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: