The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works
Page 333
COUNTESS You have discharged this honestly. Keep it to yourself. Many likelihoods informed me of this before, which hung so tott’ring 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 Helen
COUNTESS (aside)
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 impressed in 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.
HELEN
What is your pleasure, madam?
COUNTESS
You know, Helen,
I am a mother to you.
HELEN
Mine honourable mistress.
COUNTESS
Nay, a mother.
Why not a mother? When I said ‘a 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 enwombèd mine. ’Tis often seen
Adoption strives with nature, and choice breeds
A native slip to us from foreign seeds.
You ne’er oppressed 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 distempered messenger of wet,
The many-coloured Iris, rounds thine eye?
Why, that you are my daughter?
HELEN
That I am not.
COUNTESS
I say I am your mother.
HELEN
Pardon, madam.
The Count Roussillon cannot be my brother.
I am from humble, he from honoured 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.
COUNTESS
Nor I your mother?
HELEN
You are my mother, madam. Would you were—
So that my lord your son were not my brother—
Indeed my mother! Or were you both our mothers
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?
COUNTESS
Yes, Helen, you might be my daughter-in-law.
God shield you mean it not! ‘Daughter’ and ‘mother’
So strive upon your pulse. What, pale again?
My fear hath catched your fondness. Now I see
The myst‘ry 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
To say thou dost not. Therefore tell me true,
But tell me then ‘tis so—for look, thy cheeks
Confess it t’one to th‘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 clew;
If it be not, forswear’t. Howe’er, I charge thee,
As heaven shall work in me for thine avail,
To tell me truly.
HELEN
Good madam, pardon me.
COUNTESS
Do you love my son?
HELEN
Your pardon, noble mistress.
COUNTESS
Love you my son?
HELEN
Do not you love him, madam?
COUNTESS
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 appeached.
HELEN
Then I confess,
Here on my knee, before high heaven and you,
That before you and next unto high heaven
I love your son.
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 intenable 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,
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, O then give pity
To her whose state is such that cannot choose
But lend and give where she is sure to lose,
That seeks to find not that her search implies,
But riddle-like lives sweetly where she dies.
COUNTESS
Had you not lately an intent—speak truly—
To go to Paris?
HELEN Madam, I had.
COUNTESS Wherefore? Tell true.
HELEN
I will tell truth, by grace itself I swear.
You know my father left me some prescriptions
Of rare and proved effects, such as his reading
And manifest experience had collected
For general sovereignty, and that he willed me
In heedfull’st reservation to bestow them,
As notes whose faculties inclusive were
More than they were in note. Amongst the rest
There is a remedy, approved, set down,
To cure the desperate languishings whereof
The King is rendered lost.
COUNTESS
This was your motive
For Paris, was it? Speak.
HELEN
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.
COUNTESS
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,
Embowelled of their doctrine, have left off
The danger to itself?
HELEN
There’s something in’t
More than my father’s skill, which was the great’st
Of his profession, that his good receipt
Shall for my legacy be sanctified
By th’ 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, an hour.
HELEN Ay, madam, knowingly.
COUNTESS
Why, Helen, thou shalt have my leave and love,
Means and attendants, and my loving greetings
To those of mine in court. I’ll stay at home
And pray God’s blessing into thy attempt.
Be gone tomorrow, and be sure of this:
What I can help thee to, thou shalt not miss.
Exeunt
2.1 Flourish of cornetts. Enter the King ⌈carried in a chair⌉, with the two Lords Dumaine, divers young lords taking leave for the Florentine war, and Bertram and Paroles
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.
FIRST LORD DUMAINE
’Tis our hope, sir, After well-entered 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
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
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.
FIRST LORD DUMAINE
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
Before you serve.
BOTH LORDS DUMAINE Our hearts receive your warnings.
KING Farewell.—Come hither to me.
⌈Some lords stand aside with the King⌉
FIRST LORD DUMAINE (to Bertram)
O my sweet lord, that you will stay behind us.
PAROLES
’Tis not his fault, the spark.
SECOND LORD DUMAINE
O ’tis brave wars.
PAROLES
Most admirable! I have seen those wars.
BERTRAM
I am commanded here, and kept a coil with
‘Too young’ and ‘the next year’ and ‘’tis too early’.
PAROLES
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
But one to dance with. By heaven, I’ll steal away.
FIRST LORD DUMAINE
There’s honour in the theft.
PAROLES
Commit it, Count.
SECOND LORD DUMAINE
I am your accessary. And so, farewell.
BERTRAM I grow to you,
And our parting is a tortured body.
FIRST LORD DUMAINE
Farewell, captain.
SECOND LORD DUMAINE Sweet Monsieur Paroles.
PAROLES Noble heroes, my sword and yours are kin. Good sparks and lustrous, a word, good mettles. 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 DUMAINE We shall, noble captain.
PAROLES Mars dote on you for his novices.
Exeunt both Lords Dumaine
(To Bertram) What will ye do?
BERTRAM Stay the King.
PAROLES 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 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.
BERTRAM And I will do so.
PAROLES Worthy fellows, and like to prove most sinewy sword-men.
Exeunt [Bertram and Paroles]
Enter Lafeu to the King
LAFEU (kneeling)
Pardon, my lord, for me and for my tidings.
KING I’ll fee thee to stand up.
LAFEU (rising)
Then here’s a man stands that has bought his pardon.
I would you had kneeled, 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 asked thee mercy for’t.
LAFEU
Good faith, across!
But my good lord, ’tis thus: 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
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 Pépin, nay,
To give great Charlemagne a pen in’s hand,
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
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?
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.
LAFEU
Nay, I’ll fit you,
And not be all day neither.
⌈He goes to the door⌉
KING
Thus he his special nothing ever prologues.
LAFEU (to Helen, within) Nay, come your ways.
Enter Helen ⌈disguised⌉
KING This haste hath wings indeed.
LAFEU (to Helen) 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.
Exeunt fall but the King and Helen⌉
KING
Now, fair one, does your business follow us?
HELEN
Ay, my good lord. Gérard de Narbonne was my father;
In what he did profess, well found.
KING
I knew him.
HELEN
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 touched
With that malignant cause wherein the honour no
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 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 judgement 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.
HELEN
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 called 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.
HELEN
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 judgement shown
When judges have been babes; great floods have
flow’n
From simple sources, and great seas have dried.
When miracles have by th’ great’st 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.
HELEN
Inspired merit so by breath is barred.
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
Art thou so confident? Within what space
Hop’st thou my cure?
HELEN
The great’st grace lending grace,