Study me how to please the eye indeed, 80
By fixing it upon a fairer eye,
Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed,
And give him light that it was blinded by.
Study is like the heaven's glorious sun, 84
That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks:
Small have continual plodders ever won,
Save base authority from others' books.
These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights, 88
That give a name to every fixed star,
Have no more profit of their shining nights
Than those that walk and wot not what they are.
Too much to know is to know nought but fame; 92
And every godfather can give a name.
King. How well he's read, to reason against reading!
Dum. Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding!
Long. He weeds the corn, and still lets grow the weeding. 96
Ber. The spring is near, when green geese are a-breeding.
Dum. How follows that?
Ber. Fit in his place and time.
Dum. In reason nothing.
Ber. Something, then, in rime.
King. Berowne is like an envious sneaping frost 100
That bites the first-born infants of the spring.
Ber. Well, say I am: why should proud summer boast
Before the birds have any cause to sing?
Why should I joy in any abortive birth? 104
80–83 Study me . . . blinded by; cf. n.
85 saucy: bold
86 Small: little
88–93 Cf. n.
91 wot: know
95 Proceeded; cf. n.
97 green geese: grass-fed goslings, i.e. simpletons
99 Cf. n.
100 sneaping: nipping
101 infants: buds or flowers
