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,
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.

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 epithites 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 Caesar 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,
Having so rich and fair a cause to stay.⁠—
Art thou there, Lodwick? give me ink and paper.

And bid the lords hold on their play at chess,
For we will walk and meditate alone.

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.⁠—

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 poets’ wit
Beguile and ravish soft and human minds?

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:
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.

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?

Of what condition or estate she is,
’Twere requisite that I should know, my lord.

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 satyrical:
For sin, though sin, would not be so esteem’d;
But, rather, virtue sin, sin virtue deem’d.
Her hair, far softer than the silkworm’s twist,
Like to a 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 the 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, Lodwick, read;
Fill thou the empty hollows of mine ears
With the sweet hearing of thy poetry.

Her praise is as my love, both infinite,
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.

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 sun 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.

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 emulate 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 be 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.

“More fair and chaste than is the queen of shades;
More bold in constancy”⁠—

O monstrous line! Put in the next a sword,
And I shall woo her to cut of my head.
Blot, blot, good Lodwick! Let us hear the next.

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.⁠—

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 shouldest have plac’d this here, this other here.

Pardon my boldness, my thrice-gracious lord;
Let my intrusion here be call’d my duty,
That comes to see my sovereign how he fares.

Sorry I am, to see my liege so sad:
What may thy subject do, to drive from thee
Thy gloomy consort, sullen melancholy?

Ah, lady, I am blunt, and cannot straw
The flowers of solace in a ground of shame:
Since I came hither, countess, I am wrong’d.

Now, God forbid, that any in my house
Should think my sovereign wrong! Thrice-gentle king,
Acquaint me with your cause of discontent.

As near, my liege, as all my woman’s power
Can pawn itself to buy thy remedy.

If thou speak’st true, then have I my redress:
Engage thy power to redeem my joys,
And I am joyful, countess; else, I die.

Then take thyself a little way aside,
And tell thyself, a king doth dote on thee:
Say that within thy power it2 doth lie
To make him happy, and that thou hast sworn
To give him all the joy within thy power:
Do this; and tell me, when I shall be happy.

All this is done, my thrice-dread sovereign:
That power of love, that I have power to give,
Thou hast with all devout obedience;
Employ me how thou wilt in proof thereof.

If on my beauty, take it if thou canst;
Though little, I do prize it ten times less:
If on my virtue, take it if thou canst;
For virtue’s store by giving doth augment:
Be it on what it will, that I can give
And thou canst take away, inherit it.

O, were it painted, I would wipe it off
And dispossess myself, to give it thee.
But, sovereign, it is solder’d to my life;
Take one, and both; for, like an humble shadow,
It haunts the sunshine of my summer’s life.

As easy may my intellectual soul
Be lent away, and yet my body live,
As lend my body, palace to my soul,
Away from her, and yet retain my soul.
My body is her bower, her court, her abbey,
And she an angel, pure, divine, unspotted;
If I should leave her house, my lord, to thee,
I kill my poor soul, and my poor soul me.

I wish no more of thee than thou may’st give,
Nor beg I do not, but I rather buy;
That is, thy love; and, for that love of thine,
In rich exchange, I tender to thee mine.

But that your lips were sacred, my lord,
You would profane the holy name of love.
That love, you offer me, you cannot give,
For Caesar owes that tribute to his queen:
That love, you beg of me, I cannot give,
For Sara owes that duty to her lord.
He that doth clip or counterfeit your stamp
Shall die, my lord: and will your sacred self
Commit high treason against the King of Heaven,
To stamp his image in forbidden metal,
Forgetting your allegiance and your oath?
In violating marriage’ sacred law,
You break a greater honour than yourself:
To be a king, is of a younger house
Than to be married; your progenitor,
Sole-reigning Adam on the universe,
By God was honour’d for a married man,
But not by him anointed for a king.
It is a penalty to break your statutes,
Though not enacted with your highness’ hand:
How much more, to infringe the holy act
Made by the mouth of God, seal’d with his hand?
I know, my sovereign⁠—in my husband’s love,
Who now doth loyal service in his wars⁠—
Doth but so try the wife of Salisbury,
Whether she will hear a wanton’s tale, or no;
Lest being therein guilty by my stay,
From that, not from my liege, I turn away. Exit.

Whether is her beauty by her words divine,
Or are her words sweet chaplains to her beauty?
Like as the wind doth beautify a sail,
And as a sail becomes the unseen wind,
So do her words her beauty, beauty words.
O, that I were a honey-gathering bee,
To bear the comb of virtue from this flower;
And not a poison-sucking envious spider,
To turn the juice I take to deadly venom!
Religion is austere, and beauty gentle;
Too strict a guardian for so fair a ward.
O, that she were, as is the air, to me!
Why, so she is; for, when I would embrace her,
This do I, and catch nothing but myself.
I must enjoy her; for I cannot beat,
With reason and reproof, fond love away.

