most sure,
    My art is not past power nor you past cure.
  KING. Art thou so confident? Within what space
    Hop'st thou my cure?
  HELENA. The greatest Grace lending grace.
    Ere twice the horses of the sun shall bring
    Their fiery torcher his diurnal ring,
    Ere twice in murk and occidental damp
    Moist Hesperus hath quench'd his sleepy lamp,
    Or four and twenty times the pilot's glass
    Hath told the thievish minutes how they pass,
    What is infirm from your sound parts shall fly,
    Health shall live free, and sickness freely die.
  KING. Upon thy certainty and confidence
    What dar'st thou venture?
  HELENA. Tax of impudence,
    A strumpet's boldness, a divulged shame,
    Traduc'd by odious ballads; my maiden's name
    Sear'd otherwise; ne worse of worst-extended
    With vilest torture let my life be ended.
  KING. Methinks in thee some blessed spirit doth speak
    His powerful sound within an organ weak;
    And what impossibility would slay
    In common sense, sense saves another way.
    Thy life is dear; for all that life can rate
    Worth name of life in thee hath estimate:
    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]