2 Lord. Health, at your bidding, serve your ma

jesty!

King. Those girls of Italy, take heed of them;
They say, our French lack language to deny,'
If they demand. Beware of being captives,

Before you serve.

Both.

Our hearts receive your warnings.

King. Farewell.-Come hither to me.

[The King retires to a couch.

1 Lord. O my sweet lord, that you will stay behind

us!

Par. 'Tis not his fault; the spark

2 Lord. O, 'tis brave wars! Par. Most admirable: I have seen those wars. Ber. I am commanded here, and kept a coil,' with Too young, and the next year, and 'tis too early.

Par. An thy mind stand to it, boy, steal away bravely.

Ber. I shall stay here the forehorse to a smock, Creaking my shoes on the plain masonry,

Till honor be bought up, and no sword worn,

But one to dance with! By Heaven, I'll steal away. 1 Lord. There's honor in the theft.

Commit it, count.

Par. 2 Lord. I am your accessary; and so farewell. Ber. I grow to you, and our parting is a tortured body.2

1 Lord. Farewell, captain.

2 Lord. Sweet monsieur Parolles!

Par. Noble heroes, my sword and yours are kin. Good sparks and lustrous, a word, good metals.-You shall find in the regiment of the Spinii, one captain Spurio, with his cicatrice, an emblem of war, here on his sinister cheek; it was this very sword entrenched it. Say to him, I live; and observe his reports for me.

2 Lord. We shall, noble captain.

1 To be kept a coil is to be vexed or troubled with a stir or noise.

2 "I grow to you, and our parting is, as it were, to dissever or torture

a body."

Par. Mars dote on you for his novices!
Lords.] What will you do?
Ber. Stay; the king-

[Exeunt

[Seeing him rise.

Par. Use a more spacious ceremony to the noble lords: you have restrained yourself within the list of too cold an adieu; be more expressive to them; for they wear themselves in the cap of the time,' there do muster true gait; eat, speak, and move under the influence of the most received star; and though the devil lead the measure, such are to be followed. After them, and take a more dilated farewell.

Ber. And I will do so.

Par. Worthy fellows; and like to prove most sinewy sword-men. [Exeunt BERTRAM and PAROLLes.

Enter LAFEU.

Laf. Pardon, my lord, [Kneeling.] for me and for

my tidings.

King. I'll fee thee to stand up.

Laf.

Then here's a man

Stands, that has brought his pardon. I would you
Had kneeled, my lord, to ask me mercy; and
That, at my bidding, you could so stand up.

King. I would I had; so I had broke thy pate, And asked thee mercy for't.

Laf.

Goodfaith across : But, my good lord, 'tis thus: Will you be cured Of your infirmity?

King. Laf.

No.

O, will you eat

1 They are the foremost in the fashion.

2 It would seem that this passage has been wrongly pointed and improperly explained, there do muster true gait; if addressed to Bertram, it means there exercise yourself in the gait of fashion; eat, &c. But perhaps we should read they instead of there, or else insert they after gait ; either of these slight emendations would render this obscure passage perfectly intelligible.

3 The dance.

4 This word, which is taken from breaking a spear across, in chivalric exercises, is used elsewhere by Shakspeare, where a pass of wit miscarries. See As You Like It, Act iii. Sc. 4.

you will,

No grapes, my royal fox? Yes, but
My noble grapes, an if my royal fox
Could reach them. I have seen a medicine,
That's able to breathe life into a stone;
Quicken a rock, and make you dance canary,1
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.

King.

What her is this?

Laf. Why, doctor she. My lord, there's one arrived,
If you will see her,-now, by my faith and honor,
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
Then 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 wondering 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.

This haste hath wings indeed.

Laf. Nay, come your ways.

King.

Laf. 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,3
That dare leave two together; fare you well.

[Exit.

1 It has been before observed that the canary was a kind of lively dance.

2 By profession is meant her declaration of the object of her coming. 3 I am like Pandarus. See Troilus and Cressida.

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 bade me store up, as a triple eye,1

Safer than mine own two, more dear. I have so:
And, hearing your high majesty is touched
With that malignant cause wherein the honor
Of my dear father's gift stands chief in power,
I come to tender it, and my appliance,
With all bound humbleness.

We thank

you,

maiden;

King.
But may not be so credulous of cure,-
When our most learned doctors leave us; and
The congregated college have concluded
That laboring art can never ransom 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 empirics; 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;
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.

1 A third eye.

Hel. What I can do, can do no hurt to try,
Since you set up your rest1 '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.

flown

Great floods have

From simple sources; and great seas have dried,
When miracles have by the greatest been denied.—
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 used, must by thyself be paid.
Proffers, not took, reap thanks for their reward.
Hel. 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 endeavors give consent;
Of Heaven, not me, make an experiment.
I am not an impostor, that proclaim
Myself against the level of mine aim; 3

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 quenched his sleepy lamp;

1 i. e." Since you have determined or made up your mind that there is no remedy."

2 An allusion to Daniel judging the two elders.

3 I am not an impostor, that proclaim one thing and design another,

that proclaim a cure and aim at a fraud. I think what I speak.

4e. the divine grace, lending me grace or power to accomplish it.