Читать книгу Love's Labour's Lost - Уильям Шекспир, William Szekspir, the Simon Studio - Страница 2

  KING. Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,

    Live regist'red upon our brazen tombs,

    And then grace us in the disgrace of death;

    When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,

    Th' endeavour of this present breath may buy

    That honour which shall bate his scythe's keen edge,

    And make us heirs of all eternity.

    Therefore, brave conquerors- for so you are

    That war against your own affections

    And the huge army of the world's desires-

    Our late edict shall strongly stand in force:

    Navarre shall be the wonder of the world;

    Our court shall be a little Academe,

    Still and contemplative in living art.

    You three, Berowne, Dumain, and Longaville,

    Have sworn for three years' term to live with me

    My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes

    That are recorded in this schedule here.

    Your oaths are pass'd; and now subscribe your names,

    That his own hand may strike his honour down

    That violates the smallest branch herein.

    If you are arm'd to do as sworn to do,

    Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too.

  LONGAVILLE. I am resolv'd; 'tis but a three years' fast.

    The mind shall banquet, though the body pine.

    Fat paunches have lean pates; and dainty bits

    Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits.

  DUMAIN. My loving lord, Dumain is mortified.

    The grosser manner of these world's delights

    He throws upon the gross world's baser slaves;

    To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die,

    With all these living in philosophy.

  BEROWNE. I can but say their protestation over;

    So much, dear liege, I have already sworn,

    That is, to live and study here three years.

    But there are other strict observances,

    As: not to see a woman in that term,

    Which I hope well is not enrolled there;

    And one day in a week to touch no food,

    And but one meal on every day beside,

    The which I hope is not enrolled there;

    And then to sleep but three hours in the night

    And not be seen to wink of all the day-

    When I was wont to think no harm all night,

    And make a dark night too of half the day-

    Which I hope well is not enrolled there.

    O, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep,

    Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep!

  KING. Your oath is pass'd to pass away from these.

  BEROWNE. Let me say no, my liege, an if you please:

    I only swore to study with your Grace,

    And stay here in your court for three years' space.

  LONGAVILLE. You swore to that, Berowne, and to the rest.

  BEROWNE. By yea and nay, sir, then I swore in jest.

    What is the end of study, let me know.

  KING. Why, that to know which else we should not know.

  BEROWNE. Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from common sense?

  KING. Ay, that is study's god-like recompense.

  BEROWNE. Come on, then; I will swear to study so,

    To know the thing I am forbid to know,

    As thus: to study where I well may dine,

    When I to feast expressly am forbid;

    Or study where to meet some mistress fine,

    When mistresses from common sense are hid;

    Or, having sworn too hard-a-keeping oath,

    Study to break it, and not break my troth.

    If study's gain be thus, and this be so,

    Study knows that which yet it doth not know.

    Swear me to this, and I will ne'er say no.

  KING. These be the stops that hinder study quite,

    And train our intellects to vain delight.

  BEROWNE. Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain

    Which, with pain purchas'd, doth inherit pain,

    As painfully to pore upon a book

    To seek the light of truth; while truth the while

    Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look.

    Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile;

    So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,

    Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.

    Study me how to please the eye indeed,

    By fixing it upon a fairer eye;

    Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed,

    And give him light that it was blinded by.

    Study is like the heaven's glorious sun,

    That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks;

    Small have continual plodders ever won,

    Save base authority from others' books.

    These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights

    That give a name to every fixed star

    Have no more profit of their shining nights

    Than those that walk and wot not what they are.

    Too much to know is to know nought but fame;

    And every godfather can give a name.

  KING. How well he's read, to reason against reading!

  DUMAIN. Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding!

  LONGAVILLE. He weeds the corn, and still lets grow the weeding.

  BEROWNE. The spring is near, when green geese are a-breeding.

  DUMAIN. How follows that?

  BEROWNE. Fit in his place and time.

  DUMAIN. In reason nothing.

  BEROWNE. Something then in rhyme.

  LONGAVILLE. Berowne is like an envious sneaping frost

    That bites the first-born infants of the spring.

  BEROWNE. Well, say I am; why should proud summer boast

    Before the birds have any cause to sing?

    Why should I joy in any abortive birth?

    At Christmas I no more desire a rose

    Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled shows;

    But like of each thing that in season grows;

    So you, to study now it is too late,

    Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate.

