What is your pleasure, madam?
You know, Helen,
I am a mother to you.
Mine honourable mistress.
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:
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?
Why? That you are my daughter?
That I am not.
I say, I am your mother.
Pardon, madam;
The Count Rousillon cannot be my brother:
I 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.
Nor I your mother?
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 I do for heaven,
So I were not his sister. Can't no other,
But, I your daughter, he must be my brother?
Yes, Helen, you might be my daughter-in-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 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, 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 will work in me to thine avail,
To tell me truly.
Good madam, pardon me!
Do you love my son?
Your pardon, noble mistress!
Love you my son?
Do not you love him, madam?
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.
Then, I confess,
Here on my knee, before high heaven and you,
That before you, and next unto high heaven,
I love your son.
