Comedy plays; Courts and courtiers -- Drama; Navarre (Kingdom) -- Drama; Princesses -- Drama
Bero. Now step I forth to whip hypocrisie.
Ah good my Liedge, I pray thee pardon me.
Good heart, What grace hast thou thus to reproue
These wormes for louing, that art most in loue?
Your eyes doe make no couches in your teares.
There is no certaine Princesse that appeares.
You'll not be periur'd, 'tis a hatefull thing:
Tush, none but Minstrels like of Sonnetting.
But are you not asham'd? nay, are you not
All three of you, to be thus much ore'shot?
You found his Moth, the King your Moth did see:
But I a Beame doe finde in each of three.
O what a Scene of fool'ry haue I seene.
Of sighes, of grones, of sorrow, and of teene:
O me, with what strict patience haue I sat,
To see a King transformed to a Gnat?
To see great Hercules whipping a Gigge,
And profound Salomon tuning a Iygge?
And Nestor play at push-pin with the boyes,
And Critticke Tymon laugh at idle toyes.
Where lies thy griefe? O tell me good Dumaine;
And gentle Longauill, where lies thy paine?
And where my Liedges? all about the brest:
A Candle hoa!
Kin. Too bitter is thy iest.
Are wee betrayed thus to thy ouer-view?
Ber. Not you by me, but I betrayed to you.
I that am honest, I that hold it sinne
To breake the vow I am ingaged in.
I am betrayed by keeping company
With men, like men of inconstancie.
When shall you see me write a thing in rime?
Or grone for Ioane? or spend a minutes time,
In pruning mee, when shall you heare that I will praise a
hand, a foot, a face, an eye: a gate, a state, a brow, a brest,
a waste, a legge, a limme
Kin. Soft, Whither away so fast?
A true man, or a theefe, that gallops so
Ber. I post from Loue, good Louer let me go.
Enter Iaquenetta and Clowne.
Iaqu. God blesse the King
Kin. What Present hast thou there?
Clo. Some certaine treason
Kin. What makes treason heere?
Clo. Nay it makes nothing sir
Kin. If it marre nothing neither,
The treason and you goe in peace away together
Iaqu. I beseech your Grace let this Letter be read,
Our person mis-doubts it: it was treason he said
Kin. Berowne, read it ouer.
He reades the Letter.
Kin. Where hadst thou it?
Iaqu. Of Costard
King. Where hadst thou it?
Cost. Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio
Kin. How now, what is in you? why dost thou tear it?
Ber. A toy my Liedge, a toy: your grace needes not
feare it
Long. It did moue him to passion, and therefore let's
heare it
Dum. It is Berowns writing, and heere is his name
Ber. Ah you whoreson loggerhead, you were borne
to doe me shame.
Guilty my Lord, guilty: I confesse, I confesse
Kin. What?
Ber. That you three fooles, lackt mee foole, to make
vp the messe.
He, he, and you: and you my Liedge, and I,
Are picke-purses in Loue, and we deserue to die.
O dismisse this audience, and I shall tell you more
Dum. Now the number is euen
Berow. True true, we are fowre: will these Turtles
be gone?
Kin. Hence sirs, away
Clo. Walk aside the true folke, & let the traytors stay
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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