. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light. Your mistresses dare never come in rain, For fear their colours should be wash'd away. 'Twere good, yours did; for, sir, to tell you plain, I'll find a fairer face not wash'd to-day. I'll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here. No devil will fright thee then so much as she. I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear. Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face see. O, if the streets were paved with thine eyes, Her feet were much too dainty for such tread! O, vile! then, as she goes, what upward lies The street should see as she walk'd overhead. But what of this? are we not all in love? Nothing so sure; and thereby all forsworn. Then leave this chat; and, good Biron, now prove Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn. Ay, marry, there; some flattery for this evil. O, some authority how to proceed; Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil. Some salve for perjury. 'Tis more than need. Have at you, then, affection's men at arms. Consider what you first did swear unto, To fast, to study, and to see no woman; Flat treason 'gainst the kingly state of youth. Say, can you fast? your stomachs are too young; And abstinence engenders maladies. And where that you have vow'd to study, lords, In that each of you have forsworn his book, Can you still dream and pore and thereon look? For when would you, my lord, or you, or you, Have found the ground of study's excellence Without the beauty of a woman's face? [From women's eyes this doctrine I derive; They are the ground, the books, the academes From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire] Why, universal plodding poisons up The nimble spirits in the arteries, As motion and long-during action tires The sinewy vigour of the traveller. Now, for not looking on a woman's face, You have in that forsworn the use of eyes And study too, the causer of your vow; For where is any author in the world Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye? Learning is but an adjunct to ourself And where we are our learning likewise is: Then when ourselves we see in ladies' eyes, Do we not likewise see our learning there? O, we have made a vow to study, lords, And in that vow we have forsworn our books. For when would you, my liege, or you, or you, In leaden contemplation have