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

Автор книги: William Shakespeare

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Other slow arts entirely keep the brain,

And therefore, finding barren practisers,

Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil.

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

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 stopped.

Love’s feeling is more soft and sensible

Than are the tender horns of cockled snails.

Love’s tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste.

For valour, is not love a Hercules,

Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?

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

Make heaven drowsy with the harmony.

Never durst poet touch a pen to write

Until his ink were tempered 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.

They are the books, the arts, the academes

That show, contain, and nourish all the world,

Else none at all in aught proves excellent.

Then fools you were these women to forswear,

Or keeping what is sworn, you will prove fools.

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,

Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths.

It is religion to be thus forsworn,

For charity itself fulfils the law,

And who can sever love from charity?

KING

Saint Cupid, then, and, soldiers, to the field!

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.

LONGUEVILLE

Now to plain dealing. Lay these glozes by.

Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France?

KING

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

We will with some strange pastime solace them,

Such as the shortness of the time can shape,

For revels, dances, masques, and merry hours

Forerun fair love, strewing her way with flowers.

KING

Away, away, no time shall be omitted

That will be time, and may by us be fitted.

BIRON

Allons, allons! Sowed cockle reaped 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. Exeunt

5.1 Enter Holofernes the pedant, Nathaniel the curate, and Anthony Dull

HOLOFERNES Satis quid sufficit.

NATHANIEL I praise Good for you, sir. Your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious, pleasant without scurrility, witty without affections, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy. I did converse this quondam day with a companion of the King’s who is intituled, nominated, or called Don Adriano de Armado.

HOLOFERNES Novi hominum tanquam te. His humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical. He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were, too peregrinate, as I may call it.

NATHANIEL A most singular and choice epithet.

He draws out his table-book

HOLOFERNES He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical phantasims, such insociable and point-device companions, such rackers of orthography as to speak ‘dout’, sine ‘b’, when he should say ‘doubt’; ‘det’ when he should pronounce ‘debt’—‘d, e, b, t’, not ‘d, e, t’. He clepeth a calf ‘caul’, half ‘haul’, neighbour vocatur ‘nebour’—‘neigh’ abbreviated ‘ne’. This is abhominaMe—which he would call ‘abominable’. It insinuateth me of insanire—ne intelligis, domine?—to make frantic, lunatic.

NATHANIEL Laus deo, bone intelligo.

HOLOFERNES Bone? Bon, fort bon—Priscian a little scratched-‘twill serve.

Enter Armado the braggart, Mote his boy, and Costard the clown

NATHANIEL Videsne quis venit?

xoLOFeRrrss Video, et gaudio.

ARMADO (to Mote) Chirrah.

xoLOVExNES (to Nathaniel) Quare ‘chirrah’, not ‘sirrah’?

ARMADO Men of peace, well encountered.

HOLOFERNES Most military sir, salutation!

MOTE (aside to Costard) They have been at a great feast of languages and stolen the scraps.

COSTARD (aside to Mote) O, they have lived long on the alms-basket of words. I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word, for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus. Thou art easier swallowed than a flapdragon.

MOTE (aside to Costard) Peace, the peal begins.

ARMADO (to Holofernes) Monsieur, are you not lettered?

MOTE Yes, yes, he teaches boys the horn-book. What is ‘a, b’ spelled backward, with the horn on his head?

HOLOFERNES Ba, pueritia, with a horn added.

MOTE Ba, most silly sheep, with a horn! You hear his learning.

HOLOFERNES Quis, quis, thou consonant?

MOTE The last of the five vowels if you repeat them, or the fifth if I.

HOLOFERNES I will repeat them: a, e, i—

MOTE The sheep. The other two concludes it: o, u.

ARMADO Now by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum a sweet touch, a quick venue of wit; snip, snap, quick, and home. It rejoiceth my intellect—true wit.

MOTE Offered by a child to an old man, which is ‘wit-old’.

HOLOFERNES What is the figure? What is the figure?

MOTE Horns.

HOLOFERNES Thou disputes like an infant. Go whip thy gig.

