Enter Ferdinand, King of Navarre, Berowne, Longaville,
and Dumaine
KING
Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,
Live registered upon our brazen tombs,
And then grace us in the disgrace of death;
When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,
The endeavour of this present breath may buy
That honour which shall bate his scythe's keen edge,
And make us heirs of all eternity.
Therefore, brave conquerors – for so you are,
That war against your own affections
And the huge army of the world's desires –
Our late edict shall strongly stand in force:
Navarre shall be the wonder of the world;
Our court shall be a little academe,
Still and contemplative in living art.
art (n.) 1 knowledge, learning, scholarship, science
You three, Berowne, Dumaine, and Longaville,
Have sworn for three years' term to live with me,
My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes
That are recorded in this schedule here.
Your oaths are passed; and now subscribe your names,
That his own hand may strike his honour down
That violates the smallest branch herein.
If you are armed to do as sworn to do,
Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too.
LONGAVILLE
I am resolved. 'Tis but a three years' fast.
The mind shall banquet though the body pine.
Fat paunches have lean pates, and dainty bits
Make rich the ribs but bankrupt quite the wits.
wits, also five wits faculties of the mind (common wit, imagination, fantasy, estimation, memory) or body (the five senses)
He signs
DUMAINE
My loving lord, Dumaine is mortified.
The grosser manner of these world's delights
He throws upon the gross world's baser slaves.
To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die,
With all these living in philosophy.
He signs
BEROWNE
I can but say their protestation over.
So much, dear liege, I have already sworn,
That is, to live and study here three years.
But there are other strict observances:
As not to see a woman in that term –
Which I hope well is not enrolled there;
And one day in a week to touch no food,
And but one meal on every day beside –
The which I hope is not enrolled there;
And then to sleep but three hours in the night,
And not be seen to wink of all the day,
When I was wont to think no harm all night,
wont (v.) be accustomed, used [to], be in the habit of
And make a dark night too of half the day –
Which I hope well is not enrolled there.
O, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep,
Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep.
KING
Your oath is passed, to pass away from these.
BEROWNE
Let me say no, my liege, an if you please.
I only swore to study with your grace,
And stay here in your court for three years' space.
LONGAVILLE
You swore to that, Berowne, and to the rest.
BEROWNE
By yea and nay, sir, then I swore in jest.
What is the end of study, let me know?
KING
Why, that to know which else we should not know.
BEROWNE
Things hid and barred, you mean, from common sense?
sense (n.) 4 perception, awareness, discernment, appreciation
KING
Ay, that is study's god-like recompense.
BEROWNE
Com'on then, I will swear to study so,
To know the thing I am forbid to know:
As thus – to study where I well may dine,
When I to feast expressly am forbid;
Or study where to meet some mistress fine,
When mistresses from common sense are hid;
Or, having sworn too hard-a-keeping oath,
Study to break it and not break my troth.
If study's gain be thus, and this be so,
Study knows that which yet it doth not know.
Swear me to this, and I will ne'er say no.
KING
These be the stops that hinder study quite,
And train our intellects to vain delight.
BEROWNE
Why, all delights are vain, but that most vain
Which, with pain purchased, doth inherit pain:
As painfully to pore upon a book
To seek the light of truth, while truth the while
Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look.
Light seeking light doth light of light beguile;
So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,
Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.
Study me how to please the eye indeed
By fixing it upon a fairer eye,
Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed,
And give him light that it was blinded by.
Study is like the heaven's glorious sun,
That will not be deep-searched with saucy looks.
Small have continual plodders ever won,
Save base authority from others' books.
These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights,
That give a name to every fixed star,
Have no more profit of their shining nights
Than those that walk and wot not what they are.
Too much to know is to know naught but fame,
And every godfather can give a name.
KING
How well he's read, to reason against reading.
DUMAINE
Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding.
LONGAVILLE
He weeds the corn, and still lets grow the weeding.
BEROWNE
The spring is near when green geese are a-breeding.
DUMAINE
How follows that?
BEROWNE
Fit in his place and time.
DUMAINE
In reason nothing.
BEROWNE
Something then in rhyme.
KING
Berowne is like an envious sneaping frost
That bites the first-born infants of the spring.
BEROWNE
Well, say I am! Why should proud summer boast
Before the birds have any cause to sing?
Why should I joy in an abortive birth?
At Christmas I no more desire a rose
Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled shows,
But like of each thing that in season grows.
