LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. АСТ І. SCENE I. Navarre. A purk, with a palace in it. Enter the King, Biron, Longaville, and Dumain King. LET fame, that all hunt after in their lives, Therefore, brave conquerors!-for so you are, My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes, If you are arm'd to do, as sworn to do, Biron. I can but say their protestation over, King. Your oath is pass'd to pass away from these. you please; I only swore, to study with your grace, And stay here in your court for three years' space. Long. You swore to that, Biron, and to the rest. Biron. 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. Biron. Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from common sense; King. Ay, that is study's god-like recompense. Biron. 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; Study knows that, which yet it doth not know: King. These be the stops that hinder study quite, And train our intellects to vain delight. Biron. Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain, Which, with pain purchas'd, doth inherit pain: 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, 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. Dishonestly, treacherously. |