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LAF. Why, doctor she; my lord, there's one arriv'd,

If you will see her,-now, by my faith and honour,
If seriously I may convey my thoughts
In this my light deliverance, I have spoke
With one, that, in her sex, her years, profession,
Wisdom, and constancy, hath amaz'd 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,
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. [Exit LAFEU. KING. Thus he his special nothing ever prologues.

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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 th' only darling,
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 honour
my dear father's gift stands chief in power,
I come to tender it, and my appliance,
With all bound humbleness.

Of

KING. 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 labouring art can never ransom 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 senseless help, when help past sense we deem.
HEL. 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.

grateful:

KING. I cannot give thee less, to be call'd [give, Thou thought'st to help me, and such thanks I 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.(3) 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 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,
As 't is 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. Art thou so confident? within what space
Hop'st thou my cure?

HEL. 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 dar'st thou venture? HEL.

Tax of impudence,A strumpet's boldness, a divulged shame,Traduc'd by odious ballads; my maiden's name

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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.
KING. Ay, by my sceptre, and my hopes of
heaven.d
[hand,
HEL. Then shalt thou give me, with thy kingly
What husband in thy power I will command:
Exempted be from me the arrogance

But will you make it even?

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 I,
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
Unquestion'd welcome, and undoubted blest.-
Give me some help 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'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.

a Ne worse of worst extended,-] This is the lection of the old copy, and, although unquestionably corrupt, it is not worse than the commentators' suggestions for its amendment. We should, perhaps, approach nearer to what the poet really wrote by treating ne and extended as palpable misprints, and reading :and, worse of worst expended,

With vilest torture let my life be ended."

b Impossibility-] That is, incredibility.

e But will you make it even?] That is, Will you equale it? Will you match it? See note (a), p. 11, of the present volume.

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.

CLO. 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?

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 fore-finger, as a pancake for Shrove-Tuesday, a morris for May-day,(4) 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.

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.

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.

CLO. O Lord, sir !-Thick, thick, spare not me. COUNT. I think, sir, you can eat none of this homely meat.

CLO. O Lord, sir!-Nay, put me to't, I warrant 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 whip

And my hopes of heaven.] The old copy has help. The correction, which is due to Dr. Thiriby, seems called for both by the context and the rhyme. It is observable that much of this scene is in smooth, rhyming verses; it was a portion probably of the poet's first youthful conception, for we cannot divest ourselves of the impression that at a subsequent period of his career he rewrote a considerable part of this play.

e O Lord, sir!] The use of this expletive, which appears to have been thought the mode both in court and city, has been finely ridiculed by Jonson also. See "Every Man out of his Humour," Act III. Sc. 1, and passim.

ping, 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.
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.

Give

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LAF. To be relinquished of the artists,--
PAR. So I say; both of Galen and Paracelsus.
LAF. Of all the learned and authentic fellows,—
PAR. Right, so I say.

LAF. That gave him out incurable,-
PAR. Why, there 't is ; so say I too.
LAF. Not to be helped,--

PAR. Right: as 't were, a man assured of a--
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

(*) First folio, And.

a Lustique,-] "An old play, that has a great deal of merit, call'd The weakest goeth to the Wall,' (printed in 1600, but how much earlier written, or by whom written, we are no where inform'd,) has in it a Dutchman, call'd-Jacob van Smelt, who speaks a jargon of Dutch and our language; and upon several occasions uses this very word, which in English is-lusty."-CAPELL

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Fair maid, send forth thine eye this youthful parcel

Of noble bachelors stand at my bestowing,
O'er whom both sovereign power and father's voice
I have to use thy frank election make,
Thou hast power to choose, and they none to for-
sake.

HEL. To each of you, one fair and virtuous mistress

(*) First folio, facinerious.

b A coranto.] The coranto was a dance distinguished for the liveliness and rapidity of its movements.-

"And teach lavoltas high, and swift corantos."-
Henry V. Act III. Sc. 5.

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Let the white death sit on thy cheek for ever;
We'll ne'er come there again.
KING.
Make choice; and, see,
Who shuns thy love, shuns all his love in me.
HEL. Now, Dian, from thy altar do I fly,
And to imperial Love, that god most high,
Do my sighs stream.-Sir, will you hear my suit?
1 LORD. And grant it.
HEL.
Thanks, sir; all the rest is mute.
LAF. I had rather be in this choice, than throw
ames-ace for my life.
[eyes,
HEL. The honour, sir, that flames in your fair
Before I speak, too threat'ningly 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
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!

your

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. [good,

HEL. You are too young, too happy, and too 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 BERTRAM.]
but I give

Me and my service, ever whilst I live,
Into 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 her. KING. Thou know'st, she has rais'd me from my sickly bed.

BER. But follows it, my lord, to bring me down,

a There's one grape yet. -I am sure thy father drank wine.] We are to suppose that Lafeu, who has been in conversation with Paroiles, had not heard the discourse between Helena and the young courtiers, but believed she had propose to each, and been refused by all but the one now in question. The after-part of his

Must answer for your raising? I know her well;
She had 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 differences so mighty. If she be

All that is virtuous, (save what thou 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 proceed,
The place is dignified by the doer's deed:
Where great additions swell us, and virtue none,
It is a dropsied honour: good alone

Is good, without a name; vileness is so :
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 thrive,
When rather from our acts we them derive
Than our fore-goers; the mere word's a slave,
Debosh'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.
BER. I cannot love her, nor will strive to do't.
KING. Thou wrong'st thyself, if thou should'st
strive to choose.
[glad;
HEL. That you are well restor'd, my lord, I'm
Let the rest go.

KING. My honour's at the stake; which to

defeat,

I must produce my power. Here, take her hand,
Proud scornful boy, unworthy this good gift,
That dost in vile misprision shackle up
My love, and her desert; that canst not dream,
We, poising us in her defective scale,

Shall weigh thee to the beam; that wilt not know,
It is in us to plant thine honour, where
We please to have it grow. Check thy contempt :
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
Or I will throw thee from my care for ever,

(*) Old text, whence.

claims;

(+) First folio, is.

speech, "But if thou be'st not an ass," &c. refers, (aside,) to Parolles.

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