Humbly entreating from your royal thoughts A modest one, to bear me back a again. KING I cannot give thee less, to be call'd grateful:
Thou thought'st to help me; and such thanks Igive 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. HELENA 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 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. HELENA 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 endeavours 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 Are thou so confident? within what space Hopest thou my cure? HELENA The great'st 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 hath 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 fly, Health shall live free and sickness freely die. KING Upon thy certainty and confidence What darest thou venture? HELENA Tax of impudence, A strumpet's boldness, a divulged shame Traduced by odious ballads: my maiden's name 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 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. HELENA 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;But, if I help, what do you promise me? KING Make thy demand. HELENA But will you make it even? KING Ay, by my sceptre and my hopes of heaven. HELENA 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 observed, Thy will by my performance shall be served:
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 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 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: Iknow 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 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. 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. COUNTESS To be young again, if we could: I will be a fool in question, hoping to be the wiser by your answer.
I
