That hid the worse, and show'd the better face.
King. We were descried: they'll mock us now downright.
Dum. Let us confess, and turn it to a jest.
Prin. Amaz'd, my lord? Why looks your highness sad? 392
Ros. Help! hold his brows! he'll sound. Why look you pale?
Sea-sick, I think, coming from Muscovy.
Ber. Thus pour the stars down plagues for perjury.
Can any face of brass hold longer out?— 396
Here stand I, lady; dart thy skill at me;
Bruise me with scorn, confound me with a flout;
Thrust thy sharp wit quite through my ignorance;
Cut me to pieces with thy keen conceit; 400
And I will wish thee never more to dance,
Nor never more in Russian habit wait.
O, never will I trust to speeches penn'd,
Nor to the motion of a schoolboy's tongue, 404
Nor never come in vizard to my friend,
Nor woo in rime, like a blind harper's song.
Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise,
Three-pil'd hyperboles, spruce affectation, 408
Figures pedantical; these summer flies
Have blown me full of maggot ostentation:
I do forswear them; and I here protest,
By this white glove,—how white the hand, God knows,— 412
Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express'd
In russet yeas and honest kersey noes:
And, to begin, wench,—so God help me, la!—
393 sound: swoon
401 wish: invite
405 friend: mistress
406 blind harper; cf. n.
408 Three-pil'd: having three piles, superfine
414 russet: homespun, homely
kersey: coarse woollen, plain
