Bero. Now step I forth to whip hypocrisie.

[Advancing.]

Ah good my Liedge, I pray thee pardon me.
Good heart, What grace hast thou thus to reprove
These wormes for loving, that art most in love?
Your eyes doe make no couches in your teares.
There is no certaine Princesse that appeares.
You'll not be perjur'd, 'tis a hatefull thing:
Tush, none but Minstrels like of Sonnetting.
But are you not asham'd? nay, are you not
All three of you, to be thus much ore'shot?

You found his Moth, the King your Moth did see:
But I a Beame doe finde in each of three.

O what a Scene of fool'ry have I seene.

Of sighes, of grones, of sorrow, and of teene:1
O me,
with what strict patience have I sat,
To see a King transformed to a Gnat?
To see great Hercules whipping a Gigge,
And profound Salomon tuning a Jygge?
And Nestor play at push-pin with the boyes,
And Critticke Tymon laugh at idle toyes.
Where lies thy griefe? O tell me good Dumaine;
And gentle Longavill, where lies thy paine?
And where my Liedges? all about the brest:
A Candle hoa!

Kin. Too bitter is thy jest.

Are wee betrayed thus to thy over-view?

Ber. Not you by me, but I betrayed to you.

I that am honest, I that hold it sinne

To breake the vow I am ingaged in.

160

1tears

170

180

173. tuning: to tune-1Q.

by you-CAPELL.

I am betrayed by keeping company
With men, like men of inconstancie.

When shall you see me write a thing in rime?
Or
grone for Joane? or spend a minutes time,

In pruning mee, when shall you heare that I will praise a hand, a foot, a face, an eye: a gate, a state, a brow, a brest, a waste, a legge, a limme.

Kin. Soft, Whither a-way so fast?

A true man, or a theefe, that gallops so.

Ber. I post from Love, good Lover let me go.

Enter Jaquenetta and Clowne.

Jaqu. God blesse the King.

Kin. What Present hast thou there?

Clo. Some certaine treason.

Kin. What makes treason heere?

Clo. Nay it makes nothing sir.
Kin. If it marre nothing neither,

191

200

The treason and you goe in peace away together. Jaqu. I beseech your Grace let this Letter be read, Our person mis-doubts it: it was treason he said.

Kin. Berowne, read it over.

Kin. Where hadst thou it?

He reades the Letter.

Cost. Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio.

[Biron tears the letter.] Kin. How now, what is in you? why dost thou tear it? Ber. A toy my Liedge, a toy: your grace needes not feare it.

212

Long. It did move him to passion, and therefore let's heare it.

188. Joane: love-1Q.

189-92. 4 rhymed 11.-2RowE.

Dum. It is Berowns writing, and heere is his name. [Gathering up the pieces.]

Ber. [To Costard] Ah you whoreson loggerhead, you were borne | to doe me shame.

Guilty my Lord, guilty: I confesse, I confesse.

Kin. What?

Ber. That you three fooles, lackt mee foole, to make

up the messe.1

1 a set of four

He, he, and you: and you my Liedge, and I,
Are picke-purses in Love, and we deserve to die.
O dismisse this audience, and I shall tell you more.
Dum. Now the number is even.

221

Berow. True true, we are fowre: will these Turtles be gone?

Kin. Hence sirs, away.

Clo. Walk aside the true folke, & let the traytors stay. [Exeunt Costard and Jaquenetta.]

Ber. Sweet Lords, sweet Lovers, O let us imbrace, As true we are as flesh and bloud can be,

231

The Sea will ebbe and flow, heaven will shew his face:
Young bloud doth not obey an old decree.
We cannot crosse the cause why we are borne:
Therefore of all hands must we be forsworne.

King. What, did these rent lines shew some love of thine?

Ber. 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,

Bowes not his vassall head, and strooken blinde,
Kisses the base ground with obedient breast?

224-9. 4 rhymed 11.-THEOBALD.

232. beaven will shew: heaven show-IQ. 234. are: were-IQ. 3-4F.

240

What peremptory Eagle-sighted eye

Dares looke upon the heaven of her brow,
That is not blinded by her majestie?

Kin. What zeale, what furie, hath inspir'd thee now?
My Love (her Mistres) is a gracious Moone,
Shee (an attending Starre) scarce seene a light.

Ber. My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Berowne.
O, but for my Love, day would turne to night, 250
Of all complexions the cul'd sovereignty,

Doe meet as at a faire in her faire cheeke,
Where several! Worthies make one dignity,

Where nothing wants, that want it selfe doth seeke.
Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues,
Fie painted Rethoricke, O she needs it not,
To things of sale, a sellers praise belongs:
She passes prayse, then prayse too short doth blot.
A withered Hermite, fivescore winters worne,
Might shake off fiftie, looking in her eye:
Beauty doth varnish Age, as if new borne,
And gives the Crutch the Cradles infancie.
O'tis the Sunne that maketh all things shine.
King. By heaven, thy Love is blacke as Ebonie.
Berow. Is Ebonie like her? O word divine?

A wife of such wood were felicitie.

O who can give an oth?

Where is a booke?

That I may sweare Beauty doth beauty lacke,
If that she learne not of her eye to looke:
No face is faire that is not full so blacke.

Kin. O paradoxe, Blacke is the badge of hell,
The hue of dungeons, and the Schoole of night:
And beauties crest becomes the heavens well.

260

270

Ber. Divels soonest tempt resembling spirits of light.

265. word: wood-RowE.

272. Schoole: suit-GLOBE.

O if in blacke my Ladies browes be deckt,
It mournes, that painting usurping haire
Should ravish doters with a false aspect:
And therfore is she borne to make blacke, faire.
Her favour turnes the fashion of the dayes,
For native bloud is counted painting now:
And therefore red that would avoyd dispraise,
Paints it selfe blacke, to imitate her brow.

280

Dum. To look like her are Chimny-sweepers blacke. Lon. And since her time, are Colliers counted bright. King. And Ethiops of their sweet complexion crake.1 Dum. Dark needs no Candles now, for dark is light. Ber. Your mistresses dare never come in raine, For feare their colours should be washt away. 1 boast Kin. 'Twere good yours did: for sir to tell you plaine, Ile finde a fairer face not washt to day.

290

Ber. Ile prove her faire, or talke till dooms-day here. Kin. No Divell will fright thee then so much as shee. Duma. I never knew man hold vile stuffe so deere. Lon. Looke, heer's thy love, my foot and her face see. Ber. O if the streets were paved with thine eyes, Her feet were much too dainty for such tread.

Duma. O vile, then as she goes what upward lyes? The street should see as she walk'd over head.

Kin. But what of this, are we not all in love? 299 Ber. O nothing so sure, and thereby all forsworne. Kin. Then leave this chat, & good Berown now prove Our loving lawfull, and our fayth not torne.

Dum. I marie there, some flattery for this evill.
Long. O some authority how to proceed,
Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the divell.

276. painting: painting and-Rowe.

300, 307. 0 out-CAMBRIDGE.