Here comes her father: I will work with him,
To bear my colours in this field of love.

How is it, that my sovereign is so sad?
May I with pardon know your highness’ grief,
And that my old endeavour will remove it,
It shall not cumber long your majesty.

A kind and voluntary gift thou proffer’st,
That I was forward to have begg’d of thee.
But, O thou world, great nurse of flattery,
Why dost thou tip men’s tongues with golden words
And peise their deeds with weight of heavy lead,
That fair performance cannot follow promise?
O, that a man might hold the heart’s close book,
And choke the lavish tongue when it doth utter
The breath of falsehood not character’d there!

Far be it from the honour of my age
That I should owe bright gold and render lead!
Age is a cynic, not a flatterer:
I say again, that, if I knew your grief,
And that by me it may be lessened,
My proper harm should buy your highness’ good.

These are the vulgar tenders of false men,
That never pay the duty of their words.
Thou wilt not stick to swear what thou hast said;
But, when thou know’st my grief’s condition,
This rash-disgorged vomit of thy word
Thou wilt eat up again, and leave me helpless.

By Heaven, I will not, though your majesty
Did bid me run upon your sword and die.

Say, that my grief is no way med’cinable,
But by the loss and bruising of thine honour?

If nothing but that loss may vantage you,
I would account that loss my vantage too.

What may be said to any perjur’d villain
That breaks the sacred warrant of an oath.

That he hath broke his faith with God and man
And from them both stands excommunicate.

What office were it to suggest a man
To break a lawful and religious vow?

That devil’s office must thou do for me;
Or break thy oath or cancel all the bonds
Of love and duty ’twixt thyself and me.
And therefore, Warwick, if thou art thyself,
The lord and master of thy word and oath,
Go to thy daughter, and in my behalf
Command her, woo her, win her any ways,
To be my mistress and my secret love.
I will not stand to hear thee make reply;
Thy oath break hers, or let thy sovereign die. Exit.

O doting king! O detestable office!
Well may I tempt myself to wrong myself,
When he hath sworn me by the name of God
To break a vow made by the name of God.
What if I swear by this right hand of mine
To cut this right hand off? the better way
Were to profane the idol than confound it:
But neither will I do; I’ll keep mine oath
And to my daughter make a recantation
Of all the virtue I have preach’d to her.
I’ll say, she must forget her husband Salisbury,
If she remember to embrace the king;
I’ll say, an oath may easily be broken,
But not so easily pardon’d, being broken;
I’ll say, it is true charity to love,
But not true love to be so charitable;
I’ll say, his greatness may bear out the shame,
But not his kingdom can buy out the sin;
I’ll say, it is my duty to persuade,
But not her honesty to give consent.

See, where she comes: was never father, had
Against his child an embassage so bad.

My lord and father, I have sought for you:
My mother and the peers importune you
To keep in presence of his majesty
And do your best to make his highness merry.

How shall I enter in this arrant errand?
I must not call her child; for where’s the father
That will, in such a suit, seduce his child?
Then, Wife of Salisbury⁠—shall I so begin?
No, he’s my friend; and where is found the friend,
That will do friendship such indammagement?⁠—
To the Countess. Neither my daughter, nor my dear friend’s wife,
I am not Warwick, as thou think’st I am,
But an attorney from the court of hell;
That thus have hous’d my spirit in his form,
To do a message to thee from the king.
The mighty King of England dotes on thee:
He that hath power to take away thy life
Hath power to take thine honour; then consent
To pawn thine honour, rather than thy life:
Honour is often lost and got again;
But life, once gone, hath no recovery.
The sun, that withers hay, doth nourish grass;
The king that would distain thee will advance thee.
The poets write that great Achilles’ spear
Could heal the wound it made: the moral is,
What mighty men misdo, they can amend.
The lion doth become his bloody jaws
And grace his foragement, by being mild
When vassel fear lies trembling at his feet.
The king will in his glory hide thy shame;
And those that gaze on him to find out thee
Will lose their eyesight, looking in the sun.
What can one drop of poison harm the sea,
Whose hugy vastures can digest the ill
And make it lose his operation?
The king’s great name will temper thy misdeeds,
And give the bitter potion of reproach
A sugar’d-sweet and most delicious taste:
Besides, it is no harm, to do the thing
Which without shame could not be left undone.
Thus have I, in his majesty’s behalf,
Apparell’d sin in virtuous sentences,
And dwell upon thy answer in his suit.