So you, to study now it is too late,
Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate.
KING
Well, sit you out. Go home, Berowne. Adieu!
BEROWNE
No, my good lord, I have sworn to stay with you.
And though I have for barbarism spoke more
Than for that angel knowledge you can say,
Yet, confident, I'll keep what I have sworn,
And bide the penance of each three years' day.
Give me the paper, let me read the same,
And to the strictest decrees I'll write my name.
KING
How well this yielding rescues thee from shame!
BEROWNE
(reading)
Item: that no woman shall come within
a mile of my court – hath this been proclaimed?
LONGAVILLE
Four days ago.
BEROWNE
Let's see the penalty – on pain of losing her
tongue. Who devised this penalty?
LONGAVILLE
Marry, that did I.
BEROWNE
Sweet lord, and why?
LONGAVILLE
To fright them hence with that dread penalty.
BEROWNE
A dangerous law against gentility!
Item: if any man be seen to talk with a woman within the
term of three years, he shall endure such public shame as
the rest of the court can possibly devise.
This article, my liege, yourself must break;
For well you know here comes in embassy
The French King's daughter with yourself to speak –
A maid of grace and complete majesty –
About surrender up of Aquitaine
To her decrepit, sick, and bedrid father.
Therefore this article is made in vain,
Or vainly comes th' admired Princess hither.
KING
What say you, lords? Why, this was quite forgot.
BEROWNE
So study evermore is overshot.
overshoot (v.) 1 [miss a target by shooting too high] go astray in aim, wide of the mark
While it doth study to have what it would,
It doth forget to do the thing it should;
And when it hath the thing it hunteth most,
'Tis won as towns with fire – so won, so lost.
KING
We must of force dispense with this decree.
force, of necessarily, of necessity, whether one will or not
She must lie here on mere necessity.
BEROWNE
Necessity will make us all forsworn
Three thousand times within this three years' space;
For every man with his affects is born,
Not by might mastered, but by special grace.
If I break faith, this word shall speak for me:
I am forsworn on mere ‘ necessity.’
So to the laws at large I write my name,
And he that breaks them in the least degree
Stands in attainder of eternal shame.
Suggestions are to other as to me,
But I believe, although I seem so loath,
I am the last that will last keep his oath.
He signs
But is there no quick recreation granted?
KING
Ay, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted
With a refined traveller of Spain;
A man in all the world's new fashion planted,
That hath a mint of phrases in his brain;
One who the music of his own vain tongue
Doth ravish like enchanting harmony;
A man of compliments, whom right and wrong
Have chose as umpire of their mutiny.
This child of fancy, that Armado hight,
For interim to our studies shall relate
In high-born words the worth of many a knight
From tawny Spain, lost in the world's debate.
How you delight, my lords, I know not, I,
But I protest I love to hear him lie,
And I will use him for my minstrelsy.
BEROWNE
Armado is a most illustrious wight,
A man of fire-new words, fashion's own knight.
LONGAVILLE
Costard the swain and he shall be our sport,
And so to study three years is but short.
Enter Dull with a letter,
and Costard
DULL
Which is the Duke's own person?
BEROWNE
This, fellow. What wouldst?
DULL
I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his
grace's farborough. But I would see his own person in
flesh and blood.
BEROWNE
This is he.
DULL
Signeour Arm-, Arm-, commends you. There's
villainy abroad. This letter will tell you more.
COSTARD
Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me.
KING
A letter from the magnificent Armado.
BEROWNE
How low soever the matter, I hope in God for
high words.
LONGAVILLE
A high hope for a low heaven. God grant us
patience!
BEROWNE
To hear, or forbear hearing?
LONGAVILLE
To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately;
or to forbear both.
BEROWNE
Well, sir, be it as the style shall give us cause to
climb in the merriness.
COSTARD
The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta.
The manner of it is, I was taken with the
manner.
BEROWNE
In what manner?
COSTARD
In manner and form following, sir – all those
form (n.) 5 way of behaving, behaviour, code of conduct
three: I was seen with her in the ' manor '-house, sitting
with her upon the ‘ form,’ and taken ‘ following ’ her
into the park; which, put together, is ‘ in manner and
form following.’ Now, sir, for the ‘ manner ’ – it is the
manner of a man to speak to a woman. For the ‘ form ’
– in some form.