MOTE Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your infamy circum circa—a gig of a cuckold’s horn.

CUSTARD An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy gingerbread. (Giving money) Hold, there is the very remuneration I had of thy master, thou halfpenny purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of discretion. O, an the heavens were so pleased that thou wert but my bastard, what a joyful father wouldst thou make me! Go to, thou hast it ad dunghill, at the fingers’ ends, as they say.

HOLOFERNES O, I smell false Latin—‘dunghill’ for unguem.

ARMADO Arts-man, preambulate. We will be singled from the barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the charge-house on the top of the mountain?

HOLOFERNES Or mons, the hill.

ARMADO At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain.

HOLOFERNES I do, sans question.

ARMADO Sir, it is the King’s most sweet pleasure and affection to congratulate the Princess at her pavilion in the posteriors of this day, which the rude multitude call the afternoon.

HOLOFERNES The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is liable, congruent, and measurable for the afternoon. The word is well culled, choice, sweet, and apt, I do assure you, sir, I do assure.

ARMADO Sir, the King is a noble gentleman, and my familiar, I do assure ye, very good friend. For what is inward between us, let it pass. I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy. I beseech thee, apparel thy head. And, among other important and most serious designs, and of great import indeed, too—but let that pass, for I must tell thee it will please his grace, by the world, sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder and with his royal finger thus dally with my excrement, with my mustachio. But, sweetheart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no fable. Some certain special honours it pleaseth his greatness to impart to Armado, a soldier, a man of travel, that hath seen the world. But let that pass. The very all of all is—but, sweetheart, I do implore secrecy—that the King would have me present the Princess-sweet chuck-with some delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant, or antic, or firework. Now, understanding that the curate and your sweet self are good at such eruptions and sudden breaking-out of mirth, as it were, I have acquainted you withal to the end to crave your assistance.

HOLOFERNES Sir, you shall present before her the Nine Worthies. Sir Nathaniel, as concerning some entertainment of time, some show in the posterior of this day to be rendered by our assistance, the King’s command, and this most gallant, illustrate, and learned gentleman before the Princess, I say none so fit as to present the Nine Worthies.

NATHANIEL Where will you find men worthy enough to present them?

HOLOFERNES Joshua, yourself; myself, Judas Maccabeus; and this gallant gentleman, Hector. This swain, because of his great limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the Great; the page, Hercules.

ARMADO Pardon, sir, error! He is not quantity enough for that Worthy’s thumb. He is not so big as the end of his club.

HOLOFERNES Shall I have audience? He shall present Hercules in minority. His enter and exit shall be strangling a snake, and I will have an apology for that purpose.

MOTE An excellent device! So, if any of the audience hiss, you may cry ‘Well done, Hercules, now thou crushest the snake!’—that is the way to make an offence gracious, though few have the grace to do it.

ARMADO For the rest of the Worthies?

HOLOFERNES I will play three myself.

MOTE Thrice-worthy gentleman!

ARMADO Shall I tell you a thing?

HOLOFERNES We attend.

ARMADO We will have, if this fadge not, an antic. I beseech you, follow.

HOLOFERNES Via, goodman Dull! Thou hast spoken no word all this while.

DULL Nor understood none neither, sir.

HOLOFERNES Allons! We will employ thee.

DULL I’ll make one in a dance or so, or I will play on the tabor to the Worthies, and let them dance the hay.

HOLOPERNES Most dull, honest Dull! To our sport, away.

Exeunt

5.2 Enter the Princess and her ladies: Rosaline, Maria, and Catherine

PRINCESS

Sweethearts, we shall be rich ere we depart,

If fairings come thus plentifully in.

A lady walled about with diamonds—

Look you what I have from the loving King.

ROSALINE

Madam, came nothing else along with that?

PRINCESS

Nothing but this?—yes, as much love in rhyme

As would be crammed up in a sheet of paper

Writ o’ both sides the leaf, margin and all,

That he was fain to seal on Cupid’s name.

ROSALINE

That was the way to make his godhead wax,

For he hath been five thousand year a boy.

CATHERINE

Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows, too.

