Love's Labour's Lost
·V ii 423 ·
Verse
Berowne Thus pour the stars down plagues for perjury. Can any face of brass hold longer out? Here stand I. lady, dart thy skill at me; Bruise me with scorn, confound me with a flout; Thrust thy sharp wit quite through my ignorance; Cut me to pieces with thy keen conceit; And I will wish thee never more to dance, Nor never more in Russian habit wait. O, never will I trust to speeches penn'd, Nor to the motion of a schoolboy's tongue, Nor never come in vizard to my friend, Nor woo in rhyme, like a blind harper's song! Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise, Three-piled hyperboles, spruce affectation, Figures pedantical; these summer-flies Have blown me full of maggot ostentation: I do forswear them; and I here protest, By this white glove;--how white the hand, God knows!-- Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express'd In russet yeas and honest kersey noes: And, to begin, wench,--so God help me, la!-- My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw. |