KING Biron, read it over.

Biron takes and reads the letter

(To Jaquenetta) Where hadst thou it?

JAQUENETTA Of Costard.

KING (to Costard) Where hadst thou it?

COSTARD Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio.

Biron tears the letter

KING (to Biron)

How now, what is in you? Why dost thou tear it?

BIRON

A toy, my liege, a toy. Your grace needs not fear it.

LONGUEVILLE

It did move him to passion, and therefore let’s hear it.

DUMAINE (taking up a piece of the letter)

It is Biron’s writing, and here is his name.

BIRON (to Costard)

Ah, you whoreson loggerhead, you were born to do

me shamel

Guilty, my lord, guilty! I confess, I confess.

KING What?

BIRON

That you three fools lacked me fool to make up the

mess.

He, he, and you-e’en you, my liege-and I

Are pickpurses in love, and we deserve to die.

O, dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you more.

DUMAINE

Now the number is even.

BIRON

True, true; we are four.

Will these turtles be gone?

KING

Hence, sirs; away.

COSTARD

Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay.

Exeunt Costard and Jaquenetta

BIRON

Sweet lords, sweet tovers!—O, let us embrace.

As true we are as flesh and blood can be.

The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face.

Young blood doth not obey an old decree.

We cannot cross the cause why we were born,

Therefore of all hands must we be forsworn.

KING

What, did these rent lines show some love of thine?

BIRON

‘Did they’, quoth you? Who sees the heavenly Rosaline

That, like a rude and savage man of Ind

At the first op’ning 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 Biron.

O, but for my love, day would turn to night.

Of all complexions the culled sovereignty

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 fivescore 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, ’tis the sun that maketh all things shine.

KING

By heaven, thy love is black as ebony.

BIRON

Is ebony like her? O word 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 style 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 aspect,

And therefore is she born to make black fair.

Her favour turns the fashion of the days,

For native blood is counted painting now,

And therefore red that would avoid dispraise

Paints itself black to imitate her brow.

DUMAINE

To look like her are chimney-sweepers black.

LONGUEVILLE

And since her time are colliers counted bright.

KING

And Ethiops of their sweet complexion crack.

DUMAINE

Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light.

BIRON

Your mistresses dare never come in rain,

For fear their colours should be washed away.

KING

‘Twere good yours did; for, sir, to tell you plain,

I’ll find a fairer face not washed today.

BIRON

I’ll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here.

KING

No devil will fright thee then so much as she.

DUMAINE

I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear.

LONGUEVILLE (showing his foot)

Look, here’s thy love—my foot and her face see.

BIRON

O, if the streets were paved with thine eyes

Her feet were much too dainty for such tread.

DUMAINE

O vile! Then as she goes, what upward lies

The street should see as she walked overhead.

KING

But what of this? Are we not all in love?

BIRON

Nothing so sure, and thereby all forsworn.

KING

Then leave this chat and, good Biron, now prove

Our loving lawful and our faith not torn.

DUMAINE

Ay, marry there, some flattery for this evil.

LONGUEVILLE

O, some authority how to proceed,

Some tricks, some quillets how to cheat the devil.

DUMAINE

Some salve for perjury.

BIRON

O, ‘tis more than need.

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, we have made a vow to study, lords,

And in that vow we have forsworn our books;