  KING. Well, sit out; go home, Berowne; adieu.

  BEROWNE. No, my good lord; I have sworn to stay with you;

    And though I have for barbarism spoke more

    Than for that angel knowledge you can say,

    Yet confident I'll keep what I have swore,

    And bide the penance of each three years' day.

    Give me the paper; let me read the same;

    And to the strictest decrees I'll write my name.

  KING. How well this yielding rescues thee from shame!

  BEROWNE. [Reads] 'Item. That no woman shall come within a mile

of

    my court'– Hath this been proclaimed?

  LONGAVILLE. Four days ago.

  BEROWNE. Let's see the penalty. [Reads] '-on pain of losing her

    tongue.' Who devis'd this penalty?

  LONGAVILLE. Marry, that did I.

  BEROWNE. Sweet lord, and why?

  LONGAVILLE. To fright them hence with that dread penalty.

  BEROWNE. A dangerous law against gentility.

    [Reads] 'Item. If any man be seen to talk with a woman within

    the term of three years, he shall endure such public shame as

the

    rest of the court can possibly devise.'

    This article, my liege, yourself must break;

    For well you know here comes in embassy

    The French king's daughter, with yourself to speak-

    A mild of grace and complete majesty-

    About surrender up of Aquitaine

    To her decrepit, sick, and bedrid father;

    Therefore this article is made in vain,

    Or vainly comes th' admired princess hither.

  KING. What say you, lords? Why, this was quite forgot.

  BEROWNE. So study evermore is over-shot.

    While it doth study to have what it would,

    It doth forget to do the thing it should;

    And when it hath the thing it hunteth most,

    'Tis won as towns with fire- so won, so lost.

  KING. We must of force dispense with this decree;

    She must lie here on mere necessity.

  BEROWNE. Necessity will make us all forsworn

    Three thousand times within this three years' space;

    For every man with his affects is born,

    Not by might mast'red, but by special grace.

    If I break faith, this word shall speak for me:

    I am forsworn on mere necessity.

    So to the laws at large I write my name; [Subscribes]

    And he that breaks them in the least degree

    Stands in attainder of eternal shame.

    Suggestions are to other as to me;

    But I believe, although I seem so loath,

    I am the last that will last keep his oath.

    But is there no quick recreation granted?

  KING. Ay, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted

    With a refined traveller of Spain,

    A man in all the world's new fashion planted,

    That hath a mint of phrases in his brain;

    One who the music of his own vain tongue

    Doth ravish like enchanting harmony;

    A man of complements, whom right and wrong

    Have chose as umpire of their mutiny.

    This child of fancy, that Armado hight,

    For interim to our studies shall relate,

    In high-born words, the worth of many a knight

    From tawny Spain lost in the world's debate.

    How you delight, my lords, I know not, I;

    But I protest I love to hear him lie,

    And I will use him for my minstrelsy.

  BEROWNE. Armado is a most illustrious wight,

    A man of fire-new words, fashion's own knight.

  LONGAVILLE. Costard the swain and he shall be our sport;

    And so to study three years is but short.

  DULL. Which is the Duke's own person?

  BEROWNE. This, fellow. What wouldst?

  DULL. I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his Grace's

    farborough; but I would see his own person in flesh and

blood.

  BEROWNE. This is he.

  DULL. Signior Arme- Arme- commends you. There's villainy

abroad;

    this letter will tell you more.

  COSTARD. Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me.

  KING. A letter from the magnificent Armado.

  BEROWNE. How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high

words.

  LONGAVILLE. A high hope for a low heaven. God grant us

patience!

  BEROWNE. To hear, or forbear hearing?

  LONGAVILLE. To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately; or,

to

    forbear both.

  BEROWNE. Well, sir, be it as the style shall give us cause to

climb

    in the merriness.

  COSTARD. The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta.

    The manner of it is, I was taken with the manner.

  BEROWNE. In what manner?

  COSTARD. In manner and form following, sir; all those three: I

was

    seen with her in the manor-house, sitting with her upon the

form,

    and taken following her into the park; which, put together,

is in

    manner and form following. Now, sir, for the manner- it is

the

    manner of a man to speak to a woman. For the form- in some

form.

  BEROWNE. For the following, sir?

