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

of breath; your gentleness

       Was guilty of it. Farewell, worthy lord!

       A heavy heart bears not a nimble tongue.

       Excuse me so, coming so short of thanks

       For my great suit so easily obtain’d.

       KING.

       The extreme parts of time extremely forms

       All causes to the purpose of his speed,

       And often at his very loose decides

       That which long process could not arbitrate:

       And though the mourning brow of progeny

       Forbid the smiling courtesy of love

       The holy suit which fain it would convince;

       Yet, since love’s argument was first on foot,

       Let not the cloud of sorrow justle it

       From what it purpos’d; since, to wail friends lost

       Is not by much so wholesome-profitable

       As to rejoice at friends but newly found.

       PRINCESS.

       I understand you not: my griefs are double.

       BEROWNE.

       Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief;

       And by these badges understand the king.

       For your fair sakes have we neglected time,

       Play’d foul play with our oaths. Your beauty, ladies,

       Hath much deform’d us, fashioning our humours

       Even to the opposed end of our intents;

       And what in us hath seem’d ridiculous,—

       As love is full of unbefitting strains;

       All wanton as a child, skipping and vain;

       Form’d by the eye, and, therefore, like the eye,

       Full of strange shapes, of habits and of forms,

       Varying in subjects, as the eye doth roll

       To every varied object in his glance:

       Which particoated presence of loose love

       Put on by us, if, in your heavenly eyes,

       Have misbecom’d our oaths and gravities,

       Those heavenly eyes that look into these faults

       Suggested us to make. Therefore, ladies,

       Our love being yours, the error that love makes

       Is likewise yours: we to ourselves prove false,

       By being once false for ever to be true

       To those that make us both,—fair ladies, you:

       And even that falsehood, in itself a sin,

       Thus purifies itself and turns to grace.

       PRINCESS.

       We have receiv’d your letters, full of love;

       Your favours, the ambassadors of love;

       And, in our maiden council, rated them

       At courtship, pleasant jest, and courtesy,

       As bombast and as lining to the time;

       But more devout than this in our respects

       Have we not been; and therefore met your loves

       In their own fashion, like a merriment.

       DUMAINE.

       Our letters, madam, show’d much more than jest.

       LONGAVILLE.

       So did our looks.

       ROSALINE.

       We did not quote them so.

       KING.

       Now, at the latest minute of the hour,

       Grant us your loves.

       PRINCESS.

       A time, methinks, too short

       To make a world-without-end bargain in.

       No, no, my lord, your Grace is perjur’d much,

       Full of dear guiltiness; and therefore this:

       If for my love,—as there is no such cause,—

       You will do aught, this shall you do for me:

       Your oath I will not trust; but go with speed

       To some forlorn and naked hermitage,

       Remote from all the pleasures of the world;

       There stay until the twelve celestial signs

       Have brought about the annual reckoning.

       If this austere insociable life

       Change not your offer made in heat of blood,

       If frosts and fasts, hard lodging and thin weeds,

       Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love,

       But that it bear this trial, and last love,

       Then, at the expiration of the year,

       Come, challenge me, challenge me by these deserts;

       And, by this virgin palm now kissing thine,

       I will be thine; and, till that instant, shut

       My woeful self up in a mournful house,

       Raining the tears of lamentation

       For the remembrance of my father’s death.

       If this thou do deny, let our hands part,

       Neither intitled in the other’s heart.

       KING.

       If this, or more than this, I would deny,

       To flatter up these powers of mine with rest,

       The sudden hand of death close up mine eye!

       Hence ever then my heart is in thy breast.

       BEROWNE.

       And what to me, my love? and what to me?

       ROSALINE.

       You must he purged too, your sins are rack’d;

       You are attaint with faults and perjury;

       Therefore, if you my favour mean to get,

       A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest,

       But seek the weary beds of people sick.

       DUMAINE.

       But what to me, my love? but what to me?

       KATHARINE.

       A wife! A beard, fair health, and honesty;

       With threefold love I wish you all these three.

       DUMAINE.

       O! shall I say I thank you, gentle wife?

       KATHARINE.

       No so, my lord; a twelvemonth and a day

       I’ll mark no words that smooth-fac’d wooers say.

       Come when the King doth to my lady come;

       Then, if I have much love, I’ll give you some.

       DUMAINE.

       I’ll serve thee true and faithfully till then.

       KATHARINE.

       Yet swear not, lest ye be forsworn again.

       LONGAVILLE.

       What says Maria?

       MARIA.

       At the twelvemonth’s end

       I’ll change my black gown for a faithful friend.

       LONGAVILLE.

       I’ll stay with patience; but the time is long.