The arden shakespeare co.., p.17
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works, page 17
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The client breaks, as desperate in his suit.
He sees her coming, and begins to glow,
Even as a dying coal revives with wind;
And with his bonnet hides his angry brow,
Looks on the dull earth with disturbed mind,
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Taking no notice that she is so nigh,
For all askance he holds her in his eye.
O what a sight it was, wistly to view
How she came stealing to the wayward boy!
To note the fighting conflict of her hue,
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How white and red each other did destroy!
But now her cheek was pale, and by and by
It flash’d forth fire, as lightning from the sky.
Now was she just before him as he sat,
And like a lowly lover down she kneels;
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With one fair hand she heaveth up his hat,
Her other tender hand his fair cheek feels:
His tend’rer cheek receives her soft hand’s print,
As apt as new-fall’n snow takes any dint.
Oh what a war of looks was then between them!
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Her eyes petitioners to his eyes suing,
His eyes saw her eyes, as they had not seen them,
Her eyes woo’d still, his eyes disdain’d the wooing;
And all this dumb play had his acts made plain
With tears, which chorus-like her eyes did rain.
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Full gently now she takes him by the hand,
A lily prison’d in a gaol of snow,
Or ivory in an alablaster band:
So white a friend engirts so white a foe.
This beauteous combat, wilful and unwilling,
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Show’d like two silver doves that sit a-billing.
Once more the engine of her thoughts began:
‘O fairest mover on this mortal round,
Would thou wert as I am, and I a man,
My heart all whole as thine, thy heart my wound!
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For one sweet look thy help I would assure thee,
Though nothing but my body’s bane would cure thee.’
‘Give me my hand,’ said he, ‘why dost thou feel it?’
‘Give me my heart,’ saith she, ‘and thou shalt have it.
O give it me lest thy hard heart do steel it,
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And being steel’d, soft sighs can never grave it.
Then love’s deep groans I never shall regard,
Because Adonis’ heart hath made mine hard.’
‘For shame,’ he cries, ‘let go, and let me go:
My day’s delight is past, my horse is gone,
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And ’tis your fault I am bereft him so.
I pray you hence, and leave me here alone,
For all my mind, my thought, my busy care,
Is how to get my palfrey from the mare.’
Thus she replies: ‘Thy palfrey as he should,
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Welcomes the warm approach of sweet desire.
Affection is a coal that must be cool’d;
Else, suffer’d, it will set the heart on fire.
The sea hath bounds, but deep desire hath none;
Therefore no marvel though thy horse be gone.
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‘How like a jade he stood tied to the tree,
Servilely master’d with a leathern rein!
But when he saw his love, his youth’s fair fee,
He held such petty bondage in disdain,
Throwing the base thong from his bending crest,
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Enfranchising his mouth, his back, his breast.
‘Who sees his true-love in her naked bed,
Teaching the sheets a whiter hue than white,
But when his glutton eye so full hath fed,
His other agents aim at like delight?
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Who is so faint that dares not be so bold
To touch the fire, the weather being cold?
‘Let me excuse thy courser, gentle boy,
And learn of him, I heartily beseech thee,
To take advantage on presented joy;
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Though I were dumb, yet his proceedings teach thee.
O learn to love, the lesson is but plain,
And once made perfect, never lost again.’
‘I know not love,’ quoth he, ‘nor will not know it,
Unless it be a boar, and then I chase it.
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’Tis much to borrow, and I will not owe it:
My love to love is love but to disgrace it,
For I have heard, it is a life in death,
That laughs and weeps, and all but with a breath.
‘Who wears a garment shapeless and unfinish’d?
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Who plucks the bud before one leaf put forth?
If springing things be any jot diminish’d,
They wither in their prime, prove nothing worth;
The colt that’s back’d and burden’d being young,
Loseth his pride, and never waxeth strong.
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‘You hurt my hand with wringing, let us part,
And leave this idle theme, this bootless chat;
Remove your siege from my unyielding heart,
To love’s alarms it will not ope the gate.
Dismiss your vows, your feigned tears, your flatt’ry,
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For where a heart is hard they make no batt’ry.’
‘What, canst thou talk?’ quoth she, ‘hast thou a tongue?
O would thou hadst not, or I had no hearing!
Thy mermaid’s voice hath done me double wrong;
I had my load before, now press’d with bearing:
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Melodious discord, heavenly tune harsh-sounding,
Ears’ deep sweet music, and heart’s deep sore wounding!
‘Had I no eyes but ears, my ears would love
That inward beauty and invisible;
Or were I deaf, thy outward parts would move
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Each part in me that were but sensible:
Though neither eyes nor ears, to hear nor see,
Yet should I be in love by touching thee.
