; fare you well. [Exit. King. Now, fair one, does your business follow us?

Hel. Ay, my good lord.
Gerard de Narbon was my father;
In what he did profess, well found.
King.

I knew him.

Hel. The rather will I spare my praises towards him:

Knowing him is enough. On's bed of death
Many receipts he gave me : chiefly one,
Which, as the dearest issue of his practice,
And of his old experience the only darling, 110
He bade me store up, as a triple eye,
Safer than mine own two, more dear; I have so;
And hearing your high majesty is touch'd
With that malignant cause wherein the honor
Of my dear father's gift stands chief in power,
I come to tender it and my appliance
With all bound humbleness.

King.

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We thank you, maiden; But may not be so credulous of cure, When our most learned doctors leave us and The congregated college have concluded That laboring art can never ransom nature From her inaidible 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 senseless help when help past sense we deem. Hel. My duty then shall pay me for my

pains :

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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 peril, 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 hath judgment shown, When judges have been babes; great floods have flown

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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 hits
Where hope is coldest and despair most fits.
King. I must not hear thee; fare thee well,
kind maid;

Thy pains not used 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 As 'tis with us that square our guess by shows; But most it is presumption in us when The help of heaven we count the act of men. Dear sir, to my endeavors give consent; Of heaven, not me, make an experiment. I am not an impostor that proclaim Myself against the level of mine aim;

But know I think and think I know most sure My art is not past power nor you past cure. King. Art thou so confident ? within what space

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Sear'd otherwise; nay, worse-if worse--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

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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,
Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, all
That happiness and prime can happy call:
Thou this to hazard needs must intimate
Skill infinite 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 deserved: not helping, death's my

fee;

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So make the choice of thy own time, for I,
Thy resolved 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 camest, how tended on:
but rest
210
Unquestion'd welcome and undoubted blest.
Give me some help here, ho! If thou proceed
As high as word, my deed shall match thy
meed.
[Flourish. Exeunt.

SCENE II. Rousillon. The COUNT's 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!

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.

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

Count. Will your answer serve fit to all questions?

21

Clo. As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, as your French crown for your taffeta punk, as Tib's rush for Tom's forefinger, as a pancake for Shrove Tuesday, a morris for May-day, as the nail to his hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding queen to a wrangling knave, 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?

31

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 ail that belongs to't. Ask me if I am a courtier it shall do you no harm to learn.

Count. To be young again, if we could: I will be a fool in question, hoping to be the wiser by your answer. I pray you, sir, are you a courtier ?

Clo. O Lord, sir! There's a simple putting off. More, more, a hundred of them.

Count. Sir, I am a poor friend of yours, that loves you.

[me.

Clo. O Lord, sir! Thick, thick, spare not Count. I think, sir, you can eat none of this homely meat,

Clo. O Lord, Sir! Nay, put me to't, I warrant you. 51 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.

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Count. I play the noble housewife with the time,

To entertain't 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 me to my kinsmen and my son :
This is not much.

Clo. Not much commendation to them. 70 Count. Not much employment for you: you understand me?

Clo. Most fruitfully: Iam there before my legs.

Count. Haste you again. [Exeunt severally.

SCENE III. Paris. The KING's palace. Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES. Laf. They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons, to make modern and familiar, things supernatural and causeless. Hence is it that we make trifles of terrors, ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge, 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.

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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's of a most facinerious spirit that will not acknowledge it to be the

Laf. Very hand of heaven.
Par. Ay, so I say.

Laf. In a most weak-[pausing] 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-[pausing] generally thankful. Par. I would have said it; you say well. Here comes the king.

Enter KING, HELENA, and Attendants.
LAFEU cnd PAROLLES retire.

Laf. Lustig, as the Dutchman says: I'll 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.

51

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Laf. To be relinquish'd of the artists,- 10 Fall, when Love please! marry, to each, but

Par. So I say.

Laf. Both of Galen and Paracelsus.

Par. So I say.

Laf. Of all the learned and authentic fel

lows,

Par. Right; so I say.

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

20

Par. Right; as 'twere, a man assured of aLaf 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?

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

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

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one !

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