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Act I, Scene 1

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• Shakespeare. When my love swears that she is made of truth,
  I do believe her, though I know she lies,
  That she might think me some untutor'd youth,
  Unskilful in the world's false forgeries.
  Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young, 5
  Although I know my years be past the best,
  I smiling credit her false-speaking tongue,
  Outfacing faults in love with love's ill rest.
  But wherefore says my love that she is young?
  And wherefore say not I that I am old? 10
  O, love's best habit is a soothing tongue,
  And age, in love, loves not to have years told.
  Therefore I'll lie with love, and love with me,
  Since that our faults in love thus smother'd be.

Act I, Scene 2

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• Shakespeare. Two loves I have, of comfort and despair, 15
  That like two spirits do suggest me still;
  My better angel is a man right fair,
  My worser spirit a woman colour'd ill.
  To win me soon to hell, my female evil
  Tempteth my better angel from my side, 20
  And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
  Wooing his purity with her fair pride.
  And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend,
  Suspect I may, yet not directly tell:
  For being both to me, both to each friend, 25
  I guess one angel in another's hell;
  The truth I shall not know, but live in doubt,
  Till my bad angel fire my good one out.

Act I, Scene 3

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• Shakespeare. Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,
  'Gainst whom the world could not hold argument, 30
  Persuade my heart to this false perjury?
  Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.
  A woman I forswore; but I will prove,
  Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee:
  My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love; 35
  Thy grace being gain'd cures all disgrace in me.
  My vow was breath, and breath a vapour is;
  Then, thou fair sun, that on this earth doth shine,
  Exhale this vapour vow; in thee it is:
  If broken, then it is no fault of mine. 40
  If by me broke, what fool is not so wise
  To break an oath, to win a paradise?

Act I, Scene 4

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• Shakespeare. Sweet Cytherea, sitting by a brook
  With young Adonis, lovely, fresh, and green,
  Did court the lad with many a lovely look, 45
  Such looks as none could look but beauty's queen.
  She told him stories to delight his ear;
  She showed him favors to allure his eye;
  To win his heart, she touch'd him here and there,—
  Touches so soft still conquer chastity. 50
  But whether unripe years did want conceit,
  Or he refused to take her figured proffer,
  The tender nibbler would not touch the bait,
  But smile and jest at every gentle offer:
  Then fell she on her back, fair queen, and toward: 55
  He rose and ran away; ah, fool too froward!

Act I, Scene 5

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• Shakespeare. If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?
  O never faith could hold, if not to beauty vow'd:
  Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll constant prove;
  Those thoughts, to me like oaks, to thee like osiers bow'd. 60
  Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine eyes,
  Where all those pleasures live that art can comprehend.
  If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice;
  Well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend;
  All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder; 65
  Which is to me some praise, that I thy parts admire:
  Thine eye Jove's lightning seems, thy voice his dreadful
  thunder,
  Which, not to anger bent, is music and sweet fire.
  Celestial as thou art, O do not love that wrong, 70
  To sing heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue.

Act I, Scene 6

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• Shakespeare. Scarce had the sun dried up the dewy morn,
  And scarce the herd gone to the hedge for shade,
  When Cytherea, all in love forlorn,
  A longing tarriance for Adonis made 75
  Under an osier growing by a brook,
  A brook where Adon used to cool his spleen:
  Hot was the day; she hotter that did look
  For his approach, that often there had been.
  Anon he comes, and throws his mantle by, 80
  And stood stark naked on the brook's green brim:
  The sun look'd on the world with glorious eye,
  Yet not so wistly as this queen on him.
  He, spying her, bounced in, whereas he stood:
  'O Jove,' quoth she, 'why was not I a flood!' 85

Act I, Scene 7

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• Shakespeare. Fair is my love, but not so fair as fickle;
  Mild as a dove, but neither true nor trusty;
  Brighter than glass, and yet, as glass is, brittle;
  Softer than wax, and yet, as iron, rusty:
  A lily pale, with damask dye to grace her, 90
  None fairer, nor none falser to deface her.

• Shakespeare. Her lips to mine how often hath she joined,
  Between each kiss her oaths of true love swearing!
  How many tales to please me hath she coined,
  Dreading my love, the loss thereof still fearing! 95
  Yet in the midst of all her pure protestings,
  Her faith, her oaths, her tears, and all were jestings.

• Shakespeare. She burn'd with love, as straw with fire flameth;
  She burn'd out love, as soon as straw outburneth;
  She framed the love, and yet she foil'd the framing; 100
  She bade love last, and yet she fell a-turning.
  Was this a lover, or a lecher whether?
  Bad in the best, though excellent in neither.

