The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare (moboreader .TXT) 📕

BEROWNE. Something then in rhyme.

LONGAVILLE. Berowne is like an envious sneaping frost That bites the first-born infants of the spring.

BEROWNE. Well, say I am; why should proud summer boast Before the birds have any cause to sing?

Why should I joy in any abortive birth?

At Christmas I no more desire a rose

Than wish a snow in May’s new-fangled shows; But like of each thing that in season grows; So you, to study now it is too late,

Climb o’er the house to unlock the little gate.

KING. Well, sit out; go home, Berowne; adieu.

BEROWNE. No, my good lord; I have sworn to stay with you; And though I have for barbarism spoke more Than for that angel knowledge you can say, Yet confident I’ll keep what I have swore, And bide the penance of each three years’ day.

Give me the paper; let me read the same; And to the strictest decrees I’ll write my name.

KING. How well this yielding rescues thee from shame!

BEROWNE. [Reads] ‘Item. That no woman shall come within a mile of my court’- Hath this been proclaimed?

LONGAVILLE. Four days ago.

BEROWNE. Let’s see the penalty. [Reads] ‘-on pain of losing her tongue.’ Who devis’d this penalty?

LONGAVILLE. Marry, that did I.

BEROWNE. Sweet lord, and why?

LONGAVILLE. To fright them hence with that dread penalty.

BEROWNE. A dangerous law against gentility.

[Reads] ‘Item. If any man be seen to talk with a woman within the term of three years, he shall endure such public shame as the rest of the court can possibly devise.’

This article, my liege, yourself must break; For well you know here comes in embassy The French king’s daughter, with yourself to speakA mild of grace and complete majesty—

About surrender up of Aquitaine

To her decrepit, sick, and bedrid father; Therefore this article is made in vain, Or vainly comes th’ admired princess hither.

KING. What say you, lords? Why, this was quite forgot.

BEROWNE. So study evermore is overshot.

While it doth study to have what it would, It doth forget to do the thing it should; And when it hath the thing it hunteth most, ‘Tis won as towns with fire-so won, so lost.

KING. We must of force dispense with this decree; She must lie here on mere necessity.

BEROWNE. Necessity will make us all forsworn Three thousand times within this three years’ space; For every man with his affects is born, Not by might mast’red, but by special grace.

If I break faith, this word shall speak for me: I am forsworn on mere necessity.

So to the laws at large I write my name; [Subscribes]

And he that breaks them in the least degree Stands in attainder of eternal shame.

Suggestions are to other as to me;

But I believe, although I seem so loath, I am the last that will last keep his oath.

But is there no quick recreation granted?

KING. Ay, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted With a refined traveller of Spain,

A man in all the world’s new fashion planted, That hath a mint of phrases in his brain; One who the music of his own vain tongue Doth ravish like enchanting harmony;

A man of complements, whom right and wrong Have chose as umpire of their mutiny.

This child of fancy, that Armado hight, For interim to our studies shall relate, In high-born words, the worth of many a knight From tawny Spain lost in the world’s debate.

How you delight, my lords, I know not, I; But I protest I love to hear him lie, And I will use him for my minstrelsy.

BEROWNE. Armado is a most illustrious wight, A man of fire-new words, fashion’s own knight.

LONGAVILLE. Costard the swain and he shall be our sport; And so to study three years is but short.

Enter DULL, a constable, with a letter, and COSTARD

DULL. Which is the Duke’s own person?

BEROWNE. This, fellow. What wouldst?

DULL. I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his Grace’s farborough; but I would see his own person in flesh and blood.

BEROWNE. This is he.

DULL. Signior Arme-Arme- commends you. There’s villainy abroad; this letter will tell you more.

COSTARD. Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me.

KING. A letter from the magnificent Armado.

BEROWNE. How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high words.

LONGAVILLE. A high hope for a low heaven. God grant us patience!

BEROWNE. To hear, or forbear hearing?

LONGAVILLE. To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately; or, to forbear both.

BEROWNE. Well, sir, be it as the style shall give us cause to climb in the merriness.

COSTARD. The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta.

The manner of it is, I was taken with the manner.

BEROWNE. In what manner?

COSTARD. In manner and form following, sir; all those three: I was seen with her in the manor-house, sitting with her upon the form, and taken following her into the park; which, put together, is in manner and form following. Now, sir, for the manner-it is the manner of a man to speak to a woman. For the form-in some form.

BEROWNE. For the following, sir?

COSTARD. As it shall follow in my correction; and God defend the right!

KING. Will you hear this letter with attention?

BEROWNE. As we would hear an oracle.

COSTARD. Such is the simplicity of man to hearken after the flesh.

KING. [Reads] ‘Great deputy, the welkin’s vicegerent and sole dominator of Navarre, my soul’s earth’s god and body’s fost’ring patron’-

COSTARD. Not a word of Costard yet.

KING. [Reads] ‘So it is’-

COSTARD. It may be so; but if he say it is so, he is, in telling true, but so.

KING. Peace!

COSTARD. Be to me, and every man that dares not fight!

KING. No words!

COSTARD. Of other men’s secrets, I beseech you.

