The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  Chiefly in love, whose leave exceeds commission.

  Affection faints not, like a pale-faced coward,

  But then woos best when most his choice is froward.

  When he did frown, O, had she then gave over,

  Such nectar from his lips she had not sucked.

  Foul words and frowns must not repel a lover.

  What though the rose have prickles, yet ’tis plucked!

  Were beauty under twenty locks kept fast,

  Yet love breaks through, and picks them all at last.

  For pity now she can no more detain him.

  The poor fool prays her that he may depart.

  She is resolved no longer to restrain him,

  Bids him farewell, and look well to her heart,

  The which, by Cupid’s bow she doth protest,

  He carries thence encagèd in his breast.

  ‘Sweet boy,’ she says, ‘this night I’ll waste in sorrow,

  For my sick heart commands mine eyes to watch.

  Tell me, love’s master, shall we meet tomorrow?

  Say, shall we, shall we? Wilt thou make the match?’

  He tells her no, tomorrow he intends

  To hunt the boar with certain of his friends.

  ‘The boar!’ quoth she; whereat a sudden pale,

  Like lawn being spread upon the blushing rose,

  Usurps her cheek. She trembles at his tale,

  And on his neck her yoking arms she throws.

  She sinketh down, still hanging by his neck.

  He on her belly falls, she on her back.

  Now is she in the very lists of love,

  Her champion mounted for the hot encounter.

  All is imaginary she doth prove.

  He will not manage her, although he mount her,

  That worse than Tantalus’ is her annoy,

  To clip Elysium, and to lack her joy.

  Even so poor birds, deceived with painted grapes,

  Do surfeit by the eye, and pine the maw;

  Even so she languisheth in her mishaps

  As those poor birds that helpless berries saw.

  The warm effects which she in him finds missing

  She seeks to kindle with continual kissing.

  But all in vain, good queen ! It will not be.

  She hath assayed as much as may be proved;

  Her pleading hath deserved a greater fee:

  She’s Love; she loves; and yet she is not loved.

  ‘Fie, fie,’ he says, ‘you crush me. Let me go.

  You have no reason to withhold me so.’

  ‘Thou hadst been gone,’ quoth she, ‘sweet boy, ere

  this,

  But that thou told’st me thou wouldst hunt the boar.

  O, be advised; thou know’st not what it is

  With javelin’s point a churlish swine to gore,

  Whose tushes, never sheathed, he whetteth still,

  Like to a mortal butcher, bent to kill.

  ‘On his bow-back he hath a battle set

  Of bristly pikes that ever threat his foes.

  His eyes like glow-worms shine; when he doth fret

  His snout digs sepulchres where’er he goes.

  Being moved, he strikes, whate’er is in his way,

  And whom he strikes his crooked tushes slay.

  ‘His brawny sides with hairy bristles armed

  Are better proof than thy spear’s point can enter.

  His short thick neck cannot be easily harmed.

  Being ireful, on the lion he will venture.

  The thorny brambles and embracing bushes,

  As fearful of him, part; through whom he rushes.

  ‘Alas, he naught esteems that face of thine,

  To which love’s eyes pays tributary gazes,

  Nor thy soft hands, sweet lips, and crystal eyne,

  Whose full perfection all the world amazes;

  But having thee at vantage—wondrous dread!—

  Would root these beauties as he roots the mead.

  ‘O, let him keep his loathsome cabin still.

  Beauty hath naught to do with such foul fiends.

  Come not within his danger by thy will.

  They that thrive well take counsel of their friends.

  When thou didst name the boar, not to dissemble,

  I feared thy fortune, and my joints did tremble.

  ‘Didst thou not mark my face? Was it not white?

  Sawest thou not signs of fear lurk in mine eye?

  Grew I not faint, and fell I not downright?

  Within my bosom, whereon thou dost lie,

  My boding heart pants, beats, and takes no rest,

  But like an earthquake shakes thee on my breast.

  ‘For where love reigns, disturbing jealousy

  Doth call himself affection’s sentinel,

  Gives false alarms, suggesteth mutiny,

  And in a peaceful hour doth cry, “Kill, kill”,

  Distemp’ring gentle love in his desire,

  As air and water do abate the fire.

  ‘This sour informer, this bate-breeding spy,

  This canker that eats up love’s tender spring,

  This carry-tale, dissentious jealousy,

  That sometime true news, sometime false doth bring,

  Knocks at my heart, and whispers in mine ear

  That if I love thee, I thy death should fear;

  ‘And, more than so, presenteth to mine eye

  The picture of an angry chafing boar,

  Under whose sharp fangs on his back doth lie

  An image like thyself, all stained with gore,

  Whose blood upon the fresh flowers being shed

  Doth make them droop with grief, and hang the

  head.

