By heaven, the wonder in a mortal eye!
By earth, she is not, corporal, there you lie.
Her amber hair for foul hath amber quoted.
An amber-colour’d 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 remember’d 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.
Reads.
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, can passage find;
That the lover, sick to death,
Wish 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 Jove would swear
Juno but an Ethiope were;
And deny himself for Jove,
Turning mortal for thy love.
This will I send, and something else more plain,
That shall express my true love’s fasting pain.
O, would the king, Biron, and Longaville,
Were lovers too! Ill, to example ill,
Would from my forehead wipe a perjured note;
For none offend where all alike do dote.
Advancing. Dumain, thy love is far from charity,
That in love’s grief desirest society:
You may look pale, but I should blush, I know,
To be o’erheard and taken napping so.
Advancing. 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 mark’d 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 Dumain. And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath.
What will Biron say when that he shall hear
Faith so 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.
Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy. Advancing.
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 perjured, ’tis a hateful thing;
Tush, none but minstrels like of sonneting!
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,
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 Dumain?
And gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain?
And where my liege’s? all about the breast:
A caudle, ho!
Too bitter is thy jest.
Are we betray’d thus to thy over-view?
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 men of inconstancy.
When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme?
Or groan for love? 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 parson misdoubts it; ’twas treason, he said.
Biron, read it over. Giving him the paper.
Where hadst thou it?
Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio. Biron tears the letter.
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.
It is Biron’s writing, and here is his name. Gathering up the pieces.
To Costard. Ah, you whoreson loggerhead! you were born to do me shame.
Guilty, my lord, guilty! I confess, I confess.
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.
Now the number is even.
True, true; we are four.
Will these turtles be gone?
Hence, sirs;
