The Illustrated Works of Shakespeare/Illustrated Works of Shakespeare, The (1990)(Animated Pixels)[!][CDTV-PC].iso/shakes/text/14/01_01

Text File | 1991-04-10 | 14KB | 401 lines

Navarre. The King's Park.
 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,
    Th' 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.
    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.

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.

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 enrolld 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 enrolld 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,
    And make a dark night too of half the day,
    Which I hope well is not enrolld 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?

King    Ay, that is study's godlike recompense.

Berowne    Come 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 fixd 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 nought 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    [Reads.] "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. [Reads.] " - 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!
    [Reads.]    "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' admird princess hither.

King    What say you, lords? Why, this was quite forgot.

Berowne    So study evermore is overshot:
    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;
    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,
                                                            [Signing his 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.
    But is there no quick recreation granted?

King    Ay, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted
        With a refind 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 complements, 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    Signor 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 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    [Reads.]    "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    [Reads.]    "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    [Reads.]    "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
    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 ycleped 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    [Reads.]    " - that unlettered small-knowing soul,-"

Costard    Me?

King    [Reads.]    " - that shallow vassal,-"

Costard    Still me?

King    [Reads.]    " - which, as I remember, hight Costard-"

Costard    O, me.

King    [Reads.]    " - sorted and consorted, contrary to thy
    established proclaimed edict and continent canon, which with,
    O, with -  but with this I passion to say wherewith-"

Costard    With a wench.

King    [Reads.]    " - 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    [Reads.]    "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.

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.

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 good man'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.