Page 2495 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

Full of comparisons and wounding flouts, [830]
Which you on all estates will execute
That lie within the mercy of your wit.
To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain,
And therewithal to win me, if you please,
Without the which I am not to be won, [835]
You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day
Visit the speechless sick, and still converse
With groaning wretches; and your task shall be
With all the fierce endeavour of your wit
To enforce the painèd imponent to smile. [840]

BEROWNE

To move wild laughter in the throat of death?
It cannot be; it is impossible;
Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.

ROSALINE

Why, that’s the way to choke a gibing spirit,
Whose influence is begot of that loose grace [845]
Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools.
A jest’s prosperity lies in the ear
Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it. Then, if sickly ears,
Deafed with the clamours of their own dear groans, [850]
Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,
And I will have you and that fault withal;
But if they will not, throw away that spirit,
And I shall find you empty of that fault,
Right joyful of your reformation. [855]

BEROWNE

A twelvemonth? Well, befall what will befall,
I’ll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital.

PRINCESS

(to the King)
Ay, sweet my lord, and so I take my leave.

KING