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,
Ere twice the horses of the sun shall bring
Their fiery coacher his diurnal ring,
Ere twice in murk and occidental damp
Moist Hesperus hath quenched her 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?
HELEN
Tax of impudence,
A strumpet’s boldness, a divulged shame;
Traduced by odious ballads, my maiden’s name
Seared otherwise, nay—worse of worst—extended
With vilest torture, let my life be ended.
KING
Methinks in thee some blessèd 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: