PRINCESS ‘Fair’ in ‘all hail’ is foul, as I conceive.
FERDINAND Construe my speeches better, if you may.
PRINCESS Then wish me better; I will give you leave.
FERDINAND We came to visit you, and purpose now
To lead you to our court; vouchsafe it then.
PRINCESS This field shall hold me; and so hold your vow:
Nor God, nor I, delights in perjured men.
FERDINAND Rebuke me not for that which you provoke:
The virtue of your eye must break my oath.
PRINCESS You nickname virtue; vice you should have spoke;
For virtue’s office never breaks men’s troth.
Now by my maiden honour, yet as pure
As the unsullied lily, I protest,
A world of torments though I should endure,
I would not yield to be your house’s guest;
So much I hate a breaking cause to be
Of heavenly oaths, vow’d with integrity.
FERDINAND O, you have lived in desolation here,
Unseen, unvisited, much to our shame.
PRINCESS Not so, my lord; it is not so, I swear;
We have had pastimes here and pleasant game:
A mess of Russians left us but of late.
FERDINAND How, madam! Russians!
PRINCESS Ay, in truth, my lord;
Trim gallants, full of courtship and of state.
ROSALINE Madam, speak true. It is not so, my lord:
My lady, to the manner of the days,
In courtesy gives undeserving praise.
We four indeed confronted were with four
In Russian habit: here they stay’d an hour,
And talk’d apace; and in that hour, my lord,
They did not bless us with one happy word.
I dare not call them fools; but this I think,
When they are thirsty, fools would fain have drink.
BIRON This jest is dry to me. Fair gentle sweet,
Your wit makes wise things foolish: when we greet,
With eyes best seeing, heaven’s fiery eye,
By light we lose light: your capacity
Is of that nature that to your huge store
Wise things seem foolish and rich things but poor.
ROSALINE This proves you wise and rich, for in my eye,–
BIRON I am a fool, and full of poverty.
ROSALINE But that you take what doth to you belong,
It were a fault to snatch words from my tongue.
BIRON O, I am yours, and all that I possess!
ROSALINE All the fool mine?
BIRON I cannot give you less.
ROSALINE Which of the vizards was it that you wore?
BIRON Where? when? what vizard? why demand you this?
ROSALINE There, then, that vizard; that superfluous case
That hid the worse and show’d the better face.
FERDINAND We are descried; they’ll mock us now downright.
DUMAIN Let us confess and turn it to a jest.
PRINCESS Amazed, my lord? why looks your highness sad?
ROSALINE Help, hold his brows! he’ll swoon! Why look you pale?
Sea-sick, I think, coming from Muscovy.
BIRON Thus pour the stars down plagues for perjury.
Can any face of brass hold longer out?
Here stand I lady, dart thy skill at me;
Bruise me with scorn, confound me with a flout;
Thrust thy sharp wit quite through my ignorance;
Cut me to pieces with thy keen conceit;
And I will wish thee never more to dance,
Nor never more in Russian habit wait.
O, never will I trust to speeches penn’d,
Nor to the motion of a schoolboy’s tongue,
Nor never come in vizard to my friend,
Nor woo in rhyme, like a blind harper’s song!
Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise,
Three-piled hyperboles, spruce affectation,
Figures pedantical; these summer-flies
Have blown me full of maggot ostentation:
I do forswear them; and I here protest,
By this white glove;–how white the hand, God knows!–
Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express’d
In russet yeas and honest kersey noes:
And, to begin, wench,–so God help me, la!–
My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw.
ROSALINE Sans sans, I pray you.
BIRON Yet I have a trick
Of the old rage: bear with me, I am sick;
I’ll leave it by degrees. Soft, let us see:
Write, ‘Lord have mercy on us’ on those three;
They are infected; in their hearts it lies;
They have the plague, and caught it of your eyes;
These lords are visited; you are not free,
For the Lord’s tokens on you do I see.
PRINCESS No, they are free that gave these tokens to us.
BIRON Our states are forfeit: seek not to undo us.
ROSALINE It is not so; for how can this be true,
That you stand forfeit, being those that sue?
