The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  Would from my forehead wipe a perjured note,

  For none offend where all alike do dote.

  LONGUEVILLE (coming forward)

  Dumaine, thy love is far from charity,

  That in love’s grief desir‘st society.

  You may look pale, but I should blush, I know,

  To be o’erheard and taken napping so.

  KING (coming forward)

  Come, sir, you blush. As his, your case is such.

  You chide at him, offending twice as much.

  You do not love Maria? Longueville

  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 marked 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 jovel’ the other cries.

  One, her hairs were gold; crystal the other’s eyes.

  (To Longueville) You would for paradise break faith and troth,

  (To Dumaine) 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.

  BIRON (coming 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

  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?

  (To Longueville) 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 fool’ry 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 pushpin with the boys,

  And critic Timon laugh at idle toys!

  Where lies thy grief, O tell me, good Dumaine?

  And, gentle Longueville, 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?

  BIRON

  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.

  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

  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?

  BIRON

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

  Enter ⌉aquenetta 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.

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

  KING Biron, read it over.

  Biron takes and reads the letter

  (To Jaquenetta) Where hadst thou it?

  JAQUENETTA Of Costard.

  KING (to Costard) Where hadst thou it?

  COSTARD Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio.

  Biron tears the letter

  KING (to Biron)

  How now, what is in you? Why dost thou tear it?

  BIRON

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

  LONGUEVILLE

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

  DUMAINE (taking up a piece of the letter)

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

  BIRON (to Costard)

  Ah, you whoreson loggerhead, you were born to do

  me shamel

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

  KING What?

  BIRON

  That you three fools lacked me fool to make up the

  mess.

  He, he, and you-e’en you, my liege-and I

  Are pickpurses in love, and we deserve to die.

  O, dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you more.

  DUMAINE

  Now the number is even.

  BIRON

  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

  BIRON

  Sweet lords, sweet tovers!—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?

  BIRON

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

  That, like a rude and savage man of Ind

  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 inspired thee now?

  My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon,

  She an attending star, scarce seen a light.

  BIRON

  My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Biron.

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

  Of all complexions the culled 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 withered hermit fivescore winters worn

  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.

  BIRON


  Is ebony like her? O word 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 style of night,

  And beauty’s crest becomes the heavens well.

  BIRON

  Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light.

  O, if in black my lady’s brows be decked,

  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.

  LONGUEVILLE

  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.

  BIRON

  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.

  BIRON

  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.

  LONGUEVILLE (showing his foot)

  Look, here’s thy love—my foot and her face see.

  BIRON

  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 walked overhead.

  KING

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

  BIRON

  Nothing so sure, and thereby all forsworn.

  KING

  Then leave this chat and, good Biron, now prove

  Our loving lawful and our faith not torn.

  DUMAINE

  Ay, marry there, some flattery for this evil.

  LONGUEVILLE

  O, some authority how to proceed,

  Some tricks, some quillets how to cheat the devil.

  DUMAINE

  Some salve for perjury.

  BIRON

  O, ‘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.

  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 enriched 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 stopped.

  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?

  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 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.

  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—

  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!

  BIRON

  Advance your standards, and upon them, lords.

  Pell-mell, down with them; but be first advised

  In conflict that you get the sun of them.

  LONGUEVILLE

  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.

  BIRON

  First, from the park let us conduct them thither;

  Then homeward every man attach the hand

  Of his fair mistress. In the afternoon

  We will with some strange pastime solace them,

  Such as the shortness of the time can shape,

  For revels, dances, masques, and merry hours

  Forerun fair love, strewing her way with flowers.

  KING

  Away, away, no time shall be omitted

  That will be time, and may by us be fitted.

  BIRON

  Allons, allons! Sowed cockle reaped no corn,

  And justice always whirls in equal measure.

  Light wenches may prove plagues to men forsworn.

  If so, our copper buys no better treasure. Exeunt

  5.1 Enter Holofernes the pedant, Nathaniel the curate, and Anthony Dull

  HOLOFERNES Satis quid sufficit.

  NATHANIEL I praise Good for you, sir. Your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious, pleasant without scurrility, witty without affections, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy. I did converse this quondam day with a companion of the King’s who is intituled, nominated, or called Don Adriano de Armado.

  HOLOFERNES Novi hominum tanquam te. His humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical. He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were, too peregrinate, as I may call it.

  NATHANIEL A most singular and
choice epithet.

  He draws out his table-book

  HOLOFERNES He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical phantasims, such insociable and point-device companions, such rackers of orthography as to speak ‘dout’, sine ‘b’, when he should say ‘doubt’; ‘det’ when he should pronounce ‘debt’—‘d, e, b, t’, not ‘d, e, t’. He clepeth a calf ‘caul’, half ‘haul’, neighbour vocatur ‘nebour’—‘neigh’ abbreviated ‘ne’. This is abhominaMe—which he would call ‘abominable’. It insinuateth me of insanire—ne intelligis, domine?—to make frantic, lunatic.

  NATHANIEL Laus deo, bone intelligo.

  HOLOFERNES Bone? Bon, fort bon—Priscian a little scratched-‘twill serve.

  Enter Armado the braggart, Mote his boy, and Costard the clown

  NATHANIEL Videsne quis venit?

  xoLOFeRrrss Video, et gaudio.

  ARMADO (to Mote) Chirrah.

  xoLOVExNES (to Nathaniel) Quare ‘chirrah’, not ‘sirrah’?

  ARMADO Men of peace, well encountered.

  HOLOFERNES Most military sir, salutation!

  MOTE (aside to Costard) They have been at a great feast of languages and stolen the scraps.

  COSTARD (aside to Mote) O, they have lived long on the alms-basket of words. I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word, for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus. Thou art easier swallowed than a flapdragon.

  MOTE (aside to Costard) Peace, the peal begins.

  ARMADO (to Holofernes) Monsieur, are you not lettered?

  MOTE Yes, yes, he teaches boys the horn-book. What is ‘a, b’ spelled backward, with the horn on his head?

  HOLOFERNES Ba, pueritia, with a horn added.

  MOTE Ba, most silly sheep, with a horn! You hear his learning.

  HOLOFERNES Quis, quis, thou consonant?

  MOTE The last of the five vowels if you repeat them, or the fifth if I.

  HOLOFERNES I will repeat them: a, e, i—

  MOTE The sheep. The other two concludes it: o, u.

  ARMADO Now by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum a sweet touch, a quick venue of wit; snip, snap, quick, and home. It rejoiceth my intellect—true wit.

  MOTE Offered by a child to an old man, which is ‘wit-old’.

  HOLOFERNES What is the figure? What is the figure?

  MOTE Horns.

  HOLOFERNES Thou disputes like an infant. Go whip thy gig.

  MOTE Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your infamy circum circa—a gig of a cuckold’s horn.

  CUSTARD An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy gingerbread. (Giving money) Hold, there is the very remuneration I had of thy master, thou halfpenny purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of discretion. O, an the heavens were so pleased that thou wert but my bastard, what a joyful father wouldst thou make me! Go to, thou hast it ad dunghill, at the fingers’ ends, as they say.