Act 5, Scene II

SCENE II. The same.

Enter the PRINCESS, KATHARINE, ROSALINE, and MARIA
PRINCESS
Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart,
If fairings come thus plentifully in:
A lady wall'd about with diamonds!
Look you what I have from the loving king.

ROSALINE
Madame, came nothing else along with that?

PRINCESS
Nothing but this! yes, as much love in rhyme
As would be cramm'd up in a sheet of paper,
Writ o' both sides the leaf, margent and all,
That he was fain to seal on Cupid's name.

ROSALINE
That was the way to make his godhead wax,
For he hath been five thousand years a boy.

KATHARINE
Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too.

ROSALINE
You'll ne'er be friends with him; a' kill'd your sister.

KATHARINE
He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy;
And so she died: had she been light, like you,
Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit,
She might ha' been a grandam ere she died:
And so may you; for a light heart lives long.

ROSALINE
What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word?

KATHARINE
A light condition in a beauty dark.

ROSALINE
We need more light to find your meaning out.

KATHARINE
You'll mar the light by taking it in snuff;
Therefore I'll darkly end the argument.

ROSALINE
Look what you do, you do it still i' the dark.

KATHARINE
So do not you, for you are a light wench.

ROSALINE
Indeed I weigh not you, and therefore light.

KATHARINE
You weigh me not? O, that's you care not for me.

ROSALINE
Great reason; for 'past cure is still past care.'

PRINCESS
Well bandied both; a set of wit well play'd.
But Rosaline, you have a favour too:
Who sent it? and what is it?

ROSALINE
I would you knew:
An if my face were but as fair as yours,
My favour were as great; be witness this.
Nay, I have verses too, I thank Biron:
The numbers true; and, were the numbering too,
I were the fairest goddess on the ground:
I am compared to twenty thousand fairs.
O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter!

PRINCESS
Any thing like?

ROSALINE
Much in the letters; nothing in the praise.

PRINCESS
Beauteous as ink; a good conclusion.

KATHARINE
Fair as a text B in a copy-book.

ROSALINE
'Ware pencils, ho! let me not die your debtor,
My red dominical, my golden letter:
O, that your face were not so full of O's!

KATHARINE
A pox of that jest! and I beshrew all shrows.

PRINCESS
But, Katharine, what was sent to you from fair Dumain?

KATHARINE
Madam, this glove.

PRINCESS
Did he not send you twain?