If I could win a lady at leap-frog, or by vaulting
into my saddle with my armour on my back,
under the correction of bragging be it spoken,
I should quickly leap into a wife. Or if I might
buffet for my love, or bound my horse for her 145
favours, I could lay on like a butcher and sit
like a jack-an-apes, never off. But before God,
Kate, I cannot look greenly nor gasp out my
eloquence, nor I have no cunning in protesta-
tion; only downright oaths, which I never use
till urged, nor never break for urging. If thou
canst love a fellow of this temper, Kate, whose
face is not worth sun-burning, that never looks 153
in his glass for love of anything he sees there,
let thine eye be thy cook. I speak to thee plain
soldier: if thou canst love me for this, take me;
if not, to say to thee that I shall die, is true; but
for thy love, by the Lord, no; yet I love thee
too. And while thou livest, dear Kate, take a
fellow of plain and uncoined constancy, for he
perforce must do thee right, because he hath 161
not the gift to woo in other places; for these
fellows of infinite tongue, that can rime them-
selves into ladies' favours, they do always reason
themselves out again. What! a speaker is but
a prater; a rime is but a ballad. A good leg
will fall, a straight back will stoop, a black beard
will turn white, a curled pate will grow bald, a
fair face will wither, a full eye will wax hollow, 169
but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the
moon; or, rather, the sun, and not the moon;
145 buffet: box
bound my horse: make my horse leap
147 jack-an-apes: monkey
148 greenly: foolishly
149 cunning: skill
152 temper: disposition
155 let . . . cook; cf. n.
160 uncoined constancy: cf. n.
167 fall: shrink
