King Edward the Third
Page: 11

Of that thou art to praise, thy praises worth.
Begin; I will to contemplate the while:
Forget not to set down, how passionate,
How heart sick, and how full of languishment,
Her beauty makes me.

LODOWICK.
Write I to a woman?

KING EDWARD.
What beauty else could triumph over me,
Or who but women do our love lays greet?
What, thinkest thou I did bid thee praise a horse?

LODOWICK.
Of what condition or estate she is,
Twere requisite that I should know, my Lord.

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