Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye ('Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument), Persuade my heart to this false perjury?

Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment. A woman I forswore; but I will prove,

Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee: My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;

Thy grace, being gained, cures all disgrace in me. Vows are but breath, and breath a vapor is:

Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shinę, Exhal'st this vapor vow; in thee it is:

If broken then, it is no fault of mine,

If by me broke. What fool is not so wise,
To lose an oath to win a paradise?

King. And I mine too, good lord! [Aside.

Biron. Amen, so I had mine. Is not that a

DUMAIN reads.

On a day, (alack the day!)
Love, whose month is ever May,
Spied a blossom, passing fair,
Playing in the wanton air:
Through the velvet leaves the wind,
All unseen, 'gan passage find;
That the lover, sick to death,
Wished himself the heaven's breath.
Air (quoth he), thy cheeks may blow;
Air, would I might triumph so!
But, alack, my hand is sworn

Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn:

Vow, alack, for youth unmeet;
Youth, so apt to pluck a sweet.
Do not call it sin in me,

That I am forsworn for thee:

Thou, for whom Jove would swear

Juno but an Ethiop were;

And deny himself for Jove,
Turning mortal for thy love.

This will I send; and something else more plain,
That shall express my true love's fasting pain.
O, would the King, Birón, and Longaville,
Were lovers too!-Ill, to example ill,

Would from my forehead wipe a perjured note;
For none offend, where all alike do dote.

Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow, and of teen!
O me, with what strict patience have I sat,
To see a king transforméd to a gnat!
To see great Hercules whipping a gig,
And profound Solomon tuning a jig;
And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys,

charity,

That in love's grief desir'st society:

You may look pale, but I should blush, I know,
To be o'erheard, and taken napping so.

King. Come, sir [advancing], 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 wreathéd 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:
"Ah me!" says one; "O Jove!" the other cries;
One, her hairs were gold, crystal the other's eyes.
You would for paradise break faith and troth;
[To LONGAVILLE.
And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath.
[To DUMAIN.

What will Birón say, when that he shall hear
A faith infringéd 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.
Biron. Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy. -
Ah, good my liege, I pray thee pardon me :
[Descends from the tree.
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, 't is 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,

Are we betrayed thus to thy over-view?
Biron. Not you by me, but I betrayed to you:

I that am honest; I that hold it sin
To break the vow I am engagéd in;
I am betrayed, by keeping company
With men like men, of strange 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?
Biron. I post from love: good lover, let me go.

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 withered hermit, five-score 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, 't is the sun that maketh all things shine!

King. By heaven, thy love is black as ebony. Biron. 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 scowl of night; And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well. Biron. Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits

of light.

O, if in black my lady's brows be decked,

It mourns, that painting, and usurping hair, Should ravish doters with a false aspéct; And therefore is she born to make black fair. Her favor turns the fashion of the days; For native blood is counted painting now;

heavenly Rosaline,

That, like a rude and savage man of Inde,

At the first opening of the gorgeous east, Bows not his vassal head; and, strucken 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 inspired thee now?

My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon;
She, an attending star, scarce seen a light.

Biron. My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Birón:
O, but for my love, day would turn to night!
Of all complexions the culled sovereignty

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.

Biron. Your mistresses dare never come in

rain,

For fear their colors should be washed away. King. 'T were good yours did; for, sir, to tell you plain,

I'll find a fairer face not washed to-day.

she.

Dum. I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear. Long. Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face see. [Shewing his shoe. Biron. O, if the streets were pavéd 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 walked over head. King. But what of this? Are we not all in love?

sworn.

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.

Biron. 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 :

O, 't is more than need!

And where that you have vowed to study, lords,
In that each of you hath 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 prisons up
The nimble spirits in the arteries;
As motion, and long-during action, tires
The sinewy vigor of the traveler.
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:

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 stopped:
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?
Subtle 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
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.
Never durst poet touch a pen to write,
Until his ink be tempered with love's sighs:
O, then his lines would ravish savage ears,
And plant in tyrants mild humility.
From woman's eyes this doctrine I derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That shew, 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 all men love;