| ACT IV SCENE III | The same. | |
| | Enter BIRON, with a paper. | |
| BIRON | The king he is hunting the deer; I am coursing | |
| | myself: they have pitched a toil; I am toiling in | |
| | a pitch,--pitch that defiles: defile! a foul | |
| | word. Well, set thee down, sorrow! for so they say | 5 |
| | the fool said, and so say I, and I the fool: well | |
| | proved, wit! By the Lord, this love is as mad as | |
| | Ajax: it kills sheep; it kills me, I a sheep: | |
| | well proved again o' my side! I will not love: if | |
| | I do, hang me; i' faith, I will not. O, but her | 10 |
| | eye,--by this light, but for her eye, I would not | |
| | love her; yes, for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing | |
| | in the world but lie, and lie in my throat. By | |
| | heaven, I do love: and it hath taught me to rhyme | |
| | and to be melancholy; and here is part of my rhyme, | 15 |
| | and here my melancholy. Well, she hath one o' my | |
| | sonnets already: the clown bore it, the fool sent | |
| | it, and the lady hath it: sweet clown, sweeter | |
| | fool, sweetest lady! By the world, I would not care | |
| | a pin, if the other three were in. Here comes one | 20 |
| | with a paper: God give him grace to groan! | |
| | Stands aside. | |
| | Enter FERDINAND, with a paper. | |
| FERDINAND | Ay me! | |
| BIRON | Aside | |
| | thou hast thumped him with thy bird-bolt under the | |
| | left pap. In faith, secrets! | |
| FERDINAND | Reads | |
| | So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not | 25 |
| | To those fresh morning drops upon the rose, | |
| | As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote | |
| | The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows: | |
| | Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright | |
| | Through the transparent bosom of the deep, | 30 |
| | As doth thy face through tears of mine give light; | |
| | Thou shinest in every tear that I do weep: | |
| | No drop but as a coach doth carry thee; | |
| | So ridest thou triumphing in my woe. | |
| | Do but behold the tears that swell in me, | 35 |
| | And they thy glory through my grief will show: | |
| | But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep | |
| | My tears for glasses, and still make me weep. | |
| | O queen of queens! how far dost thou excel, | |
| | No thought can think, nor tongue of mortal tell. | 40 |
| | How shall she know my griefs? I'll drop the paper: | |
| | Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here? | |
| | Steps aside. | |
| | What, Longaville! and reading! listen, ear. | |
| BIRON | Now, in thy likeness, one more fool appear! | |
| | Enter LONGAVILLE, with a paper. | |
| LONGAVILLE | Ay me, I am forsworn! | 45 |
| BIRON | Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers. | |
| FERDINAND | In love, I hope: sweet fellowship in shame! | |
| BIRON | One drunkard loves another of the name. | |
| LONGAVILLE | Am I the first that have been perjured so? | |
| BIRON | I could put thee in comfort. Not by two that I know: | 50 |
| | Thou makest the triumviry, the corner-cap of society, | |
| | The shape of Love's Tyburn that hangs up simplicity. | |
| LONGAVILLE | I fear these stubborn lines lack power to move: | |
| | O sweet Maria, empress of my love! | |
| | These numbers will I tear, and write in prose. | 55 |
| BIRON | O, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid's hose: | |
| | Disfigure not his slop. | |
| LONGAVILLE | This same shall go. | |
| | Reads | |
| | Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye, | |
| | 'Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument, | 60 |
| | Persuade my heart to this false perjury? | |
| | Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment. | |
| | A woman I forswore; but I will prove, | |
| | Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee: | |
| | My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love; | 65 |
| | Thy grace being gain'd cures all disgrace in me. | |
| | Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is: | |
| | Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine, | |
| | Exhalest this vapour-vow; in thee it is: | |
| | If broken then, it is no fault of mine: | 70 |
| | If by me broke, what fool is not so wise | |
| | To lose an oath to win a paradise? | |
| BIRON | This is the liver-vein, which makes flesh a deity, | |
