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What is the end of study, let me know?

Berowne
What is the end of study, let me know?
King
Why, that to know which else we should not know.
Berowne
Things hid and barred, you mean, from common sense.
King
Ay, that is study’s godlike recompense.

Why, all delights are vain, and  that most vain
Which with pain purchased doth inherit pain

Berowne
Come on, then, I will swear to study so,
To know the thing I am forbid to know:
As thus—to study where I well may dine,
When I to feast  expressly am forbid;
Or study where to meet some mistress fine
When mistresses from common sense are hid;
Or having sworn too hard-a-keeping oath,
Study to break it, and not break my troth.
If study's gain be thus, and this be so,
Study knows that which yet it doth not know.
Swear me to this, and I will ne'er say no.
King
These be the stops that hinder study quite,
And train our intellects to vain delight.
Berowne
Why, all delights are vain, and  that most vain
Which with pain purchased doth inherit pain:
As painfully to pore upon a book
To seek the light of truth, while truth the while
Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look.
Light seeking light doth light of light beguile.
So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,
Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.
Study me how to please the eye indeed
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,
That will not be deep-searched with saucy looks.
Small have continual plodders ever won,
Save base authority from others' books.
These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights,
That give a name to every fixèd 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 naught but fame,
And every godfather can give a name.
King
How well he's read to reason against reading.
Dumaine
Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding.
Longavile
He weeds the corn, and still lets grow the weeding.
Berowne
The spring is near when green geese are a-breeding.

Source:
Act 1
Scene 1
Line 56

Source Type:

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