Текст книги "William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition"

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4.1 Enter the Princess, a Forester, her ladies-Rosaline, Maria, and Catherine—and her lords, among them Boyet

PRINCESS

Was that the King that spurred his horse so hard

Against the steep uprising of the hill?

⌈BOYET⌉

I know not, but I think it was not he.

PRINCESS

Whoe’er a was, a showed a mounting mind.

Well, lords, today we shall have our dispatch.

Ere Saturday we will return to France.

Then, forester my friend, where is the bush

That we must stand and play the murderer in?

FORESTER

Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice—

A stand where you may make the fairest shoot.

PRINCESS

I thank my beauty, I am fair that shoot,

And thereupon thou speak’st ‘the fairest shoot’.

FORESTER

Pardon me, madam, for I meant not so.

PRINCESS

What, what? First praise me, and again say no?

O short-lived pride! Not fair? Alack, for woe !

FORESTER

Yes, madam, fair.

PRINCESS Nay, never paint me now.

Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow.

Here, good my glass, take this for telling true.

She gives him money

Fair payment for foul words is more than due.

FORESTER

Nothing but fair is that which you inherit.

PRINCESS

See, see, my beauty will be saved by merit!

O heresy in fair, fit for these days—

A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise.

But come, the bow. Now mercy goes to kill,

And shooting well is then accounted ill.

Thus will I save my credit in the shoot,

Not wounding—pity would not let me do’t.

If wounding, then it was to show my skill,

That more for praise than purpose meant to kill.

And, out of question, so it is sometimes—

Glory grows guilty of detested crimes

When for fame’s sake, for praise, an outward part,

We bend to that the working of the heart,

As I for praise alone now seek to spill

The poor deer’s blood that my heart means no ill.

BOYET

Do not curst wives hold that self-sovereignty

Only for praise’ sake when they strive to be

Lords o’er their lords?

PRINCESS

Only for praise, and praise we may afford

To any lady that subdues a lord.

Enter Costard the clown

BOYET

Here comes a member of the commonwealth.

COSTARD God dig-you-de’en, all. Pray you, which is the

head lady?

PRINCESS Thou shalt know her, fellow, by the rest that have no heads.

COSTARD Which is the greatest lady, the highest?

PRINCESS The thickest and the tallest.

COSTARD

The thickest and the tallest—it is so, truth is truth.

An your waist, mistress, were as slender as my wit

One o’ these maids’ girdles for your waist should be fit.

Are not you the chief woman? You are the thickest here.

PRINCESS What’s your will, sir? What’s your will?

COSTARD

I have a letter from Monsieur Biron to one Lady Rosaline.

PRINCESS

O, thy letter, thy letter! (She takes it) He’s a good friend of mine.

(To Costard) Stand aside, good bearer. Boyet, you can carve.

Break up this capon.

She gives the letter to Boyet

BOYET I am bound to serve.

This letter is mistook. It importeth none here.

It is writ to Jaquenetta.

PRINCESS We will read it, I swear.

Break the neck of the wax, and everyone give ear.

BOYET (reads) ‘By heaven, that thou art fair is most infallible, true that thou art beauteous, truth itself that thou art lovely. More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous, truer than truth itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal. The magnanimous and most illustrate King Cophetua set’s eye upon the penurious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon, and he it was that might rightly say “Veni, vidi, vicí”, which to annothanize in the vulgar—O base and obscure vulgar!—videlicet “He came, see, and overcame.” He came, one; see, two; overcame, three. Who came? The King. Why did he come? To see. Why did he see? To overcome. To whom came he? To the beggar. What saw he? The beggar. Who overcame he? The beggar. The conclusion is victory. On whose side? The King’s. The captive is enriched. On whose side? The beggar’s. The catastrophe is a nuptial. On whose side? The King’s—no, on both in one, or one in both. I am the King—for so stands the comparison—thou the beggar, for so witnesseth thy lowliness. Shall I command thy love? I may. Shall I enforce thy love? I could. Shall I entreat thy love? I will. What shalt thou exchange for rags? Robes. For tittles? Titles. For thyself? Me. Thus, expecting thy reply, I profane my lips on thy foot, my eyes on thy picture, and my heart on thy every part.

