BIRON Is this your perfectness? be gone, you rogue!
Exit MOTH
ROSALINE What would these strangers? know their minds, Boyet:
If they do speak our language, ’tis our will:
That some plain man recount their purposes
Know what they would.
BOYET What would you with the princess?
BIRON Nothing but peace and gentle visitation.
ROSALINE What would they, say they?
BOYET Nothing but peace and gentle visitation.
ROSALINE Why, that they have; and bid them so be gone.
BOYET She says, you have it, and you may be gone.
FERDINAND Say to her, we have measured many miles
To tread a measure with her on this grass.
BOYET They say, that they have measured many a mile
To tread a measure with you on this grass.
ROSALINE It is not so. Ask them how many inches
Is in one mile: if they have measured many,
The measure then of one is easily told.
BOYET If to come hither you have measured miles,
And many miles, the princess bids you tell
How many inches doth fill up one mile.
BIRON Tell her, we measure them by weary steps.
BOYET She hears herself.
ROSALINE How many weary steps,
Of many weary miles you have o’ergone,
Are number’d in the travel of one mile?
BIRON We number nothing that we spend for you:
Our duty is so rich, so infinite,
That we may do it still without accompt.
Vouchsafe to show the sunshine of your face,
That we, like savages, may worship it.
ROSALINE My face is but a moon, and clouded too.
FERDINAND Blessed are clouds, to do as such clouds do!
Vouchsafe, bright moon, and these thy stars, to shine,
Those clouds removed, upon our watery eyne.
ROSALINE O vain petitioner! beg a greater matter;
Thou now request’st but moonshine in the water.
FERDINAND Then, in our measure do but vouchsafe one change.
Thou bid’st me beg: this begging is not strange.
ROSALINE Play, music, then! Nay, you must do it soon.
Music plays
Not yet! no dance! Thus change I like the moon.
FERDINAND Will you not dance? How come you thus estranged?
ROSALINE You took the moon at full, but now she’s changed.
FERDINAND Yet still she is the moon, and I the man.
The music plays; vouchsafe some motion to it.
ROSALINE Our ears vouchsafe it.
FERDINAND But your legs should do it.
ROSALINE Since you are strangers and come here by chance,
We’ll not be nice: take hands. We will not dance.
FERDINAND Why take we hands, then?
ROSALINE Only to part friends:
Curtsy, sweet hearts; and so the measure ends.
FERDINAND More measure of this measure; be not nice.
ROSALINE We can afford no more at such a price.
FERDINAND Prize you yourselves: what buys your company?
ROSALINE Your absence only.
FERDINAND That can never be.
ROSALINE Then cannot we be bought: and so, adieu;
Twice to your visor, and half once to you.
FERDINAND If you deny to dance, let’s hold more chat.
ROSALINE In private, then.
FERDINAND I am best pleased with that.
They converse apart
BIRON White-handed mistress, one sweet word with thee.
PRINCESS Honey, and milk, and sugar; there is three.
BIRON Nay then, two treys, and if you grow so nice,
Metheglin, wort, and malmsey: well run, dice!
There’s half-a-dozen sweets.
PRINCESS Seventh sweet, adieu:
Since you can cog, I’ll play no more with you.
BIRON One word in secret.
PRINCESS Let it not be sweet.
BIRON Thou grievest my gall.
PRINCESS Gall! bitter.
BIRON Therefore meet.
They converse apart
DUMAIN Will you vouchsafe with me to change a word?
MARIA Name it.
DUMAIN Fair lady,–
MARIA Say you so? Fair lord,–
Take that for your fair lady.
DUMAIN Please it you,
As much in private, and I’ll bid adieu.
They converse apart
KATHARINE What, was your vizard made without a tongue?
LONGAVILLE I know the reason, lady, why you ask.
KATHARINE O for your reason! quickly, sir; I long.
LONGAVILLE You have a double tongue within your mask,
And would afford my speechless vizard half.
KATHARINE Veal, quoth the Dutchman. Is not ‘veal’ a calf?
LONGAVILLE A calf, fair lady!
KATHARINE No, a fair lord calf.
LONGAVILLE Let’s part the word.
KATHARINE No, I’ll not be your half
Take all, and wean it; it may prove an ox.
LONGAVILLE Look, how you butt yourself in these sharp mocks!
Will you give horns, chaste lady? do not so.
KATHARINE Then die a calf, before your horns do grow.
