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? FERDINAND 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 JAQUENETTA and COSTARD JAQUENETTA God bless the king! FERDINAND What present hast thou there? COSTARD Some certain treason. FERDINAND What makes treason here? COSTARD Nay, it makes nothing, sir. FERDINAND 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. FERDINAND Biron, read it over.
Giving him the paper Where hadst thou it? JAQUENETTA Of Costard. FERDINAND Where hadst thou it? COSTARD Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio.
BIRON tears the letter FERDINAND How now! what is in you? why dost thou tear it? BIRON 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. DUMAIN It is Biron's writing, and here is his name.
Gathering up the pieces BIRON [To COSTARD] Ah, you whoreson loggerhead! you were born to do me shame.
Guilty, my lord, guilty! I confess, I confess. FERDINAND What? BIRON 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. BIRON True, true; we are four.
Will these turtles be gone? FERDINAND Hence, sirs; away! COSTARD Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay.
Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA BIRON 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. FERDINAND 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 Inde, At the first opening 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? FERDINAND 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 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 passes 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. FERDINAND By heaven, thy love is black as ebony. BIRON 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. FERDINAND O paradox! Black is the badge of hell, The hue of dungeons and the suit 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 deck'd, It mourns that painting and usurping hair Should ravish doters with a false aspect;And therefore is she born to make black fair.
