Comedy plays; Courts and courtiers -- Drama; Navarre (Kingdom) -- Drama; Princesses -- Drama
KING.
[_Comes forward_.] Come, sir, you blush. As his, your case is such.
You chide at him, offending twice as much.
You do not love Maria? Longaville
Did never sonnet for her sake compile,
Nor never lay his wreathed arms athwart
His loving bosom to keep down his heart.
I have been closely shrouded in this bush,
And marked you both, and for you both did blush.
I heard your guilty rhymes, observed your fashion,
Saw sighs reek from you, noted well your passion.
“Ay, me!” says one. “O Jove!” the other cries.
One, her hairs were gold; crystal the other’s eyes.
[_To Longaville_.] You would for paradise break faith and troth;
[_To Dumaine_.] And Jove, for your love would infringe an oath.
What will Berowne say when that he shall hear
Faith infringed which such zeal did swear?
How will he scorn, how will he spend his wit!
How will he triumph, leap, and laugh at it!
For all the wealth that ever I did see,
I would not have him know so much by me.
BEROWNE.
[_Comes forward_.]
Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy.
Ah, good my liege, I pray thee pardon me.
Good heart, what grace hast thou thus to reprove
These worms for loving, that art most in love?
Your eyes do make no coaches; in your tears
There is no certain princess that appears.
You’ll not be perjured, ’tis a hateful thing:
Tush, none but minstrels like of sonneting!
But are you not ashamed? Nay, are you not,
All three of you, to be thus much o’ershot?
You found his mote, the King your mote did see;
But I a beam do find in each of three.
O, what a scene of foolery have I seen,
Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow, and of teen!
O me, with what strict patience have I sat,
To see a king transformed to a gnat!
To see great Hercules whipping a gig,
And profound Solomon to tune a jig,
And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys,
And critic Timon laugh at idle toys.
Where lies thy grief, O, tell me, good Dumaine?
And, gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain?
And where my liege’s? All about the breast?
A caudle, ho!
KING.
Too bitter is thy jest.
Are we betrayed thus to thy over-view?
BEROWNE.
Not you to me, but I betrayed by you.
I that am honest, I that hold it sin
To break the vow I am engaged in.
I am betrayed by keeping company
With men like you, men of inconstancy.
When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme?
Or groan for Joan? Or spend a minute’s time
In pruning me? When shall you hear that I
Will praise a hand, a foot, a face, an eye,
A gait, a state, a brow, a breast, a waist,
A leg, a limb—
KING.
Soft! Whither away so fast?
A true man, or a thief, that gallops so?
BEROWNE.
I post from love. Good lover, let me go.
Enter Jaquenetta, with a letter, and Costard.
JAQUENETTA.
God bless the King!
KING.
What present hast thou there?
COSTARD.
Some certain treason.
KING.
What makes treason here?
COSTARD.
Nay, it makes nothing, sir.
KING.
If it mar nothing neither,
The treason and you go in peace away together.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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