Act I, Scene 8

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• Shakespeare. If music and sweet poetry agree,
  As they must needs, the sister and the brother, 105
  Then must the love be great 'twixt thee and me,
  Because thou lovest the one, and I the other.
  Dowland to thee is dear, whose heavenly touch
  Upon the lute doth ravish human sense;
  Spenser to me, whose deep conceit is such 110
  As, passing all conceit, needs no defence.
  Thou lovest to hear the sweet melodious sound
  That Phoebus' lute, the queen of music, makes;
  And I in deep delight am chiefly drown'd
  When as himself to singing he betakes. 115
  One god is god of both, as poets feign;
  One knight loves both, and both in thee remain.

Act I, Scene 9

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• Shakespeare. Fair was the morn when the fair queen of love,
  [ ]
  Paler for sorrow than her milk-white dove, 120
  For Adon's sake, a youngster proud and wild;
  Her stand she takes upon a steep-up hill:
  Anon Adonis comes with horn and hounds;
  She, silly queen, with more than love's good will,
  Forbade the boy he should not pass those grounds: 125
  'Once,' quoth she, 'did I see a fair sweet youth
  Here in these brakes deep-wounded with a boar,
  Deep in the thigh, a spectacle of ruth!
  See, in my thigh,' quoth she, 'here was the sore.'
  She showed hers: he saw more wounds than one, 130
  And blushing fled, and left her all alone.

Act I, Scene 10

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• Shakespeare. Sweet rose, fair flower, untimely pluck'd, soon vaded,
  Pluck'd in the bud, and vaded in the spring!
  Bright orient pearl, alack, too timely shaded!
  Fair creature, kill'd too soon by death's sharp sting! 135
  Like a green plum that hangs upon a tree,
  And falls, through wind, before the fall should be.

• Shakespeare. I weep for thee, and yet no cause I have;
  For why thou left'st me nothing in thy will:
  And yet thou left'st me more than I did crave; 140
  For why I craved nothing of thee still:
  O yes, dear friend, I pardon crave of thee,
  Thy discontent thou didst bequeath to me.

Act I, Scene 11

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• Shakespeare. Venus, with young Adonis sitting by her
  Under a myrtle shade, began to woo him: 145
  She told the youngling how god Mars did try her,
  And as he fell to her, so fell she to him.
  'Even thus,' quoth she, 'the warlike god embraced me,'
  And then she clipp'd Adonis in her arms;
  'Even thus,' quoth she, 'the warlike god unlaced me,' 150
  As if the boy should use like loving charms;
  'Even thus,' quoth she, 'he seized on my lips,'
  And with her lips on his did act the seizure:
  And as she fetched breath, away he skips,
  And would not take her meaning nor her pleasure. 155
  Ah, that I had my lady at this bay,
  To kiss and clip me till I run away!

Act I, Scene 12

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• Shakespeare. Crabbed age and youth cannot live together:
  Youth is full of pleasance, age is full of care;
  Youth like summer morn, age like winter weather; 160
  Youth like summer brave, age like winter bare.
  Youth is full of sport, age's breath is short;
  Youth is nimble, age is lame;
  Youth is hot and bold, age is weak and cold;
  Youth is wild, and age is tame. 165
  Age, I do abhor thee; youth, I do adore thee;
  O, my love, my love is young!
  Age, I do defy thee: O, sweet shepherd, hie thee,
  For methinks thou stay'st too long,

Act I, Scene 13

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• Shakespeare. Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good; 170
  A shining gloss that vadeth suddenly;
  A flower that dies when first it gins to bud;
  A brittle glass that's broken presently:
  A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower,
  Lost, vaded, broken, dead within an hour. 175

• Shakespeare. And as goods lost are seld or never found,
  As vaded gloss no rubbing will refresh,
  As flowers dead lie wither'd on the ground,
  As broken glass no cement can redress,
  So beauty blemish'd once's for ever lost, 180
  In spite of physic, painting, pain and cost.

Act I, Scene 14

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• Shakespeare. Good night, good rest. Ah, neither be my share:
  She bade good night that kept my rest away;
  And daff'd me to a cabin hang'd with care,
  To descant on the doubts of my decay. 185
  'Farewell,' quoth she, 'and come again tomorrow:'
  Fare well I could not, for I supp'd with sorrow.

• Shakespeare. Yet at my parting sweetly did she smile,
  In scorn or friendship, nill I construe whether:
  'T may be, she joy'd to jest at my exile, 190
  'T may be, again to make me wander thither:
  'Wander,' a word for shadows like myself,
  As take the pain, but cannot pluck the pelf.

