The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare (book suggestions TXT) 📖

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?

HELENA. 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?

HELENA. Tax of impudence,

A strumpet’s boldness, a divulged shame, Traduc’d by odious ballads; my maiden’s name Sear’d otherwise; ne 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.

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.

HELENA. 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.

HELENA. But will you make it even?

KING. Ay, by my sceptre and my hopes of heaven.

HELENA. 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.

Give me some help here, ho! If thou proceed As high as word, my deed shall match thy deed.

[Flourish. Exeunt]

 

ACT II. SCENE 2.

Rousillon. The COUNT’S palace

 

Enter COUNTESS and CLOWN

 

COUNTESS. Come on, sir; I shall now put you to the height of your breeding.

CLOWN. I will show myself highly fed and lowly taught. I know my business is but to the court.

COUNTESS. To the court! Why, what place make you special, when you put off that with such contempt? But to the court!

CLOWN. Truly, madam, if God have lent a man any manners, he may easily put it off at court. He that cannot make a leg, put 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.

COUNTESS. Marry, that’s a bountiful answer that fits all questions.

CLOWN. It is like a barber’s chair, that fits all buttocks-the pin buttock, the quatch buttock, the brawn buttock, or any buttock.

COUNTESS. Will your answer serve fit to all questions?

CLOWN. As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, as your French crown for your taffety punk, as Tib’s rush for Tom’s forefinger, as a pancake for Shrove Tuesday, a morris for Mayday, 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.

COUNTESS. Have you, I, say, an answer of such fitness for all questions?

CLOWN. From below your duke to beneath your constable, it will fit any question.

COUNTESS. It must be an answer of most monstrous size that must fit all demands.

CLOWN. But a trifle neither, in good faith, if the learned should speak truth of it. Here it is, and all that belongs to’t. Ask me if I am a courtier: it shall do you no harm to learn.

COUNTESS. To be young again, if we could, I will be a fool in question, hoping to be the wiser by your answer. I pray you, sir, are you a courtier?

CLOWN. O Lord, sir!-There’s a simple putting off. More, more, a hundred of them.

COUNTESS. Sir, I am a poor friend of yours, that loves you.

CLOWN. O Lord, sir!-Thick, thick; spare not me.

COUNTESS. I think, sir, you can eat none of this homely meat.

CLOWN. O Lord, sir!-Nay, put me to’t, I warrant you.

COUNTESS. You were lately whipp’d, sir, as I think.

CLOWN. O Lord, sir!-Spare not me.

COUNTESS. 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.

CLOWN. I ne’er had worse luck in my life in my ‘O Lord, sir!’ I see thing’s may serve long, but not serve ever.

COUNTESS. I play the noble housewife with the time, To entertain it so merrily with a fool.

CLOWN. O Lord, sir!-Why, there’t serves well again.

COUNTESS. An end, sir! To your business: give Helen this, And urge her to a present answer back; Commend me to my kinsmen and my son. This is not much.

CLOWN. Not much commendation to them?

COUNTESS. Not much employment for you. You understand me?

CLOWN. Most fruitfully; I am there before my legs.

COUNTESS. Haste you again. Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE 3.

Paris. The KING’S palace

 

Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES

 

LAFEU. They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons to make modern and familiar things supernatural and causeless. Hence is it that we make trifles of terrors, ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear.

PAROLLES. Why, ‘tis the rarest argument of wonder that hath shot out in our latter times.

BERTRAM. And so ‘tis.

LAFEU. To be relinquish’d of the artists-PAROLLES. So I say-both of Galen and Paracelsus.

LAFEU. Of all the learned and authentic fellows-PAROLLES. Right; so I say.

LAFEU. That gave him out incurable—

PAROLLES. Why, there ‘tis; so say I too.

LAFEU. Not to be help’d—

PAROLLES. Right; as ‘twere a man assur’d of a-LAFEU. Uncertain life and sure death.

PAROLLES. Just; you say well; so would I have said.

LAFEU. I may truly say it is a novelty to the world.

PAROLLES. It is indeed. If you will have it in showing, you shall read it in what-do-ye-call’t here.

LAFEU. [Reading the ballad title] ‘A Showing of a Heavenly Effect in an Earthly Actor.’

PAROLLES. That’s it; I would have said the very same.