KING. [Reads] ‘So it is, besieged with sable-coloured melancholy, I did commend the black oppressing humour to the most wholesome physic of thy health-giving air; and, as I am a gentleman, betook myself to walk. The time When? About the sixth hour; when beasts most graze, birds best peck, and men sit down to that nourishment which is called supper. So much for the time When. Now for the ground Which? which, I mean, I upon; it is ycleped thy park. Then for the place Where? where, I mean, I did encounter that obscene and most prepost’rous event that draweth from my snow-white pen the ebon-coloured ink which here thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or seest. But to the place Where? It standeth north-north-east and by east from the west corner of thy curious-knotted garden. There did I see that low-spirited swain, that base minnow of thy mirth,’

COSTARD. Me?

KING. ‘that unlettered small-knowing soul,’

COSTARD. Me?

KING. ‘that shallow vassal,’

COSTARD. Still me?

KING. ‘which, as I remember, hight Costard,’

COSTARD. O, me!

KING. ‘sorted and consorted, contrary to thy established proclaimed edict and continent canon; which, with, O, with-but with this I passion to say wherewith-‘

COSTARD. With a wench.

King. ‘with a child of our grandmother Eve, a female; or, for thy more sweet understanding, a woman. Him I, as my ever-esteemed duty pricks me on, have sent to thee, to receive the meed of punishment, by thy sweet Grace’s officer, Antony Dull, a man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation.’

DULL. Me, an’t shall please you; I am Antony Dull.

KING. ‘For Jaquenetta-so is the weaker vessel called, which I apprehended with the aforesaid swain-I keep her as a vessel of thy law’s fury; and shall, at the least of thy sweet notice, bring her to trial. Thine, in all compliments of devoted and heart-burning heat of duty,

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.’

BEROWNE. This is not so well as I look’d for, but the best that ever I heard.

KING. Ay, the best for the worst. But, sirrah, what say you to this?

COSTARD. Sir, I confess the wench.

KING. Did you hear the proclamation?

COSTARD. I do confess much of the hearing it, but little of the marking of it.

KING. It was proclaimed a year’s imprisonment to be taken with a wench.

COSTARD. I was taken with none, sir; I was taken with a damsel.

KING. Well, it was proclaimed damsel.

COSTARD. This was no damsel neither, sir; she was a virgin.

KING. It is so varied too, for it was proclaimed virgin.

COSTARD. If it were, I deny her virginity; I was taken with a maid.

KING. This ‘maid’ not serve your turn, sir.

COSTARD. This maid will serve my turn, sir.

KING. Sir, I will pronounce your sentence: you shall fast a week with bran and water.

COSTARD. I had rather pray a month with mutton and porridge.

KING. And Don Armado shall be your keeper.

My Lord Berowne, see him delivered o’er; And go we, lords, to put in practice that Which each to other hath so strongly sworn.

Exeunt KING, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN

BEROWNE. I’ll lay my head to any good man’s hat These oaths and laws will prove an idle scorn.

Sirrah, come on.

COSTARD. I suffer for the truth, sir; for true it is I was taken with Jaquenetta, and Jaquenetta is a true girl; and therefore welcome the sour cup of prosperity! Affliction may one day smile again; and till then, sit thee down, sorrow.

Exeunt

SCENE II.

The park

Enter ARMADO and MOTH, his page

ARMADO. Boy, what sign is it when a man of great spirit grows melancholy?

MOTH. A great sign, sir, that he will look sad.

ARMADO. Why, sadness is one and the selfsame thing, dear imp.

MOTH. No, no; O Lord, sir, no!

ARMADO. How canst thou part sadness and melancholy, my tender juvenal?

MOTH. By a familiar demonstration of the working, my tough signior.

ARMADO. Why tough signior? Why tough signior?

MOTH. Why tender juvenal? Why tender juvenal?

ARMADO. I spoke it, tender juvenal, as a congruent epitheton appertaining to thy young days, which we may nominate tender.

MOTH. And I, tough signior, as an appertinent title to your old time, which we may name tough.

ARMADO. Pretty and apt.

MOTH. How mean you, sir? I pretty, and my saying apt? or I apt, and my saying pretty?

ARMADO. Thou pretty, because little.

MOTH. Little pretty, because little. Wherefore apt?

ARMADO. And therefore apt, because quick.

MOTH. Speak you this in my praise, master?

ARMADO. In thy condign praise.

MOTH. I will praise an eel with the same praise.

ARMADO. that an eel is ingenious?

MOTH. That an eel is quick.

ARMADO. I do say thou art quick in answers; thou heat’st my blood.

MOTH. I am answer’d, sir.

ARMADO. I love not to be cross’d.

MOTH. [Aside] He speaks the mere contrary: crosses love not him.

ARMADO. I have promised to study three years with the Duke.

MOTH. You may do it in an hour, sir.

ARMADO. Impossible.

MOTH. How many is one thrice told?

ARMADO. I am ill at reck’ning; it fitteth the spirit of a tapster.

MOTH. You are a gentleman and a gamester, sir.

ARMADO. I confess both; they are both the varnish of a complete man.

MOTH. Then I am sure you know how much the gross sum of deuce-ace amounts to.

ARMADO. It doth amount to one more than two.

MOTH. Which the base vulgar do call three.

ARMADO. True.

MOTH. Why, sir, is this such a piece of study? Now here is three studied ere ye’ll thrice wink; and how easy it is to put ‘years’

to the word ‘three,’ and study three years in two words, the dancing horse will tell you.

ARMADO. A most fine figure!

MOTH. [Aside] To prove you a cipher.

ARMADO. I will hereupon confess I am in love. And as it is base