Thine in the dearest design of industry,

Don Adriano de Armado.

Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar

‘Gainst thee, thou lamb, that standest as his prey.

Submissive fall his princely feet before,

And he from forage will incline to play.

But if thou strive, poor soul, what art thou then?

Food for his rage, repasture for his den.’

PRINCESS

What plume of feathers is he that indited this letter?

What vane? What weathercock? Did you ever hear

better?

BOYET

I am much deceived but I remember the style.

PRINCESS

Else your memory is bad, going o’er it erewhile.

BOYET

This Armado is a Spaniard that keeps here in court,

A phantasim, a Monarcho, and one that makes sport

To the Prince and his bookmates.

PRINCESS (to Costard) Thou, fellow, a word.

Who gave thee this letter?

COSTARD I told you—my lord.

PRINCESS

To whom shouldst thou give it?

COSTARD From my lord to my lady.

PRINCESS

From which lord to which lady?

COSTARD

From my lord Biron, a good master of mine,

To a lady of France that he called Rosaline.

PRINCESS

Thou hast mistaken his letter. Come, lords, away.

(To Rosaline, giving her the letter)

Here, sweet, put up this, ‘twill be thine another day.

Exit attended

BOYET

Who is the suitor? Who is the suitor?

ROSALINE

Shall I teach you to know?

BOYET

Ay, my continent of beauty.

ROSALINE

Why, she that bears the bow.

Finely put off.

BOYET

My lady goes to kill horns, but if thou marry,

Hang me by the neck if horns that year miscarry.

Finely put on.

ROSALINE

Well then, I am the shooter.

BOYET

And who is your deer?

ROSALINE

If we choose by the horns, yourself come not near.

Finely put on indeed!

MARIA

You still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at the brow.

BOYET

But she herself is hit tower—have I hit her now?

ROSALINE Shall I come upon thee with an old saying that was a man when King Pépin of France was a little boy, as touching the hit it?

BOYET So I may answer thee with one as old that was a woman when Queen Guinevere of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit it.

ROSALINE (sings)

Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it,

Thou canst not hit it, my good man.

BOYET (sings)

An I cannot, cannot, cannot,

An I cannot, another can.

Exit Rosaline

COSTARD

By my troth, most pleasant How both did fit it!

MARIA

A mark marvellous well shot, for they both did hit it.

BOYET

A mark—O mark but that mark! A mark, says my

lady.

Let the mark have a prick in’t to mete at, if it may be.

MARIA

Wide o’ the bow hand—i’faith, your hand is out.

COSTARD

Indeed, a must shoot nearer, or he’ll ne’er hit the clout.

BOYET

An if my hand be out, then belike your hand is in.

COSTARD

Then will she get the upshoot by cleaving the pin.

MARIA

Come, come, you talk greasily, your lips grow foul.

COSTARD

She’s too hard for you at pricks, sir. Challenge her to bowl.

BOYET

I fear too much rubbing. Goodnight, my good owl.

Exeunt Boyet, Maria, ⌈and Catherine⌉

COSTARD

By my soul, a swain, a most simple clown.

Lord, Lord, how the ladies and I have put him down!

O’ my troth, most sweet jests, most incony vulgar wit,

When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it were, so fit!

Armado o‘th’ t’other side—O, a most dainty man!—

To see him walk before a lady and to bear her fan!

To see him kiss his hand, and how most sweetly a will swear,

And his page o’ t’other side, that handful of wit—

Ah heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!

Shout within

Sola, sola!

Exit

4.2 Enter Dull, Holofernes the pedant, and Nathaniel the curate

NATHANIEL Very reverend sport, truly, and done in the testimony of a good conscience.

HOLOFERNES The deer was, as you know—sanguis—in blood, ripe as the pomewater who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of caelo, the sky, the welkin, the heaven, and anon falleth like a crab on the face of terra, the soil, the land, the earth.

