William Shakespeare - Ultimate Collection: Complete Plays & Poetry in One Volume. William Shakespeare

reading! Listen, ear.

       [Enter LONGAVILLE, with a paper.]

       BEROWNE.

       Now, in thy likeness, one more fool appear!

       LONGAVILLE.

       Ay me! I am forsworn.

       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 perjur’d so?

       BEROWNE.

       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.

       O sweet Maria, empress of my love!

       These numbers will I tear, and write in prose.

       BEROWNE.

       O! rimes are guards on wanton Cupid’s hose:

       Disfigure not his slop.

       LONGAVILLE.

       This same shall go.

       Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,

       ‘Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,

       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;

       Thy grace being gain’d, 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:

       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’ the way.

       LONGAVILLE.

       By whom shall I send this?—Company! Stay.

       [Steps aside.]

       BEROWNE.

       All hid, all hid; an old infant play.

       Like a demigod 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.

       [Enter DUMAINE, with a paper.]

       Dumain 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 but corporal; there you lie.

       DUMAINE.

       Her amber hairs for foul hath amber quoted.

       BEROWNE.

       An amber-colour’d 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.

       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 remember’d be.

       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.

       On a day, alack the day!

       Love, whose month is ever May,

       Spied a blossom passing fair

       Playing in the wanton air:

       Through the velvet leaves the wind,

       All unseen, ‘gan passage find;

       That the lover, sick to death,

       Wish’d himself the heaven’s breath.

       Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;

       Air, would I might triumph so!

       But, alack! my hand is sworn

       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;

       Thou for whom e’en Jove would swear

       Juno but an Ethiope 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

       Were lovers too. Ill, to example ill,

       Would from my forehead wipe a perjur’d note;

       For none offend where all alike do dote.

       LONGAVILLE.

       [Advancing.] Dumain, 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.

       [Advancing.] 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 mark’d you