ROSALINE Your absence only.
KING That can never be.
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ROSALINE Then cannot we be bought. And so adieu –
Twice to your visor and half once to you!
KING If you deny to dance, let’s hold more chat.
ROSALINE In private then.
KING I am best pleased with that.
[They converse apart.]
BEROWNE
White-handed mistress, one sweet word with thee.
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PRINCESS Honey, and milk, and sugar: there is three.
BEROWNE Nay then, two treys, an if you grow so nice,
Metheglin, wort and malmsey. Well run, dice!
There’s half-a-dozen sweets.
PRINCESS Seventh sweet, adieu.
Since you can cog, I’ll play no more with you.
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BEROWNE One word in secret.
PRINCESS Let it not be sweet.
BEROWNE Thou griev’st my gall.
PRINCESS Gall? Bitter.
BEROWNE Therefore meet.
[They converse apart.]
DUMAINE
Will you vouchsafe with me to change a word?
MARIA Name it.
DUMAINE Fair lady –
MARIA Say you so? Fair lord!
Take that for your ‘fair lady’.
DUMAINE Please it you,
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As much in private and I’ll bid adieu.
[They converse apart.]
KATHERINE
What, was your visor made without a tongue?
LONGAVILLE I know the reason, lady, why you ask.
KATHERINE O, for your reason! Quickly, sir, I long.
LONGAVILLE
You have a double tongue within your mask
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And would afford my speechless visor half.
KATHERINE
‘Veal’, quoth the Dutchman. Is not veal a calf?
LONGAVILLE A calf, fair lady.
KATHERINE No, a fair lord calf.
LONGAVILLE Let’s part the word.
KATHERINE No, I’ll not be your half.
Take all and wean it; it may prove an ox.
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LONGAVILLE
Look how you butt yourself in these sharp mocks.
Will you give horns, chaste lady? Do not so.
KATHERINE Then die a calf before your horns do grow.
LONGAVILLE One word in private with you ere I die.
KATHERINE
Bleat softly then; the butcher hears you cry.
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[They converse apart.]
BOYET The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen
As is the razor’s edge invisible,
Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen;
Above the sense of sense, so sensible
Seemeth their conference. Their conceits have wings
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Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter things.
ROSALINE
Not one word more, my maids; break off, break off.
BEROWNE By heaven, all dry-beaten with pure scoff!
KING Farewell, mad wenches. You have simple wits.
Exeunt the King, lords and blackamoors.
PRINCESS Twenty adieus, my frozen Muscovites.
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Are these the breed of wits so wondered at?
BOYET
Tapers they are, with your sweet breaths puffed out.
ROSALINE
Well-liking wits they have; gross, gross, fat, fat.
PRINCESS O poverty in wit, kingly-poor flout!
Will they not, think you, hang themselves tonight?
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Or ever but in visors show their faces?
This pert Berowne was out of countenance quite.
ROSALINE They were all in lamentable cases.
The King was weeping-ripe for a good word.
PRINCESS Berowne did swear himself out of all suit.
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MARIA Dumaine was at my service, and his sword.
‘Non point,’ quoth I; my servant straight was mute.
KATHERINE Lord Longaville said I came o’er his heart;
And trow you what he called me?
PRINCESS Qualm perhaps?
KATHERINE Yes, in good faith.
PRINCESS Go, sickness as thou art!
280
ROSALINE
Well, better wits have worn plain statute-caps.
But will you hear? The King is my love sworn.
PRINCESS
And quick Berowne hath plighted faith to me.
KATHERINE And Longaville was for my service born.
MARIA Dumaine is mine as sure as bark on tree.
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BOYET Madam, and pretty mistresses, give ear:
Immediately they will again be here
In their own shapes, for it can never be
They will digest this harsh indignity.
PRINCESS Will they return?
BOYET They will, they will, God knows;
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And leap for joy, though they are lame with blows.
Therefore change favours and, when they repair,
Blow like sweet roses in this summer air.
PRINCESS
How ‘blow’? How ‘blow’? Speak to be understood.
BOYET Fair ladies masked are roses in their bud;
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Dismasked, their damask sweet commixture shown,
Are angels vailing clouds, or roses blown.
PRINCESS Avaunt, perplexity! What shall we do
If they return in their own shapes to woo?
ROSALINE Good madam, if by me you’ll be advised
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Let’s mock them still, as well known as disguised.
Let us complain to them what fools were here,
Disguised like Muscovites in shapeless gear;
And wonder what they were, and to what end
Their shallow shows and prologue vilely penned,
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And their rough carriage so ridiculous,
Should be presented at our tent to us.
BOYET Ladies, withdraw. The gallants are at hand.
PRINCESS Whip to our tents, as roes runs o’er the land.
Exeunt the Princess and ladies.
