That I may swear beauty doth beauty lack,
If that she learn not of her eye to look.
No face is fair that is not full so black.
KING.
O paradox! Black is the badge of hell,
The hue of dungeons, and the school of night;
And beauty’s crest becomes the heavens well.
BEROWNE.
Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light.
O! if in black my lady’s brows be deck’d,
It mourns that painting and usurping hair
Should ravish doters with a false aspect;
And therefore is she born to make black fair.
Her favour turns the fashion of the days,
For native blood is counted painting now;
And therefore red, that would avoid dispraise,
Paints itself black, to imitate her brow.
DUMAINE.
To look like her are chimney-sweepers black.
LONGAVILLE.
And since her time are colliers counted bright.
KING.
And Ethiopes of their sweet complexion crack.
DUMAINE.
Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light.
BEROWNE.
Your mistresses dare never come in rain,
For fear their colours should be wash’d away.
KING.
‘Twere good yours did; for, sir, to tell you plain,
I’ll find a fairer face not wash’d to-day.
BEROWNE.
I’ll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here.
KING.
No devil will fright thee then so much as she.
DUMAINE.
I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear.
LONGAVILLE.
Look, here’s thy love:
[Showing his shoe.]
my foot and her face see.
BEROWNE.
O! if the streets were paved with thine eyes,
Her feet were much too dainty for such tread.
DUMAINE.
O vile! Then, as she goes, what upward lies
The street should see as she walk’d over head.
KING.
But what of this? Are we not all in love?
BEROWNE.
Nothing so sure; and thereby all forsworn.
KING.
Then leave this chat; and, good Berowne, now prove
Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn.
DUMAINE.
Ay, marry, there; some flattery for this evil.
LONGAVILLE.
O! some authority how to proceed;
Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil.
DUMAINE.
Some salve for perjury.
BEROWNE.
O, ‘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 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 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 cockled 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
Make 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,