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.