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 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 is part of my rhyme, 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 with a paper. God give him grace to groan!

Ay me!

[_Aside_.] Shot, by heaven! Proceed, sweet Cupid, thou hast thumped him

with thy birdbolt under the left pap. In faith, secrets!

[_Reads_.] [_So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not

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

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?

[_Aside_.] Now, in thy likeness, one more fool appear!

Ay me! I am forsworn.

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

In love, I hope. Sweet fellowship in shame.

One drunkard loves another of the name.

Am I the first that have been perjured so?

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.

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.

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

Disfigure not his shop.

This same shall go.

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.

By whom shall I send this?—Company! Stay.

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!

O most divine Kate!

O most profane coxcomb!

By heaven, the wonder in a mortal eye!

By earth, she is but corporal. There you lie.

Her amber hairs for foul hath amber quoted.

An amber-coloured raven was well noted.

As upright as the cedar.

Stoop, I say.

Her shoulder is with child.

As fair as day.

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

O, that I had my wish!

And I had mine!

And I mine too, good Lord!

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

I would forget her; but a fever she

Reigns in my blood, and will remembered be.

A fever in your blood? Why, then incision

Would let her out in saucers. Sweet misprision!

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

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

[_Comes 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.

[_Comes forward_.] Come, sir, you blush. As his, your case is such.

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.

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 Jove!” the other cries.

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

[_To Longaville_.] You would for paradise break faith and troth;

[_To Dumaine_.] And Jove, for your love would infringe an oath.

What will Berowne say when that he shall hear

Faith 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.

Too bitter is thy jest.

Are we betrayed thus to thy over-view?

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—

Soft! Whither away so fast?

A true man, or a thief, that gallops so?

I post from love. Good lover, let me go.

God bless the King!

What present hast thou there?

Some certain treason.

What makes treason here?

Nay, it makes nothing, sir.

If it mar nothing neither,

The treason and you go in peace away together.

I beseech your Grace, let this letter be read.

Our person misdoubts it; ’twas treason, he said.

Berowne, read it over.

Of Costard.

Where hadst thou it?

Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio.

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

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

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

[_To Costard_.] Ah, you whoreson loggerhead, you were born to do me

shame.

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

What?

That you three fools lacked 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.

Now the number is even.

True, true, we are four.

Will these turtles be gone?

Hence, sirs, away!

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

Sweet lords, sweet lovers, 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.

What, did these rent lines show some love of thine?

“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?

What zeal, what fury hath inspired thee now?

My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon;

She, an attending star, scarce seen a light.

My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Berowne.

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, five-score 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!

By heaven, thy love is black as ebony.

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.

O paradox! Black is the badge of hell,

The hue of dungeons and the school of night;

And beauty’s crest becomes the heavens well.

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.

To look like her are chimney-sweepers black.

And since her time are colliers counted bright.

And Ethiopes of their sweet complexion crack.

Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light.

Your mistresses dare never come in rain,

For fear their colours should be washed away.

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

I’ll find a fairer face not washed today.

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

No devil will fright thee then so much as she.

I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear.

O, if the streets were paved with thine eyes,

Her feet were much too dainty for such tread.

O vile! Then, as she goes, what upward lies

The street should see as she walked over head.

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

Nothing so sure, and thereby all forsworn.

Then leave this chat, and, good Berowne, now prove

Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn.

Ay, marry, there; some flattery for this evil.

O, some authority how to proceed.

Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil.

Some salve for perjury.

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?

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?

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

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.

Now to plain dealing. Lay these glozes by.

Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France?

And win them too. Therefore let us devise

Some entertainment for them in their tents.

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.

Away, away! No time shall be omitted

That will betime and may by us be fitted.

_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.