| | A green goose a goddess: pure, pure idolatry. | |
| | God amend us, God amend! we are much out o' the way. | 75 |
| LONGAVILLE | By whom shall I send this?--Company! stay. | |
| | Steps aside | |
| BIRON | All hid, all hid; an old infant play. | |
| | Like a demigod here sit I in the sky. | |
| | And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'ereye. | |
| | More sacks to the mill! O heavens, I have my wish! | 80 |
| | Enter DUMAIN, with a paper. | |
| | Dumain transform'd! four woodcocks in a dish! | |
| DUMAIN | O most divine Kate! | |
| BIRON | O most profane coxcomb! | |
| DUMAIN | By heaven, the wonder in a mortal eye! | |
| BIRON | By earth, she is not, corporal, there you lie. | 85 |
| DUMAIN | Her amber hair for foul hath amber quoted. | |
| BIRON | An amber-colour'd raven was well noted. | |
| DUMAIN | As upright as the cedar. | |
| BIRON | Stoop, I say; | |
| | Her shoulder is with child. | 90 |
| DUMAIN | As fair as day. | |
| BIRON | Ay, as some days; but then no sun must shine. | |
| DUMAIN | O that I had my wish! | |
| LONGAVILLE | And I had mine! | |
| FERDINAND | And I mine too, good Lord! | 95 |
| BIRON | Amen, so I had mine: is not that a good word? | |
| DUMAIN | I would forget her; but a fever she | |
| | Reigns in my blood and will remember'd be. | |
| BIRON | A fever in your blood! why, then incision | |
| | Would let her out in saucers: sweet misprision! | 100 |
| DUMAIN | Once more I'll read the ode that I have writ. | |
| BIRON | Once more I'll mark how love can vary wit. | |
| DUMAIN | Reads | |
| | On a day--alack the day!-- | |
| | Love, whose month is ever May, | |
| | Spied a blossom passing fair | 105 |
| | Playing in the wanton air: | |
| | Through the velvet leaves the wind, | |
| | All unseen, can passage find; | |
| | That the lover, sick to death, | |
| | Wish himself the heaven's breath. | 110 |
| | Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow; | |
| | Air, would I might triumph so! | |
| | But, alack, my hand is sworn | |
| | Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn; | |
| | Vow, alack, for youth unmeet, | 115 |
| | Youth so apt to pluck a sweet! | |
| | Do not call it sin in me, | |
| | That I am forsworn for thee; | |
| | Thou for whom Jove would swear | |
| | Juno but an Ethiope were; | 120 |
| | And deny himself for Jove, | |
| | Turning mortal for thy love. | |
| | This will I send, and something else more plain, | |
| | That shall express my true love's fasting pain. | |
| | O, would the king, Biron, and Longaville, | 125 |
| | Were lovers too! Ill, to example ill, | |
| | Would from my forehead wipe a perjured note; | |
| | For none offend where all alike do dote. | |
| LONGAVILLE | Advancing | |
| | You may look pale, but I should blush, I know, | |
| | To be o'erheard and taken napping so. | 130 |
| FERDINAND | Advancing | |
| | You chide at him, offending twice as much; | |
| | You do not love Maria; Longaville | |
| | Did never sonnet for her sake compile, | |
| | Nor never lay his wreathed arms athwart | |
| | His loving bosom to keep down his heart. | 135 |
| | I have been closely shrouded in this bush | |
| | And mark'd you both and for you both did blush: | |
| | I heard your guilty rhymes, observed your fashion, | |
| | Saw sighs reek from you, noted well your passion: | |
| | Ay me! says one; O Jove! the other cries; | 140 |
| | One, her hairs were gold, crystal the other's eyes: | |
| | To LONGAVILLE. | |
| | You would for paradise break faith, and troth; | |
| | To DUMAIN. | |
| | And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath. | |
| | What will Biron say when that he shall hear | |
| | Faith so infringed, which such zeal did swear? | 145 |
| | How will he scorn! how will he spend his wit! | |
| | How will he triumph, leap and laugh at it! | |
| | For all the wealth that ever I did see, | |
| | I would not have him know so much by me. | |
| BIRON | Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy. | 150 |
| | Advancing | |
| | Ah, good my liege, I pray thee, pardon me! | |
| | Good heart, what grace hast thou, thus to reprove | |
| | These worms for loving, that art most in love? | |
| | Your eyes do make no coaches; in your tears | |
| | There is no certain princess that appears; | 155 |
| | You'll not be perjured, 'tis a hateful thing; | |
| | Tush, none but minstrels like of sonneting! | |
