Act 1, Scene I - Page 2

which else we should not know.

BIRON
Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from common sense?

FERDINAND
Ay, that is study's godlike 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;
Or study where to meet some mistress fine,
When mistresses from common sense are hid;
Or, having sworn too hard a keeping oath,
Study to break it and not break my troth.
If study's gain be thus and this be so,
Study knows that which yet it doth not know:
Swear me to this, and I will ne'er say no.

FERDINAND
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 purchased doth inherit pain:
As, painfully to pore upon a book
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
And give him light that it was blinded by.
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.
Too much to know is to know nought but fame;
And every godfather can give a name.

FERDINAND
How well he's read, to reason against reading!

DUMAIN
Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding!

LONGAVILLE
He weeds the corn and still lets grow the weeding.

BIRON
The spring is near when green geese are a-breeding.

DUMAIN
How follows that?

BIRON
Fit in his place and time.

DUMAIN
In reason nothing.

BIRON
Something then in rhyme.

FERDINAND
Biron is like an envious sneaping frost,
That bites the first-born infants of the spring.

BIRON
Well, say I am; why should proud summer boast
Before the birds have any cause to sing?
Why should I joy in any abortive birth?
At Christmas I no more desire a rose
Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled mirth;
But like of each thing that in season grows.
So you, to study now it is too late,
Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate.

FERDINAND
Well, sit you out: go home, Biron: adieu.