I know not: it may be If I had set mine eyes to find that out, I should not know it. She hath fair eyes: may be I love her for sweet eyes or brows or hair, For the smooth temples, where God touching her Made blue with sweeter veins the flower-sweet white Or for the tender turning of her wrist, Or marriage of the eyelid with the cheek; I cannot tell; or flush of lifting throat, I know not if the color get a name This side of heaven-no man knows; or her mouth, A flower's lip with a snake's lip, stinging sweet, And sweet to sting with: face that one would see And then fall blind and die with sight of it Held fast between the eyelids-oh, all these And all her body and the soul to that, The speech and shape and hand and foot and heart That I would die of-yea, her name that turns My face to fire being written-I know no whit How much I love them. (MARY BEATON: Nor how she loves you back?) I know her ways of loving, all of them: A sweet soft way the first is; afterward It burns and bites like fire; the end of that, Charred dust, and eyelids bitten through with smoke. (MARY BEATON: What has she done for you to gird at her?) Nothing. You do not greatly love her, you, Who do not-gird, you call it. I am bound to France; Shall I take word from you to any one? So it be harmless, not a gird, I will.

Chastelard Monologue from Chastelard, a Tragedy

Rehearse Chastelard's monologue