‘Say that the sense of feeling were bereft me,
And that I could not see, nor hear, nor touch,
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And nothing but the very smell were left me,
Yet would my love to thee be still as much;
For from the stillitory of thy face excelling
Comes breath perfum’d, that breedeth love by smelling.
‘But oh what banquet wert thou to the taste,
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Being nurse and feeder of the other four!
Would they not wish the feast might ever last,
And bid suspicion double-lock the door,
Lest jealousy, that sour unwelcome guest,
Should by his stealing in disturb the feast?’
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Once more the ruby-colour’d portal open’d,
Which to his speech did honey passage yield,
Like a red morn that ever yet betoken’d
Wrack to the seaman, tempest to the field,
Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds,
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Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds.
This ill presage advisedly she marketh:
Even as the wind is hush’d before it raineth,
Or as the wolf doth grin before he barketh,
Or as the berry breaks before it staineth,
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Or like the deadly bullet of a gun,
His meaning struck her ere his words begun.
And at his look she flatly falleth down,
For looks kill love, and love by looks reviveth:
A smile recures the wounding of a frown.
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But blessed bankrout, that by love so thriveth!
Thy silly boy, believing she is dead,
Claps her pale cheek, till clapping makes it red.
And all amaz’d brake off his late intent,
For sharply did he think to reprehend her,
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Which cunning love did wittily prevent:
Fair fall the wit that can so well defend her!
For on the grass she lies as she were slain,
Till his breath breatheth life in her again.
He wrings her nose, he strikes her on the cheeks,
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He bends her fingers, holds her pulses hard,
He chafes her lips; a thousand ways he seeks
To mend the hurt that his unkindness marr’d.
He kisses her, and she by her good will
Will never rise, so he will kiss her still.
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The night of sorrow now is turn’d to day:
Her two blue windows faintly she up-heaveth,
Like the fair sun when in his fresh array
He cheers the morn, and all the earth relieveth;
And as the bright sun glorifies the sky,
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So is her face illumin’d with her eye.
Whose beams upon his hairless face are fix’d,
As if from thence they borrow’d all their shine.
Were never four such lamps together mix’d,
Had not his clouded with his brow’s repine;
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But hers, which through the crystal tears gave light,
Shone like the moon in water seen by night.
‘O where am I?’ quoth she, ‘in earth or heaven?
Or in the ocean drench’d, or in the fire?
What hour is this, or morn, or weary even?
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Do I delight to die, or life desire?
But now I liv’d, and life was death’s annoy;
But now I died, and death was lively joy.
‘O thou didst kill me, kill me once again!
Thy eyes’ shrewd tutor, that hard heart of thine,
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Hath taught them scornful tricks, and such disdain,
That they have murder’d this poor heart of mine;
And these mine eyes, true leaders to their queen,
But for thy piteous lips no more had seen.
‘Long may they kiss each other for this cure!
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Oh never let their crimson liveries wear,
And as they last, their verdour still endure,
To drive infection from the dangerous year:
That the star-gazers, having writ on death,
May say, the plague is banish’d by thy breath.
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‘Pure lips, sweet seals in my soft lips imprinted,
What bargains may I make, still to be sealing?
To sell myself I can be well contented,
So thou wilt buy, and pay, and use good dealing:
Which purchase if thou make, for fear of slips,
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Set thy seal manual on my wax-red lips.
‘A thousand kisses buys my heart from me,
And pay them at thy leisure, one by one,
What is ten hundred touches unto thee?
Are they not quickly told and quickly gone?
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Say for non-payment that the debt should double,
Is twenty hundred kisses such a trouble?’
‘Fair queen,’ quoth he, ‘if any love owe me,
Measure my strangeness with my unripe years.
Before I know myself, seek not to know me:
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No fisher but the ungrown fry forbears;
The mellow plum doth fall, the green sticks fast,
Or being early pluck’d, is sour to taste.
‘Look the world’s comforter with weary gait
His day’s hot task hath ended in the west;
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The owl, night’s herald, shrieks, ’tis very late;
The sheep are gone to fold, birds to their nest,
And coal-black clouds that shadow heaven’s light
Do summon us to part, and bid good night.
‘Now let me say good night, and so say you;
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If you will say so, you shall have a kiss.’
‘Good night,’ quoth she, and ere he says adieu,
The honey fee of parting tender’d is:
Her arms do lend his neck a sweet embrace;
Incorporate then they seem, face grows to face.
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Till breathless he disjoin’d, and backward drew
The heavenly moisture, that sweet coral mouth,
Whose precious taste her thirsty lips well knew,
Whereon they surfeit, yet complain on drouth.
He with her plenty press’d, she faint with dearth,
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Their lips together glued, fall to the earth.
Now quick desire hath caught the yielding prey,
And glutton-like she feeds, yet never filleth.
Her lips are conquerors, his lips obey,
