READ STUDY GUIDE: Act I, Scenes i and ii |
|
Act I, Scene i:
The King of Navarre's park
The King of Navarre's park
| [Enter the King, BEROWNE, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN.] |
| KING: |
| Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives, |
| Live regist'red 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. |
| You three, Berowne, Dumain, 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 pass'd; and now subscribe your names, |
| That his own hand may strike his honour down |
| That violates the smallest branch herein. |
| If you are arm'd to do as sworn to do, |
| Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too. |
| LONGAVILLE: |
| I am resolv'd; '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, Dumain 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 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, |
| 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 pass'd 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 barr'd, you mean, from common sense? |
| KING: |
| 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 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! |
| 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 rime. |
| LONGAVILLE: |
| 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 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 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 swore, |
| And bide the penance of each three years' day. |
| Give me the paper; let me read the same; |
| And to the strict'st decrees I'll write my name. |
| KING: |
| How well this yielding rescues thee from shame! |
| BEROWNE: |
| '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 mild 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 over-shot: |
| 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 master'd, 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;[Subscribes] |
| 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 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 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 |
| tharborough: but I would see his own person in flesh and blood. |
| BEROWNE: |
| This is he. |
| DULL: |
| Signior 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 long 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 laughing? |
| 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: |
| '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 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 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: |
| '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, with—with,—O! with but with this I |
| passion to say wherewith,'— |
| 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, Antony Dull, a man of |
| good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation.' |
| DULL: |
| Me, an't please you; I am Antony 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 damosel. |
| KING: |
| Well, it was proclaimed 'damosel'. |
| COSTARD: |
| This was no damosel 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 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 DUMAIN.] |
| 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.] |
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