Berowne monologue (Act 5) — Love's Labour's Lost

Thus pour the stars down plagues for perjury. Can any face of brass hold longer out? 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, And I will wish thee never more to dance, Nor never more in Russian habit wait. O, never will I trust to speeches penned, Nor to the motion of a school-boy’s tongue, Nor never come in visor to my friend, Nor woo in rhyme like a blind harper’s song. Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise, Three-piled hyperboles, spruce affectation, 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!— Henceforth my wooing mind shall be expressed In russet yeas and honest kersey noes. And, to begin: wench, so God help me, law, My love to thee is sound, _sans_ crack or flaw.