Part 4
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 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 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 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.
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 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 Dumaine? And, gentle Longaville, 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?
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. 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?
BEROWNE. I post from love. Good lover, let me go.
Enter Jaquenetta, with a letter, and Costard.
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 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.
[_Berowne tears the letter._]
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. [_Picking 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. 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. 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! 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?
BEROWNE. “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.
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 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, five-score 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.
BEROWNE. 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 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 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.
LONGAVILLE. And since her time are colliers counted bright.
KING. And Ethiopes of their sweet complexion crack.
DUMAINE. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light.
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.
KING. No devil will fright thee then so much as she.
DUMAINE. I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear.
LONGAVILLE. [_Showing 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.
DUMAINE. O vile! Then, as she goes, what upward lies The street should see as she walked over head.
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.
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. 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!
BEROWNE. 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.
LONGAVILLE. 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.
BEROWNE. 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 betime and may by us be fitted.
BEROWNE. _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._]
ACT V
SCENE I. The King of Navarre’s park
Enter Holofernes, Sir Nathaniel and Dull.
HOLOFERNES. _Satis quod sufficit._
NATHANIEL. I praise God for you, sir. Your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious, pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection, 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 hominem 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.
[_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 phantasimes, such insociable and point-devise 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 “cauf”, half “hauf”; neighbour _vocatur_ “nebour”, neigh abbreviated “ne”. This is abhominable, which he would call “abominable”. It insinuateth me of insanie. _Ne intelligis, domine?_ To make frantic, lunatic.
NATHANIEL. _Laus Deo, bone intelligo._
HOLOFERNES. _Bone? Bone_ for _bene?_ Priscian a little scratched; ’twill serve.
Enter Armado, Moth and Costard.
NATHANIEL. _Videsne quis venit?_
HOLOFERNES. _Video, et gaudeo._
ARMADO. _Chirrah!_
HOLOFERNES. _Quare_ “chirrah”, not “sirrah”?
ARMADO. Men of peace, well encountered.
HOLOFERNES. Most military sir, salutation.
MOTH. [_Aside to Costard_.] They have been at a great feast of languages and stolen the scraps.
COSTARD. O, they have lived long on the almsbasket 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 flap-dragon.
MOTH. Peace! The peal begins.
ARMADO. [_To Holofernes_.] Monsieur, are you not lettered?
MOTH. Yes, yes, he teaches boys the hornbook. What is _a, b_, spelt backward with the horn on his head?
HOLOFERNES. _Ba, pueritia_, with a horn added.
MOTH. _Ba_, most silly sheep with a horn. You hear his learning.
HOLOFERNES. _Quis, quis_, thou consonant?
MOTH. The third of the five vowels, if you repeat them; or the fifth, if I.
HOLOFERNES. I will repeat them: _a, e, i_—
MOTH. 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!
MOTH. Offered by a child to an old man—which is wit-old.
HOLOFERNES. What is the figure? What is the figure?
MOTH. Horns.
HOLOFERNES. Thou disputes like an infant. Go whip thy gig.
MOTH. Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your infamy _unum cita_. A gig of a cuckold’s horn.
COSTARD. An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy gingerbread. 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.
HOLOFERNES. O, I smell false Latin! _Dunghill_ for _unguem_.
ARMADO. Arts-man, preambulate. We will be singuled from the barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the charge-house on the top of the mountain?
HOLOFERNES. Or _mons_, the hill.
ARMADO. At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain.
HOLOFERNES. I do, _sans question_.
ARMADO. Sir, it is the King’s most sweet pleasure and affection to congratulate the Princess at her pavilion in the posteriors of this day, which the rude multitude call the afternoon.
HOLOFERNES. The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is liable, congruent, and measurable for the afternoon. The word is well culled, chose, sweet, and apt, I do assure you, sir, I do assure.
ARMADO. Sir, the King is a noble gentleman, and my familiar, I do assure ye, very good friend. For what is inward between us, let it pass. I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy; I beseech thee, apparel thy head. And among other importunate and most serious designs, and of great import indeed, too—but let that pass. For I must tell thee it will please his Grace, by the world, sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder and with his royal finger thus dally with my excrement, with my mustachio. But, sweet heart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no fable! Some certain special honours it pleaseth his greatness to impart to Armado, a soldier, a man of travel, that hath seen the world. But let that pass. The very all of all is—but, sweet heart, I do implore secrecy—that the King would have me present the Princess, sweet chuck, with some delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant, or antic, or firework. Now, understanding that the curate and your sweet self are good at such eruptions and sudden breaking-out of mirth, as it were, I have acquainted you withal, to the end to crave your assistance.
HOLOFERNES. Sir, you shall present before her the Nine Worthies. Sir Nathaniel, as concerning some entertainment of time, some show in the posterior of this day, to be rendered by our assistance, the King’s command, and this most gallant, illustrate, and learned gentleman, before the Princess, I say, none so fit as to present the Nine Worthies.
NATHANIEL. Where will you find men worthy enough to present them?
HOLOFERNES. Joshua, yourself; myself; and this gallant gentleman, Judas Maccabaeus. This swain, because of his great limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the Great; the page, Hercules.
