Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

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 his hand,
And write to her a love-line.

If

King.

What her is this?

Laf. Why, doctor she: My lord, there's one arriv'd,

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

8

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.

Now, good Lafeu,

King.
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.

And not be all day neither.

Nay, I'll fit you.

[Exit LAFEU.

King. Thus he his special nothing ever prologues.

Re-enter LAFEU, with HELEna.

Laf. Nay, come your ways.

King.

This haste hath wings indeed.

Laf. Nay, come your ways;

This is his majesty, say your mind to him:

6

7

dance canary,] a kind of dance.

her years, profession,] By profession is meant her declaration of the end and purpose of her coming.

8 Than I dare blame my weakness:] Lafeu's meaning appears to me to be this:-"That the amazement she excited in him was so great, that he could not impute it merely to his own weakness, but to the wonderful qualities of the object that occasioned it."

M. MASON.

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. [Exit.
King. Now, fair one, does your business follow
us?

Hel. Ay, my good lord. Gerard de Narbon was My father; in what he did profess, well found.' King. I knew him.

Hel. The rather will I spare my praises towards him;

Knowing him, is enough. On his bed of death
Many receipts he gave me; chiefly one,
Which, as the dearest issue of his practice,
And of his old experience the only darling,
He bad 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,
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 ransome 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 empiricks; 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;

Cressida.

1

Cressid's uncle,] I am like Pandarus. See Troilus and

well found.] i. e. of known, acknowledged, excellence.

Humbly entreating from your royal thoughts
A modest one to bear me back 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:
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. Great floods have
flown

From simple sources; and great seas have dried,

When miracles have by the greatest been denied.2

Oft expectation fails, and most oft there

Where most it promises; and oft it hits,
Where hope is coldest, and despair most sits.
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 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;3

2 When miracles have by the greatest been denied.] i. e. disbelieved, or contemned.

Myself against the level of mine aim;] i, e. I am not an im

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; no worse 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.5
Thy life is dear; for all, that life can rate
Worth name of life, in thee hath estimate;

postor that proclaim one thing and design another, that proclaim a cure and aim at a fraud.

4- —no worse of worst extended,] i. e. to be be so defamed that nothing severer can be said against those who are most publickly reported to be infamous.

5 And what impossibility would slay

In common sense, sense saves another way.] i. e. and that which, if I trusted to my reason, I should think impossible, I yet, perceiving thee to be actuated by some blessed spirit, think thee capable of effecting. MALONE.

6 in thee hath estimate;] May be counted among the gifts enjoyed by thee. JOHNSON.

Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, virtue, all
That happiness and prime' can happy call:
Thou this to hazard, needs must intimate
Skill infinite, or monstrous desperate.
Sweet practiser, thy physick 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.

8

But will you make it even? King. Ay, by my sceptre, and my hopes of hea

ven.

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 blest.—

8

prime] Youth; the sprightly vigour of life.

in property-] In property seems to be here used, with much laxity, for-in the due performance.

9 With any branch or image of thy state:] Branch refers to the collateral descendants of the royal blood, and image to the direct and immediate line. HENLEY.

« AnteriorContinuar »