| ACT II SCENE I | Paris. The KING's palace. | |
| [
Flourish of cornets. Enter the KING, attended
with divers young Lords taking leave for the
Florentine war; BERTRAM, and PAROLLES
] |
| KING | Farewell, young lords; these warlike principles |
| Do not throw from you: and you, my lords, farewell: |
| Share the advice betwixt you; if both gain, all |
| The gift doth stretch itself as 'tis received, |
| And is enough for both. | 5 |
| First Lord | 'Tis 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 heart |
| Will not confess he owes the malady | 10 |
| That doth my life besiege. Farewell, young lords; |
| 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 | 15 |
| Not to woo honour, but to wed it; when |
| The bravest questant shrinks, find what you seek, |
| That fame may cry you loud: I say, farewell. |
| Second Lord | Health, at your bidding, serve your majesty! |
| KING | Those girls of Italy, take heed of them: | 20 |
| They say, our French lack language to deny, |
| If they demand: beware of being captives, |
| Before you serve. |
| Both | Our hearts receive your warnings. |
| KING | Farewell. Come hither to me. | 25 |
| [Exit, attended] |
| First Lord | O, my sweet lord, that you will stay behind us! |
| PAROLLES | 'Tis not his fault, the spark. |
| Second Lord | O, 'tis brave wars! |
| PAROLLES | Most admirable: I have seen those wars. |
| BERTRAM | I am commanded here, and kept a coil with | 30 |
| 'Too young' and 'the next year' and ''tis too early.' |
| PAROLLES | An thy mind stand to't, boy, steal away bravely. |
| BERTRAM | I shall stay here the forehorse to a smock, |
| Creaking my shoes on the plain masonry, |
| Till honour be bought up and no sword worn | 35 |
| But one to dance with! By heaven, I'll steal away. |
| First Lord | There's honour in the theft. |
| PAROLLES | Commit it, count. |
| Second Lord | I am your accessary; and so, farewell. |
| BERTRAM | I grow to you, and our parting is a tortured body. | 40 |
| First Lord | Farewell, captain. |
| Second Lord | Sweet Monsieur Parolles! |
| PAROLLES | 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 | 45 |
| 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. | 50 |
| [Exeunt Lords] |
| PAROLLES | Mars dote on you for his novices! what will ye do? |
| BERTRAM | Stay: the king. |
| [Re-enter KING. BERTRAM and PAROLLES retire] |
| PAROLLES | [To BERTRAM] Use a more spacious ceremony to the
|
| noble lords; you have restrained yourself within the |
| list of too cold an adieu: be more expressive to | 55 |
| 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. | 60 |
| BERTRAM | And I will do so. |
| PAROLLES | Worthy fellows; and like to prove most sinewy sword-men. |
| [Exeunt BERTRAM and PAROLLES] |
| [Enter LAFEU] |
| LAFEU | [Kneeling] Pardon, my lord, for me and for my tidings.
|
| KING | I'll fee thee to stand up. |
| LAFEU | Then here's a man stands, that has brought his pardon. | 65 |
| 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. |
| LAFEU | Good faith, across: but, my good lord 'tis thus; | 70 |
| Will you be cured of your infirmity? |
| KING | No. |
| LAFEU | 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 | 75 |
| 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. |
| KING | What 'her' is this? |
| LAFEU | Why, Doctor She: my lord, there's one arrived, |
| If you will see her: now, by my faith and honour, |
| If seriously I may convey my thoughts | 85 |
| In this my light deliverance, I have spoke |
| With one that, in her sex, her years, profession, |
| 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? | 90 |
| 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 wondering how thou took'st it. | 95 |
| LAFEU | Nay, I'll fit you, |
| And not be all day neither. |
| [Exit] |
| KING | Thus he his special nothing ever prologues. |
| [Re-enter LAFEU, with HELENA] |
| LAFEU | Nay, come your ways. |
| KING | This haste hath wings indeed. | 100 |
| LAFEU | Nay, come your ways: |
| This is his majesty; say your mind to him: |
| A traitor you do look like; but such traitors |
| His majesty seldom fears: I am Cressid's uncle, |
| That dare leave two together; fare you well. | 105 |
| [Exit] |
| KING | Now, fair one, does your business follow us? |
| HELENA | Ay, my good lord. |
| Gerard de Narbon was my father; |
| In what he did profess, well found. |
| KING | I knew him. | 110 |
| HELENA | 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 practise, |
| And of his old experience the oily darling, | 115 |
| 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 |
| Of my dear father's gift stands chief in power, | 120 |
| 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 us and | 125 |
| The congregated college have concluded |
| That labouring 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 | 130 |
| To empirics, or to dissever so |
| Our great self and our credit, to esteem |
| A senseless help when help past sense we deem. |
| HELENA | My duty then shall pay me for my pains: |
| I will no more enforce mine office on you. | 135 |
| 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 I give |
| As one near death to those that wish him live: | 140 |
| 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 | 145 |
| 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. | 150 |
| 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: | 155 |
| 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 | 160 |
| 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; | 165 |
| 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 | 170 |
| 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 | 175 |
| 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? | 180 |
| 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. | 185 |
| 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 | 190 |
| 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. | 195 |
| 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; | 200 |
| 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 | 205 |
| 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; | 210 |
| 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, | 215 |
| 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. | 220 |
| Give me some help here, ho! If thou proceed |
| As high as word, my deed shall match thy meed. |
| [Flourish. Exeunt] |