ARMADO. Pardon, sir; error. He is not quantity enough for that Worthy’s thumb; he is not so big as the end of his club.
HOLOFERNES. Shall I have audience? He shall present Hercules in minority. His enter and exit shall be strangling a snake; and I will have an apology for that purpose.
MOTH. An excellent device! So, if any of the audience hiss, you may cry “Well done, Hercules, now thou crushest the snake!” That is the way to make an offence gracious, though few have the grace to do it.
ARMADO. For the rest of the Worthies?
HOLOFERNES. I will play three myself.
MOTH. Thrice-worthy gentleman!
ARMADO. Shall I tell you a thing?
HOLOFERNES. We attend.
ARMADO. We will have, if this fadge not, an antic. I beseech you, follow.
HOLOFERNES. _Via_, goodman Dull! Thou has spoken no word all this while.
DULL. Nor understood none neither, sir.
HOLOFERNES. _Allons!_ we will employ thee.
DULL. I’ll make one in a dance, or so; or I will play on the tabor to the Worthies, and let them dance the hay.
HOLOFERNES. Most dull, honest Dull! To our sport, away.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE II. The same. Before the Princess’s pavilion
Enter the Princess, Rosaline, Katharine and Maria.
PRINCESS. Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart, If fairings come thus plentifully in. A lady walled about with diamonds! Look you what I have from the loving King.
ROSALINE. Madam, came nothing else along with that?
PRINCESS. Nothing but this? Yes, as much love in rhyme As would be crammed up in a sheet of paper Writ o’ both sides the leaf, margent and all, That he was fain to seal on Cupid’s name.
ROSALINE. That was the way to make his godhead wax, For he hath been five thousand years a boy.
KATHARINE. Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too.
ROSALINE. You’ll ne’er be friends with him. He killed your sister.
KATHARINE. He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy; And so she died. Had she been light, like you, Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit, She might ha’ been a grandam ere she died. And so may you, for a light heart lives long.
ROSALINE. What’s your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word?
KATHARINE. A light condition in a beauty dark.
ROSALINE. We need more light to find your meaning out.
KATHARINE. You’ll mar the light by taking it in snuff; Therefore I’ll darkly end the argument.
ROSALINE. Look what you do, you do it still i’ th’ dark.
KATHARINE. So do not you, for you are a light wench.
ROSALINE. Indeed, I weigh not you, and therefore light.
KATHARINE. You weigh me not? O, that’s you care not for me.
ROSALINE. Great reason, for past cure is still past care.
PRINCESS. Well bandied both; a set of wit well played. But, Rosaline, you have a favour too. Who sent it? And what is it?
ROSALINE. I would you knew. An if my face were but as fair as yours, My favour were as great. Be witness this. Nay, I have verses too, I thank Berowne; The numbers true, and, were the numbering too, I were the fairest goddess on the ground. I am compared to twenty thousand fairs. O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter.
PRINCESS. Anything like?
ROSALINE. Much in the letters, nothing in the praise.
PRINCESS. Beauteous as ink: a good conclusion.
KATHARINE. Fair as a text B in a copy-book.
ROSALINE. ’Ware pencils, how! Let me not die your debtor, My red dominical, my golden letter. O, that your face were not so full of O’s!
PRINCESS. A pox of that jest! And beshrew all shrews. But, Katharine, what was sent to you from fair Dumaine?
KATHARINE. Madam, this glove.
PRINCESS. Did he not send you twain?
KATHARINE. Yes, madam, and moreover, Some thousand verses of a faithful lover. A huge translation of hypocrisy, Vilely compiled, profound simplicity.
MARIA. This, and these pearls, to me sent Longaville. The letter is too long by half a mile.
PRINCESS. I think no less. Dost thou not wish in heart The chain were longer and the letter short?
MARIA. Ay, or I would these hands might never part.
PRINCESS. We are wise girls to mock our lovers so.
ROSALINE. They are worse fools to purchase mocking so. That same Berowne I’ll torture ere I go. O that I knew he were but in by th’ week! How I would make him fawn, and beg, and seek, And wait the season, and observe the times, And spend his prodigal wits in bootless rhymes, And shape his service wholly to my hests, And make him proud to make me proud that jests! So pair-taunt-like would I o’ersway his state, That he should be my fool, and I his fate.
PRINCESS. None are so surely caught, when they are catched, As wit turned fool. Folly, in wisdom hatched, Hath wisdom’s warrant and the help of school And wit’s own grace to grace a learned fool.
ROSALINE. The blood of youth burns not with such excess As gravity’s revolt to wantonness.
MARIA. Folly in fools bears not so strong a note As fool’ry in the wise when wit doth dote, Since all the power thereof it doth apply To prove, by wit, worth in simplicity.
Enter Boyet.
PRINCESS. Here comes Boyet, and mirth is in his face.
BOYET. O, I am stabbed with laughter! Where’s her Grace?
PRINCESS. Thy news, Boyet?
BOYET. Prepare, madam, prepare! Arm, wenches, arm! Encounters mounted are Against your peace. Love doth approach disguised, Armed in arguments. You’ll be surprised. Muster your wits, stand in your own defence, Or hide your heads like cowards, and fly hence.
PRINCESS. Saint Denis to Saint Cupid! What are they That charge their breath against us? Say, scout, say.