Unnatural besiege! Woe me unhappy,
To have escap’d the danger of my foes
And to be ten times worse envir’d by friends!
Hath he no means to stain my honest blood,
But to corrupt the author of my blood
To be his scandalous and vile solicitor?
No marvel, though the branches be then infected,
When poison hath encompassed the root:
No marvel, though the leprous infant die,
When the stern dam envenometh the dug.
Why then, give sin a passport to offend,
And youth the dangerous rein of liberty:
Blot out the strict forbidding of the law;
And cancel every canon, that prescribes
A shame for shame or penance for offence.
No, let me die, if his too boist’rous will
Will have it so, before I will consent
To be an actor in his graceless lust.

Why, now thou speak’st as I would have thee speak:
And mark how I unsay my words again.
An honourable grave is more esteem’d,
Than the polluted closet of a king:
The greater man, the greater is the thing,
Be it good or bad, that he shall undertake:
An unreputed mote, flying in the sun,
Presents a greater substance than it is:
The freshest summer’s day doth soonest taint
The loathed carrion that it seems to kiss:
Deep are the blows made with a mighty axe:
That sin doth ten times aggravate itself,
That is committed in a holy place:
An evil deed, done by authority,
Is sin and subornation: deck an ape
In tissue, and the beauty of the robe
Adds but the greater scorn unto the beast.
A spacious field of reasons could I urge
Between his glory, daughter, and thy shame:
That poison shows worst in a golden cup;
Dark night seems darker by the lightning-flash;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds;
And every glory that inclines to sin,
The shame is treble by the opposite.
So leave I, with my blessing in thy bosom;
Which then convert to a most heavy curse,
When thou convert’st from honour’s golden name
To the black faction of bed-blotting shame! Exit.

I’ll follow thee; and when my mind turns so,
My body sink my soul in endless woe! Exit.

Thrice-noble Audley, well encounter’d here:
How is it with our sovereign and his peers?

’Tis full a fortnight since I saw his highness,
What time he sent me forth to muster men;
Which I accordingly have done, and bring them hither
In fair array before his majesty.
What news, my Lord of Derby, from the Emperor?

As good as we desire: the Emperor
Hath yielded to his highness friendly aid;
And makes our king lieutenant-general
In all his lands and large dominions:
Then via for the spacious bounds of France!

I have not yet found time to open them;
The king is in his closet, malcontent,
For what, I know not, but he gave in charge,
Till after dinner, none should interrupt him:
The Countess Salisbury, and her father Warwick,
Artois, and all, look underneath the brows.

I have, my liege, levied those horse and foot,
According to your charge, and brought them hither.

Then let those foot trudge hence upon those horse,
According to our discharge, and be gone.⁠—
Derby,
I’ll look upon the countess’ mind anon.

Thus from the heart’s abundance speaks the tongue;
Countess for emperor: and, indeed, why not?
She is as imperator over me;
And I to her
Am as a kneeling vassal that observes
The pleasure or displeasure of her eye.⁠—

What says the more than Cleopatra’s match
To Caesar now?

That yet, my liege, ere night
She will resolve your majesty. Drum within.

What drum is this, that thunders forth this march,
To start the tender Cupid in my bosom?
Poor sheep-skin, how it brawls with him that beateth it!
Go, break the thund’ring parchment-bottom out,
And I will teach it to conduct sweet lines
Unto the bosom of a heavenly nymph:
For I will use it as my writing-paper;
And so reduce him, from a scolding drum,
To be the herald and dear counsel-bearer
Betwixt a goddess and a mighty king.
Go, bid the drummer learn to touch the lute,
Or hang him in the braces of his drum;
For now we think it an uncivil thing,
To trouble heaven with such harsh resounds:
Away.⁠—Exit Lodwick.
The quarrel, that I have, requires no arms
But these of mine; and these shall meet my foe
In a deep march of penetrable groans:
My eyes shall be my arrows; and my sighs
Shall serve me as the vantage of the wind,
To whirl away my sweet’st artillery:
Ah but, alas, she wins the sun of me,
For that is she herself; and thence it comes
That poets term the wanton warrior blind;
But love hath eyes as judgement to his steps,
Till too-much-loved glory dazzles them.⁠—

My liege, the drum that stroke the lusty march
Stands with Prince Edward, your thrice-valiant son.

I see the boy. O, how his mother’s face,
Modell’d in his, corrects my stray’d desire
And rates my heart and chides my thievish eye;
Who being rich enough in seeing her,
Yet seeks elsewhere: and basest theft is that,
Which cannot cloak itself on poverty.⁠—
Now, boy, what news?

I have assembled, my dear lord and father,
The choicest buds of all our English blood
For our affairs in France; and here we come,
To take direction from your majesty.

