My woeful self up in a mournful house,
Raining the tears of lamentation
For the remembrance of my father’s death.
If this thou do deny, let our hands part,
Neither intitled in the other’s heart.
KING.
If this, or more than this, I would deny,
To flatter up these powers of mine with rest,
The sudden hand of death close up mine eye!
Hence ever then my heart is in thy breast.
BEROWNE.
And what to me, my love? and what to me?
ROSALINE.
You must he purged too, your sins are rack’d;
You are attaint with faults and perjury;
Therefore, if you my favour mean to get,
A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest,
But seek the weary beds of people sick.
DUMAINE.
But what to me, my love? but what to me?
KATHARINE.
A wife! A beard, fair health, and honesty;
With threefold love I wish you all these three.
DUMAINE.
O! shall I say I thank you, gentle wife?
KATHARINE.
No so, my lord; a twelvemonth and a day
I’ll mark no words that smooth-fac’d wooers say.
Come when the King doth to my lady come;
Then, if I have much love, I’ll give you some.
DUMAINE.
I’ll serve thee true and faithfully till then.
KATHARINE.
Yet swear not, lest ye be forsworn again.
LONGAVILLE.
What says Maria?
MARIA.
At the twelvemonth’s end
I’ll change my black gown for a faithful friend.
LONGAVILLE.
I’ll stay with patience; but the time is long.
MARIA.
The liker you; few taller are so young.
BEROWNE.
Studies my lady? mistress, look on me;
Behold the window of my heart, mine eye,
What humble suit attends thy answer there.
Impose some service on me for thy love.
ROSALINE.
Oft have I heard of you, my Lord Berowne,
Before I saw you; and the world’s large tongue
Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks;
Full of comparisons and wounding flouts,
Which you on all estates will execute
That lie within the mercy of your wit:
To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain,
And therewithal to win me, if you please,—
Without the which I am not to be won,—
You shall this twelvemonth term, from day to day,
Visit the speechless sick, and still converse
With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,
With all the fierce endeavour of your wit
To enforce the pained impotent to smile.
BEROWNE.
To move wild laughter in the throat of death?
It cannot be; it is impossible:
Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.
ROSALINE.
Why, that’s the way to choke a gibing spirit,
Whose influence is begot of that loose grace
Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools.
A jest’s prosperity lies in the ear
Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it: then, if sickly ears,
Deaf’d with the clamours of their own dear groans,
Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,
And I will have you and that fault withal;
But if they will not, throw away that spirit,
And I shall find you empty of that fault,
Right joyful of your reformation.
BEROWNE.
A twelvemonth! well, befall what will befall,
I’ll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital.
PRINCESS.
[To the King.] Ay, sweet my lord; and so I take my leave.
KING.
No, madam; we will bring you on your way.
BEROWNE.
Our wooing doth not end like an old play:
Jack hath not Jill; these ladies’ courtesy
Might well have made our sport a comedy.
KING.
Come, sir, it wants a twelvemonth and a day,
And then ‘twill end.
BEROWNE.
That’s too long for a play.
[Enter ARMADO.]
ARMADO.
Sweet Majesty, vouchsafe me,—
PRINCESS.
Was not that not Hector?
DUMAINE.
The worthy knight of Troy.
ARMADO.
I will kiss thy royal finger, and take leave. I am a votary: I have vowed to Jaquenetta to hold the plough for her sweet love three yeasr. But, most esteemed greatness, will you hear the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled in praise of the owl and the cuckoo? It should have followed in the end of our show.
KING.
Call them forth quickly; we will do so.
ARMADO.
Holla! approach.
[Enter HOLOFERNES, NATHANIEL, MOTH, COSTARD, and others.]
This side is Hiems, Winter; this Ver, the Spring; the one maintained by the owl, the other by the cuckoo. Ver, begin.
SPRING
I.
When daisies pied and violets blue
And lady-smocks all silver-white
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then on every tree
Mocks married men, for thus sings he,
Cuckoo;
Cuckoo, cuckoo: O, word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!
II.
When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are ploughmen’s clocks,