QUEEN
Whiles yet the dew’s on ground, gather those flowers;
Make haste; who has the note of them?
LADY
I, madam.
QUEEN
Dispatch.
QUEEN
Now, Master Doctor, have you brought those drugs?
CORNELIUS
Pleaseth your Highness, ay. Here they are, madam.
CORNELIUS
But I beseech your Grace, without offence,
(My conscience bids me ask) you have
Commanded of me these most poisonous compounds
Which are the movers of a languishing death,
But, though slow, deadly?
QUEEN
I wonder, Doctor,
ask’st me such a question. Have I not been
pupil long? not learn’d me how
To make perfumes? distil? preserve? yea, so
That our great king himself woo me
For my confections? Having thus far proceeded
(Unless think’st me devilish) is’t not meet
That I did amplify my judgement in
Other conclusions? I will try the forces
Of these compounds on such creatures as
We count not worth the hanging (but none human)
To try the vigour of them, and apply
Allayments to their act, and by them gather
Their several virtues and effects.
CORNELIUS
Your Highness
Shall from this practice but make hard your heart;
Besides, the seeing these effects will be
Both noisome and infectious.
QUEEN
O, content .
QUEEN
Here comes a flattering rascal; upon him
Will I first work. He’s for his master,
An enemy to my son. How now, Pisanio!
Doctor, your service for this time is ended;
Take your own way.
CORNELIUS
I do suspect you, madam;
But you shall do no harm.
QUEEN
Hark , a word.
CORNELIUS
I do not like her. She think she has
Strange ling’ring poisons. I do know her spirit,
And will not trust one of her malice with
A drug of such damn’d nature. Those she has
Will stupefy and dull the sense awhile,
Which first she’ll prove on cats and dogs,
Then afterward up higher; but there is
No danger in what show of death it makes,
More than the locking up the spirits a time,
To be more fresh, reviving. She is fool’d
With a most false effect; and I the truer
So to be false with her.
QUEEN
No further service, Doctor,
Until I send for .
CORNELIUS
I humbly take my leave.
QUEEN
Weeps she still, say’st ? think in time
She will not quench, and let instructions enter
Where folly now possesses? Do work.
When bring me word she loves my son,
I’ll tell on the instant art then
As great as is master; greater, for
His fortunes all lie speechless, and his name
Is at last gasp. Return he cannot, nor
Continue where he is. To shift his being
Is to exchange one misery with another,
And every day that comes comes to decay
A day’s work in him. What expect
To be depender on a thing that leans,
Who cannot be new built, nor has no friends
So much as but to prop him?
QUEEN
tak’st up
know’st not what; but take it for labour.
It is a thing I made, which the King
Five times redeem’d from death. I do not know
What is more cordial. Nay, I take it;
It is an earnest of a further good
That I mean to . Tell mistress how
The case stands with her; do’t as from thyself.
Think what a chance changest on; but think
mistress still; to boot, my son,
Who shall take notice of . I’ll move the King
To any shape of preferment, such
As thou’lt desire; and then myself, I chiefly,
That set on to this desert, am bound
To load merit richly. Call my women.
Think on my words.
QUEEN
A sly and constant ,
Not to be shak’d; the agent for his master,
And the remembrancer of her to hold
The hand-fast to her lord. I have given him that
Which, if he take, shall quite unpeople her
Of liegers for her sweet; and which she after,
Except she bend her , shall be assur’d
To taste of too.
QUEEN
So, so. Well done, well done.
The violets, cowslips, and the primroses,
Bear to my closet. Fare well, Pisanio;
Think on my words.
PISANIO
And shall do.
But when to my good lord I prove untrue
I’ll choke myself: there’s all I’ll do for you.