NATHANIEL Truly, Master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly varied, like a scholar at the least. But, sir, I assure ye it was a buck of the first head.

HOLOFERNES Sir Nathaniel, haud credo.

DULL ‘Twas not a ‘auld grey doe’, ’twas a pricket.

HOLOFERNES Most barbarous intimation! Yet a kind of insinuation, as it were in via, in way, of explication, facere, as it were, replication, or rather ostentare, to show, as it were, his inclination after his undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather unlettered, or ratherest unconfirmed, fashion, to insert again my ‘haud credo’ for a deer.

DULL I said the deer was not a ‘auld grey doe’, ‘twas a pricket.

HOLOFERNES Twice-sod simplicity, bis coctus!

O thou monster ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!

NATHANIEL

Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in

a book.

He hath not eat paper, as it were, he hath not drunk

ink. His intellect is not replenished, he is only an

animal, only sensible in the duller parts,

And such barren plants are set before us that we

thankful should be,

Which we of taste and feeling are, for those parts that

do fructify in us more than he.

For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet,

or a fool,

So were there a patch set on learning to see him in a

school.

But omne bene say I, being of an old father’s mind:

‘Many can brook the weather that love not the wind.’

DULL

You two are bookmen. Can you tell me by your wit

What was a month old at Cain’s birth that’s not five weeks old as yet?

HOLOFERNES Dictynna, Goodman Dull, Dictynna, Goodman Dull.

DULL What is ‘Dictima’?

NATHANIEL A title to Phoebe, to luna, to the moon.

HOLOFERNES

The moon was a month old when Adam was no more,

And raught not to five weeks when he came to five score.

Th’allusion holds in the exchange.

DULL ’Tis true, indeed, the collusion holds in the exchange.

HOLOFERNES God comfort thy capacity, I say th’allusion holds in the exchange.

DULL And I say the pollution holds in the exchange, for the moon is never but a month old—and I say beside that ’twas a pricket that the Princess killed.

HOLOFERNES Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on the death of the deer? And to humour the ignorant call I the deer the Princess killed a pricket.

NATHANIEL Perge, good Master Holofernes, perge, so it shall please you to abrogate scurrility.

HOLOFERNES I will something affect the letter, for it argues facility.

The preyful Princess pierced and pricked a pretty pleasing pricket.

Some say a sore, but not a sore till now made sore with shooting.

The dogs did yell; put ‘I’ to ‘sore‘, then ‘sorel’ jumps from thicket—

Or pricket sore, or else sorel. The people fall a– hooting.

If sore be sore, then ‘I’ to ‘sore’ makes fifty sores—O sore ‘I’!

Of one sore I an hundred make by adding but one more ‘I’.

NATHANIEL A rare talent!

DULL If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a talent.

HOLOFERNES This is a gift that I have, simple, simpte—a foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions. These are begot in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater, and delivered upon the mellowing of occasion. But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it.

NATHANIEL Sir, I praise the Lord for you, and so may my parishioners; for their sons are well tutored by you, and their daughters profit very greatly under you. You are a good member of the commonwealth.

HOLOFERNES Mehercle, if their sons be ingenious they shall want no instruction; if their daughters be capable, I will put it to them. But Vir sapit qui pauca loquitur; a soul feminine saluteth us. Enter Jaquenetta, and Costard the clown

JAQUENETTA God give you good-morrow, Master Parson.

HOLOFERNES Master Parson, quasi ‘pierce one’ ? And if one should be pierced, which is the one?

COSTARD Marry, Master Schoolmaster, he that is likeliest to a hogshead.

HOLOFERNES ‘Of piercing a hogshead’—a good lustre of conceit in a turf of earth, fire enough for a flint, pearl enough for a swine—‘tis pretty, it is well.

JAQUENETTA Good Master Parson, be so good as read me this letter. It was given me by Costard, and sent me from Don Armado. I beseech you read it.

