Читать книгу The Complete Works of Shakespeare онлайн

356 страница из 942

King.

Then leave this chat, and, good Berowne, now prove

Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn.

Dum.

Ay marry, there—some flattery for this evil.

Long.

O, some authority how to proceed;

Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil.

Dum.

Some salve for perjury.

Ber.

O, ’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 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