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Nath. Marvellous well for the pen.

Hol. 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 bien venuto; where I will prove those verses to be very unlearned, neither savoring of poetry, wit, nor invention. I beseech your society.

Nath. And thank you too; for society, saith the text, is the happiness of life.

Hol. 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.

¶

Enter Berowne with a paper in his hand, alone.

Ber. The King he is hunting the deer: I am coursing myself. They have pitch’d a toil: I am toiling 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 the fool: well prov’d, wit! By the Lord, this love is as mad as Ajax. It kills sheep; it kills me, I a sheep: well prov’d again a’ my side! I will not love; if I do, hang me; i’ faith, I will not. O but her 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 me to rhyme and to be mallicholy; and here is part of my rhyme, and here my mallicholy. Well, she hath one a’ 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!