LONGAVILLE One word in private with you, ere I die.
KATHARINE Bleat softly then; the butcher hears you cry.
They converse apart
BOYET The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen
As is the razor’s edge invisible,
Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen,
Above the sense of sense; so sensible
Seemeth their conference; their conceits have wings
Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter things.
ROSALINE Not one word more, my maids; break off, break off.
BIRON By heaven, all dry-beaten with pure scoff!
FERDINAND Farewell, mad wenches; you have simple wits.
PRINCESS Twenty adieus, my frozen Muscovits.
Exeunt FERDINAND, Lords, and Blackamoors
Are these the breed of wits so wonder’d at?
BOYET Tapers they are, with your sweet breaths puff’d out.
ROSALINE Well-liking wits they have; gross, gross; fat, fat.
PRINCESS O poverty in wit, kingly-poor flout!
Will they not, think you, hang themselves tonight?
Or ever, but in vizards, show their faces?
This pert Biron was out of countenance quite.
ROSALINE O, they were all in lamentable cases!
The king was weeping-ripe for a good word.
PRINCESS Biron did swear himself out of all suit.
MARIA Dumain was at my service, and his sword:
No point, quoth I; my servant straight was mute.
KATHARINE Lord Longaville said, I came o’er his heart;
And trow you what he called me?
PRINCESS Qualm, perhaps.
KATHARINE Yes, in good faith.
PRINCESS Go, sickness as thou art!
ROSALINE Well, better wits have worn statute-caps.
But will you hear? the king is my love sworn.
PRINCESS And quick Biron hath plighted faith to me.
KATHARINE And Longaville was for my service born.
MARIA Dumain is mine, as sure as bark on tree.
BOYET Madam, and pretty mistresses, give ear:
Immediately they will again be here
In their own shapes; for it can never be
They will digest this harsh indignity.
PRINCESS Will they return?
BOYET They will, they will, God knows,
And leap for joy, though they are lame with blows:
Therefore change favours; and, when they repair,
Blow like sweet roses in this summer air.
PRINCESS How blow? how blow? speak to be understood.
BOYET Fair ladies mask’d are roses in their bud;
Dismask’d, their damask sweet commixture shown,
Are angels vailing clouds, or roses blown.
PRINCESS Avaunt, perplexity! What shall we do,
If they return in their own shapes to woo?
ROSALINE Good madam, if by me you’ll be advised,
Let’s, mock them still, as well known as disguised:
Let us complain to them what fools were here,
Disguised like Muscovites, in shapeless gear;
And wonder what they were and to what end
Their shallow shows and prologue vilely penn’d
And their rough carriage so ridiculous,
Should be presented at our tent to us.
BOYET Ladies, withdraw: the gallants are at hand.
PRINCESS Whip to our tents, as roes run o’er land.
Exeunt PRINCESS, ROSALINE, KATHARINE, and MARIA
Re-enter FERDINAND, BIRON, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN, in their proper habits
FERDINAND Fair sir, God save you! Where’s the princess?
BOYET Gone to her tent. Please it your majesty
Command me any service to her thither?
FERDINAND That she vouchsafe me audience for one word.
BOYET I will; and so will she, I know, my lord.
Exit
BIRON This fellow pecks up wit as pigeons pease,
And utters it again when God doth please:
He is wit’s pedler, and retails his wares
At wakes and wassails, meetings, markets, fairs;
And we that sell by gross, the Lord doth know,
Have not the grace to grace it with such show.
This gallant pins the wenches on his sleeve;
Had he been Adam, he had tempted Eve;
A’ can carve too, and lisp: why, this is he
That kiss’d his hand away in courtesy;
This is the ape of form, monsieur the nice,
That, when he plays at tables, chides the dice
In honourable terms: nay, he can sing
A mean most meanly; and in ushering
Mend him who can: the ladies call him sweet;
The stairs, as he treads on them, kiss his feet:
This is the flower that smiles on every one,
To show his teeth as white as whale’s bone;
And consciences, that will not die in debt,
Pay him the due of honey-tongued Boyet.
FERDINAND A blister on his sweet tongue, with my heart,
That put Armado’s page out of his part!
BIRON See where it comes! Behavior, what wert thou
Till this madman show’d thee? and what art thou now?
Re-enter the PRINCESS, ushered by BOYET, ROSALINE, MARIA, and KATHARINE
FERDINAND All hail, sweet madam, and fair time of day!