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]

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

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