DUMAINE

I would forget her, but a fever she

Reigns in my blood and will remembered be.

BIRON (aside)

A fever in your blood—why then, incision

Would let her out in saucers—sweet misprision.

DUMAINE

Once more I’ll read the ode that I have writ.

BIRON (aside)

Once more I’ll mark how love can vary wit.

Dumaine reads his sonnet

DUMAINE

‘On a day—atack 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 can passage find,

That the lover, sick to death,

Wished himself the heavens’ 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 great 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, Biron, and Longueville

Were lovers too! Ill to example ill

Would from my forehead wipe a perjured note,

For none offend where all alike do dote.

LONGUEVILLE (coming forward)

Dumaine, thy love is far from 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 (coming forward)

Come, sir, you blush. As his, your case is such.

You chide at him, offending twice as much.

You do not love Maria? Longueville

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 jovel’ the other cries.

One, her hairs were gold; crystal the other’s eyes.

(To Longueville) You would for paradise break faith and troth,

(To Dumaine) And Jove for your love would infringe an oath.

What will Biron say when that he shall hear

Faith so 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.

BIRON (coming 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?

(To Longueville) 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 fool’ry 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 pushpin with the boys,

And critic Timon laugh at idle toys!

Where lies thy grief, O tell me, good Dumaine?

And, gentle Longueville, 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?

BIRON

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?

BIRON

I post from love; good lover, let me go.

Enter ⌉aquenetta with a letter, and Costard the clown

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!

JAQUENETTA

I beseech your grace, let this letter be read.

Our parson misdoubts it; ’twas treason, he said.