  ‘What should I do, seeing thee so indeed,

  That tremble at th’imagination?

  The thought of it doth make my faint heart bleed,

  And fear doth teach it divination.

  I prophesy thy death, my living sorrow,

  If thou encounter with the boar tomorrow.

  ‘But if thou needs wilt hunt, be ruled by me:

  Uncouple at the timorous flying hare,

  Or at the fox which lives by subtlety,

  Or at the roe which no encounter dare.

  Pursue these fearful creatures o’er the downs,

  And on thy well-breathed horse keep with thy

  hounds.

  ‘And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare,

  Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles,

  How he outruns the wind, and with what care

  He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles.

  The many musits through the which he goes

  Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.

  ‘Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep

  To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell,

  And sometime where earth-delving conies keep,

  To stop the loud pursuers in their yell;

  And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer.

  Danger deviseth shifts; wit waits on fear.

  ‘For there his smell with others being mingled,

  The hot scent-snuffing hounds are driven to doubt,

  Ceasing their clamorous cry till they have singled,

  With much ado, the cold fault cleanly out.

  Then do they spend their mouths. Echo replies,

  As if another chase were in the skies.

  ‘By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill,

  Stands on his hinder legs with list’ning ear,

  To hearken if his foes pursue him still.

  Anon their loud alarums he doth hear,

  And now his grief may be compared well

  To one sore sick that hears the passing-bell.

  ‘Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch

  Turn, and return, indenting with the way.

  Each envious brier his weary legs do scratch;

  Each shadow makes
him stop, each murmur stay;

  For misery is trodden on by many,

  And, being low, never relieved by any.

  ‘Lie quietly, and hear a little more;

  Nay, do not struggle, for thou shalt not rise.

  To make thee hate the hunting of the boar

  Unlike myself thou hear’st me moralize,

  Applying this to that, and so to so,

  For love can comment upon every woe.

  ‘Where did I leave?’ ‘No matter where,’ quoth he;

  ‘Leave me, and then the story aptly ends.

  The night is spent.’ ‘Why what of that?’ quoth she.

  ‘I am,’ quoth he, ‘expected of my friends,

  And now ‘tis dark, and going I shall fall.’

  ‘In night,’ quoth she, ‘desire sees best of all.

  ‘But if thou fall, O, then imagine this:

  The earth, in love with thee, thy footing trips,

  And all is but to rob thee of a kiss.

  Rich preys make true men thieves; so do thy lips

  Make modest Dian cloudy and forlorn

  Lest she should steal a kiss, and die forsworn.

  ‘Now of this dark night I perceive the reason.

  Cynthia, for shame, obscures her silver shine

  Till forging nature be condemned of treason

  For stealing moulds from heaven, that were divine,

  Wherein she framed thee, in high heaven’s despite,

  To shame the sun by day and her by night.

  ‘And therefore hath she bribed the destinies

  To cross the curious workmanship of nature,

  To mingle beauty with infirmities,

  And pure perfection with impure defeature,

  Making it subject to the tyranny

  Of mad mischances and much misery;

  ‘As burning fevers, agues pale and faint,

  Life-poisoning pestilence, and frenzies wood,

  The marrow-eating sickness whose attaint

  Disorder breeds by heating of the blood;

  Surfeits, impostumes, grief, and damned despair

  Swear nature’s death for framing thee so fair.

  ‘And not the least of all these maladies

  But in one minute’s fight brings beauty under.

  Both favour, savour, hue, and qualities,

  Whereat th’impartial gazer late did wonder,

  Are on the sudden wasted, thawed, and done,

  As mountain snow melts with the midday sun.

  ‘Therefore, despite of fruitless chastity,

  Love-lacking vestals and self-loving nuns,

  That on the earth would breed a scarcity

  And barren dearth of daughters and of sons,

  Be prodigal. The lamp that burns by night

  Dries up his oil to lend the world his light.

  ‘What is thy body but a swallowing grave,

  Seeming to bury that posterity

  Which, by the rights of time, thou needs must have

  If thou destroy them not in dark obscurity?

  If so, the world will hold thee in disdain,

  Sith in thy pride so fair a hope is slain.

  ‘So in thyself thyself art made away,

  A mischief worse than civil, home-bred strife,

  Or theirs whose desperate hands themselves do slay,

  Or butcher sire that reaves his son of life.

  Foul cank‘ring rust the hidden treasure frets,

  But gold that’s put to use more gold begets.’

