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 my brother)
Indeed my mother!—or were you both our mothers,
I care no more for, than 1 I do for heaven,
So I were not his sister. Can't no other,

But, I your daughter, he must be my brother?
Count. Yes, Helen, you might be my daughter-
in-law:

God shield, you mean it not! daughter, and mother, So strive 2 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 ashamed,

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 behaviors,

4

That in their kind they speak it; only sin
And hellish obstinacy tie thy tongue,

That truth should be suspected. Speak, is 't so ?

'I wish it equally as.
The cause of your grief.
According to their nature.

2 Contend.

If it be so, you have wound a goodly clew;

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, dis

close

The state of your affection; for your passions
Have to the full appeach'd.1

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 loved 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 2 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 looks 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 honor cites 1 a virtuous youth,
Did ever, in so true a flame of liking,

Wish chastely, and love dearly, that your Dian
Was both herself and Love; 2 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.
Count.

Madam, I had.

Wherefore? tell true.
Hel. I will tell truth; by grace itself, I swear.
You know, my father left me some prescriptions
Of rare and proved 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 in note: 3 amongst the rest
There is a remedy, approved, set down,

To cure the desperate languishes, whereof

3 Receipts, in which greater virtues were enclosed than appeared to observation.