She gives the letter to Nathaniel, who reads it

HOLOFERNES (to himself) ‘Facile precor gelida quando pecas omnia sub umbra ruminat’, and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice:

Venezia, Venezia, Chi non ti vede, chi non ti prezia.

Old Mantuan, old Mantuan—who understandeth thee not, loves thee not. (He sings) Ut, re, Sol, la, mi, fa. (To Nathaniel) Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? Or rather, as Horace says in his—what, my soul—verses?

NATHANIEL Ay, sir, and very learned.

HOLOFERNES Let me hear a staff, a stanza, a verse. Lege, domine.

NATHANIEL (reads)

‘If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?

Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed.

Though to myself forsworn, to thee I’ll faithful prove.

Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers bowed.

Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine eyes,

Where all those pleasures live that art would comprehend.

If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice.

Well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend;

All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder;

Which is to me some praise that I thy parts admire.

Thy eye Jove’s lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder,

Which, not to anger bent, is music and sweet fire.

Celestial as thou art, O pardon, love, this wrong,

That singeth heaven’s praise with such an earthly tongue.’

HOLOFERNES You find not the apostrophus, and so miss the accent. Let me supervise the canzonet. Here are only numbers ratified, but for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy—caret. Ovidius Naso was the man. And why indeed ‘Naso’ but for smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention? Imitari is nothing. So doth the hound his master, the ape his keeper, the tired horse his rider. But domicella— virgin—was this directed to you?

JAQUENETTA Ay, Sir.

HOLOFERNES I will overglance the superscript. ‘To the snow-white hand of the most beauteous Lady Rosaline.’ I will look again on the intellect of the letter for the nomination of the party writing to the person written unto. ‘Your ladyship’s in all desired employment, Biron.’ Sir Nathaniel, this Biron is one of the votaries with the King, and here he hath framed a letter to a sequent of the stranger Queen’s, which, accidentally or by the way of progression, hath miscarried. (To Jaquenetta) Trip and go, my sweet, deliver this paper into the royal hand of the King. It may concern much. Stay not thy compliment, I forgive thy duty. Adieu.

JAQUENETTA Good Costard, go with me.—Sir, God save your life.

CUSTARD Have with thee, my girl. Exit with Jaquenetta

NATHANIEL Sir, you have done this in the fear of God very religiously, and, as a certain father saith—

HOLOFERNES Sir, tell not me of the father; I do fear colourable colours. But to return to the verses—did they please you, Sir Nathaniel?

NATHANIEL Marvellous well for the pen.

HOLOFERNES I do dine today at the father’s of a certain pupil of mine where, if before repast it shall please you to gratify the table with a grace, I will on my privilege I have with the parents of the foresaid child or pupil undertake your ben venuto, where I will prove those verses to be very unlearned, neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention. I beseech your society.

NATHANIEL And thank you too, for society, saith the text, is the happiness of life.

HOLOFERNES And certes the text most infallibly concludes it. (To Dull) Sir, I do invite you too. You shall not say me nay. Pauca verba. Away, the gentles are at their game, and we will to our recreation. Exeunt

4.3 Enter Biron with a paper in his hand, alone

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. Denle—a foul word. Well, set thee down, sorrow; for so they say 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 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 (showing a paper) is part of my rhyme, and here (touching his breast) 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 with a paper. God give him grace to groan.

He stands aside. The King entereth with a paper

KING Ay me!

BIRON (aside) Shot, by heaven! Proceed, sweet Cupid, thou hast thumped him with thy birdbolt under the left pap. In faith, secrets.

KING (reads)

‘So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not

To those fresh morning drops upon the rose

As thy eyebeams 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

As doth thy face through tears of mine give light.

Thou shin’st 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

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.’

How shall she know my griefs? I’ll drop the paper.

Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here?

Enter Longueville with papers. The King steps aside

What, Longueville, and reading—listen, ear!

BIRON (aside)

Now in thy likeness one more fool appear!

LONGUEVILLE Ay me! I am forsworn.

