Bero. Now step I forth to whip hypocrisie. Ah good my Liedge, I pray thee pardon me. Good heart, What grace hast thou thus to reproue These wormes for louing, that art most in loue? Your eyes doe make no couches in your teares. There is no certaine Princesse that appeares. You'll not be periur'd, 'tis a hatefull thing: Tush, none but Minstrels like of Sonnetting. But are you not asham'd? nay, are you not All three of you, to be thus much ore'shot? You found his Moth, the King your Moth did see: But I a Beame doe finde in each of three. O what a Scene of fool'ry haue I seene. Of sighes, of grones, of sorrow, and of teene: O me, with what strict patience haue I sat, To see a King transformed to a Gnat? To see great Hercules whipping a Gigge, And profound Salomon tuning a Iygge? And Nestor play at push-pin with the boyes, And Critticke Tymon laugh at idle toyes. Where lies thy griefe? O tell me good Dumaine; And gentle Longauill, where lies thy paine? And where my Liedges? all about the brest: A Candle hoa! Kin. Too bitter is thy iest. Are wee betrayed thus to thy ouer-view? Ber. Not you by me, but I betrayed to you. I that am honest, I that hold it sinne To breake the vow I am ingaged in. I am betrayed by keeping company With men, like men of inconstancie. When shall you see me write a thing in rime? Or grone for Ioane? or spend a minutes time, In pruning mee, when shall you heare that I will praise a hand, a foot, a face, an eye: a gate, a state, a brow, a brest, a waste, a legge, a limme

Kin. Soft, Whither away so fast? A true man, or a theefe, that gallops so

Ber. I post from Loue, good Louer let me go. Enter Iaquenetta and Clowne.

Iaqu. God blesse the King

Kin. What Present hast thou there? Clo. Some certaine treason

Kin. What makes treason heere? Clo. Nay it makes nothing sir

Kin. If it marre nothing neither, The treason and you goe in peace away together

Iaqu. I beseech your Grace let this Letter be read, Our person mis-doubts it: it was treason he said

Kin. Berowne, read it ouer.

He reades the Letter.

Kin. Where hadst thou it? Iaqu. Of Costard

King. Where hadst thou it? Cost. Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio

Kin. How now, what is in you? why dost thou tear it? Ber. A toy my Liedge, a toy: your grace needes not feare it

Long. It did moue him to passion, and therefore let's heare it

Dum. It is Berowns writing, and heere is his name

Ber. Ah you whoreson loggerhead, you were borne to doe me shame. Guilty my Lord, guilty: I confesse, I confesse

Kin. What? Ber. That you three fooles, lackt mee foole, to make vp the messe. He, he, and you: and you my Liedge, and I, Are picke-purses in Loue, and we deserue to die. O dismisse this audience, and I shall tell you more

Dum. Now the number is euen

Berow. True true, we are fowre: will these Turtles be gone? Kin. Hence sirs, away

Clo. Walk aside the true folke, & let the traytors stay

Ber. Sweet Lords, sweet Louers, O let vs imbrace, As true we are as flesh and bloud can be, The Sea will ebbe and flow, heauen will shew his face: Young bloud doth not obey an old decree. We cannot crosse the cause why we are borne: Therefore of all hands must we be forsworne

King. What, did these rent lines shew some loue of thine? Ber. Did they, quoth you? Who sees the heauenly Rosaline, That (like a rude and sauage man of Inde.) At the first opening of the gorgeous East, Bowes not his vassall head, and strooken blinde, Kisses the base ground with obedient breast? What peremptory Eagle-sighted eye Dares looke vpon the heauen of her brow, That is not blinded by her maiestie? Kin. What zeale, what furie, hath inspir'd thee now? My Loue (her Mistres) is a gracious Moone, Shee (an attending Starre) scarce seene a light

William Shakespeare
Classic Literature Library

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