(Enter Shikamaru with a basket and tending to the deer)
Shikamaru
The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night,
Chequering the
eastern clouds with streaks of light,
And flecked darkness like a
drunkard reels
From forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels:
Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye,
The day to cheer
and night's dank dew to dry,
I must up-fill this osier cage of
ours
With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers.
The
earth that's nature's mother is her tomb;
What is her burying
grave that is her womb,
And from her womb children of divers kind
We sucking on her natural bosom find,
Many for many virtues
excellent,
None but for some and yet all different.
O, mickle
is the powerful grace that lies
In herbs, plants, stones, and
their true qualities:
For nought so vile that on the earth doth
live
But to the earth some special good doth give,
Nor aught
so good but strain'd from that fair use
Revolts from true birth,
stumbling on abuse:
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;
And vice sometimes by action dignified.
Within the infant
rind of this small flower
Poison hath residence and medicine
power:
For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;
Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.
Two such
opposed kings encamp them still
In man as well as herbs, grace
and rude will;
And where the worser is predominant,
Full soon
the canker death eats up that plant.
(Enter Itachi)
Itachi Good morrow, Shikamaru.
Shikamaru
Benedicite!
What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?
it
argues a distemper'd head So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed:
Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye,
And where care
lodges, sleep will never lie;
But where unbruised youth with
unstuff'd brain
Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth
reign:
Therefore thy earliness doth me assure
Thou art
up-roused by some distemperature;
Or if not so, then here I hit
it right,
Our Itachi hath not been in bed to-night.
Itachi That last is true; the sweeter rest was mine.
Shikamaru God pardon sin! wast thou with Miagerue?
Itachi
With Miagerue, my ghostly friend? no;
I have forgot that name,
and that name's woe.
Shikamaru That's my good friend: but where hast thou been, then?
Itachi
I'll tell thee, ere thou ask it me again.
I have been feasting
with mine enemy,
Where on a sudden one hath wounded me,
That's
by me wounded: both our remedies
Within thy help and holy physic
lies:
I bear no hatred, blessed man, for, lo,
My intercession
likewise steads my foe.
Shikamaru
Be plain, good friend, and homely in thy drift;
Riddling
confession finds but riddling shrift.
Itachi
Then plainly know my heart's dear love is set
On the fair
daughter of rich Hyuuga:
As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine;
And all combined, save what thou must combine
By holy
marriage: when and where and how
We met, we woo'd and made
exchange of vow,
I'll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray,
That thou consent to marry us to-day.
Shikamaru
Holy
Saint Francis, what a change is here!
Is Miagerue, whom thou
didst love so dear,
So soon forsaken? young men's love then lies
Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.
Jesu Maria,
what a deal of brine
Hath wash'd thy sallow cheeks for Miagerue!
How much salt water thrown away in waste,
To season love,
that of it doth not taste!
The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven
clears,
Thy old groans ring yet in my ancient ears;
Lo, here
upon thy cheek the stain doth sit
Of an old tear that is not
wash'd off yet:
If e'er thou wast thyself and these woes thine,
Thou and these woes were all for Miagerue:
And art thou
changed? pronounce this sentence then,
Women may fall, when
there's no strength in men.
Itachi Thou chid'st me oft for loving Miageru.
Shikamaru For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.
Itachi And bad'st me bury love.
Shikamaru
Not in a grave,
To lay one in, another out to have.
Itachi
I pray thee, chide not; she whom I love now
Doth grace for grace and love for love allow;
The other did
not so.
ShikamaruO,
she knew well
Thy love did read by rote and could not spell.
But
come, young waverer, come, go with me,
In one respect I'll thy
assistant be;
For this alliance may so happy prove,
To turn
your households' rancour to pure love.
Itachi O, let us hence; I stand on sudden haste.
Shikamaru
Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.
(Exeunt
)
