SCENE III.
King.
Now, fair One, do's 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 praise toward him;
Knowing him, is enough: on's bed of death
-- 31 --
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 touch'd
With that malignant cause, wherein the honour
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 unaidable estate: we must not
So stain our judgment, or corrupt our hope,
To prostitute our past-cure malady
To empericks; 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 intreating from your royal thoughts
A modest one to bear me back again.
King.
I cannot give thee less, to be call'd 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.
Hel.
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 judgment shown,
When judges have been babes; great floods have flown
-- 32 --
From simple sources; and great seas have dry'd,
When mir'cles have by th' greatest been deny'd.
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 us'd, must by thyself be paid:
Proffers, not took, reap thanks for their reward.
Hel.
Inspired merit so by breath is barr'd:
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 heav'n we count the act of men.
Dear Sir, to my endeavours give consent,
Of heav'n, not me, make an experiment.
I am not an impostor, that proclaim
4 noteMyself 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?
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 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?
Hel.
Tax of impudence,
-- 33 --
A strumpet's boldness, a divulged shame
Traduc'd by odious ballads: my maiden's name
Sear'd otherwise, no worse of worst extended;
With vilest torture let my life be ended.
King.
5 note
Methinks, in thee some blessed Spirit doth speak:
His power full sounds 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:
6 noteYouth, beauty, wisdom, courage, virtue, all
That happiness and prime can happy call;
Thou this to hazard, needs must intimate
Skill infinite, or monstrous desperate.
Sweet Practiser, thy physick I will try;
That ministers thine own death, if I die.
Hel.
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?
-- 34 --
King.
7 note
Make thy demand.
Hel,
But will you make it even?
King.
Ay, by my scepter, and my hopes of heaven.
Hel.
Then shalt thou give me, with thy kingly hand,
What Husband in thy power I will command.
Exempted be from me the arrogance
To chuse from forth the royal blood of France;
My low and humble name to propagate
8 noteWith any branch or impage 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 thine own time; for I,
Thy resolv'd Patient, on thee still rely.
More should I question thee, and more I must;
(Tho' 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, hoa! if thou proceed
As high as word, my deed shall match thy deed.
[Exeunt.
-- 35 --
Alexander Pope [1747], The works of Shakespear in eight volumes. The Genuine Text (collated with all the former Editions, and then corrected and emended) is here settled: Being restored from the Blunders of the first Editors, and the Interpolations of the two Last: with A Comment and Notes, Critical and Explanatory. By Mr. Pope and Mr. Warburton (Printed for J. and P. Knapton, [and] S. Birt [etc.], London) [word count] [S11301].
