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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.
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