Love's Labour's Lost

SCENE II. The park

From the shooting within, enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL

  NATHANIEL. Very reverent sport, truly; and done in thetestimony of    a good conscience.  HOLOFERNES. The deer was, as you know, sanguis, in blood; ripeas    the pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear ofcaelo,    the sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crabon    the face of terra, the soil, the land, the earth.  NATHANIEL. Truly, Master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly    varied, like a scholar at the least; but, sir, I assure ye itwas    a buck of the first head.  HOLOFERNES. Sir Nathaniel, haud credo.  DULL. 'Twas not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket.  HOLOFERNES. Most barbarous intimation! yet a kind ofinsinuation,    as it were, in via, in way, of explication; facere, as itwere,    replication, or rather, ostentare, to show, as it were, his    inclination, after his undressed, unpolished, uneducated,    unpruned, untrained, or rather unlettered, or ratherest    unconfirmed fashion, to insert again my haud credo for adeer.  DULL. I Said the deer was not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket.  HOLOFERNES. Twice-sod simplicity, bis coctus!    O thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!  NATHANIEL. Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bredin      a book;    He hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink; his    intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, onlysensible    in the duller parts;    And such barren plants are set before us that we thankfulshould      be-    Which we of taste and feeling are- for those parts that do      fructify in us more than he.    For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or afool,    So, were there a patch set on learning, to see him in aschool.    But, omne bene, say I, being of an old father's mind:    Many can brook the weather that love not the wind.  DULL. You two are book-men: can you tell me by your wit    What was a month old at Cain's birth that's not five weeksold as      yet?  HOLOFERNES. Dictynna, goodman Dull; Dictynna, goodman Dull.  DULL. What is Dictynna?  NATHANIEL. A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon.  HOLOFERNES. The moon was a month old when Adam was no more,    And raught not to five weeks when he came to five-score.    Th' allusion holds in the exchange.  DULL. 'Tis true, indeed; the collusion holds in the exchange.  HOLOFERNES. God comfort thy capacity! I say th' allusion holdsin    the exchange.  DULL. And I say the polusion holds in the exchange; for themoon is    never but a month old; and I say, beside, that 'twas apricket    that the Princess kill'd.  HOLOFERNES. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaphon    the death of the deer? And, to humour the ignorant, call thedeer    the Princess kill'd a pricket.  NATHANIEL. Perge, good Master Holofernes, perge, so it shallplease    you to abrogate scurrility.  HOLOFERNES. I Will something affect the letter, for it argues    facility.    The preyful Princess pierc'd and prick'd a pretty pleasing      pricket.    Some say a sore; but not a sore till now made sore withshooting.    The dogs did yell; put el to sore, then sorel jumps fromthicket-    Or pricket sore, or else sorel; the people fall a-hooting.    If sore be sore, then L to sore makes fifty sores o' sorel.    Of one sore I an hundred make by adding but one more L.  NATHANIEL. A rare talent!  DULL. [Aside] If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him witha    talent.  HOLOFERNES. This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; afoolish    extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects,    ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions. These are begotin    the ventricle of memory, nourish'd in the womb of pia mater,and    delivered upon the mellowing of occasion. But the gift isgood in    those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it.  NATHANIEL. Sir, I praise the Lord for you, and so may my    parishioners; for their sons are well tutor'd by you, andtheir    daughters profit very greatly under you. You are a goodmember of    the commonwealth.  HOLOFERNES. Mehercle, if their sons be ingenious, they shallwant    no instruction; if their daughters be capable, I will put itto    them; but, vir sapit qui pauca loquitur. A soul femininesaluteth    us.

Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD

JAQUENETTA. God give you good morrow, Master Person. HOLOFERNES. Master Person, quasi pers-one. And if one should be pierc'd which is the one? COSTARD. Marry, Master Schoolmaster, he that is likest to a hogshead. HOLOFERNES. Piercing a hogshead! A good lustre of conceit in a turf of earth; fire enough for a flint, pearl enough for a swine; 'tis pretty; it is well. JAQUENETTA. Good Master Parson, be so good as read me this letter; it was given me by Costard, and sent me from Don Armado. I beseech you read it. HOLOFERNES. Fauste, precor gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra Ruminat- and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice: Venetia, Venetia, Chi non ti vede, non ti pretia. Old Mantuan, old Mantuan! Who understandeth thee not, loves thee not- Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa. Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? or rather as Horace says in his- What, my soul, verses? NATHANIEL. Ay, sir, and very learned. HOLOFERNES. Let me hear a staff, a stanze, a verse; lege, domine. NATHANIEL. [Reads] 'If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love? Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed! Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithful prove; Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers bowed. Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine eyes, Where all those pleasures live that art would comprehend. If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice; Well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend; All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder; Which is to me some praise that I thy parts admire. Thy eye Jove's lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder, Which, not to anger bent, is music and sweet fire. Celestial as thou art, O, pardon love this wrong, That singes heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue.' HOLOFERNES. You find not the apostrophas, and so miss the accent: let me supervise the canzonet. Here are only numbers ratified; but, for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy, caret. Ovidius Naso was the man. And why, indeed, 'Naso' but for smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention? Imitari is nothing: so doth the hound his master, the ape his keeper, the tired horse his rider. But, damosella virgin, was this directed to you? JAQUENETTA. Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Berowne, one of the strange queen's lords. HOLOFERNES. I will overglance the superscript: 'To the snow-white hand of the most beauteous Lady Rosaline.' I will look again on the intellect of the letter, for the nomination of the party writing to the person written unto: 'Your Ladyship's in all desired employment, Berowne.' Sir Nathaniel, this Berowne is one of the votaries with the King; and here he hath framed a letter to a sequent of the stranger queen's which accidentally, or by the way of progression, hath miscarried. Trip and go, my sweet; deliver this paper into the royal hand of the King; it may concern much. Stay not thy compliment; I forgive thy duty. Adieu. JAQUENETTA. Good Costard, go with me. Sir, God save your life! COSTARD. Have with thee, my girl. Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA NATHANIEL. Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very religiously; and, as a certain father saith- HOLOFERNES. Sir, tell not me of the father; I do fear colourable colours. But to return to the verses: did they please you, Sir Nathaniel? NATHANIEL. Marvellous well for the pen. HOLOFERNES. I do dine to-day at the father's of a certain pupil of mine; where, if, before repast, it shall please you to gratify the table with a grace, I will, on my privilege I have with the parents of the foresaid child or pupil, undertake your ben venuto; where I will prove those verses to be very unlearned, neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention. I beseech your society. NATHANIEL. And thank you too; for society, saith the text, is the happiness of life. HOLOFERNES. And certes, the text most infallibly concludes it. [To DULL] Sir, I do invite you too; you shall not say me nay: pauca verba. Away; the gentles are at their game, and we will to our recreation. Exeunt

SCENE III. The park

Enter BEROWNE, with a paper his band, alone

  BEROWNE. The King he is hunting the deer: I am coursing myself.    They have pitch'd a toil: I am tolling in a pitch- pitch that    defiles. Defile! a foul word. Well, 'set thee down, sorrow!'for    so they say the fool said, and so say I, and I am the fool.Well    proved, wit. By the Lord, this love is as mad as Ajax: itkills    sheep; it kills me- I a sheep. Well proved again o' my side.I    will not love; if I do, hang me. I' faith, I will not. O, buther    eye! By this light, but for her eye, I would not love her-yes,    for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing in the world but lie,and    lie in my throat. By heaven, I do love; and it hath taught meto    rhyme, and to be melancholy; and here is part of my rhyme,and    here my melancholy. Well, she hath one o' my sonnets already;the    clown bore it, the fool sent it, and the lady hath it: sweet    clown, sweeter fool, sweetest lady! By the world, I would not    care a pin if the other three were in. Here comes one with a    paper; God give him grace to groan!                                            [Climbs into a tree]

Enter the KING, with a paper

  KING. Ay me!  BEROWNE. Shot, by heaven! Proceed, sweet Cupid; thou hastthump'd    him with thy bird-bolt under the left pap. In faith, secrets!  KING. [Reads]      'So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not      To those fresh morning drops upon the rose,      As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote      The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows;      Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright      Through the transparent bosom of the deep,      As doth thy face through tears of mine give light.      Thou shin'st in every tear that I do weep;      No drop but as a coach doth carry thee;      So ridest thou triumphing in my woe.      Do but behold the tears that swell in me,      And they thy glory through my grief will show.      But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep      My tears for glasses, and still make me weep.      O queen of queens! how far dost thou excel      No thought can think nor tongue of mortal tell.'    How shall she know my griefs? I'll drop the paper-    Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here?                                                   [Steps aside]

