bosom, and I thank you for your honest care: 1 will speak with you further anon. [Exit Steward.

Enter HELENA,

Count. Even so it was with me, when I was young:

If we are nature's, these are ours; this thorn Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong;

Our blood to us, this to our blood is born; It is the show and seal of nature's truth, Where love's strong passion is impress'd in youth: By our remembrances of days foregone, Such were our faults;

་

or then we thought them none.

Her eye is sick on't; 1 observe her now.
Hel. What is your pleasure, Madam?
Count. You know, Helen,

I am a mother to you.

He. Mine honourable Mistress.

Count. Nay, a mother;

Why not a mother? When I said, a mother,
Methought you saw a serpent! What's in mother,
That you start at it? I say, I am your mother;
And put you in the catalogue of those
That were enwombed mine: 'Tis often seen,
Adoption strives with nature; and choice breeds
A native slip to us from foreign seeds:
You ne'er oppress'd me with a mother's groan,
Yet I express to you a mother's care:
God's mercy, maiden! does it curd thy blood,
To say, I am thy mother? What's the matter,
That this distemper'd messenger of wet,

The many colour'd Iris, rounds thine eye? that you are my daughter?

Why?

Hel. That I am not.

Count. I say, I am your mother.

Hel. Pardon, Madam;

The Count Rousillon cannot be my brother:
1 am from humble, he from honour'd name;
No note upon my parents, his all noble:
My master, my dear lord he is; and I

His servant live, and will his vassal die:
He must not be my brother.

Count. Nor I your mother?

Hel. You are my mother, Madam; 'Would you

were

(So that my lord, your son, were not

Indeed, my mother!

my brother,) or were you both our mothers,

1 care no more for, than I do for heaven,
So I were not his sister: Can't no other,
But, I your daughter, he
Count. Yes, Helen, you

must be my brother?

might be my daughterin-law;

God shield, you mean it not! daughter, and mother,

So strive upon your pulse: What, pale again?
My fear hath catch'd your fondness: Now I see
The mystery of your loneliness, and find
Your salt tears' head. Now to all sense 'tis gross,
You love my son; invention is asham'd,
Against the proclamation of thy passion,

To say, thou dost not: therefore tell me true;
But tell me then, 'tis so: for, look thy cheeks
Confess it, one to the other; and thine eyes
See it so grossly shown in thy behaviours,
That in their kind they speak it; only sin
And hellish obstinacy the thy tongue,

That truth should be suspected: Speak, is't sof
If it be so, you have wound a goodly clue;
If it be not, forswear't: howe'er, I charge thee,

As heaven shall work in me for thine avail,
To tell me truly.

Hel. Good Madam, pardon me!
Count. Do you love my son?

Hel. Your pardon, noble Mistress !

Count. Love you my son ?

Hel. Do not you love him, Madam?

Count. Go not about; my love hath in't a

bond,

Whereof the world takes note: come, come, disclose

The state of your affection; for your passions
Have to the full appeach'd.

Hel. Then, I confess,

Here on my knee, before high heaven and you, That before you, and next unto high heaven,

I love your son:

My friends were poor, but honest; so's my love:" Be not offended; for it hurts not him,

That he is lov'd of me: I follow him not

By any token of presumptuous suit;

Nor would I have him, till I do deserve him;
Yet never know how that desert should be.
I know I love in vain, strive against hope;
Yet, in this captious and intenible sieve,
I still pour in the waters of my love,
And lack not to lose still: thus, Indian-like,
Religious in mine error, I adore

The sun, that locks upon his worshipper,

But knows of him no more. My dearest Madam,
Let not your hate encounter with my love,
For loving where you do: but, if yourself,
Whose aged honour cites a virtuous youth,
Did ever, in so true a flame of liking,
Wish chastly, and love dearly, that your Dian
Was both herself and Love; O then, give pity

To her, whose state is such, that cannot choose.
But lend and give where she is sure to lose;
That seeks not to find that her search implies,
But, riddle-like, lives sweetly where she dies.
Count. Had you not lately an intent, speak
truly,

To go to Paris?

Hel. Madam, I had.

Count. Wherefore? tell true.

Hel. I will tell truth; by grace itself, I swear. You know, my father left me some prescriptions Of rare and prov'd effects, such as his reading, And manifest experience, had collected

For general sovereignty: and that he will'd me
In heedfullest reservation to bestow them,
As notes, whose faculties inclusive were,
More than they were note: amongst the rest,
There is a remedy, approv'd, set down,

To cure the desperate ianguishings, whereof
The King is render'd lost.

Count. This was your motive

For Paris, was it? speak.

Hel. My lord your son made me to think of

this;

Else Paris, and the medicine, and the King,

Had, from the conversation of my thoughts,
Haply, been absent then.

Count. But think you, Helen,

If you should tender your supposed aid,

He would receive it? He and his physicians

Are of a mind; he, that they cannot help him, They, that they cannot help; How shall they credit

A poor unlearned virgin, when the schools,
Embowell'd of their doctrine, have left off
The danger to itself?

Hel. There's something hints,

More than my father's skill, which was the greatest Of his profession, that his good receipt

Shall, for my legacy, be sanctified

By the luckiest stars in heaven: and, would your

Honour

But give me leave to try success, I'd venture
The well-lost life of mine on his grace's cure,
By such a day, and hour.

*

Count. Dost thou believe't?

Hel. Ay, Madam, knowingly.

Count. Why, Helen, thou shalt have my leave, and love,

Means, and attendants, and my loving greetings
To those of mine in court; I'll stay at home,
And pray God's blessing into thy attempt:
Be gone to-morrow? and be sure of this,
What I can help thee to, thou shalt not iniss.
[Exeunt.

ACT II.

SCENE I.

Paris. A Room in the King's Palace.

Flourish. Enter King, with young Lords taking leave for the Florentine war; BERTRAM, PAROLLES, and Attendants.

King. Farewell, young Lord, these warlike prin