To say thou dost not: therefore tell me true;
	But tell me then, 'tis so; for, look thy cheeks
	Confess it, th' one to th' other; and thine eyes
	See it so grossly shown in thy behaviors
	That in their kind they speak it: only sin
	And hellish obstinacy tie thy tongue,
	That truth should be suspected. Speak, is't so?
	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,
	Tell me truly.

HELENA	                  Good madam, pardon me!

COUNTESS	Do you love my son?

HELENA	Your pardon, noble mistress!

COUNTESS	Love you my son?

HELENA	                  Do not you love him, madam?

COUNTESS	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.

HELENA	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 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 honour cites 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: 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!

COUNTESS	Had you not lately an intent,--speak truly,--
	To go to Paris?

HELENA	                  Madam, I had.

COUNTESS	Wherefore? tell true.

HELENA	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 heedfull'st reservation to bestow them,
	As notes whose faculties inclusive were
	More than they were in note: amongst the rest,
	There is a remedy, approved, set down,
	To cure the desperate languishings whereof
	The king is render'd lost.

COUNTESS	This was your motive
	For Paris, was it? speak.

HELENA	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.

COUNTESS	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?

HELENA	There's something in't,
	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'ld venture
	The well-lost life of mine on his grace's cure
	By such a day and hour.