Enter Queen, Ladies, and Cornelius.QUEEN Whiles yet the dew’s on ground, gather those flowers. Make haste. Who has the note of them?LADY I, madam.QUEEN Dispatch.Ladies exit.5 Now, Master Doctor, have you brought those drugs?
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CORNELIUS Pleaseth your Highness, ay. Here they are, madam.⌜He hands her a small box.⌝ But I beseech your Grace, without offense— My conscience bids me ask—wherefore you have Commanded of me these most poisonous10 compounds, Which are the movers of a languishing death, But though slow, deadly.QUEEN I wonder, doctor, Thou ask’st me such a question. Have I not been15 Thy pupil long? Hast thou not learned me how To make perfumes, distil, preserve—yea, so That our great king himself doth woo me oft For my confections? Having thus far proceeded, Unless thou think’st me devilish, is ’t not meet20 That I did amplify my judgment in Other conclusions? I will try the forces Of these thy compounds on such creatures as We count not worth the hanging—but none human— To try the vigor of them and apply25 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 be30 Both noisome and infectious.QUEEN O, content thee.Enter Pisanio. ⌜Aside.⌝ Here comes a flattering rascal. Upon him Will I first work. He’s for his master And enemy to my son.—How now, Pisanio?—35 Doctor, your service for this time is ended. Take your own way.CORNELIUS, ⌜aside⌝ I do suspect you, madam, But you shall do no harm.
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QUEEN, ⌜to Pisanio⌝ Hark thee, a word.CORNELIUS, ⌜aside⌝ 40 I do not like her. She doth 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 damned nature. Those she has Will stupefy and dull the sense awhile,45 Which first perchance 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 fooled50 With a most false effect, and I the truer So to be false with her.QUEEN No further service, doctor, Until I send for thee.CORNELIUS I humbly take my leave.He exits.QUEEN 55 Weeps she still, sayst thou? Dost thou think in time She will not quench and let instructions enter Where folly now possesses? Do thou work. When thou shalt bring me word she loves my son, I’ll tell thee on the instant thou art then60 As great as is thy 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,65 And every day that comes comes to decay A day’s work in him. What shalt thou 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? (⌜She drops the box
and Pisanio picks it up.⌝) 70Thou tak’st up Thou know’st not what. But take it for thy labor. It is a thing I made which hath the King
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Five times redeemed from death. I do not know What is more cordial. Nay, I prithee, take it.75 It is an earnest of a farther good That I mean to thee. Tell thy mistress how The case stands with her. Do ’t as from thyself. Think what a chance thou changest on, but think Thou hast thy mistress still; to boot, my son,80 Who shall take notice of thee. I’ll move the King To any shape of thy preferment such As thou ’lt desire; and then myself, I chiefly, That set thee on to this desert, am bound To load thy merit richly. Call my women.85 Think on my words.Pisanio exits. A sly and constant knave, Not to be shaked; the agent for his master And the remembrancer of her to hold The handfast to her lord. I have given him that90 Which, if he take, shall quite unpeople her Of liegers for her sweet, and which she after, Except she bend her humor, shall be assured To taste of too.Enter Pisanio and Ladies ⌜carrying flowers.⌝⌜To the Ladies.⌝ So, so. Well done, well done.95 The violets, cowslips, and the primroses Bear to my closet.—Fare thee well, Pisanio. Think on my words.Queen and Ladies exit.PISANIO And shall do. But when to my good lord I prove untrue,100 I’ll choke myself; there’s all I’ll do for you.He exits.