  COSTARD. As it shall follow in my correction; and God defend

the

    right!

  KING. Will you hear this letter with attention?

  BEROWNE. As we would hear an oracle.

  COSTARD. Such is the simplicity of man to hearken after the

flesh.

  KING. [Reads] 'Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent and sole

    dominator of Navarre, my soul's earth's god and body's

fost'ring

    patron'-

  COSTARD. Not a word of Costard yet.

  KING. [Reads] 'So it is'-

  COSTARD. It may be so; but if he say it is so, he is, in

telling

    true, but so.

  KING. Peace!

  COSTARD. Be to me, and every man that dares not fight!

  KING. No words!

  COSTARD. Of other men's secrets, I beseech you.

  KING. [Reads] 'So it is, besieged with sable-coloured

melancholy, I

    did commend the black oppressing humour to the most wholesome

    physic of thy health-giving air; and, as I am a gentleman,

betook

    myself to walk. The time When? About the sixth hour; when

beasts

    most graze, birds best peck, and men sit down to that

nourishment

    which is called supper. So much for the time When. Now for

the

    ground Which? which, I mean, I upon; it is ycleped thy park.

Then

    for the place Where? where, I mean, I did encounter that

obscene

    and most prepost'rous event that draweth from my snow-white

pen

    the ebon-coloured ink which here thou viewest, beholdest,

    surveyest, or seest. But to the place Where? It standeth

    north-north-east and by east from the west corner of thy

    curious-knotted garden. There did I see that low-spirited

swain,

    that base minnow of thy mirth,'

  COSTARD. Me?

  KING. 'that unlettered small-knowing soul,'

  COSTARD. Me?

  KING. 'that shallow vassal,'

  COSTARD. Still me?

  KING. 'which, as I remember, hight Costard,'

  COSTARD. O, me!

  KING. 'sorted and consorted, contrary to thy established

proclaimed

    edict and continent canon; which, with, O, with- but with

this I

    passion to say wherewith-'

  COSTARD. With a wench.

    King. 'with a child of our grandmother Eve, a female; or, for

thy

    more sweet understanding, a woman. Him I, as my ever-esteemed

    duty pricks me on, have sent to thee, to receive the meed of

    punishment, by thy sweet Grace's officer, Antony Dull, a man

of

    good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation.'

  DULL. Me, an't shall please you; I am Antony Dull.

  KING. 'For Jaquenetta- so is the weaker vessel called, which I

    apprehended with the aforesaid swain- I keep her as a vessel

of

    thy law's fury; and shall, at the least of thy sweet notice,

    bring her to trial. Thine, in all compliments of devoted and

    heart-burning heat of duty,

                                         DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.'

  BEROWNE. This is not so well as I look'd for, but the best that

    ever I heard.

  KING. Ay, the best for the worst. But, sirrah, what say you to

    this?

  COSTARD. Sir, I confess the wench.

  KING. Did you hear the proclamation?

  COSTARD. I do confess much of the hearing it, but little of the

    marking of it.

  KING. It was proclaimed a year's imprisonment to be taken with

a

    wench.

  COSTARD. I was taken with none, sir; I was taken with a damsel.

  KING. Well, it was proclaimed damsel.

  COSTARD. This was no damsel neither, sir; she was a virgin.

  KING. It is so varied too, for it was proclaimed virgin.

  COSTARD. If it were, I deny her virginity; I was taken with a

maid.

  KING. This 'maid' not serve your turn, sir.

  COSTARD. This maid will serve my turn, sir.

  KING. Sir, I will pronounce your sentence: you shall fast a

week

    with bran and water.

  COSTARD. I had rather pray a month with mutton and porridge.

  KING. And Don Armado shall be your keeper.

    My Lord Berowne, see him delivered o'er;

    And go we, lords, to put in practice that

    Which each to other hath so strongly sworn.

                             Exeunt KING, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN

  BEROWNE. I'll lay my head to any good man's hat

    These oaths and laws will prove an idle scorn.

    Sirrah, come on.

  COSTARD. I suffer for the truth, sir; for true it is I was

taken

    with Jaquenetta, and Jaquenetta is a true girl; and therefore

    welcome the sour cup of prosperity! Affliction may one day

smile

    again; and till then, sit thee down, sorrow.

                                                          Exeunt