Of Costard.
King.
Where hadst thou it?
Cost.
Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio.
[Berowne tears the letter.]
King.
How now, what is in you? Why dost thou tear it?
Ber.
A toy, my liege, a toy; your Grace needs not fear it.
Long.
It did move him to passion, and therefore let’s hear it.
Dum. [Gathering up the pieces.]
It is Berowne’s writing, and here is his name.
Ber. [To Costard.]
Ah, you whoreson loggerhead, you were born to do me shame.
Guilty, my lord, guilty! I confess, I confess.
King.
What?
Ber.
That you three fools lack’d me fool to make up the mess.
He, he, and you—and you, my liege!—and I,
Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die.
O, dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you more.
Dum.
Now the number is even.
Ber.
True, true, we are four.
Will these turtles be gone?
King.
Hence, sirs, away!
Cost.
Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay.
[Exeunt Costard and Jaquenetta.]
Ber.
Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O, let us embrace!
As true we are as flesh and blood can be.
The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face;
Young blood doth not obey an old decree.
We cannot cross the cause why we were born;
Therefore of all hands must we be forsworn.
King.
What, did these rent lines show some love of thine?
Ber.
Did they, quoth you? Who sees the heavenly Rosaline,
That (like a rude and savage man of Inde),
At the first op’ning of the gorgeous east,
Bows not his vassal head, and strooken blind,
Kisses the base ground with obedient breast?
What peremptory eagle-sighted eye
Dares look upon the heaven of her brow,
That is not blinded by her majesty?
King.
What zeal, what fury, hath inspir’d thee now?
My love (her mistress) is a gracious moon,
She (an attending star) scarce seen a light.
Ber.
My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Berowne.
O, but for my love, day would turn to night!
Of all complexions the cull’d sovereignty
Do meet as at a fair in her fair cheek,
Where several worthies make one dignity,
Where nothing wants that want itself doth seek.
Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues—
Fie, painted rhetoric! O, she needs it not.
To things of sale a seller’s praise belongs:
She passes praise, then praise too short doth blot.
A wither’d hermit, fivescore winters worn,
Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye:
Beauty doth varnish age, as if new born,
And gives the crutch the cradle’s infancy.
O, ’tis the sun that maketh all things shine!
King.
By heaven, thy love is black as ebony.
Ber.
Is ebony like her? O [wood] divine!
A wife of such wood were felicity.
O, who can give an oath? Where is a book?
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.
Ber.
Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of
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 favor 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.
Dum.
To look like her are chimney-sweepers black.
Long.
And since her time are colliers counted bright.
King.
And Ethiops of their sweet complexion crack.
Dum.
Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light.
Ber.
Your mistresses dare never come in rain,
For fear their colors 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.
Ber.
I’ll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here.
King.