So may the outward shows be least themselves: The world is still deceived with ornament. In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt, But, being seasoned with a gracious voice, Obscures the show of evil? In religion, What damned error, but some sober brow Will bless it and approve it with a text, Hiding the grossness with fair ornament? There is no vice so simple but assumes Some mark of virtue on his outward parts: How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars; Who, inward search’d, have livers white as milk; And these assume but valour’s excrement To render them redoubted! Look on beauty, And you shall see ’tis purchased by the weight; Which therein works a miracle in nature, Making them lightest that wear most of it: So are those crisped snaky golden locks Which make such wanton gambols with the wind, Upon supposed fairness, often known To be the dowry of a second head, The skull that bred them in the sepulchre.

Which when you part from, lose, or give away, Let it presage the ruin of your love And be my vantage to exclaim on you.

What find I here? Opening the leaden casket. Fair Portia’s counterfeit! What demi-god Hath come so near creation? Move these eyes? Or whether, riding on the balls of mine, Seem they in motion? Here are sever’d lips, Parted with sugar breath: so sweet a bar Should sunder such sweet friends. Here in her hairs The painter plays the spider and hath woven A golden mesh to entrap the hearts of men, Faster than gnats in cobwebs; but her eyes,⁠— How could he see to do them? having made one, Methinks it should have power to steal both his And leave itself unfurnish’d. Yet look, how far The substance of my praise doth wrong this shadow In underprizing it, so far this shadow Doth limp behind the substance. Here’s the scroll, The continent and summary of my fortune. Reads.