| | But are you not ashamed? nay, are you not, | |
| | All three of you, to be thus much o'ershot? | |
| | You found his mote; the king your mote did see; | 160 |
| | But I a beam do find in each of three. | |
| | O, what a scene of foolery have I seen, | |
| | Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow and of teen! | |
| | O me, with what strict patience have I sat, | |
| | To see a king transformed to a gnat! | 165 |
| | To see great Hercules whipping a gig, | |
| | And profound Solomon to tune a jig, | |
| | And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys, | |
| | And critic Timon laugh at idle toys! | |
| | Where lies thy grief, O, tell me, good Dumain? | 170 |
| | And gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain? | |
| | And where my liege's? all about the breast: | |
| | A caudle, ho! | |
| FERDINAND | Too bitter is thy jest. | |
| | Are we betray'd thus to thy over-view? | 175 |
| BIRON | Not you to me, but I betray'd by you: | |
| | I, that am honest; I, that hold it sin | |
| | To break the vow I am engaged in; | |
| | I am betray'd, by keeping company | |
| | With men like men of inconstancy. | 180 |
| | When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme? | |
| | Or groan for love? or spend a minute's time | |
| | In pruning me? When shall you hear that I | |
| | Will praise a hand, a foot, a face, an eye, | |
| | A gait, a state, a brow, a breast, a waist, | 185 |
| | A leg, a limb? | |
| FERDINAND | Soft! whither away so fast? | |
| | A true man or a thief that gallops so? | |
| BIRON | I post from love: good lover, let me go. | |
| | Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD. | |
| JAQUENETTA | God bless the king! | 190 |
| FERDINAND | What present hast thou there? | |
| COSTARD | Some certain treason. | |
| FERDINAND | What makes treason here? | |
| COSTARD | Nay, it makes nothing, sir. | |
| FERDINAND | If it mar nothing neither, | 195 |
| | The treason and you go in peace away together. | |
| JAQUENETTA | I beseech your grace, let this letter be read: | |
| | Our parson misdoubts it; 'twas treason, he said. | |
| FERDINAND | Biron, read it over. | |
| | Giving him the paper | |
| | Where hadst thou it? | 200 |
| JAQUENETTA | Of Costard. | |
| FERDINAND | Where hadst thou it? | |
| COSTARD | Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio. | |
| | BIRON tears the letter | |
| FERDINAND | How now! what is in you? why dost thou tear it? | |
| BIRON | A toy, my liege, a toy: your grace needs not fear it. | 205 |
| LONGAVILLE | It did move him to passion, and therefore let's hear it. | |
| DUMAIN | It is Biron's writing, and here is his name. | |
| | Gathering up the pieces | |
| BIRON | To COSTARD | |
| | born to do me shame. | |
| | Guilty, my lord, guilty! I confess, I confess. | |
| FERDINAND | What? | 210 |
| BIRON | That you three fools lack'd me fool to make up the mess: | |
| | He, he, and you, and you, my liege, and I, | |
| | Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die. | |
| | O, dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you more. | |
| DUMAIN | Now the number is even. | 215 |
| BIRON | True, true; we are four. | |
| | Will these turtles be gone? | |
| FERDINAND | Hence, sirs; away! | |
| COSTARD | Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay. | |
| | Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA. | |
| BIRON | Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O, let us embrace! | 220 |
| | As true we are as flesh and blood can be: | |
| | The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face; | |
| | Young blood doth not obey an old decree: | |
| | We cannot cross the cause why we were born; | |
| | Therefore of all hands must we be forsworn. | 225 |
| FERDINAND | What, did these rent lines show some love of thine? | |
| BIRON | Did they, quoth you? Who sees the heavenly Rosaline, | |
| | That, like a rude and savage man of Inde, | |
| | At the first opening of the gorgeous east, | |
| | Bows not his vassal head and strucken blind | 230 |
| | Kisses the base ground with obedient breast? | |
| | What peremptory eagle-sighted eye | |
| | Dares look upon the heaven of her brow, | |
| | That is not blinded by her majesty? | |
| FERDINAND | What zeal, what fury hath inspired thee now? | 235 |
| | My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon; | |
