KING EDWARD.
Of such estate, that hers is as a throne,
And my estate the footstool where she treads:
Then maist thou judge what her condition is
By the proportion of her mightiness.
Write on, while I peruse her in my thoughts.—
Her voice to music or the nightingale—
To music every summer leaping swain
Compares his sunburnt lover when she speaks;
And why should I speak of the nightingale?
The nightingale sings of adulterate wrong,
And that, compared, is too satyrical;
For sin, though sin, would not be so esteemed,
But, rather, virtue sin, sin virtue deemed.
Her hair, far softer than the silk worm’s twist,
Like to a flattering glass, doth make more fair
The yellow Amber:—like a flattering glass
Comes in too soon; for, writing of her eyes,
I’ll say that like a glass they catch the sun,
And thence the hot reflection doth rebound
Against the breast, and burns my heart within.
Ah, what a world of descant makes my soul
Upon this voluntary ground of love!—
Come, Lodowick, hast thou turned thy ink to gold?
If not, write but in letters Capital
My mistress’ name, and it will gild thy paper:
Read, Lord, read;
Fill thou the empty hollows of mine ears
With the sweet hearing of thy poetry.
LODOWICK.
I have not to a period brought her praise.
KING EDWARD.
Her praise is as my love, both infinite,
Which apprehend such violent extremes,
That they disdain an ending period.
Her beauty hath no match but my affection;
Hers more than most, mine most and more than more:
Hers more to praise than tell the sea by drops,
Nay, more than drop the massy earth by sands,
And sand by sand print them in memory:
Then wherefore talkest thou of a period
To that which craves unended admiration?
Read, let us hear.
LODOWICK.
‘More fair and chaste than is the queen of shades,’—
KING EDWARD.
That line hath two faults, gross and palpable:
Comparest thou her to the pale queen of night,
Who, being set in dark, seems therefore light?
What is she, when the sun lifts up his head,
But like a fading taper, dim and dead?
My love shall brave the eye of heaven at noon,
And, being unmasked, outshine the golden sun.
LODOWICK.
What is the other fault, my sovereign Lord?
KING EDWARD.
Read o’er the line again.
LODOWICK.
‘More fair and chaste’—
KING EDWARD.
I did not bid thee talk of chastity,
To ransack so the treasure of her mind;
For I had rather have her chased than chaste.
Out with the moon line, I will none of it;
And let me have her likened to the sun:
Say she hath thrice more splendour than the sun,
That her perfections emulate the sun,
That she breeds sweets as plenteous as the sun,
That she doth thaw cold winter like the sun,
That she doth cheer fresh summer like the sun,
The she doth dazzle gazers like the sun;
And, in this application to the sun,
Bid her be free and general as the sun,
Who smiles upon the basest weed that grows
As lovingly as on the fragrant rose.
Let’s see what follows that same moonlight line.
LODOWICK.
‘More fair and chaste than is the queen of shades,
More bold in constance’—