Page 2456 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

MARIA

Ay, or I would these hands might never part.

PRINCESS

We are wise girls to mock our lovers so.

ROSALINE

They are worse fools to purchase mocking so.
That same Berowne I’ll torture ere I go. [60]
O that I knew he were but in by th’week!
How I would make him fawn, and beg, and seek,
And wait the season, and observe the times,
And spend his prodigal wits in bootless rhymes,
And shape his service wholly to my hests, [65]
And make him proud to make me proud that jests!
So pair-taunt-like would I o’ersway his state
That he should be my fool, and I his fate.

PRINCESS

None are so surely caught, when they are catched,
As wit turned fool. Folly, in wisdom hatched, [70]
Hath wisdom’s warrant and the help of school
And wit’s own grace to grace a learnèd fool.

ROSALINE

The blood of youth burns not with such excess
As gravity’s revolt to wantonness.

MARIA

Folly in fools bears not so strong a note [75]
As foolery in the wise when wit doth dote,
Since all the power thereof it doth apply
To prove, by wit, worth in simplicity.

Enter Boyet.

PRINCESS

Here comes Boyet, and mirth is in his face.

BOY ET