Shakespeare's Kings (127 page)

From weather's waste, the under-garnish'd pride.

More gracious than my terms can let thee be,

Intreat thyself to stay a while with me.

k. ed.
[Aside]
As wise as fair; what fond fit can be heard

When wisdom keeps the gate as beauty's guard? -

Countess, albeit my business urgeth me,

It shall attend while I attend on thee. -

Come on, my lords, here will I host to-night.

Exeunt

act
ii scene
i

The same. Gardens of the Castle. Enter Lodwick

lod
. I might perceive his eye in her eye lost,

His ear to drink her sweet tongue's utterance;

And changing passion, like inconstant clouds

That rack upon the carriage
of the
winds,

(II, i)
Increase and die in his disturbed cheeks.

Lo, when she blush'd, even then did he look pale,

As if her cheeks, by some enchanted power,

Attracted had the cherry blood from his:

Anon, with reverent fear when she grew pale,

His cheeks put on their scarlet ornaments,

But no more like her oriental red,

Than brick to coral or live things to dead.

Why did he then thus counterfeit her looks?

If she did blush, 'twas tender modest shame,

Being in the sacred presence of a king;

If he did blush, 'twas red immodest shame,

To vail his eyes amiss, being a king:

If she look'd pale, 'twas silly woman's fear,

To bear herself in presence of a king:

If he look'd pale, it was with guilty fear,

To dote amiss, being a mighty king:

Then, Scottish wars, farewell! I fear, 'twill prove

A ling'ring English siege of peevish love.

Here comes his highness, walking all alone.

Enter King Edward

k. ed
. She is grown more fairer far since I came hither;

Her voice more silver every word than other,

Her wit more fluent: what a strange discourse

Unfolded she of David and his Scots!

'Even thus,' quoth she, 'he spake,' — and then spoke broad,

With epithets and accents of the Scot;

But somewhat better than the Scot could speak:

'And thus,' quoth she, - and answer'd then herself;

For who could speak like her? but she herself

Breathes from the wall an angel's note from heaven

Of sweet defiance to her barbarous foes.

When she would talk of peace, methinks, her tongue

Commanded war to prison; when of war,

It waken'd Ca
esar from his Roman grave,

To hear war beautified by her discourse.

Wisdom is foolishness, but in her tongue,

Beauty a slander, but in her fair face:

There is no summer, but in her cheerful looks,

Nor frosty winter, but in her disdain.

I cannot blame the Scots that did besiege her,

For she is all the treasure of our land;

But call them cowards, that they ran away,

(II, i)
Having so rich and fair a cause to stay. -

Art thou there, Lodwick? give me ink and paper.

lod
. I will, my liege.

k. ed
. And bid the lords hold on their play at chess,

For we will walk and meditate alone.

lod
. I will, my sovereign.

[Exit]

k. ed
. This fellow is well read in poetry

And hath a lusty and persuasive spirit:

I will acquaint him with my passion;

Which he shall shadow with a veil of lawn,

Through which the queen of beauty's queens shall see.

Herself the ground of my infirmity. —

Enter Lodwick

Hast thou pen, ink, and paper ready, Lodwick?

lod
. Ready, my liege.
k. ed
. Then in the summer arbour sit by me,

Make it our council-house, or cabinet;

Since green our thoughts, green be the conventicle

Where we will ease us by disburd'ning them.

Now, Lodwick, invocate some golden muse

To bring thee hither an enchanted pen

That may, for sighs, set down true sighs indeed;

Talking of grief, to make thee ready groan;

And, when thou writ'st of tears, encouch the word,

Before and after, with such sweet laments,

That it may raise drops in a Tartar's eye,

And make a flint-heart Scythian pitiful:

For so much moving hath a poet's pen;

Then, if thou be a poet, move thou so,

And be enriched by thy sovereign's love.

For, if the touch of sweet concordant strings

Could force attendance in the ears of hell;

How much more shall the strains of poet's wit

Beguile and ravish soft and human minds?

lod. To
whom, my lord, shall I direct my style?

k. ed
. To one that shames the fair and sots the wise;

Whose body is an abstract or a brief,

Contains each general virtue in the world.

Better than beautiful, thou must begin;

Devise for fair a fairer word than fair;

And every ornament, that thou wouldst praise,

Fly it a pitch above the soar of praise:

(II, i)
For flattery fear thou not to be convicted;

For, were thy admiration ten times more,

Ten times ten thousand more the worth exceeds,

Of that thou art to praise, thy praise's worth.