BIRON (aside)

Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers.

KING (aside)

In love, I hope! Sweet fellowship in shame.

BIRON (aside)

One drunkard loves another of the name.

LONGUEVILLE

Am I the first that have been perjured so?

BIRON (aside)

I could put thee in comfort, not by two that I know.

Thou makest the triumviry, the corner-cap of society,

The shape of love’s Tyburn, that hangs up simplicity.

LONGUEVILLE

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.

BIRON (aside)

O, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid’s hose,

Disfigure not his slop.

LONGUEVILLE This same shall go.

He reads the sonnet

‘Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,

’Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,

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.

Thy grace being gained cures all disgrace in me.

Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is.

Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine,

Exhal‘st this vapour-vow; in thee it is.

If broken then, it is no fault of mine.

If by me broke, what fool is not so wise

To lose an oath to win a paradise?’

BIRON (aside)

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’th’

way.

Enter Dumaine with a paper

LONGUEVILLE (aside)

By whom shall I send this? Company? Stay.

He steps aside

BIRON (aside)

All hid, all hid—an old infant play.

Like a demigod here sit I in the sky,

And wretched fools’ secrets heedfully o’er-eye.

More sacks to the mill! O heavens, I have my wish.

Dumaine transformed—four woodcocks in a dish!

DUMAINE O most divine Kate!

BIRON (aside) O most profane coxcomb!

DUMAINE

By heaven, the wonder in a mortal eye!

BIRON (aside)

By earth, she is not, corporal; there you lie.

DUMAINE

Her amber hairs for foul hath amber quoted.

BIRON (aside)

An amber-coloured raven was well noted.

DUMAINE

As upright as the cedar.

BIRON (aside) Stoop, I say.

Her shoulder is with child.

DUMAINE As fair as day.

BIRON (aside)

Ay, as some days; but then no sun must shine.

DUMAINE O that I had my wishl

LONGUEVILLE (aside) And I had mine!

KING (aside) And I mine too, good Lord!

BIRON (aside)

Amen, so I had mine. Is not that a good word?

DUMAINE

I would forget her, but a fever she

Reigns in my blood and will remembered be.

BIRON (aside)

A fever in your blood—why then, incision

Would let her out in saucers—sweet misprision.

DUMAINE

Once more I’ll read the ode that I have writ.

BIRON (aside)

Once more I’ll mark how love can vary wit.

Dumaine reads his sonnet

DUMAINE

‘On a day—atack the day—

Love, whose month is ever May,

Spied a blossom passing fair

Playing in the wanton air.

Through the velvet leaves the wind

All unseen can passage find,

That the lover, sick to death,

Wished himself the heavens’ breath.

“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,

Youth so apt to pluck a sweet.

Do not call it sin in me

That I am forsworn for thee,

Thou for whom great Jove would swear

Juno but an Ethiop were,

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 Longueville

Were lovers too! Ill to example ill

Would from my forehead wipe a perjured note,

For none offend where all alike do dote.

LONGUEVILLE (coming forward)

Dumaine, thy love is far from charity,

That in love’s grief desir‘st society.

You may look pale, but I should blush, I know,

To be o’erheard and taken napping so.

KING (coming forward)

Come, sir, you blush. As his, your case is such.

You chide at him, offending twice as much.

You do not love Maria? Longueville

Did never sonnet for her sake compile,

Nor never lay his wreathed arms athwart

His loving bosom to keep down his heart?

I have been closely shrouded in this bush,

And marked 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 jovel’ the other cries.

One, her hairs were gold; crystal the other’s eyes.

(To Longueville) You would for paradise break faith and troth,

(To Dumaine) 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?

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 (coming forward)

Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy.

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.

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?

(To Longueville) You found his mote, the King your mote did see,

But I a beam do find in each of three.

O, what a scene of fool’ry 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!

To see great Hercules whipping a gig,

And profound Solomon to tune a jig,

And Nestor play at pushpin with the boys,

And critic Timon laugh at idle toys!

