William Shakespeare (1564-1616). Beauty's Epitome. William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. 1907. The Book of Elizabethan Verse

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William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907.

Beauty’s Epitome

By William Shakespeare (1564–1616)


From “As You Like It,” Act III. Scene 2 WHY should this a desert be? 1
For it is unpeopled? No;
Tongues I’ll hang on every tree,
That shall civil sayings show.
Some, how brief the life of man	5
Runs his erring pilgrimage;
That the stretching of a span
Buckles in his sum of age.
Some, of violated vows
’Twixt the souls of friend and friend:	10
But upon the fairest boughs,
Or at every sentence’ end,
Will I Rosalinda write,
Teaching all that read to know
The quintessence of every sprite	15
Heaven would in little 2 show.
Therefore heaven nature charged
That one body should be filled
With all graces wide-enlarged:
Nature presently distilled	20
Helen’s cheek, but not her heart,
Cleopatra’s majesty,
Atalanta’s better part, 3
Sad Lucretia’s modesty.
Thus Rosalind of many parts	25
By heavenly synod was devised;
Of many faces, eyes, and hearts,
To have the touches dearest prized.
Heaven would that she these gifts should have,
And I to live and die her slave.	30

Note 1. Why should this a desert be: Tyrwhitt thinks desert be is defective. He suggests a desert, and adds: “For how will the ‘hanging of tongues on every tree’ make it less a desert? I am persuaded we ought to read: ‘Why should this desert silent be.’” [back]

Note 2. In little: The allusion to a miniature portrait. The current phrase in Shakespeare’s time was “painted in little.” [back]

Note 3. Atalanta’s better part. This is obscure; for a discussion see Furness’ Variorum Ed. Shakespeare, pp. 149–153. [back]

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