KATHARINE. 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-faced 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. [_They converse apart_] 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. [_They converse apart_] 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, Deafed 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, the Braggart. ARMADO. Sweet Majesty, vouchsafe me— PRINCESS. Was not that Hector? DUMAINE. The worthy knight of Troy.