| | She an attending star, scarce seen a light. | |
| BIRON | My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Biron: | |
| | O, but for my love, day would turn to night! | |
| | Of all complexions the cull'd sovereignty | 240 |
| | Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek, | |
| | Where several worthies make one dignity, | |
| | Where nothing wants that want itself doth seek. | |
| | Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues,-- | |
| | Fie, painted rhetoric! O, she needs it not: | 245 |
| | To things of sale a seller's praise belongs, | |
| | She passes praise; then praise too short doth blot. | |
| | A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn, | |
| | Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye: | |
| | Beauty doth varnish age, as if new-born, | 250 |
| | And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy: | |
| | O, 'tis the sun that maketh all things shine. | |
| FERDINAND | By heaven, thy love is black as ebony. | |
| BIRON | Is ebony like her? O wood divine! | |
| | A wife of such wood were felicity. | 255 |
| | O, who can give an oath? where is a book? | |
| | That I may swear beauty doth beauty lack, | |
| | If that she learn not of her eye to look: | |
| | No face is fair that is not full so black. | |
| FERDINAND | O paradox! Black is the badge of hell, | 260 |
| | The hue of dungeons and the suit of night; | |
| | And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well. | |
| BIRON | Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light. | |
| | O, if in black my lady's brows be deck'd, | |
| | It mourns that painting and usurping hair | 265 |
| | Should ravish doters with a false aspect; | |
| | And therefore is she born to make black fair. | |
| | Her favour turns the fashion of the days, | |
| | For native blood is counted painting now; | |
| | And therefore red, that would avoid dispraise, | 270 |
| | Paints itself black, to imitate her brow. | |
| DUMAIN | To look like her are chimney-sweepers black. | |
| LONGAVILLE | And since her time are colliers counted bright. | |
| FERDINAND | And Ethiopes of their sweet complexion crack. | |
| DUMAIN | Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light. | 275 |
| BIRON | Your mistresses dare never come in rain, | |
| | For fear their colours should be wash'd away. | |
| FERDINAND | 'Twere good, yours did; for, sir, to tell you plain, | |
| | I'll find a fairer face not wash'd to-day. | |
| BIRON | I'll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here. | 280 |
| FERDINAND | No devil will fright thee then so much as she. | |
| DUMAIN | I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear. | |
| LONGAVILLE | Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face see. | |
| BIRON | O, if the streets were paved with thine eyes, | |
| | Her feet were much too dainty for such tread! | 285 |
| DUMAIN | O, vile! then, as she goes, what upward lies | |
| | The street should see as she walk'd overhead. | |
| FERDINAND | But what of this? are we not all in love? | |
| BIRON | Nothing so sure; and thereby all forsworn. | |
| FERDINAND | Then leave this chat; and, good Biron, now prove | 290 |
| | Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn. | |
| DUMAIN | Ay, marry, there; some flattery for this evil. | |
| LONGAVILLE | O, some authority how to proceed; | |
| | Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil. | |
| DUMAIN | Some salve for perjury. | 295 |
| BIRON | 'Tis more than need. | |
| | Have at you, then, affection's men at arms. | |
| | Consider what you first did swear unto, | |
| | To fast, to study, and to see no woman; | |
| | Flat treason 'gainst the kingly state of youth. | 300 |
| | Say, can you fast? your stomachs are too young; | |
| | And abstinence engenders maladies. | |
| | And where that you have vow'd to study, lords, | |
| | In that each of you have forsworn his book, | |
| | Can you still dream and pore and thereon look? | 305 |
| | For when would you, my lord, or you, or you, | |
| | Have found the ground of study's excellence | |
| | Without the beauty of a woman's face? | |
| | From women's eyes this doctrine I derive;They are the ground, the books, the academes From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire | |
| | Why, universal plodding poisons up | |
| | The nimble spirits in the arteries, | 310 |
