Page:Love's Labour's Lost (1925) Yale.djvu/71

Love's Labour's Lost, IV. iii Young blood doth not obey an old decree.

We cannot cross the cause why we were born;

Therefore, of all hands must we be forsworn.

King. What! did these rent lines show some love of thine?

Ber. 'Did they,' quoth you? Who sees the heavenly Rosaline,

That, like a rude and savage man of Inde,

At the first opening of the gorgeous east,

Bows not his vassal head, and, strooken blind,

Kisses the base ground with obedient breast?

What peremptory eagle-sighted eye

Dares look upon the heaven of her brow,

That is not blinded by her majesty?

King. What zeal, what fury, hath inspir'd thee now?

My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon;

She, an attending star, scarce seen a light.

Ber. My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Berowne.

O, but for my love, day would turn to night!

Of all complexions the cull'd sovereignty

Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek;

Where several worthies make one dignity,

Where nothing wants that want itself doth seek.

Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues,—

Fie, painted rhetoric! O she needs it not:

To things of sale a seller's praise belongs;

She passes praise; then praise too short doth blot.

A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn,

Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye:

 218 cross born: i.e. hold out against love

219 of all hands: on all hands, in any case

223 the first east: i.e. the rising of the sun

224 strooken: struck

226 peremptory: determined, bold

236 I.e. several beauties make one surpassing beauty

238 flourish: enhancement

239 painted: showy, artificial