Act I, Scene 15

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• Shakespeare. Lord, how mine eyes throw gazes to the east!
  My heart doth charge the watch; the morning rise 195
  Doth cite each moving sense from idle rest.
  Not daring trust the office of mine eyes,
  While Philomela sits and sings, I sit and mark,
  And wish her lays were tuned like the lark;

• Shakespeare. For she doth welcome daylight with her ditty, 200
  And drives away dark dismal-dreaming night:
  The night so pack'd, I post unto my pretty;
  Heart hath his hope, and eyes their wished sight;
  Sorrow changed to solace, solace mix'd with sorrow;
  For why, she sigh'd and bade me come tomorrow. 205

• Shakespeare. Were I with her, the night would post too soon;
  But now are minutes added to the hours;
  To spite me now, each minute seems a moon;
  Yet not for me, shine sun to succor flowers!
  Pack night, peep day; good day, of night now borrow: 210
  Short, night, to-night, and length thyself tomorrow.

Act I, Scene 16

Sonnet to sundry notes of music

• Shakespeare. It was a lording's daughter, the fairest one of three,
  That liked of her master as well as well might be,
  Till looking on an Englishman, the fair'st that eye could see,
  Her fancy fell a-turning. 215

• Shakespeare. Long was the combat doubtful that love with love did fight,
  To leave the master loveless, or kill the gallant knight:
  To put in practise either, alas, it was a spite
  Unto the silly damsel!

• Shakespeare. But one must be refused; more mickle was the pain 220
  That nothing could be used to turn them both to gain,
  For of the two the trusty knight was wounded with disdain:
  Alas, she could not help it!

• Shakespeare. Thus art with arms contending was victor of the day,
  Which by a gift of learning did bear the maid away: 225
  Then, lullaby, the learned man hath got the lady gay;
  For now my song is ended.

Act I, Scene 17

Sonnet to sundry notes of music

• Shakespeare. On a day, alack the day!
  Love, whose month was ever May,
  Spied a blossom passing fair, 230
  Playing in the wanton air:
  Through the velvet leaves the wind
  All unseen, gan passage find;
  That the lover, sick to death,
  Wish'd himself the heaven's breath, 235
  'Air,' quoth he, 'thy cheeks may blow;
  Air, would I might triumph so!
  But, alas! my hand hath sworn
  Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn:
  Vow, alack! for youth unmeet: 240
  Youth, so apt to pluck a sweet.
  Thou for whom Jove would swear
  Juno but an Ethiope were;
  And deny himself for Jove,
  Turning mortal for thy love.' 245

Act I, Scene 18

Sonnet to sundry notes of music

• Shakespeare. My flocks feed not,
  My ewes breed not,
  My rams speed not,
  All is amiss:
  Love's denying, 250
  Faith's defying,
  Heart's renying,
  Causer of this.
  All my merry jigs are quite forgot,
  All my lady's love is lost, God wot: 255
  Where her faith was firmly fix'd in love,
  There a nay is placed without remove.
  One silly cross
  Wrought all my loss;
  O frowning Fortune, cursed, fickle dame! 260
  For now I see
  Inconstancy
  More in women than in men remain.
  In black mourn I,
  All fears scorn I, 265
  Love hath forlorn me,
  Living in thrall:
  Heart is bleeding,
  All help needing,
  O cruel speeding, 270
  Fraughted with gall.
  My shepherd's pipe can sound no deal;
  My wether's bell rings doleful knell;
  My curtail dog, that wont to have play'd
  Plays not at all, but seems afraid; 275
  My sighs so deep
  Procure to weep,
  In howling wise, to see my doleful plight.
  How sighs resound
  Through heartless ground, 280
  Like a thousand vanquish'd men in bloody fight!
  Clear wells spring not,
  Sweet birds sing not,
  Green plants bring not
  Forth their dye; 285
  Herds stand weeping,
  Flocks all sleeping,
  Nymphs back peeping
  Fearfully:
  All our pleasure known to us poor swains, 290
  All our merry meetings on the plains,
  All our evening sport from us is fled,
  All our love is lost, for Love is dead
  Farewell, sweet lass,
  Thy like ne'er was 295
  For a sweet content, the cause of all my moan:
  Poor Corydon
  Must live alone;
  Other help for him I see that there is none.

Act I, Scene 19

Sonnet to sundry notes of music

• Shakespeare. When as thine eye hath chose the dame, 300
  And stall'd the deer that thou shouldst strike,
  Let reason rule things worthy blame,
  As well as fancy partial might:
  Take counsel of some wiser head,
  Neither too young nor yet unwed. 305

• Shakespeare. And when thou comest thy tale to tell,
  Smooth not thy tongue with filed talk,
  Lest she some subtle practise smell,—
  A cripple soon can find a halt;—
  But plainly say thou lovest her well, 310

• Shakespeare. And set thy person forth to sell.
  What though her frowning brows be bent,
  Her cloudy looks will calm ere night:
  And then too late she will repent
  That thus dissembled her delight; 315
  And twice desire, ere it be day,
  That which with scorn she put away.