Begin, I will to contemplate the while:

Forget not to set down, how passionate,

How heart-sick, and how full of languishment,

Her beauty makes me.

lod.
Write I to a woman?

k. ed
. What beauty else could triumph over me;

Or who, but women, do our love-lays greet?

What, think'st thou I did bid thee praise a horse?

lod
. Of what condition or estate she is,

'Twere requisite that I should know, my lord.

k. ed
. Of such estate, that hers is as a throne,

And my estate the footstool where she treads:

Then may'st thou judge what her condition is,

By the proportion of her mightiness.

Write on, while I peruse her in my thoughts.

Her voice to music, or the nightingale:

To music every summer-leaping swain

Compares his sun-burnt lover when she speaks:

And why should I speak of the nightingale?

The nightingale sings of adulterate wrong;

And that, compar'd, is too satirical:

For sin, though sin, would not be so esteem'd;

But, rather, virtue sin, sin virtue deem'd.

Her hair, far sorter than the silkworm's twist,

Like to flattering glass, doth make more fair

The yellow amber: 'like a flattering glass'

Comes in too soon; for, writing of her eyes,

I'll say, that like a glass they catch the sun,

And thence the hot reflection doth rebound

Against my breast, and burns my heart within.

Ah, what a world of descant makes my soul

Upon this voluntary ground of love!

-Come, Lodwick, hast thou turn'd thy ink to gold?

If not, write but in letters capital

My mistress' name, and it will gild thy paper.

Read, lord, read;

Fill thou the empty hollows of mine ears

With the sweet hearing of thy poetry.

lod
. I have not to a period brought her praise.

k. ed
. Her praise is as my love, both infinite,

(II, i)
Which apprehend such violent extremes

That they disdain an ending period.

Her beauty hath no match but my affection;

Hers more than most, mine most, and more than more:

Hers more to praise than tell the sea by drops;

Nay, more, than drop the massy earth by sands,

And, sand by sand, print them in memory:

Then wherefore talk'st thou of a period,

To that which craves unended admiration?

Read, let us hear.

lod
. 'More fair and chaste than is the queen of shades,' -

k. ed
. That line hath two faults, gross and palpable:

Compar'st thou her to the pale queen of night,

Who, being set in dark, seems therefore light?

What is she, when the suns lifts up his head,

But like a fading taper, dim and dead?

My love shall brave the eye of heaven at noon,

And, being unmask'd, outshine the golden sun.

lod
. What is the other fault, my sovereign lord?

k. ed
. Read o'er the line again.

lod.
'More fair and chaste,' -

k. ed
. I did not bid thee talk of chastity,

To ransack so the treasure of her mind;

For I had rather have her chas'd, than chaste.

Out with the moon-line, I will none of it,

And let me have her liken'd to the sun:

Say, she hath thrice more splendour than the sun,

That her perfections emulates the sun,

That she breeds sweets as plenteous as the sun,

That she doth thaw cold winter like the sun,

That she doth cheer fresh summer like the sun,

That she doth dazzle gazers like the sun:

And, in this application to the sun,

Bid her free and general as the sun;

Who smiles upon the basest weed that grows,

As lovingly as on the fragrant rose.

Let's see what follows that same moon-light line.

lod
. 'More fair and chaste than is the queen of shades;

More bold in constancy' -

k. ed
. In constancy! than who?

lod.
— ' than Judith was.'

k. ed
. O monstrous line! Put in the next a sword,

And I shall woo her to cut off my head.

Blot, blot, good Lodwick!

Let us hear the next.

(II, i)
lod
. There's all that yet is done.

k. ed
. I thank thee then, thou hast done little ill;

But what is done, is passing passing ill.

No, let the captain talk of boist'rous war;

The prisoner, of immured dark constraint;

The sick man best sets down the pangs of death;

The man that starves, the sweetness of a feast;

The frozen soul, the benefit of fire;

And every grief, his happy opposite:

Love cannot sound well, but in lovers' tongues;

Give me the pen and paper, I will write. -

Enter Countess
But, soft, here comes the treasurer of my spirit.

-Lodwick, thou know'st not how to draw a
Battle
;

These wings, these flankers, and these squadrons

Argue in thee defective discipline:

Thou shouldst have plac'd this here, this other here.