BEROWNE
For the ‘ following,’ sir?
COSTARD
As it shall follow in my correction – and God
defend the right!
KING
Will you hear this letter with attention?
BEROWNE
As we would hear an oracle.
COSTARD
Such is the simplicity of man to hearken after
the flesh.
KING
(reading)
Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent, and
sole dominator of Navarre, my soul's earth's god, and
body's fostering patron –
COSTARD
Not a word of Costard yet.
KING
So it is –
COSTARD
It may be so; but if he say it is so, he is, in
telling true – but so.
KING
Peace!
COSTARD
Be to me and every man that dares not fight.
KING
No words!
COSTARD
Of other men's secrets, I beseech you.
KING
So it is, besieged with sable-coloured melancholy, I did
commend the black oppressing humour to the most wholesome
physic of thy health-giving air; and, as I am a
humour (n.) 1 mood, disposition, frame of mind, temperament [as determined by bodily fluids]
gentleman, betook myself to walk. The time when? About
the sixth hour; when beasts most graze, birds best peck,
and men sit down to that nourishment which is called
supper. So much for the time when. Now for the ground
which – which, I mean, I walked upon. It is yclept thy
park. Then for the place where – where, I mean, I did
encounter that obscene and most preposterous event that
draweth from my snow-white pen the ebon-coloured ink
which here thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or seest. But
to the place where. It standeth north-north-east and by
east from the west corner of thy curious-knotted garden.
There did I see that low-spirited swain, that base minnow
of thy mirth –
COSTARD
Me?
KING
That unlettered small-knowing soul –
COSTARD
Me?
KING
That shallow vassal –
COSTARD
Still me?
KING
Which, as I remember, hight Costard –
COSTARD
O, me!
KING
Sorted and consorted, contrary to thy established
proclaimed edict and continent canon, which with – O, with –
but with this I passion to say wherewith –
passion (v.) experience deep feeling, be profoundly moved, grieve
COSTARD
With a wench.
KING
With a child of our grandmother Eve, a female, or, for
thy more sweet understanding, a woman. Him I – as my
ever-esteemed duty pricks me on – have sent to thee, to
receive the meed of punishment, by thy sweet grace's officer,
Anthony Dull, a man of good repute, carriage, bearing,
and estimation.
DULL
Me, an't shall please you. I am Anthony Dull.
KING
For Jaquenetta – so is the weaker vessel called –
which I apprehended with the aforesaid swain, I keep her
as a vessel of thy law's fury, and shall, at the least of thy
sweet notice, bring her to trial. Thine in all compliments of
devoted and heart-burning heat of duty,
Don Adriano de Armado.
BEROWNE
This is not so well as I looked for, but the best
that ever I heard.
KING
Ay, the best for the worst. But, sirrah, what say you
to this?
COSTARD
Sir, I confess the wench.
KING
Did you hear the proclamation?
COSTARD
I do confess much of the hearing it, but little of
the marking of it.
KING
It was proclaimed a year's imprisonment to be taken
with a wench.
COSTARD
I was taken with none, sir; I was taken with a
damsel.
KING
Well, it was proclaimed ‘ damsel.’
COSTARD
This was no damsel neither, sir; she was a
virgin.
KING
It is so varied too, for it was proclaimed ‘ virgin.’
COSTARD
If it were, I deny her virginity. I was taken with
a maid.
KING
This ‘ maid ’ will not serve your turn, sir.
turn (n.) 1 need, requirement, purpose [especially in the phrase ‘serve one's turn’ = meet one's need]
COSTARD
This maid will serve my turn, sir.
KING
Sir, I will pronounce your sentence: you shall fast a
week with bran and water.
COSTARD
I had rather pray a month with mutton and
porridge.
porridge (n.) meat and vegetable stew or broth [reputed to produce strength]
KING
And Don Armado shall be your keeper.
My lord Berowne, see him delivered o'er;
And go we, lords, to put in practice that
Which each to other hath so strongly sworn.
Exeunt King, Longaville, and Dumaine
BEROWNE
I'll lay my head to any goodman's hat
These oaths and laws will prove an idle scorn.
Sirrah, come on.
COSTARD
I suffer for the truth, sir; for true it is I was
taken with Jaquenetta, and Jaquenetta is a true girl.
And therefore welcome the sour cup of prosperity!
Affliction may one day smile again, and till then sit
thee down, sorrow!
Exeunt