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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 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.

King. I cannot give thee less, to be call'd grate.

ful:

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 shewn,
When judges have been babes. Great floods have
flown

From simple sources; and great seas have dried,
When miracles have by the 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 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 'tis with us that square our guess by shews:
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 greatest 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
Sear'd otherwise; the worst of worst 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.

Hel. If I break time, or flinch in property

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.

But will you make it even?

King. Ay, by my sceptre, and my hopes of Heaven! Hel. 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 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 bless'd.

;

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 shew 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, pull 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 brawnbuttock, 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 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 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.

good faith, if the

Here it is, and all

Clo. But a trifle neither, in learned should speak truth of it. 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 -I pray you, sir, are you a courtier ?

answer

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 whipp'd, 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.

Count. I play the noble housewife with the time, To entertain it so merrily with a Fool.

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