• Shakespeare. What though she strive to try her strength,
  And ban and brawl, and say thee nay,
  Her feeble force will yield at length, 320
  When craft hath taught her thus to say,
  'Had women been so strong as men,
  In faith, you had not had it then.'

• Shakespeare. And to her will frame all thy ways;
  Spare not to spend, and chiefly there 325
  Where thy desert may merit praise,
  By ringing in thy lady's ear:
  The strongest castle, tower, and town,
  The golden bullet beats it down.

• Shakespeare. Serve always with assured trust, 330
  And in thy suit be humble true;
  Unless thy lady prove unjust,
  Press never thou to choose anew:
  When time shall serve, be thou not slack
  To proffer, though she put thee back. 335

• Shakespeare. The wiles and guiles that women work,
  Dissembled with an outward show,
  The tricks and toys that in them lurk,
  The cock that treads them shall not know.
  Have you not heard it said full oft, 340
  A woman's nay doth stand for nought?

• Shakespeare. Think women still to strive with men,
  To sin and never for to saint:
  There is no heaven, by holy then,
  When time with age doth them attaint. 345
  Were kisses all the joys in bed,
  One woman would another wed.

• Shakespeare. But, soft! enough, too much, I fear
  Lest that my mistress hear my song,
  She will not stick to round me i' the ear, 350
  To teach my tongue to be so long:
  Yet will she blush, here be it said,
  To hear her secrets so bewray'd.

Act I, Scene 20

Sonnet to sundry notes of music

• Shakespeare. Live with me, and be my love,
  And we will all the pleasures prove 355
  That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
  And all the craggy mountains yields.

• Shakespeare. There will we sit upon the rocks,
  And see the shepherds feed their flocks,
  By shallow rivers, by whose falls 360
  Melodious birds sing madrigals.

• Shakespeare. There will I make thee a bed of roses,
  With a thousand fragrant posies,
  A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
  Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle. 365

• Shakespeare. A belt of straw and ivy buds,
  With coral clasps and amber studs;
  And if these pleasures may thee move,
  Then live with me and be my love.

• Shakespeare. [Love's Answer] 370
  If that the world and love were young,
  And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
  These pretty pleasures might me move
  To live with thee and be thy love.

Act I, Scene 21

Sonnet to sundry notes of music

• Shakespeare. As it fell upon a day 375
  In the merry month of May,
  Sitting in a pleasant shade
  Which a grove of myrtles made,
  Beasts did leap, and birds did sing,
  Trees did grow, and plants did spring; 380
  Every thing did banish moan,
  Save the nightingale alone:
  She, poor bird, as all forlorn,
  Lean'd her breast up-till a thorn
  And there sung the dolefull'st ditty, 385
  That to hear it was great pity:
  'Fie, fie, fie,' now would she cry;
  'Tereu, tereu!' by and by;
  That to hear her so complain,
  Scarce I could from tears refrain; 390
  For her griefs, so lively shown,
  Made me think upon mine own.
  Ah, thought I, thou mourn'st in vain!
  None takes pity on thy pain:
  Senseless trees they cannot hear thee; 395
  Ruthless beasts they will not cheer thee:
  King Pandion he is dead;
  All thy friends are lapp'd in lead;
  All thy fellow birds do sing,
  Careless of thy sorrowing. 400
  Even so, poor bird, like thee,
  None alive will pity me.
  Whilst as fickle Fortune smiled,
  Thou and I were both beguiled.
  Every one that flatters thee 405
  Is no friend in misery.
  Words are easy, like the wind;
  Faithful friends are hard to find:
  Every man will be thy friend
  Whilst thou hast wherewith to spend; 410
  But if store of crowns be scant,
  No man will supply thy want.
  If that one be prodigal,
  Bountiful they will him call,
  And with such-like flattering, 415
  'Pity but he were a king;'
  If he be addict to vice,
  Quickly him they will entice;
  If to women he be bent,
  They have at commandement: 420
  But if Fortune once do frown,
  Then farewell his great renown
  They that fawn'd on him before
  Use his company no more.
  He that is thy friend indeed, 425
  He will help thee in thy need:
  If thou sorrow, he will weep;
  If thou wake, he cannot sleep;
  Thus of every grief in heart
  He with thee doth bear a part. 430
  These are certain signs to know
  Faithful friend from flattering foe.