ROSALINE

You’ll ne’er be friends with him, a killed your sister.

CATHERINE

He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy,

And so she died. Had she been light like you,

Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit,

She might ha’ been a grandam ere she died;

And so may you, for a light heart lives long.

ROSALINE

What’s your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word?

CATHERINE

A light condition in a beauty dark.

ROSALINE

We need more light to find your meaning out.

CATHERINE

You’ll mar the light by taking it in snuff,

Therefore I’ll darkly end the argument.

ROSALINE

Look what you do, you do it still i’th’ dark.

CATHERINE

So do not you, for you are a light wench.

ROSALINE

Indeed I weigh not you, and therefore light.

CATHERINE

You weigh me not? O, that’s you care not for me.

ROSALINE

Great reason, for past care is still past cure.

PRINCESS

Well bandied, both; a set of wit well played.

But Rosaline, you have a favour, too.

Who sent it? And what is it?

ROSALINE I would you knew.

An if my face were but as fair as yours

My favour were as great, be witness this.

Nay, I have verses, too, I thank Biron,

The numbers true, and were the numb’ring, too,

I were the fairest goddess on the ground.

I am compared to twenty thousand fairs.

O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter.

PRINCESS Anything like?

ROSALINE

Much in the letters, nothing in the praise.

PRINCESS

Beauteous as ink—a good conclusion.

CATHERINE

Fair as a text B in a copy-book.

ROSALINE

Ware pencils, ho! Let me not die your debtor,

My red dominical, my golden letter.

O, that your face were not so full of O’s !

PRINCESS

A pox of that jest; I beshrew all shrews.

But Catherine, what was sent to you from fair Dumaine ?

CATHERINE

Madam, this glove.

PRINCESS Did he not send you twain ?

CATHERINE Yes, madam; and moreover,

Some thousand verses of a faithful lover.

A huge translation of hypocrisy

Vilely compiled, profound simplicity.

MARIA

This and these pearls to me sent Longueville.

The letter is too long by half a mile.

PRINCESS

I think no less. Dost thou not wish in heart

The chain were longer and the letter short?

MARIA

Ay, or I would these hands might never part.

PRINCESS

We are wise girls to mock our lovers so.

ROSALINE

They are worse fools to purchase mocking so.

That same Biron I’ll torture ere I go.

O that I knew he were but in by th’ week!—

How I would make him fawn, and beg, and seek,

And wait the season, and observe the times,

And spend his prodigal wits in bootless rhymes,

And shape his service wholly to my hests,

And make him proud to make me proud that jests!

So pursuivant-like would I o’ersway his state

That he should be my fool, and I his fate.

PRINCESS

None are so surely caught when they are catched

As wit turned fool. Folly in wisdom hatched

Hath wisdom’s warrant, and the help of school,

And wit’s own grace, to grace a learned fool.

ROSALINE

The blood of youth burns not with such excess

As gravity’s revolt to wantonness.

MARIA

Folly in fools bears not so strong a note

As fool’ry in the wise when wit doth dote,

Since all the power thereof it doth apply

To prove, by wit, worth in simplicity.

Enter Boyet

PRINCESS

Here comes Boyet, and mirth is in his face.

BOYET

O, I am stabbed with laughter! Where’s her grace?

PRINCESS

Thy news, Boyet?

BOYET Prepare, madam, prepare.

Arm, wenches, arm. Encounters mounted are

Against your peace. Love doth approach disguised,

Armed in arguments. You’ll be surprised.

Muster your wits, stand in your own defence,

Or hide your heads like cowards and fly hence.

PRINCESS

Saint Denis to Saint Cupid! What are they

That charge their breath against us? Say, scout, say.

BOYET

Under the cool shade of a sycamore

I thought to close mine eyes some half an hour

When lo, to interrupt my purposed rest

Toward that shade I might behold addressed

The King and his companions. Warily

I stole into a neighbour thicket by

And overheard what you shall overhear:

That by and by disguised they will be here.

Their herald is a pretty knavish page

That well by heart hath conned his embassage.

Action and accent did they teach him there.

‘Thus must thou speak’, and ‘thus thy body bear’.

