Guido. Cruel Bianca! Cover me with scorn,
I answer born to love thy priceless self,
That never to a market could be brought,
No more than winged souls that sail and soar
Among the planets or about the moon.
Bianca. It is so much thy habit to buy love,
Or that which is for sale and labelled love,
Hardly couldst thou conceive a priceless love.
But though my love has never been for sale
I have been in a market bought and sold.
Guido. This is some riddle which thy sweet wit reads
To baffle mine and mock me yet again.
Bianca. My marriage, sir, I speak of marriage now,
That common market where my husband went
And prides himself he made a bargain then.
Guido. The wretched chapman, how I hate his soul.
Bianca. He was a better bidder than thyself,
And knew with whom to deal . . . he did not speak
Of gold to me, but in my father’s ear
He made it clink: to me he spoke of love,
Honest and free and open without price.
Guido. O white Bianca, lovely as the moon,
The light of thy pure soul and shining wit
Shows me my shame, and makes the thing I was
Slink like a shadow from the thing I am.
Bianca. Let that which casts the shadow act, my lord,
And waste no thought on what its shadow does
Or has done. Are youth, and strength, and love
Balked by mere shadows, so that they forget
Themselves so far they cannot be recalled?
Guido. Nobility is here, not in the court.
There are the tinsel stars, here is the moon,
Whose tranquil splendour makes a day of night.
I have been starved by ladies, specks of light,
And glory drowns me now I see the moon.
Bianca. I have refused round sums of solid gold
And shall not be by tinsel phrases bought.