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From “Love’s Labor ’s Lost,” Act IV. Sc. 3.
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. | |
| DUMAIN.—Ay, marry, there; some flattery for this evil. | 5 |
| LONGAVILLE.—O, some authority how to proceed; | |
| Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil. | |
DUMAIN.—Some salve for perjury.
BIRON.— ’T is more than need. | |
| Have at you, then, affection’s men at arms. | |
| Consider what you first did swear unto,— | 10 |
| 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. | |
| And where that you have vowed to study, lords, | 15 |
| In that each of you have 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? | 20 |
| 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 poisons up | |
| The nimble spirits in the arteries, | 25 |
| As motion and long-during action tires | |
| The sinewy vigor of the traveller. | |
| 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; | 30 |
| For where is any author in the world | |
| Teaches such beauty as a woman’s eye? | |
| Learning is but an adjunct to ourself, | |
| And where we are our learning likewise is; | |
| Then when ourselves we see in ladies’ eyes, | 35 |
| Do we not likewise see our learning there? | |
| O, we have made a vow to study, lords, | |
| And in that vow we have forsworn our books; | |
| For when would you, my liege,—or you,—or you,— | |
| In leaden contemplation have found out | 40 |
| Such fiery numbers as the prompting eyes | |
| Of beauty’s tutors have enriched you with? | |
| Other slow arts entirely keep the brain, | |
| And therefore, finding barren practisers, | |
| Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil; | 45 |
| But love, first learned in a lady’s eyes, | |
| Lives not alone immured in the brain, | |
| But, with the motion of all elements, | |
| Courses as swift as thought in every power, | |
| And gives to every power a double power, | 50 |
| 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; | 55 |
| 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? | 60 |
| 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 | |
| Make heaven drowsy with the harmony. | |
| Never durst poet touch a pen to write | 65 |
| Until his ink were tempered with Love’s sighs; | |
| O, then his lines would ravish savage ears | |
| And plant in tyrants mild humility! | |
| From women’s eyes this doctrine I derive: | |
| They sparkle still the right Promethean fire; | 70 |
| They are the books, the arts, the academes, | |
| That show, 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. | 75 |
| For wisdom’s sake, a word that all men love, | |
| Or for love’s sake, a word that loves all men, | |
| Or for men’s sake, the authors of these women, | |
| Or women’s sake, by whom we men are men, | |
| Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves, | 80 |
| Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths. | |
| It is religion to be thus forsworn, | |
| For charity itself fulfils the law,— | |
| And who can sever love from charity? | |
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