And ever and anon they made a doubt

Presence majestical would put him out,

‘For’, quoth the King, ‘an angel shalt thou see,

Yet fear not thou, but speak audaciously.’

The boy replied, ‘An angel is not evil.

I should have feared her had she been a devil.’

With that all laughed and clapped him on the

shoulder,

Making the bold wag by their praises bolder.

One rubbed his elbow thus, and fleered, and swore

A better speech was never spoke before.

Another with his finger and his thumb

Cried ‘Via, we will do’t, come what will come!’

The third he capered and cried ‘All goes welll’

The fourth turned on the toe and down he fell.

With that they all did tumble on the ground

With such a zealous laughter, so profound,

That in this spleen ridiculous appears,

To check their folly, passion’s solemn tears.

PRINCESS

But what, but what—come they to visit us?

BOYET

They do, they do, and are apparelled thus

⌈ ⌉

Like Muscovites or Russians, as I guess.

Their purpose is to parley, to court and dance,

And every one his love-suit will advance

Unto his several mistress, which they’ll know

By favours several which they did bestow.

PRINCESS

And will they so ? The gallants shall be tasked,

For, ladies, we will every one be masked,

And not a man of them shall have the grace,

Despite of suit, to see a lady’s face.

(To Rosaline) Hold, take thou this, my sweet, and give me thine.

So shall Biron take me for Rosaline.

She changes favours with Rosaline

(To Catherine and Maria)

And change you favours, too. So shall your loves

Woo contrary, deceived by these removes.

Catherine and Maria change favours

ROSALINE

Come on, then, wear the favours most in sight.

CATHERINE

But in this changing what is your intent?

PRINCESS

The effect of my intent is to cross theirs.

They do it but in mockery-merriment,

And mock for mock is only my intent.

Their several counsels they unbosom shall

To loves mistook, and so be mocked withal

Upon the next occasion that we meet

With visages displayed to talk and greet.

ROSALINE

But shall we dance if they desire us to’t?

PRINCESS

No, to the death we will not move a foot,

Nor to their penned speech render we no grace,

But while ’tis spoke each turn away her face.

BOYET

Why, that contempt will kill the speaker’s heart,

And quite divorce his memory from his part.

PRINCESS

Therefore I do it; and I make no doubt

The rest will ne‘er come in if he be out.

There’s no such sport as sport by sport o’erthrown,

To make theirs ours, and ours none but our own.

So shall we stay, mocking intended game,

And they well mocked depart away with shame.

A trumpet sounds

BOYET

The trumpet sounds, be masked, the masquers come.

The ladies mask.

Enter blackamoors with music; the boy Mote with

a speech ; the King and his lords, disguised as Russians

MOTE

All hail, the richest beauties on the earth!

BIRON (aside)

Beauties no richer than rich taffeta.

MOTE

A holy parcel of the fairest dames—

The ladies turn their backs to him

That ever turned their—backs to mortal views.

BIRON ‘Their eyes’, villain, ‘their eyes’!

MOTE

That ever turned their eyes to mortal views.

Out ...

BOYET True, out indeed!

MOTE

Out of your favours, heavenly spirits, vouchsafe

Not to behold—

BIRON ‘Once to behold’, rogue!

MOTE

Once to behold with your sun-beamèd eyes—

With your sun-beamèd eyes—

BOYET

They will not answer to that epithet.

You were best call it ‘daughter-beamèd’ eyes.

MOTE

They do not mark me, and that brings me out.

BIRON

Is this your perfectness? Be gone, you rogue!

Exit Mote

ROSALINE (as the Princess)

What would these strangers ? Know their minds, Boyet.

If they do speak our language, ‘tis our will

That some plain man recount their purposes.

Know what they would.

BOYET What would you with the Princess?

BIRON

Nothing but peace and gentle visitation.

ROSALINE What would they, say they?

BOYET

Nothing but peace and gentle visitation.

ROSALINE

Why, that they have, and bid them so be gone.

BOYET

She says you have it, and you may be gone.

KING

Say to her we have measured many miles

To tread a measure with her on this grass.

