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.

  135

  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

  140

  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!

  145

  For all the wealth that ever I did see,

  I would not have him know so much by me.

  BEROWNE [Comes 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

  150

  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!

  155

  But are you not ashamed? 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,

  160

  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,

  165

  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?

  170

  A caudle, ho!

  KING Too bitter is thy jest.

  Are we betrayed thus to thy over-view?

  BEROWNE 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 –

  175

  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

  180

  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.

  185

  Enter JAQUENETTA, 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.

  190

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

  KING

  Berowne, read it over. [Berowne reads the letter.]

  Where hadst thou it?

  JAQUENETTA Of Costard.

  KING Where hadst thou it?

  COSTARD Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio.

  195

  [Berowne tears the letter up.]

  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 [Picks 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.

  200

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

  KING What?

  BEROWNE

  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.

  205

  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!

  210

  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.

  215

  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 Ind,

  At the first opening of the gorgeous east,

  Bows not his vassal head and, strucken blind,

  220

  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?

  225

  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 culled sovereignty

  230

  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.

  235

  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,

  240

  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 word divine!

  A wife of such wood were felicity.

  245

  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,

  250

  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 decked,

  It mourns that painting and usurping hair

  255

  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,

  260

  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 Ethiops of their sweet complexion crack.

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

  265

  BEROWNE 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.

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

  270

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

  DUMAINE I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear.

  LONGAVILLE [Shows his shoe.]

  Look, here’s thy love, 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.

  275

  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?

  BEROWNE O, nothing so sure, and thereby all forsworn.

  KING

  Then leave this chat and, good Berowne, now prove

  280

  Our loving lawful and our faith not torn.

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

  LONGAVILLE O, some authority how to proceed.

  Some tricks, some quillets how to cheat the devil.

  DUMAINE Some salve for perjury.

  BEROWNE O, ’tis more than need.

  285

  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,

  290

  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

  295

  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;

  300

  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,

  305

  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.

  310

  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?

  315

  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

  320

  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;

  325

  They are the books, the arts, the academes,

  That show, contain and nourish all the world;