Where lies thy grief, O tell me, good Dumaine?

And, gentle Longueville, where lies thy pain?

And where my liege’s? All about the breast.

A caudle, ho!

KING Too bitter is thy jest.

Are we betrayed thus to thy over-view?

BIRON

Not you to me, but I betrayed by you.

I that am honest, I that hold it sin

To break the vow I am engaged in.

I am betrayed by keeping company

With men like you, men of inconstancy.

When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme,

Or groan for Joan, 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,

A leg, a limb?

KING

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 ⌉aquenetta with a letter, and Costard the clown

JAQUENETTA

God bless the King!

KING What present hast thou there?

COSTARD

Some certain treason.

KING What makes treason here?

COSTARD

Nay, it makes nothing, sir.

KING If it mar nothing neither,

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.

KING Biron, read it over.

Biron takes and reads the letter

(To Jaquenetta) Where hadst thou it?

JAQUENETTA Of Costard.

KING (to Costard) Where hadst thou it?

COSTARD Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio.

Biron tears the letter

KING (to Biron)

How now, what is in you? Why dost thou tear it?

BIRON

A toy, my liege, a toy. Your grace needs not fear it.

LONGUEVILLE

It did move him to passion, and therefore let’s hear it.

DUMAINE (taking up a piece of the letter)

It is Biron’s writing, and here is his name.

BIRON (to Costard)

Ah, you whoreson loggerhead, you were born to do

me shamel

Guilty, my lord, guilty! I confess, I confess.

KING What?

BIRON

That you three fools lacked me fool to make up the

mess.

He, he, and you-e’en you, my liege-and I

Are pickpurses in love, and we deserve to die.

O, dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you more.

DUMAINE

Now the number is even.

BIRON

True, true; we are four.

Will these turtles be gone?

KING

Hence, sirs; away.

COSTARD

Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay.

Exeunt Costard and Jaquenetta

BIRON

Sweet lords, sweet tovers!—O, let us embrace.

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.

KING

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 Ind

At the first op’ning of the gorgeous east,

Bows not his vassal head and, strucken blind,

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?

KING

What zeal, what fury hath inspired thee now?

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 culled sovereignty

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.

To things of sale a seller’s praise belongs.

She passes praise—then praise too short doth blot.

A withered hermit fivescore winters worn

Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye.

Beauty doth varnish age as if new-born,

And gives the crutch the cradle’s infancy.

O, ’tis the sun that maketh all things shine.

KING

By heaven, thy love is black as ebony.

BIRON

Is ebony like her? O word divine!

A wife of such wood were felicity.

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.

KING

O paradox ! Black is the badge of hell,

The hue of dungeons and the style 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 decked,

It mourns that painting and usurping hair

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

Paints itself black to imitate her brow.

DUMAINE

To look like her are chimney-sweepers black.

LONGUEVILLE

And since her time are colliers counted bright.

KING

And Ethiops of their sweet complexion crack.

DUMAINE

Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light.

BIRON

Your mistresses dare never come in rain,

For fear their colours should be washed away.

KING

‘Twere good yours did; for, sir, to tell you plain,

I’ll find a fairer face not washed today.

BIRON

I’ll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here.

KING

No devil will fright thee then so much as she.

DUMAINE

I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear.

LONGUEVILLE (showing his foot)

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.

DUMAINE

O vile! Then as she goes, what upward lies

The street should see as she walked overhead.

KING

But what of this? Are we not all in love?

BIRON

Nothing so sure, and thereby all forsworn.

KING

Then leave this chat and, good Biron, now prove

Our loving lawful and our faith not torn.

DUMAINE

Ay, marry there, some flattery for this evil.

LONGUEVILLE

O, some authority how to proceed,

Some tricks, some quillets how to cheat the devil.

DUMAINE

Some salve for perjury.

BIRON

O, ‘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.

Say, can you fast? Your stomachs are too young,

And abstinence engenders maladies.

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

Such fiery numbers as the prompting eyes

Of beauty’s tutors have enriched you with?