BOYET

They say that they have measured many a mile

To tread a measure with you on this grass.

ROSALINE

It is not so. Ask them how many inches

Is in one mile. If they have measured many,

The measure then of one is easily told.

BOYET

If to come hither you have measured miles,

And many miles, the Princess bids you tell

How many inches doth fill up one mile.

BIRON

Tell her we measure them by weary steps.

BOYET

She hears herself.

ROSALINE

How many weary steps

Of many weary miles you have o’ergone

Are numbered in the travel of one mile?

BIRON

We number nothing that we spend for you.

Our duty is so rich, so infinite,

That we may do it still without account.

Vouchsafe to show the sunshine of your face

That we, like savages, may worship it.

ROSALINE

My face is but a moon, and clouded, too.

KING

Blessed are clouds to do as such clouds do.

Vouchsafe, bright moon, and these thy stars, to shine,

Those clouds removed, upon our watery eyne.

ROSALINE

O vain petitioner, beg a greater matter.

Thou now requests but moonshine in the water.

KING

Then in our measure do but vouchsafe one change.

Thou bid’st me beg; this begging is not strange.

ROSALINE

Play, music, then.

⌈ Music plays⌉

Nay, you must do it soon.

Not yet?—no dance! Thus change I like the moon.

KING

Will you not dance? How come you thus estranged?

ROSALINE

You took the moon at full, but now she’s changed.

KING

Yet still she is the moon, and I the man.

⌈ ⌉ 215

The music plays, vouchsafe some motion to it.

ROSALINE

Our ears vouchsafe it.

KING

But your legs should do it.

ROSALINE

Since you are strangers and come here by chance

We’ll not be nice. Take hands. We will not dance.

KING

Why take we hands, then?

ROSALINE

Only to part friends.

Curtsy, sweethearts, and so the measure ends.

KING

More measure of this measure, be not nice.

ROSALINE

We can afford no more at such a price.

KING

Price you yourselves. What buys your company?

ROSALINE

Your absence only.

KING

That can never be.

ROSALINE

Then cannot we be bought, and so adieu—

Twice to your visor, and half once to you.

KING

If you deny to dance, let’s hold more chat.

ROSALINE

In private, then.

KING

I am best pleased with that.

The King and Rosaline talk apart

BIRON (to the Princess, taking her for Rosaline)

White-handed mistress, one sweet word with thee.

PRINCESS

Honey and milk and sugar—there is three.

BIRON

Nay then, two treys, an if you grow so nice—

Metheglin, wort, and malmsey—well run, dice!

There’s half-a-dozen sweets.

PRINCESS

Seventh sweet, adieu.

Since you can cog, I’ll play no more with you.

BIRON

One word in secret.

PRINCESS

Let it not be sweet.

BIRON

Thou griev’st my gall.

PRINCESS Gall—bitter!

BIRON Therefore meet.

Biron and the Princess talk apart

DUMAINE (to Maria, taking her for Catherine)

Will you vouchsafe with me to change a word?

MARIA

Name it.

DUMAINE Fair lady—

MARIA Say you so? Fair lord-

Take that for your ‘fair lady’.

DUMAINE

Please it you,

As much in private, and I’ll bid adieu.

Dumaine and Maria talk apart

CATHERINE

What, was your visor made without a tongue?

LONGUEVILLE (taking Catherine for Maria)

I know the reason, lady, why you ask.

CATHERINE

O, for your reason ! Quickly, sir, I long.

LONGUEVILLE

You have a double tongue within your mask,

And would afford my speechless visor half.

CATHERINE

‘Veal’, quoth the Dutchman. Is not veal a calf?

LONGUEVILLE

A calf, fair lady?

CATHERINE No, a fair lord calf.

LONGUEVILLE

Let’s part the word.

CATHERINE No, I’ll not be your half.

Take all and wean it, it may prove an ox.

LONGUEVILLE

Look how you butt yourself in these sharp mocks !

Will you give horns, chaste lady? Do not so.

CATHERINE

Then die a calf before your horns do grow.

LONGUEVILLE

One word in private with you ere I die.

