1    Whiles yet the dew's on ground, gather those flowers;
2    Make haste: who has the note of them?

3    I, madam.

4    Dispatch.
Exeunt Ladies
5    Now, master doctor, have you brought those drugs?

6    Pleaseth your highness, ay: here they are, madam:
Presenting a small box
7    But I beseech your grace, without offence,--
8    My conscience bids me ask--wherefore you have
9    Commanded of me those most poisonous compounds,
10   Which are the movers of a languishing death;
11   But though slow, deadly?

12   I wonder, doctor,
13   Thou ask'st me such a question. Have I not been
14   Thy pupil long? Hast thou not learn'd me how
15   To make perfumes? distil? preserve? yea, so
16   That our great king himself doth woo me oft
17   For my confections? Having thus far proceeded,--
18   Unless thou think'st me devilish--is't not meet
19   That I did amplify my judgment in
20   Other conclusions? I will try the forces
21   Of these thy compounds on such creatures as
22   We count not worth the hanging, but none human,
23   To try the vigour of them and apply
24   Allayments to their act, and by them gather
25   Their several virtues and effects.

26   Your highness
27   Shall from this practise but make hard your heart:
28   Besides, the seeing these effects will be
29   Both noisome and infectious.

30   O, content thee.
Enter PISANIO
Aside
31   Here comes a flattering rascal; upon him
32   Will I first work: he's for his master,
33   An enemy to my son. How now, Pisanio!
34   Doctor, your service for this time is ended;
35   Take your own way.

Aside
36    I do suspect you, madam;
37   But you shall do no harm.

To PISANIO
38    Hark thee, a word.

Aside
39    I do not like her. She doth think she has
40   Strange lingering poisons: I do know her spirit,
41   And will not trust one of her malice with
42   A drug of such damn'd nature. Those she has
43   Will stupefy and dull the sense awhile;
44   Which first, perchance, she'll prove on
45   cats and dogs,
46   Then afterward up higher: but there is
47   No danger in what show of death it makes,
48   More than the locking-up the spirits a time,
49   To be more fresh, reviving. She is fool'd
50   With a most false effect; and I the truer,
51   So to be false with her.

52   No further service, doctor,
53   Until I send for thee.

54   I humbly take my leave.

55   Weeps she still, say'st thou? Dost thou think in time
56   She will not quench and let instructions enter
57   Where folly now possesses? Do thou work:
58   When thou shalt bring me word she loves my son,
59   I'll tell thee on the instant thou art then
60   As great as is thy master, greater, for
61   His fortunes all lie speechless and his name
62   Is at last gasp: return he cannot, nor
63   Continue where he is: to shift his being
64   Is to exchange one misery with another,
65   And every day that comes comes to decay
66   A day's work in him. What shalt thou expect,
67   To be depender on a thing that leans,
68   Who cannot be new built, nor has no friends,
69   So much as but to prop him?
The QUEEN drops the box: PISANIO takes it up
70   Thou takest up
71   Thou know'st not what; but take it for thy labour:
72   It is a thing I made, which hath the king
73   Five times redeem'd from death: I do not know
74   What is more cordial. Nay, I prethee, take it;
75   It is an earnest of a further good
76   That I mean to thee. Tell thy mistress how
77   The case stands with her; do't as from thyself.
78   Think what a chance thou changest on, but think
79   Thou hast thy mistress still, to boot, my son,
80   Who shall take notice of thee: I'll move the king
81   To any shape of thy preferment such
82   As thou'lt desire; and then myself, I chiefly,
83   That set thee on to this desert, am bound
84   To load thy merit richly. Call my women:
85   Think on my words.
Exit PISANIO
86   A sly and constant knave,
87   Not to be shaked; the agent for his master
88   And the remembrancer of her to hold
89   The hand-fast to her lord. I have given him that
90   Which, if he take, shall quite unpeople her
91   Of liegers for her sweet, and which she after,
92   Except she bend her humour, shall be assured
93   To taste of too.
Re-enter PISANIO and Ladies
94   So, so: well done, well done:
95   The violets, cowslips, and the primroses,
96   Bear to my closet. Fare thee well, Pisanio;
97   Think on my words.

98   And shall do:
99   But when to my good lord I prove untrue,
100  I'll choke myself: there's all I'll do for you.