Page:Love's Labour's Lost (1925) Yale.djvu/115

Love's Labour's Lost, V. ii

Which you on all estates will execute

That lie within the mercy of your wit:

To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain,

And therewithal to win me, if you please,—

Without the which I am not to be won,—

You shall this twelvemonth term, from day to day,

Visit the speechless sick, and still converse

With groaning wretches; and your task shall be

With all the fierce endeavour of your wit

To enforce the pained impotent to smile.

Ber. To move wild laughter in the throat of death?

It cannot be; it is impossible:

Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.

Ros. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit,

Whose influence is begot of that loose grace

Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools.

A jest's prosperity lies in the ear

Of him that hears it, never in the tongue

Of him that makes it: then, if sickly ears,

Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear groans,

Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,

And I will have you and that fault withal;

But if they will not, throw away that spirit,

And I shall find you empty of that fault,

Right joyful of your reformation.

Ber. A twelvemonth! well, befall what will befall,

I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital.

Prin. [To the King.] Ay, sweet my lord; and so I take my leave.

King. No, madam; we will bring you on your way.

Ber. Our wooing doth not end like an old play;

Jack hath not Jill; these ladies' courtesy

 853 estates: ranks

865 agony: i.e. of death

872 dear: intense

874 withal: also

881 bring: attend