CATHERINE

Bleat softly, then. The butcher hears you cry.

Longueville and Catherine talk apart

BOYET

The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen

As is the razor’s edge invisible,

Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen,

Above the sense of sense; so sensible

Seemeth their conference. Their conceits have wings

Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter things.

ROSALINE

Not one word more, my maids. Break off, break off.

BIRON

By heaven, all dry-beaten with pure scoff!

KING

Farewell, mad wenches, you have simple wits.

Exeunt the King, lords, and blackamoors

⌈The ladies unmask⌉

PRINCESS

Twenty adieus, my frozen Muscovites.

Are these the breed of wits so wondered at?

BOYET

Tapers they are, with your sweet breaths puffed out.

ROSALINE

Well-liking wits they have; gross, gross; fat, fat.

PRINCESS

O poverty in wit, kingly-poor flout !

Will they not, think you, hang themselves tonight,

Or ever but in visors show their faces?

This pert Biron was out of count’nance quite.

ROSALINE

Ah, they were all in lamentable cases.

The King was weeping-ripe for a good word.

PRINCESS

Biron did swear himself out of all suit.

MARIA

Dumaine was at my service, and his sword.

‘Non point,’ quoth I. My servant straight was mute.

CATHERINE

Lord Longueville said I came o’er his heart,

And trow you what he called me?

PRINCESS

‘Qualm’, perhaps.

CATHERINE

Yes, in good faith.

PRINCESS

Go, sickness as thou art.

ROSALINE

Well, better wits have worn plain statute-caps.

But will you hear? The King is my love sworn.

PRINCESS

And quick Biron hath plighted faith to me.

CATHERINE

And Longueville was for my service born.

MARIA

Dumaine is mine, as sure as bark on tree.

BOYET

Madam, and pretty mistresses, give ear.

Immediately they will again be here

In their own shapes, for it can never be

They will digest this harsh indignity.

PRINCESS

Will they return?

BOYET They will, they will, God knows,

And leap for joy, though they are lame with blows.

Therefore change favours, and when they repair,

Blow like sweet roses in this summer air.

PRINCESS

How ‘blow’ ? How ‘blow’ ? Speak to be understood.

BOYET

Fair ladies masked are roses in their bud;

Dismasked, their damask sweet commixture shown,

Are angels vailing clouds, or roses blown.

PRINCESS

Avaunt, perplexity! What shall we do

If they return in their own shapes to woo?

ROSALINE

Good madam, if by me you’ll be advised,

Let’s mock them still, as well known as disguised.

Let us complain to them what fools were here,

Disguised like Muscovites in shapeless gear,

And wonder what they were, and to what end

Their shallow shows, and prologue vilely penned,

And their rough carriage so ridiculous,

Should be presented at our tent to us.

BOYET

Ladies, withdraw. The gallants are at hand.

PRINCESS

Whip, to our tents, as roes run over land!

Exeunt the ladies

Enter the King, Biron, Dumaine, and Longueville, as themselves

KING

Fair sir, God save you. Where’s the Princess?

BOYET

Gone to her tent. Please it your majesty

Command me any service to her thither?

KING

That she vouchsafe me audience for one word.

BOYET

I will, and so will she, I know, my lord. Exit

BIRON

This fellow pecks up wit as pigeons peas,

And utters it again when God doth please.

He is wit’s pedlar, and retails his wares

At wakes and wassails, meetings, markets, fairs.

And we that sell by gross, the Lord doth know,

Have not the grace to grace it with such show.

This gallant pins the wenches on his sleeve.

Had he been Adam, he had tempted Eve.

A can carve too, and lisp, why, this is he

That kissed his hand away in courtesy.

This is the ape of form, Monsieur the Nice,

That when he plays at tables chides the dice

In honourable terms. Nay, he can sing

A mean most meanly, and in ushering

Mend him who can. The ladies call him sweet.

The stairs as he treads on them kiss his feet.

This is the flower that smiles on everyone

To show his teeth as white as whales bone,

And consciences that will not die in debt

Pay him the due of ‘honey-tongued’ Boyet.

