dark meaning, mouse, of this light word?
Kath.
A light condition in a beauty dark.
Ros.
We need more light to find your meaning out.
Kath.
You’ll mar the light by taking it in snuff;
Therefore I’ll darkly end the argument.
Ros.
Look what you do, you do it still i’ th’ dark.
Kath.
So do not you, for you are a light wench.
Ros.
Indeed I weigh not you, and therefore light.
Kath.
You weigh me not? O, that’s you care not for me.
Ros.
Great reason: for past care is still past cure.
Prin.
Well bandied both, a set of wit well played.
But, Rosaline, you have a favor too?
Who sent it? and what is it?
Ros.
I would you knew.
And if my face were but as fair as yours,
My favor were as great: be witness this.
Nay, I have verses too, I thank Berowne;
The numbers true, and, were the numb’ring too,
I were the fairest goddess on the ground.
I am compar’d to twenty thousand fairs.
O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter!
Prin.
Any thing like?
Ros.
Much in the letters, nothing in the praise.
Prin.
Beauteous as ink—a good conclusion.
Kath.
Fair as a text B in a copy-book.
Ros.
Ware pencils [ho]! let me not die your debtor,
My red dominical, my golden letter:
O that your face were not so full of O’s!
Prin.
A pox of that jest! and I beshrow all shrows.
But, Katherine, what was sent to you from fair Dumaine?
Kath.
Madam, this glove.
Prin.
Did he not send you twain?
Kath.
Yes, madam, and moreover
Some thousand verses of a faithful lover.
A huge translation of hypocrisy,
Vildly compiled, profound simplicity.
Mar.
This, and these [pearls], to me sent Longaville.
The letter is too long by half a mile.
Prin.
I think no less. Dost thou not wish in heart
The chain were longer and the letter short?
Mar.
Ay, or I would these hands might never part.
Prin.
We are wise girls to mock our lovers so.
Ros.
They are worse fools to purchase mocking so.
That same Berowne I’ll torture ere I go.
O that I knew he were but in by th’ week!
How I would make him fawn, and beg, and seek,
And wait the season, and observe the times,
And spend his prodigal wits in bootless rhymes,
And shape his service wholly to my device,
And make him proud to make me proud that jests!
So pair-taunt-like would I o’ersway his state
That he should be my fool and I his fate.
Prin.
None are so surely caught, when they are catch’d,
As wit turn’d fool; folly, in wisdom hatch’d,
Hath wisdom’s warrant and the help of school,
And wit’s own grace to grace a learned fool.
Ros.
The blood of youth burns not with such excess
As gravity’s revolt to [wantonness].
Mar.
Folly in fools bears not so strong a note
As fool’ry in the wise, when wit doth dote,
Since all the power thereof it doth apply
To prove, by wit, worth in simplicity.
Enter Boyet.