Still do I see in him delineate
His mother’s visage; those his eyes are hers,
Who looking wistly on me make me blush;
For faults against themselves give evidence:
Lust is a fire; and men, like lanthorns, show
Light lust within themselves, even through themselves.
Away, loose silks of wavering vanity!
Shall the large limit of fair Brittany
By me be overthrown? and shall I not
Master this little mansion of myself?
Give me an armour of eternal steel;
I go to conquer kings; and shall I then
Subdue myself and be my enemy’s friend?
It must not be.⁠—Come, boy, forward, advance!
Let’s with our colours sweet the air of France.

My liege, the countess with a smiling cheer
Desires access unto your majesty. Advancing from the door, and whispering to him.

Why, there it goes! that very smile of hers
Hath ransom’d captive France, and set the king,
The Dauphin, and the peers, at liberty.⁠—
Go, leave me, Ned, and revel with thy friends. Exit Prince.
Thy mother is but black; and thou, like her,
Dost put into my mind how foul she is.⁠—
Go, fetch the countess hither in thy hand
And let her chase away these winter clouds;
For she gives beauty both to heaven and earth. Exit Lodwick.
The sin is more to hack and hew poor men,
Than to embrace in an unlawful bed
The register of all rarieties
Since leathern Adam till this youngest hour.

Go, Lodwick, put thy hand into my purse,
Play, spend, give, riot, waste; do what thou wilt,
So thou wilt hence a while and leave me here. Exit Lodwick.
Now, my soul’s playfellow! art thou come,
To speak the more than heavenly word of yea
To my objection in thy beauteous love?

And that, my dearest love, can be no less
Than right for right and tender love for love.

Than wrong for wrong and endless hate for hate.
But⁠—sith I see your majesty so bent,
That my unwillingness, my husband’s love,
Your high estate, nor no respect respected
Can be my help, but that your mightiness
Will overbear and awe these dear regards⁠—
I bind my discontent to my content,
And what I would not, I’ll compel I will;
Provided that yourself remove those lets
That stand between your highness’ love and mine.

It is their lives, that stand between our love,
That I would have chok’d up, my sovereign.

My thrice-loving liege,
Your queen, and Salisbury my wedded husband;
Who living have that title in our love
That we can not bestow but by their death.

So is your desire: if the law
Can hinder you to execute the one,
Let it forbid you to attempt the other:
I cannot think you love me as you say
Unless you do make good what you have sworn.

No more; thy husband and the queen shall die.
Fairer thou art by far than Hero was;
Beardless Leander not so strong as I:
He swum an easy current for his love;
But I will through a Hellespont of blood
To arrive at Sestos where my Hero lies.

Nay, you’ll do more; you’ll make the river, too,
With their heart-bloods that keep our love asunder,
Of which my husband and your wife are twain.

Thy beauty makes them guilty of their death
And gives in evidence that they shall die;
Upon which verdict, I, their judge, condemn them.

O perjur’d beauty! more corrupted judge!
When to the great star-chamber o’er our heads
The universal sessions calls to count
This packing evil, we both shall tremble for it.

Resolv’d to be dissolv’d; and, therefore, this⁠—
Keep but thy word, great king, and I am thine.
Stand where thou dost, I’ll part a little from thee,
And see how I will yield me to thy hands. Turning suddenly upon him, and showing two daggers.
Here by my side doth hang my wedding knifes:
Take thou the one and with it kill thy queen
And learn by me to find her where she lies;
And with this other I’ll dispatch my love,
Which now lies fast asleep within my heart:
When they are gone, then I’ll consent to love.
Stir not, lascivious king, to hinder me;
My resolution is more nimbler far
Than thy prevention can be in my rescue,
And, if thou stir, I strike: therefore stand still,
And hear the choice that I will put thee to:
Either swear to leave thy most unholy suit,
And never henceforth to solicit me;
Or else, by Heaven, kneeling this sharp-pointed knife
Shall stain thy earth with that which thou wouldst stain,
My poor chaste blood. Swear, Edward, swear,
Or I will strike and die before thee here.

Even by that Power I swear, that gives me now
The power to be ashamed of myself,
I never mean to part my lips again
In any words that tends to such a suit.
Arise, true English Lady, whom our isle
May better boast of, than e’er Roman might
Of her, whose ransack’d treasury hath task’d
The vain endeavour of so many pens:
Arise; and be my fault thy honour’s fame,
Which after-ages shall enrich thee with.
I am awaked from this idle dream;⁠—
Warwick, my son, Derby, Artois, and Audley,
Brave warriors all, where are you all this while?

Warwick, I make thee Warden of the North:⁠—
Thou, Prince of Wales, and Audley, straight to sea;
Scour to Newhaven; some there stay for me:⁠—
Myself, Artois, and Derby, will through Flanders
To greet our friends there and to crave their aide:
This night will scarce suffice me, to discover
My folly’s siege against a faithful lover;
For, ere the sun shall gild the eastern sky,
We’ll wake him with our martial harmony. Exeunt.