Enter LONGAVILLE, with a paper

    What, Longaville, and reading! Listen, car.  BEROWNE. Now, in thy likeness, one more fool appear!  LONGAVILLE. Ay me, I am forsworn!  BEROWNE. Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers.  KING. In love, I hope; sweet fellowship in shame!  BEROWNE. One drunkard loves another of the name.  LONGAVILLE. Am I the first that have been perjur'd so?  BEROWNE. I could put thee in comfort: not by two that I know;    Thou makest the triumviry, the corner-cap of society,    The shape of Love's Tyburn that hangs up simplicity.  LONGAVILLE. I fear these stubborn lines lack power to move.    O sweet Maria, empress of my love!    These numbers will I tear, and write in prose.  BEROWNE. O, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid's hose:    Disfigure not his slop.  LONGAVILLE. This same shall go. [He reads the sonnet]      'Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,      'Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,      Persuade my heart to this false perjury?      Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.      A woman I forswore; but I will prove,      Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee:      My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;      Thy grace being gain'd cures all disgrace in me.      Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is;      Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine,      Exhal'st this vapour-vow; in thee it is.      If broken, then it is no fault of mine;      If by me broke, what fool is not so wise      To lose an oath to win a paradise?'  BEROWNE. This is the liver-vein, which makes flesh a deity,    A green goose a goddess- pure, pure idolatry.    God amend us, God amend! We are much out o' th' way.

Enter DUMAIN, with a paper

  LONGAVILLE. By whom shall I send this? – Company! Stay.                                                   [Steps aside]  BEROWNE. 'All hid, all hid'– an old infant play.    Like a demigod here sit I in the sky,    And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'er-eye.    More sacks to the mill! O heavens, I have my wish!    Dumain transformed! Four woodcocks in a dish!  DUMAIN. O most divine Kate!  BEROWNE. O most profane coxcomb!  DUMAIN. By heaven, the wonder in a mortal eye!  BEROWNE. By earth, she is not, corporal: there you lie.  DUMAIN. Her amber hairs for foul hath amber quoted.  BEROWNE. An amber-colour'd raven was well noted.  DUMAIN. As upright as the cedar.  BEROWNE. Stoop, I say;    Her shoulder is with child.  DUMAIN. As fair as day.  BEROWNE. Ay, as some days; but then no sun must shine.  DUMAIN. O that I had my wish!  LONGAVILLE. And I had mine!  KING. And I mine too,.good Lord!  BEROWNE. Amen, so I had mine! Is not that a good word?  DUMAIN. I would forget her; but a fever she    Reigns in my blood, and will rememb'red be.  BEROWNE. A fever in your blood? Why, then incision    Would let her out in saucers. Sweet misprision!  DUMAIN. Once more I'll read the ode that I have writ.  BEROWNE. Once more I'll mark how love can vary wit.  DUMAIN. [Reads]        'On a day-alack the day! -        Love, whose month is ever May,        Spied a blossom passing fair        Playing in the wanton air.        Through the velvet leaves the wind,        All unseen, can passage find;        That the lover, sick to death,        Wish'd himself the heaven's breath.        "Air," quoth he "thy cheeks may blow;        Air, would I might triumph so!        But, alack, my hand is sworn        Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn;        Vow, alack, for youth unmeet,        Youth so apt to pluck a sweet.        Do not call it sin in me        That I am forsworn for thee;        Thou for whom Jove would swear        Juno but an Ethiope were;        And deny himself for Jove,        Turning mortal for thy love."'    This will I send; and something else more plain    That shall express my true love's fasting pain.    O, would the King, Berowne and Longaville,    Were lovers too! Ill, to example ill,    Would from my forehead wipe a perjur'd note;    For none offend where all alike do dote.  LONGAVILLE. [Advancing] Dumain, thy love is far from charity,    That in love's grief desir'st society;    You may look pale, but I should blush, I know,    To be o'erheard and taken napping so.  KING. [Advancing] Come, sir, you blush; as his, your case issuch.    You chide at him, offending twice as much:    You do not love Maria! Longaville    Did never sonnet for her sake compile;    Nor never lay his wreathed arms athwart    His loving bosom, to keep down his heart.    I have been closely shrouded in this bush,    And mark'd you both, and for you both did blush.    I heard your guilty rhymes, observ'd your fashion,    Saw sighs reek from you, noted well your passion.    'Ay me!' says one. 'O Jove!' the other cries.    One, her hairs were gold; crystal the other's eyes.    [To LONGAVILLE] You would for paradise break faith and troth;    [To Dumain] And Jove for your love would infringe an oath.    What will Berowne say when that he shall hear    Faith infringed which such zeal did swear?    How will he scorn, how will he spend his wit!    How will he triumph, leap, and laugh at it!    For all the wealth that ever I did see,    I would not have him know so much by me.  BEROWNE. [Descending] Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy,    Ah, good my liege, I pray thee pardon me.    Good heart, what grace hast thou thus to reprove    These worms for loving, that art most in love?    Your eyes do make no coaches; in your tears    There is no certain princess that appears;    You'll not be perjur'd; 'tis a hateful thing;    Tush, none but minstrels like of sonneting.    But are you not ashamed? Nay, are you not,    All three of you, to be thus much o'ershot?    You found his mote; the King your mote did see;    But I a beam do find in each of three.    O, what a scene of fool'ry have I seen,    Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow, and of teen!    O, me, with what strict patience have I sat,    To see a king transformed to a gnat!    To see great Hercules whipping a gig,    And profound Solomon to tune a jig,    And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys,    And critic Timon laugh at idle toys!    Where lies thy grief, O, tell me, good Dumain?    And, gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain?    And where my liege's? All about the breast.    A caudle, ho!  KING. Too bitter is thy jest.    Are we betrayed thus to thy over-view?  BEROWNE. Not you by me, but I betrayed to you.    I that am honest, I that hold it sin    To break the vow I am engaged in;    I am betrayed by keeping company    With men like you, men of inconstancy.    When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme?    Or groan for Joan? or spend a minute's time    In pruning me? When shall you hear that I    Will praise a hand, a foot, a face, an eye,    A gait, a state, a brow, a breast, a waist,    A leg, a limb-  KING. Soft! whither away so fast?    A true man or a thief that gallops so?  BEROWNE. I post from love; good lover, let me go.

Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD

  JAQUENETTA. God bless the King!  KING. What present hast thou there?  COSTARD. Some certain treason.  KING. What makes treason here?  COSTARD. Nay, it makes nothing, sir.  KING. If it mar nothing neither,    The treason and you go in peace away together.  JAQUENETTA. I beseech your Grace, let this letter be read;    Our person misdoubts it: 'twas treason, he said.  KING. Berowne, read it over. [BEROWNE reads the letter]    Where hadst thou it?  JAQUENETTA. Of Costard.  KING. Where hadst thou it?  COSTARD. Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio.                                      [BEROWNE tears the letter]  KING. How now! What is in you? Why dost thou tear it?  BEROWNE. A toy, my liege, a toy! Your Grace needs not fear it.  LONGAVILLE. It did move him to passion, and therefore let'shear     it.  DUMAIN. It is Berowne's writing, and here is his name.                                       [Gathering up the pieces]  BEROWNE. [ To COSTARD] Ah, you whoreson loggerhead, you wereborn      to do me shame.    Guilty, my lord, guilty! I confess, I confess.  KING. What?  BEROWNE. That you three fools lack'd me fool to make up themess;    He, he, and you- and you, my liege! – and I    Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die.    O, dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you more.    DUMAIN. Now the number is even.  BEROWNE. True, true, we are four.    Will these turtles be gone?  KING. Hence, sirs, away.  COSTARD. Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay.                                   Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA  BEROWNE. Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O, let us embrace!    As true we are as flesh and blood can be.    The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face;    Young blood doth not obey an old decree.    We cannot cross the cause why we were born,    Therefore of all hands must we be forsworn.  KING. What, did these rent lines show some love of thine?  BEROWNE. 'Did they?' quoth you. Who sees the heavenly Rosaline    That, like a rude and savage man of Inde    At the first op'ning of the gorgeous east,    Bows not his vassal head and, strucken blind,    Kisses the base ground with obedient breast?    What peremptory eagle-sighted eye    Dares look upon the heaven of her brow    That is not blinded by her majesty?  KING. What zeal, what fury hath inspir'd thee now?    My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon;    She, an attending star, scarce seen a light.  BEROWNE. My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Berowne.    O, but for my love, day would turn to night!    Of all complexions the cull'd sovereignty    Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek,    Where several worthies make one dignity,    Where nothing wants that want itself doth seek.    Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues-    Fie, painted rhetoric! O, she needs it not!    To things of sale a seller's praise belongs:    She passes praise; then praise too short doth blot.    A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn,    Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye.    Beauty doth varnish age, as if new-born,    And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy.    O, 'tis the sun that maketh all things shine!  KING. By heaven, thy love is black as ebony.  BEROWNE. Is ebony like her? O wood divine!    A wife of such wood were felicity.    O, who can give an oath? Where is a book?    That I may swear beauty doth beauty lack,    If that she learn not of her eye to look.    No face is fair that is not full so black.  KING. O paradox! Black is the badge of hell,    The hue of dungeons, and the school of night;    And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well.  BEROWNE. Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light.    O, if in black my lady's brows be deckt,    It mourns that painting and usurping hair    Should ravish doters with a false aspect;    And therefore is she born to make black fair.    Her favour turns the fashion of the days;    For native blood is counted painting now;    And therefore red that would avoid dispraise    Paints itself black, to imitate her brow.  DUMAIN. To look like her are chimney-sweepers black.  LONGAVILLE. And since her time are colliers counted bright.  KING. And Ethiopes of their sweet complexion crack.  DUMAIN. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light.  BEROWNE. Your mistresses dare never come in rain    For fear their colours should be wash'd away.  KING. 'Twere good yours did; for, sir, to tell you plain,    I'll find a fairer face not wash'd to-day.  BEROWNE. I'll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here.  KING. No devil will fright thee then so much as she.  DUMAIN. I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear.  LONGAVILLE. Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face see.                                              [Showing his shoe]  BEROWNE. O, if the streets were paved with thine eyes,    Her feet were much too dainty for such tread!  