William Shakespeare - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

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.

BEROWNE.

Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy.

[Descends from the tree.]

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 perjur’d; ‘tis a hateful thing:

Tush! none but minstrels like of sonneting.

But are you not asham’d? nay, are you not,

All three of you, to be thus much o’ershot?

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 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;

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 Dumaine?

And, gentle Longaville, 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?

BEROWNE.

Not you by 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 betrayed by keeping company

With men like men, men of inconstancy.

When shall you see me write a thing in rime?

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?

BEROWNE.

I post from love; good lover, let me go.

[Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD.]

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.

Berowne, read it over.

[Giving the letter to him.]

Where hadst thou it?

JAQUENETTA.

Of Costard.

KING.

Where hadst thou it?

COSTARD.

Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio.

[BEROWNE tears the letter.]

KING.

How now! What is in you? Why dost thou tear it?

BEROWNE.

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

LONGAVILLE.

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

DUMAINE.

[Picking up the pieces.]

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

BEROWNE.

[To COSTARD.] Ah, you whoreson loggerhead, you were born

to do me shame.

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

KING.

What?

BEROWNE.

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.

DUMAINE.

Now the number is even.

BEROWNE.

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.]

BEROWNE.

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.

KING.

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

BEROWNE.

‘Did they?’ quoth you? Who sees the heavenly Rosaline

That, like a rude and savage man of Inde

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 inspir’d thee now?

My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon;

She, an attending star, scarce seen a light.

BEROWNE.

My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Berowne.

O! but for my love, day would turn to night.

Of all complexions the cull’d 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 wither’d hermit, five-score winters worn,

Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye:

Beauty doth varnish age, as if newborn,

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.

BEROWNE.

Is ebony like her? O wood 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 school of night;

And beauty’s crest becomes the heavens well.

BEROWNE.

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

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.

LONGAVILLE.

And since her time are colliers counted bright.

KING.

And Ethiopes of their sweet complexion crack.

DUMAINE.

Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light.

BEROWNE.

Your mistresses dare never come in rain,

For fear their colours should be wash’d away.

KING.

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

I’ll find a fairer face not wash’d to-day.

BEROWNE.

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.

LONGAVILLE.

Look, here’s thy love:

[Showing his shoe.]

my foot and her face see.

BEROWNE.

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 walk’d over head.

KING.

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

BEROWNE.

Nothing so sure; and thereby all forsworn.

KING.

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

Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn.

DUMAINE.

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