LAFEU. Why, your dolphin is not lustier. ‘Fore me, I speak in respect-PAROLLES. Nay, ‘tis strange, ‘tis very strange; that is the brief and the tedious of it; and he’s of a most facinerious spirit that will not acknowledge it to be the-LAFEU. Very hand of heaven.

PAROLLES. Ay; so I say.

LAFEU. In a most weak—

PAROLLES. And debile minister, great power, great transcendence; which should, indeed, give us a further use to be made than alone the recov’ry of the King, as to be-LAFEU. Generally thankful.

 

Enter KING, HELENA, and ATTENDANTS

 

PAROLLES. I would have said it; you say well. Here comes the King.

LAFEU. Lustig, as the Dutchman says. I’ll like a maid the better, whilst I have a tooth in my head. Why, he’s able to lead her a coranto.

PAROLLES. Mort du vinaigre! Is not this Helen?

LAFEU. ‘Fore God, I think so.

KING. Go, call before me all the lords in court.

Exit an ATTENDANT

Sit, my preserver, by thy patient’s side; And with this healthful hand, whose banish’d sense Thou has repeal’d, a second time receive The confirmation of my promis’d gift, Which but attends thy naming.

 

Enter three or four LORDS

 

Fair maid, send forth thine eye. This youthful parcel Of noble bachelors stand at my bestowing, O’er whom both sovereign power and father’s voice I have to use. Thy frank election make; Thou hast power to choose, and they none to forsake.

HELENA. To each of you one fair and virtuous mistress Fall, when love please. Marry, to each but one!

LAFEU. I’d give bay Curtal and his furniture My mouth no more were broken than these boys’, And writ as little beard.

KING. Peruse them well.

Not one of those but had a noble father.

HELENA. Gentlemen,

Heaven hath through me restor’d the King to health.

ALL. We understand it, and thank heaven for you.

HELENA. I am a simple maid, and therein wealthiest That I protest I simply am a maid.

Please it your Majesty, I have done already.

The blushes in my cheeks thus whisper me: ‘We blush that thou shouldst choose; but, be refused, Let the white death sit on thy cheek for ever, We’ll ne’er come there again.’

KING. Make choice and see:

Who shuns thy love shuns all his love in me.

HELENA. Now, Dian, from thy altar do I fly, And to imperial Love, that god most high, Do my sighs stream. Sir, will you hear my suit?

FIRST LORD. And grant it.

HELENA. Thanks, sir; all the rest is mute.

LAFEU. I had rather be in this choice than throw ames-ace for my life.

HELENA. The honour, sir, that flames in your fair eyes, Before I speak, too threat’ningly replies.

Love make your fortunes twenty times above Her that so wishes, and her humble love!

SECOND LORD. No better, if you please.

HELENA. My wish receive,

Which great Love grant; and so I take my leave.

LAFEU. Do all they deny her? An they were sons of mine I’d have them whipt; or I would send them to th’ Turk to make eunuchs of.

HELENA. Be not afraid that I your hand should take; I’ll never do you wrong for your own sake.

Blessing upon your vows; and in your bed Find fairer fortune, if you ever wed!

LAFEU. These boys are boys of ice; they’ll none have her.

Sure, they are bastards to the English; the French ne’er got ‘em.

HELENA. You are too young, too happy, and too good, To make yourself a son out of my blood.

FOURTH LORD. Fair one, I think not so.

LAFEU. There’s one grape yet; I am sure thy father drunk wine-but if thou be’st not an ass, I am a youth of fourteen; I have known thee already.

HELENA. [To BERTRAM] I dare not say I take you; but I give Me and my service, ever whilst I live, Into your guiding power. This is the man.

KING. Why, then, young Bertram, take her; she’s thy wife.

BERTRAM. My wife, my liege! I shall beseech your Highness, In such a business give me leave to use The help of mine own eyes.

KING. Know’st thou not, Bertram,

What she has done for me?

BERTRAM. Yes, my good lord;

But never hope to know why I should marry her.

KING. Thou know’st she has rais’d me from my sickly bed.

BERTRAM. But follows it, my lord, to bring me down Must answer for your raising? I know her well: She had her breeding at my father’s charge.

A poor physician’s daughter my wife! Disdain Rather corrupt me ever!

KING. ‘Tis only title thou disdain’st in her, the which I can build up. Strange