Love's Labour's Lost Part 9

BEROWNE. A toy, my liege, a toy! Your Grace needs not fear it.

LONGAVILLE. It did move him to pa.s.sion, and therefore let's hear it.

DUMAIN. It is Berowne's writing, and here is his name.

[Gathering up the pieces]

BEROWNE. [To COSTARD] Ah, you wh.o.r.eson loggerhead, you were born to do me shame.

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

KING. What?

BEROWNE. 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.

DUMAIN. 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 Inde At the first op'ning of the gorgeous east, Bows not his va.s.sal 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 inspir'd 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 cull'd 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 pa.s.ses praise; then praise too short doth blot.

A wither'd 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 wood 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 h.e.l.l, 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 deckt, 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.

DUMAIN. 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.

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

BEROWNE. Your mistresses dare never come in rain For fear their colours should be wash'd away.

KING. 'Twere good yours did; for, sir, to tell you plain, I'll find a fairer face not wash'd to-day.

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

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

DUMAIN. I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear.

LONGAVILLE. Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face see.

[Showing his shoe]

BEROWNE. O, if the streets were paved with thine eyes, Her feet were much too dainty for such tread!

DUMAIN. O vile! Then, as she goes, what upward lies The street should see as she walk'd overhead.

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.

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

LONGAVILLE. O, some authority how to proceed; Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil!

DUMAIN. Some salve for perjury.

BEROWNE. '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.

And, where that you you have vow'd to study, lords, In that each of you have forsworn his book, Can you still dream, and pore, and thereon look?

For when would you, my lord, or you, or you, Have found the ground of study's excellence Without the beauty of a woman's face?

From women's eyes this doctrine I derive: They are the ground, the books, the academes, From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire.

Why, universal plodding poisons up The nimble spirits in the arteries, As motion and long-during action tires The sinewy vigour of the traveller.

Now, for not looking on a woman's face, You have in that forsworn the use of eyes, And study too, the causer of your vow; For where is author in the world Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?

Learning is but an adjunct to ourself, And where we are our learning likewise is; Then when ourselves we see in ladies' eyes, With ourselves.

Do we not likewise see our learning there?

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 enrich'd 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 stopp'd.

Love's feeling is more soft and sensible Than are the tender horns of c.o.c.kled 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 G.o.ds Make heaven drowsy with the harmony.

Never durst poet touch a pen to write Until his ink were temp'red 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! be first advis'd, 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, masks, 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! Sow'd c.o.c.kle reap'd 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