|
BIRON
Your mistresses dare never come in rain,
For fear their colours should be wash'd away.
FERDINAND
'Twere good, yours did; for, sir, to tell you plain,
I'll find a fairer face not wash'd to-day.
BIRON
I'll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here.
FERDINAND
No devil will fright thee then so much as she.
DUMAIN
I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear.
LONGAVILLE
Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face see.
BIRON
O, if the streets were paved with thine eyes,
Her feet were much too dainty for such tread!
DUMAIN
O, vile! then, as she goes, what upward lies
The street should see as she walk'd overhead.
FERDINAND
But what of this? are we not all in love?
BIRON
Nothing so sure; and thereby all forsworn.
FERDINAND
Then leave this chat; and, good Biron, now prove
Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn.
DUMAIN
Ay, marry, there; some flattery for this evil.
LONGAVILLE
O, some authority how to proceed;
Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil.
DUMAIN
Some salve for perjury.
BIRON
'Tis more than need.
Have at you, then, affection's men at arms.
Consider what you first did swear unto,
To fast, to study, and to see no woman;
Flat treason 'gainst the kingly state of youth.
Say, can you fast? your stomachs are too young;
And abstinence engenders maladies.
And where that you have vow'd to study, lords,
In that each of you have forsworn his book,
Can you still dream and pore and thereon look?
For when would you, my lord, or you, or you,
Have found the ground of study's excellence
Without the beauty of a woman's face?
From women's eyes this doctrine I derive;
They are the ground, the books, the academes
From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire
Why, universal plodding poisons up
The nimble spirits in the arteries,
As motion and long-during action tires
The sinewy vigour of the traveller.
Now, for not looking on a woman's face,
You have in that forsworn the use of eyes
And study too, the causer of your vow;
For where is any author in the world
Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?
Learning is but an adjunct to ourself
And where we are our learning likewise is:
Then when ourselves we see in ladies' eyes,
Do we not likewise see our learning there?
O, we have made a vow to study, lords,
And in that vow we have forsworn our books.
For when would you, my liege, or you, or you,
In leaden contemplation have found out
Such fiery numbers as the prompting eyes
Of beauty's tutors have enrich'd you with?
Other slow arts entirely keep the brain;
And therefore, finding barren practisers,
Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil:
But love, first learned in a lady's eyes,
Lives not alone immured in the brain;
But, with the motion of all elements,
Courses as swift as thought in every power,
And gives to every power a double power,
Above their functions and their offices.
It adds a precious seeing to the eye;
A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind;
A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound,
When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd:
Love's feeling is more soft and sensible
Than are the tender horns of cockl'd snails;
Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste:
For valour, is not Love a Hercules,
Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?
Subtle as Sphinx; as sweet and musical
As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair:
And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.
Never durst poet touch a pen to write
Until his ink were temper'd with Love's sighs;
O, then his lines would ravish savage ears
And plant in tyrants mild humility.
From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That show, contain and nourish all the world:
Else none at all in ought proves excellent.
Then fools you were these women to forswear,
Or keeping what is sworn, you will prove fools.
For wisdom's sake, a word that all men love,
Or for love's sake, a word that loves all men,
Or for men's sake, the authors of these women,
Or women's sake, by whom we men are men,
Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves,
Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths.
It is religion to be thus forsworn,
For charity itself fulfills the law,
And who can sever love from charity?
FERDINAND
Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field!
BIRON
Advance your standards, and upon them, lords;
Pell-mell, down with them! but be first advised,
In conflict that you get the sun of them.
LONGAVILLE
Now to plain-dealing; lay these glozes by:
Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France?
FERDINAND
And win them too: therefore let us devise
Some entertainment for them in their tents.
BIRON
First, from the park let us conduct them thither;
Then homeward every man attach the hand
Of his fair mistress: in the afternoon
We will with some strange pastime solace them,
Such as the shortness of the time can shape;
For revels, dances, masks and merry hours
Forerun fair Love, strewing her way with flowers.
FERDINAND
Away, away! no time shall be omitted
That will betime, and may by us be fitted.
BIRON
Allons! allons! Sow'd cockle reap'd no corn;
And justice always whirls in equal measure:
Light wenches may prove plagues to men forsworn;
If so, our copper buys no better treasure.
Exeunt
|