| | As motion and long-during action tires | |
| | The sinewy vigour of the traveller. | |
| | Now, for not looking on a woman's face, | |
| | You have in that forsworn the use of eyes | |
| | And study too, the causer of your vow; | 315 |
| | For where is any author in the world | |
| | Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye? | |
| | Learning is but an adjunct to ourself | |
| | And where we are our learning likewise is: | |
| | Then when ourselves we see in ladies' eyes, | 320 |
| | Do we not likewise see our learning there? | |
| | O, we have made a vow to study, lords, | |
| | And in that vow we have forsworn our books. | |
| | For when would you, my liege, or you, or you, | |
| | In leaden contemplation have found out | 325 |
| | Such fiery numbers as the prompting eyes | |
| | Of beauty's tutors have enrich'd you with? | |
| | Other slow arts entirely keep the brain; | |
| | And therefore, finding barren practisers, | |
| | Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil: | 330 |
| | But love, first learned in a lady's eyes, | |
| | Lives not alone immured in the brain; | |
| | But, with the motion of all elements, | |
| | Courses as swift as thought in every power, | |
| | And gives to every power a double power, | 335 |
| | Above their functions and their offices. | |
| | It adds a precious seeing to the eye; | |
| | A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind; | |
| | A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound, | |
| | When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd: | 340 |
| | Love's feeling is more soft and sensible | |
| | Than are the tender horns of cockl'd snails; | |
| | Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste: | |
| | For valour, is not Love a Hercules, | |
| | Still climbing trees in the Hesperides? | 345 |
| | Subtle as Sphinx; as sweet and musical | |
| | As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair: | |
| | And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods | |
| | Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony. | |
| | Never durst poet touch a pen to write | 350 |
| | Until his ink were temper'd with Love's sighs; | |
| | O, then his lines would ravish savage ears | |
| | And plant in tyrants mild humility. | |
| | From women's eyes this doctrine I derive: | |
| | They sparkle still the right Promethean fire; | 355 |
| | They are the books, the arts, the academes, | |
| | That show, contain and nourish all the world: | |
| | Else none at all in ought proves excellent. | |
| | Then fools you were these women to forswear, | |
| | Or keeping what is sworn, you will prove fools. | 360 |
| | For wisdom's sake, a word that all men love, | |
| | Or for love's sake, a word that loves all men, | |
| | Or for men's sake, the authors of these women, | |
| | Or women's sake, by whom we men are men, | |
| | Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves, | 365 |
| | Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths. | |
| | It is religion to be thus forsworn, | |
| | For charity itself fulfills the law, | |
| | And who can sever love from charity? | |
| FERDINAND | Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field! | 370 |
| BIRON | Advance your standards, and upon them, lords; | |
| | Pell-mell, down with them! but be first advised, | |
| | In conflict that you get the sun of them. | |
| LONGAVILLE | Now to plain-dealing; lay these glozes by: | |
| | Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France? | 375 |
| FERDINAND | And win them too: therefore let us devise | |
| | Some entertainment for them in their tents. | |
| BIRON | First, from the park let us conduct them thither; | |
| | Then homeward every man attach the hand | |
| | Of his fair mistress: in the afternoon | 380 |
| | We will with some strange pastime solace them, | |
| | Such as the shortness of the time can shape; | |
| | For revels, dances, masks and merry hours | |
| | Forerun fair Love, strewing her way with flowers. | |
| FERDINAND | Away, away! no time shall be omitted | 385 |
| | That will betime, and may by us be fitted. | |
| BIRON | Allons! allons! Sow'd cockle reap'd no corn; | |
| | And justice always whirls in equal measure: | |
| | Light wenches may prove plagues to men forsworn; | |
| | If so, our copper buys no better treasure. | 390 |
| | Exeunt | |