  ‘Nay, then,’ quoth Adon, ‘You will fall again

  Into your idle, over-handled theme.

  The kiss I gave you is bestowed in vain,

  And all in vain you strive against the stream;

  For, by this black-faced night, desire’s foul nurse,

  Your treatise makes me like you worse and worse.

  ‘If love have lent you twenty thousand tongues,

  And every tongue more moving than your own,

  Bewitching like the wanton mermaid’s songs,

  Yet from mine ear the tempting tune is blown;

  For know, my heart stands armed in mine ear,

  And will not let a false sound enter there,

  ‘Lest the deceiving harmony should run

  Into the quiet closure of my breast,

  And then my little heart were quite undone,

  In his bedchamber to be barred of rest.

  No, lady, no. My heart longs not to groan,

  But soundly sleeps, while now it sleeps alone.

  ‘What have you urged that I cannot reprove?

  The path is smooth that leadeth on to danger.

  I hate not love, but your device in love,

  That lends embracements unto every stranger.

  You do it for increase—O strange excuse,

  When reason is the bawd to lust’s abuse!

  ‘Call it not love, for love to heaven is fled

  Since sweating lust on earth usurped his name,

  Under whose simple semblance he hath fed

  Upon fresh beauty, blotting it with blame;

  Which the hot tyrant stains, and soon bereaves,

  As caterpillars do the tender leaves.

  ‘Love comforteth, like sunshine after rain,

  But lust’s effect is tempest after sun.

  Love’s gentle spring doth always fresh remain;

  Lust’s winter comes ere summer half be done.

  Love surfeits not; lust like a glutton dies.

  Love is all truth, lust full of forged lies.

  ‘More I could tell, but more I dare not say;

  The text is old, the orator too green.

  Therefore in sadness now I will away;

  My face is full of shame, my heart of teen.

  Mine ears that to your wanton talk attended

  Do burn themselves for having so offended.’

  With this he breaketh from the sweet embrace

  Of those fair arms which bound him to her breast,

  And homeward through the dark laund runs apace,

  Leaves love upon her back, deeply distressed.

  Look how a bright star shooteth from the sky,

  So glides he in the night from Venus’ eye,

  Which after him she darts, as one on shore

  Gazing upon a late-embarkèd friend

  Till the wild waves will have him seen no more,

  Whose ridges with the meeting clouds contend.

  So did the merciless and pitchy night

  Fold in the object that did feed her sight.

  Whereat amazed, as one that unaware

  Hath dropped a precious jewel in the flood,

  Or stonished, as night wand’rers often are,

  Their light blown out in some mistrustful wood:

  Even so, confounded in the dark she lay,

  Having lost the fair discovery of her way.

  And now she beats her heart, whereat it groans,

  That all the neighbour caves, as seeming troubled,

  Make verbal repetition of her moans;

  Passion on passion deeply is redoubled.

  ‘Ay me,’ she cries, and twenty times ‘Woe, woe!’

  And twenty echoes twenty times cry so.

  She, marking them, begins a wailing note,

  And sings extemporally a woeful ditty,

  How love makes young men thrall, and old men dote,

  How love is wise in folly, foolish-witty.

  Her heavy anthem still concludes in woe,

  And still the choir of echoes answer so.

  Her song was tedious, and outwore the night;

  For lovers’ hours are long, though seeming short.

  If pleased themselves, others, they think, delight

  In such-like circumstance, with such-like sport.

  Their copious stories oftentimes begun

  End without audience, and are never done.

  For who hath she to spend the night withal

  But idle s
ounds resembling parasites,

  Like shrill-tongued tapsters answering every call,

  Soothing the humour of fantastic wits?

  She says ‘’Tis so’; they answer all ‘’Tis so’,

  And would say after her, if she said ‘No’.

  Lo, here the gentle lark, weary of rest,

  From his moist cabinet mounts up on high

  And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast

  The sun ariseth in his majesty,

  Who doth the world so gloriously behold

  That cedar tops and hills seem burnished gold.

  Venus salutes him with this fair good-morrow:

  ‘O thou clear god, and patron of all light,

  From whom each lamp and shining star doth borrow

  The beauteous influence that makes him bright:

  There lives a son that sucked an earthly mother

  May lend thee light, as thou dost lend to other.’

  This said, she hasteth to a myrtle grove,

  Musing the morning is so much o’erworn

  And yet she hears no tidings of her love.

  She hearkens for his hounds, and for his horn.

  Anon she hears them chant it lustily,

  And all in haste she coasteth to the cry.

  And as she runs, the bushes in the way

  Some catch her by the neck, some kiss her face,

  Some twine about her thigh to make her stay.