DUMAIN. O vile! Then, as she goes, what upward lies    The street should see as she walk'd overhead.  KING. But what of this? Are we not all in love?  BEROWNE. Nothing so sure; and thereby all forsworn.  KING. Then leave this chat; and, good Berowne, now prove    Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn.  DUMAIN. Ay, marry, there; some flattery for this evil.  LONGAVILLE. O, some authority how to proceed;    Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil!  DUMAIN. Some salve for perjury.  BEROWNE. 'Tis more than need.    Have at you, then, affection's men-at-arms.    Consider what you first did swear unto:    To fast, to study, and to see no woman-    Flat treason 'gainst the kingly state of youth.    Say, can you fast? Your stomachs are too young,    And abstinence engenders maladies.    And, where that you you have vow'd to study, lords,    In that each of you have forsworn his book,    Can you still dream, and pore, and thereon look?    For when would you, my lord, or you, or you,    Have found the ground of study's excellence    Without the beauty of a woman's face?    From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:    They are the ground, the books, the academes,    From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire.    Why, universal plodding poisons up    The nimble spirits in the arteries,    As motion and long-during action tires    The sinewy vigour of the traveller.    Now, for not looking on a woman's face,    You have in that forsworn the use of eyes,    And study too, the causer of your vow;    For where is author in the world    Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?    Learning is but an adjunct to ourself,    And where we are our learning likewise is;    Then when ourselves we see in ladies' eyes,    With ourselves.    Do we not likewise see our learning there?    O, we have made a vow to study, lords,    And in that vow we have forsworn our books.    For when would you, my liege, or you, or you,    In leaden contemplation have found out    Such fiery numbers as the prompting eyes    Of beauty's tutors have enrich'd you with?    Other slow arts entirely keep the brain;    And therefore, finding barren practisers,    Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil;    But love, first learned in a lady's eyes,    Lives not alone immured in the brain,    But with the motion of all elements    Courses as swift as thought in every power,    And gives to every power a double power,    Above their functions and their offices.    It adds a precious seeing to the eye:    A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind.    A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound,    When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd.    Love's feeling is more soft and sensible    Than are the tender horns of cockled snails:    Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste.    For valour, is not Love a Hercules,    Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?    Subtle as Sphinx; as sweet and musical    As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair.    And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods    Make heaven drowsy with the harmony.    Never durst poet touch a pen to write    Until his ink were temp'red with Love's sighs;    O, then his lines would ravish savage ears,    And plant in tyrants mild humility.    From women's eyes this doctrine I derive.    They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;    They are the books, the arts, the academes,    That show, contain, and nourish, all the world,    Else none at all in aught proves excellent.    Then fools you were these women to forswear;    Or, keeping what is sworn, you will prove fools.    For wisdom's sake, a word that all men love;    Or for Love's sake, a word that loves all men;    Or for men's sake, the authors of these women;    Or women's sake, by whom we men are men-    Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves,    Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths.    It is religion to be thus forsworn;    For charity itself fulfils the law,    And who can sever love from charity?  KING. Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field!  BEROWNE. Advance your standards, and upon them, lords;    Pell-mell, down with them! be first advis'd,    In conflict, that you get the sun of them.  LONGAVILLE. Now to plain-dealing; lay these glozes by.    Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France?  KING. And win them too; therefore let us devise    Some entertainment for them in their tents.  BEROWNE. First, from the park let us conduct them thither;    Then homeward every man attach the hand    Of his fair mistress. In the afternoon    We will with some strange pastime solace them,    Such as the shortness of the time can shape;    For revels, dances, masks, and merry hours,    Forerun fair Love, strewing her way with flowers.  KING. Away, away! No time shall be omitted    That will betime, and may by us be fitted.  BEROWNE. Allons! allons! Sow'd cockle reap'd no corn,    And justice always whirls in equal measure.    Light wenches may prove plagues to men forsworn;    If so, our copper buys no better treasure. Exeunt