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.
Ber.
Why? all delights are vain, but that most vain
Which, with pain purchas’d, 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 search’d 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 nought but fame;
And every godfather can give a name.
King.
How well he’s read, to reason against reading!
Dum.
Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding!
Long.
He weeds the corn and still lets grow the weeding.
Ber.
The spring is near when green geese are a-breeding.
Dum.
How follows that?
Ber.
Fit in his place and time.
Dum.
In reason nothing.
Ber.
Something then in rhyme.
King.
Berowne is like an envious sneaping frost
That bites the first-born infants of the spring.
Ber.
Well, say I am, why should proud summer boast
Before the birds have any cause to sing?
Why should I joy in any 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.
Ber.
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!
Ber. [Reads.] “Item, That no woman shall come within a mile of my court”—Hath this been proclaim’d?
Long. Four days ago.
Ber. Let’s see the penalty. [Reads.] “– on pain of losing her tongue.” Who devis’d this penalty?
Long. Marry, that did I.
Ber. Sweet lord, and why?
Long. To fright them hence with that dread penalty.
[Ber.] 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 possible 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 bedred father;
Therefore this article is made in vain,
Or vainly comes th’ admired Princess hither.