KING

A blister on his sweet tongue with my heart,

That put Armado’s page out of his part!

Enter the ladies and Boyet

BIRON

See where it comes. Behaviour, what wert thou

Till this madman showed thee, and what art thou

now ?

KING

All hail, sweet madam, and fair time of day!

PRINCESS

‘Fair’ in ‘all hail’ is foul, as I conceive.

KING

Construe my speeches better, if you may.

PRINCESS

Then wish me better. I will give you leave.

KING

We came to visit you, and purpose now

To lead you to our court. Vouchsafe it, then.

PRINCESS

This field shall hold me, and so hold your vow.

Nor God nor I delights in perjured men.

KING

Rebuke me not for that which you provoke.

The virtue of your eye must break my oath.

PRINCESS

You nickname virtue. ‘Vice’ you should have spoke,

For virtue’s office never breaks men’s troth.

Now by my maiden honour, yet as pure

As the unsullied lily, I protest,

A world of torments though I should endure,

I would not yield to be your house’s guest,

So much I hate a breaking cause to be

Of heavenly oaths, vowed with integrity.

KING

O, you have lived in desolation here,

Unseen, unvisited, much to our shame.

PRINCESS

Not so, my lord. It is not so, I swear.

We have had pastimes here, and pleasant game.

A mess of Russians left us but of late.

KING

How, madam? Russians?

PRINCESS

Ay, in truth, my lord.

Trim gallants, full of courtship and of state.

ROSALINE

Madam, speak true.—It is not so, my lord.

My lady, to the manner of the days,

In courtesy gives undeserving praise.

We four indeed confronted were with four

In Russian habit. Here they stayed an hour,

And talked apace, and in that hour, my lord,

They did not bless us with one happy word.

I dare not call them fools, but this I think:

When they are thirsty, fools would fain have drink.

BIRON

This jest is dry to me. Gentle sweet,

Your wits makes wise things foolish. When we greet,

With eyes’ best seeing, heaven’s fiery eye,

By light we lose light. Your capacity

Is of that nature that to your huge store

Wise things seem foolish, and rich things but poor.

ROSALINE

This proves you wise and rich, for in my eye—

BIRON

I am a fool, and full of poverty.

ROSALINE

But that you take what doth to you belong

It were a fault to snatch words from my tongue.

BIRON

O, I am yours, and all that I possess.

ROSALINE

All the fool mine!

BIRON

I cannot give you less.

ROSALINE

Which of the visors was it that you wore?

BIRON

Where? When? What visor? Why demand you this?

ROSALINE

There, then, that visor, that superfluous case,

That hid the worse and showed the better face.

KING (aside to the lords)

We were descried. They’ll mock us now, downright.

DUMAINE (aside to the King)

Let us confess, and turn it to a jest.

PRINCESS

Amazed, my lord? Why looks your highness sad?

ROSALINE

Help, hold his brows, he’ll swoon. Why look you

pale?

Seasick, I think, coming from Muscovy.

BIRON

Thus pour the stars down plagues for perjury.

Can any face of brass hold longer out?

Here stand I, lady. Dart thy skill at me—

Bruise me with scorn, confound me with a flout,

Thrust thy sharp wit quite through my ignorance,

Cut me to pieces with thy keen conceit,

And I will wish thee nevermore to dance,

Nor nevermore in Russian habit wait.

O, never will I trust to speeches penned,

Nor to the motion of a schoolboy’s tongue,

Nor never come in visor to my friend,

Nor woo in rhyme, like a blind harper’s song.

Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise,

Three-piled hyperboles, spruce affectation,

Figures pedantical-these summer flies

Have blown me full of maggot ostentation.

I do forswear them, and I here protest,

By this white glove—how white the hand, God

knows!—

Henceforth my wooing mind shall be expressed

In russet yeas, and honest kersey noes.

And to begin, wench, so God help me, law!

My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw.

ROSALINE

Sans ‘sans’, I pray you.

BIRON

Yet I have a trick

Of the old rage. Bear with me, I am sick.

I’ll leave it by degrees. Soft, let us see.