Nath. If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear | cludes 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.

Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee:
My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;
Thy grace, being gain'd, cures all disgrace in me.
Vous 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?

70

Berowne. Once more I'll mark how love can vary wit.

Dum. On a day, alack 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, 'gan passage find;
That the lover, sick to death,
Wish'd himself the heaven's 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 e'en Jove would swear
Juno but an Ethiop were;
And deny himself for Jove,
Turning mortal for thy love.

100

110

120

This will I send, and something else more plain,
That shall express my true love's fasting pain.
O! would the king, Berowne, and Longaville,
Were lovers too. Ill, to example ill,
Would from my forehead wipe a perjur'd note;

Berowne. This is the liver-vein, which makes For none offend where all alike do dote.

flesh a deity;

A green goose a goddess; pure, pure idolatry.
God amend us, God amend! we are much out o'

the way.

stay.

Long. By whom shall I send this ?-Company!
Steps aside.
Berowne. All hid, all hid; an old infant play.
Like a demi-god here sit I in the sky,
And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'er-eye. 80
More sacks to the mill! O heavens! I have my

wish :

Enter DUMAINE, with a paper.

Long. Advancing. Dumaine, thy love is far
from charity,

You may look pale, but I should blush, I know,
That in love's grief desir'st society:
To be o'erheard and taken napping so.

130

King. Advancing. Come, sir, you blush; as his
You chide at him, offending twice as much:
your case is such;
You do not love Maria; Longaville
Nor never lay his wreathed arms athwart
Did never sonnet for her sake compile,
His loving bosom to keep down his heart.
I have been closely shrouded in this bush,

Dumaine transform'd: four woodcocks in a dish! And mark'd you both, and for you both did blush. Dum. O most divine Kate!

I heard your guilty rimes, observ'd 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
A 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. 150
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? 180
You found his mote; the king your mote did see;
But I a beam do find in each of three.

0! 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 candle, ho!
King.

Too bitter is thy jest.
Are we betray'd thus to thy over-view?

170

180

Berowne. 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 you, 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.

Jaq. God bless the king!

King.

What present hast thou there? Cost. Some certain treason.

King.

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,-

240

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.

What makes treason here? 19 A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn,
Cost. Nay, it makes nothing, sir.
King.
If it mar nothing neither,
The treason and you go in peace away together.
Jaq. I beseech your grace, let this letter be read:
Our parson misdoubts it; 'twas treason, he said.
King. Berowne, read it over.

Where hadst thou it?
Jaq. Of Costard.

Gives him the paper.

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

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

Dum. Picking up the pieces. It is Berowne's writing, and here is his name. Beroune. To COSTARD. Ah! you whoreson loggerhead, you were born to do me shame. Guilty, my lord, guilty! I confess, I confess. King. What?

Beroune. 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.
Dum. Now the number is even.
Berowne.
True, true; we are four. 211
Will these turtles be gone?
King.
Hence, sirs; away!
Cost. Walk aside the true folk, and let the
traitors stay.

Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA.

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.
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? 250
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 scowl 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,

260

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.
Dum. To look like her are chimney sweepers black.
Long. And since her time are colliers counted
bright.

King. And Ethiops of their sweet complexion
crack.

Dum. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is
light.

Beroune. 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.

272

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

King. No devil will fright thee then so much as she.

Dum. I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear. Long. Showing his shoe. Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face sce.

Berowne. O! if the streets were paved with thine eyes,

Her feet were much too dainty for such tread. Dum. O vile! then, as she goes, what upward lies

280

The street should see as she walk'd overhead. 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. Dum. Ay, marry, there; some flattery for this evil. Long. O! some authority how to proceed; Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil. Dum. Some salve for perjury.

29)

Berowne.
"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.
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?
For when would you, my lord, or you, or you,
Have found the ground of study's excellence 300
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 prisons up
The nimble spirits in the arteries,
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;
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,
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
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;
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 stopp'd:
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.

340

370

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 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;
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, 360
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!

Berowne. Advance your standards, and upon
them, lords!

Pell-mell, down with them! but be first advis'd,
In conflict that you get the sun of them.

Long. 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.

Beroune. First, from the park let us conduct them thither;

310 Then homeward every man attach the hand Of his fair mistress: in the afternoon

321

33)

Moth. The third of the five vowels, if you of this day, to be rendered by our assistance, repeat them; or the fifth, if I.