BIRON Peace! for I will not have to do with you.
ROSALINE Nor shall not, if I do as I intend.
BIRON Speak for yourselves; my wit is at an end.
FERDINAND Teach us, sweet madam, for our rude transgression
Some fair excuse.
PRINCESS The fairest is confession.
Were not you here but even now disguised?
FERDINAND Madam, I was.
PRINCESS And were you well advised?
FERDINAND I was, fair madam.
PRINCESS When you then were here,
What did you whisper in your lady’s ear?
FERDINAND That more than all the world I did respect her.
PRINCESS When she shall challenge this, you will reject her.
FERDINAND Upon mine honour, no.
PRINCESS Peace, peace! forbear:
Your oath once broke, you force not to forswear.
FERDINAND Despise me, when I break this oath of mine.
PRINCESS I will: and therefore keep it. Rosaline,
What did the Russian whisper in your ear?
ROSALINE Madam, he swore that he did hold me dear
As precious eyesight, and did value me
Above this world; adding thereto moreover
That he would wed me, or else die my lover.
PRINCESS God give thee joy of him! the noble lord
Most honourably doth unhold his word.
FERDINAND What mean you, madam? by my life, my troth,
I never swore this lady such an oath.
ROSALINE By heaven, you did; and to confirm it plain,
You gave me this: but take it, sir, again.
FERDINAND My faith and this the princess I did give:
I knew her by this jewel on her sleeve.
PRINCESS Pardon me, sir, this jewel did she wear;
And Lord Biron, I thank him, is my dear.
What, will you have me, or your pearl again?
BIRON Neither of either; I remit both twain.
I see the trick on’t: here was a consent,
Knowing aforehand of our merriment,
To dash it like a Christmas comedy:
Some carry-tale, some please-man, some slight zany,
Some mumble-news, some trencher-knight, some Dick,
That smiles his cheek in years and knows the trick
To make my lady laugh when she’s disposed,
Told our intents before; which once disclosed,
The ladies did change favours: and then we,
Following the signs, woo’d but the sign of she.
Now, to our perjury to add more terror,
We are again forsworn, in will and error.
Much upon this it is: and might not you
To BOYET
Forestall our sport, to make us thus untrue?
Do not you know my lady’s foot by the squier,
And laugh upon the apple of her eye?
And stand between her back, sir, and the fire,
Holding a trencher, jesting merrily?
You put our page out: go, you are allow’d;
Die when you will, a smock shall be your shroud.
You leer upon me, do you? there’s an eye
Wounds like a leaden sword.
BOYET Full merrily
Hath this brave manage, this career, been run.
BIRON Lo, he is tilting straight! Peace! I have done.
Enter COSTARD
Welcome, pure wit! thou partest a fair fray.
COSTARD O Lord, sir, they would know
Whether the three Worthies shall come in or no.
BIRON What, are there but three?
COSTARD No, sir; but it is vara fine,
For every one pursents three.
BIRON And three times thrice is nine.
COSTARD Not so, sir; under correction, sir; I hope it is not so.
You cannot beg us, sir, I can assure you, sir we know
what we know:
I hope, sir, three times thrice, sir,–
BIRON Is not nine.
COSTARD Under correction, sir, we know whereuntil it doth amount.
BIRON By Jove, I always took three threes for nine.
COSTARD O Lord, sir, it were pity you should get your living
by reckoning, sir.
BIRON How much is it?
COSTARD O Lord, sir, the parties themselves, the actors,
sir, will show whereuntil it doth amount: for mine
own part, I am, as they say, but to parfect one man
in one poor man, Pompion the Great, sir.
BIRON Art thou one of the Worthies?
COSTARD It pleased them to think me worthy of Pompion the
Great: for mine own part, I know not the degree of
the Worthy, but I am to stand for him.
BIRON Go, bid them prepare.
COSTARD We will turn it finely off, sir; we will take
some care.
Exit
FERDINAND Biron, they will shame us: let them not approach.
BIRON We are shame-proof, my lord: and tis some policy
To have one show worse than the king’s and his company.