Dum.
I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear.
Long.
Look, here’s thy love [showing his boot], my foot and her face see.
Ber.
O, if the streets were paved with thine eyes,
Her feet were much too dainty for such tread!
Dum.
O vile! then as she goes what upward lies
The street should see as she walk’d overhead.
King.
But what of this, are we not all in love?
Ber.
O, 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.
Dum.
Ay marry, there—some flattery for this evil.
Long.
O, some authority how to proceed;
Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil.
Dum.
Some salve for perjury.
Ber.
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 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 sinowy vigor 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,
With ourselves,
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 practicers,
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 valor, is not Love a Hercules,
Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?
Subtile 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 temp’red 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 aught 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?
King.
Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field!
Ber.
Advance your standards, and upon them, lords;
Pell-mell, down with them! but be first advis’d,
In conflict that you get the sun of them.
Long.