The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 330
Old Mantuan, old Mantuan, who understandeth thee
not, loves thee not. [Sings.]
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Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa.
Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? Or rather as
Horace says in his – What, my soul, verses?
NATHANIEL Ay, sir, and very learned.
HOLOFERNES Let me hear a staff, a stanza, a verse.
Lege, domine.
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NATHANIEL [Reads.]
‘If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?
Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed.
Though to myself forsworn, to thee I’ll faithful prove.
Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers bowed.
Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine eyes,
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Where all those pleasures live, that art would comprehend.
If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice:
Well learned is that tongue, that well can thee commend,
All ignorant that soul, that sees thee without wonder;
Which is to me some praise, that I thy parts admire.
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Thy eye Jove’s lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder,
Which, not to anger bent, is music and sweet fire.
Celestial as thou art, O, pardon love this wrong,
That sings heaven’s praise, with such an earthly
tongue.’
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HOLOFERNES You find not the apostrophus and so miss
the accent. Let me supervise the canzonet. [Takes the
letter.] Here are only numbers ratified, but for the
elegancy, facility and golden cadence of poesy, caret.
Ovidius Naso was the man; and why indeed ‘Naso’, but
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for smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the
jerks of invention? Imitari is nothing. So doth the
hound his master, the ape his keeper, the tired horse his
rider. But, damosella virgin, was this directed to you?
JAQUENETTA Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Berowne, one
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of the strange queen’s lords.
HOLOFERNES I will overglance the superscript. To the
snow-white hand of the most beauteous Lady Rosaline. I
will look again on the intellect of the letter, for the
nomination of the party writing to the person written
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unto: Your Ladyship’s in all desired employment,
Berowne. Sir Nathaniel, this Berowne is one of the
votaries with the King, and here he hath framed a letter
to a sequent of the stranger queen’s, which accidentally,
or by the way of progression, hath miscarried. Trip and
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go, my sweet, deliver this paper into the royal hand of
the King; it may concern much. Stay not thy compliment: I forgive thy duty, adieu.
JAQUENETTA Good Costard, go with me. Sir, God save your life.
COSTARD Have with thee, my girl.
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Exeunt Costard and Jaquenetta.
NATHANIEL Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very religiously; and as a certain father saith –
HOLOFERNES Sir, tell not me of the father, I do fear
colourable colours. But to return to the verses: did
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they please you, Sir Nathaniel?
NATHANIEL Marvellous well for the pen.
HOLOFERNES I do dine today at the father’s of a certain
pupil of mine, where if, before repast, it shall please
you to gratify the table with a grace, I will, on my
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privilege I have with the parents of the foresaid child
or pupil, undertake your ben venuto; where I will prove
those verses to be very unlearned, neither savouring of
poetry, wit, nor invention. I beseech your society.
NATHANIEL And thank you too, for society, saith the
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text, is the happiness of life.
HOLOFERNES And certes, the text most infallibly
concludes 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.
4.3 Enter BEROWNE with a paper in his hand, alone.
BEROWNE 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,
5
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
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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
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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! [Stands aside.]
Enter the KING with a paper.
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KING Ay me!
BEROWNE Shot, by heaven! Proceed, sweet Cupid, thou
hast thumped him with thy birdbolt under the left
pap. In faith, secrets!
KING [Reads.]
‘So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not
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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
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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,
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And they thy glory through my grief will show.
But do not love thyself: then thou will 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.’
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How shall she know my griefs? I’ll drop the paper.
Sweet leaves shade folly. Who is he comes here?
[Steps aside.]
Enter LONGAVILLE with a paper.
What, Longaville, and reading? Listen, ear!
BEROWNE Now, in thy likeness, one more fool appear!
LONGAVILLE Ay me, I am forsworn!
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BEROWNE Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers.
KING In love, I hope. Sweet fellowship in shame.
BEROWNE One drunkard loves another of the name.
LONGAVILLE Am I the first that have been perjured so?
BEROWNE
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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.
LONGAVILLE
I fear these stubborn lines lack power to move.
&
nbsp; O sweet Maria, empress of my love,
These numbers will I tear and write in prose.
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BEROWNE
O, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid’s hose:
Disfigure not his shop.
LONGAVILLE This same shall go.
[Reads the sonnet.]
‘Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,
‘Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,
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Persuade my heart to this false perjury?
Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.
A woman I forswore, but I will prove,
Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee.
My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;
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Thy grace being gained, cures all disgrace in me.
Vows 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;
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If by me broke, what fool is not so wise
To lose an oath to win a paradise?’
BEROWNE
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.
Enter DUMAINE with a paper.
LONGAVILLE
By whom shall I send this? Company? Stay.
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[Stands 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.
More sacks to the mill. O heavens, I have my wish!
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Dumaine transformed! Four woodcocks in a dish!
DUMAINE O most divine Kate!
BEROWNE O most profane coxcomb!
DUMAINE By heaven, the wonder in a mortal eye!
BEROWNE By earth, she is not, corporal: there you lie.
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DUMAINE Her amber hairs for foul hath amber quoted.
BEROWNE An amber-coloured raven was well noted.
DUMAINE As upright as the cedar.
BEROWNE Stoop, I say.
Her shoulder is with child.
DUMAINE As fair as day.
BEROWNE
Ay, as some days, but then no sun must shine.
DUMAINE O that I had my wish!
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LONGAVILLE And I had mine!
KING And I mine too, good Lord!
BEROWNE
Amen, so I had mine! Is not that a good word?
DUMAINE I would forget her, but a fever she
Reigns in my blood and will remembered be.
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BEROWNE A fever in your blood? Why then incision
Would let her out in saucers. Sweet misprision!
DUMAINE Once more I’ll read the ode that I have writ.
BEROWNE Once more I’ll mark how love can vary wit.
DUMAINE [Reads his sonnet.]
‘On a day – alack the day! –
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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;
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That the lover, sick to death,
Wished himself the heaven’s breath.
“Air,” quoth he, “thy cheeks may blow;
Air, would I might triumph so!
But, alack, my hand is sworn
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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;
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Thou for whom Jove would swear
Juno but an Ethiop 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, Berowne and Longaville
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Were lovers too! Ill, to example ill,
Would from my forehead wipe a perjured note,
For none offend where all alike do dote.
LONGAVILLE [Comes forward.]
Dumaine, thy love is far from charity,
That in love’s grief desirest society.
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You may look pale, but I should blush, I know,
To be o’erheard and taken napping so.
KING [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
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Did never sonnet for her sake compile,