Enter the KING and the rest, BEROWNE, LONGAVILLE and DUMAINE, as themselves.
KING Fair sir, God save you. Where’s the Princess?
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BOYET Gone to her tent. Please it your majesty
Command me any service to her thither?
KING That she vouchsafe me audience for one word.
BOYET I will; and so will she, I know, my lord. Exit.
BEROWNE This fellow pecks up wit as pigeons peas
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And utters it again when God doth please.
He is wit’s pedlar and retails his wares
At wakes and wassails, meetings, markets, fairs;
And we that sell by gross, the Lord doth know,
Have not the grace to grace it with such show.
320
This gallant pins the wenches on his sleeve.
Had he been Adam, he had tempted Eve.
‘A can carve too, and lisp. Why, this is he
That kissed his hand away in courtesy.
This is the ape of form, Monsieur the Nice,
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That when he plays at tables chides the dice
In honourable terms. Nay, he can sing
A mean most meanly; and in ushering
Mend him who can. The ladies call him sweet.
The stairs, as he treads on them, kiss his feet.
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This is the flower that smiles on everyone,
To show his teeth as white as whale’s bone;
And consciences that will not die in debt
Pay him the due of ‘honey-tongued Boyet’.
KING A blister on his sweet tongue, with my
heart,
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That put Armado’s page out of his part!
Enter the ladies, the PRINCESS, ROSALINE, MARIA and KATHERINE, with BOYET.
BEROWNE
See where it comes! Behaviour, what wert thou
Till this man showed thee, and what art thou now?
KING All hail, sweet madam, and fair time of day.
PRINCESS ‘Fair’ in ‘all hail’ is foul, as I conceive.
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KING Construe my speeches better, if you may.
PRINCESS Then wish me better; I will give you leave.
KING We came to visit you and purpose now
To lead you to our court. Vouchsafe it then.
PRINCESS
This field shall hold me, and so hold your vow.
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Nor God nor I delights in perjured men.
KING Rebuke me not for that which you provoke.
The virtue of your eye must break my oath.
PRINCESS
You nickname virtue: ‘vice’ you should have spoke;
For virtue’s office never breaks men’s troth.
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Now, by my maiden honour, yet as pure
As the unsullied lily, I protest,
A world of torments though I should endure,
I would not yield to be your house’s guest,
So much I hate a breaking cause to be
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Of heavenly oaths, vowed with integrity.
KING O, you have lived in desolation here,
Unseen, unvisited, much to our shame.
PRINCESS Not so, my lord. It is not so, I swear.
We have had pastimes here and pleasant game:
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A mess of Russians left us but of late.
KING How, madam? Russians?
PRINCESS Ay, in truth, my lord.
Trim gallants, full of courtship and of state.
ROSALINE Madam, speak true! It is not so, my lord.
My lady, to the manner of the days,
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In courtesy gives undeserving praise.
We four indeed confronted were with four
In Russian habit. Here they stayed an hour
And talked apace; and in that hour, my lord,
They did not bless us with one happy word.
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I dare not call them fools, but this I think,
When they are thirsty, fools would fain have drink.
BEROWNE This jest is dry to me. My gentle sweet,
Your wits makes wise things foolish. When we greet,
With eyes’ best seeing, heaven’s fiery eye,
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By light we lose light. Your capacity
Is of that nature that to your huge store
Wise things seem foolish and rich things but poor.
ROSALINE
This proves you wise and rich, for in my eye –
BEROWNE I am a fool and full of poverty.
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ROSALINE But that you take what doth to you belong,
It were a fault to snatch words from my tongue.
BEROWNE O, I am yours, and all that I possess.
ROSALINE All the fool mine?
BEROWNE I cannot give you less.
ROSALINE Which of the visors was it that you wore?
385
BEROWNE
Where, when, what visor? Why demand you this?
ROSALINE
There, then, that visor: that superfluous case
That hid the worse and showed the better face.
KING
We were descried. They’ll mock us now downright.
DUMAINE Let us confess and turn it to a jest.
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PRINCESS
Amazed, my lord? Why looks your highness sad?
ROSALINE
Help! Hold his brows! He’ll swoon. Why look you pale?
Seasick, I think, coming from Muscovy!
BEROWNE
Thus pour the stars down plagues for perjury.
Can any face of brass hold longer out?
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Here stand I, lady; dart thy skill at me.
Bruise me with scorn, confound me with a flout,
Thrust thy sharp wit quite through my ignorance,
Cut me to pieces with thy keen conceit,
And I will wish thee never more to dance,
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Nor never more in Russian habit wait.
O, never will I trust to speeches penned,
Nor to the motion of a schoolboy’s tongue,
Nor never come in visor to my friend,
Nor woo in rhyme like a blind harper’s song.
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Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise,
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 334
