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Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithful prove; Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers bowed.

Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine eyes; Where all those pleasures live, that art would comprehend:

If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice; Well learned is that tongue, that well can thee commend:

All ignorant that soul, that sees thee without wonder; (Which is to me some praise, that I thy parts admire ;)

Thy eye Jove's lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder,

Which not to anger bent, is musick, and sweet fire. Celestial, as thou art, oh pardon, love, this wrong, That sings heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue!

Hol. You find not the apostrophes, and so miss the accent: let me supervise the canzonet. Here are only numbers ratified; but for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy, caret. Ovidius Naso was the man: and why, indeed, Naso; but for smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention? Imitari, is nothing: so doth the hound his master, the ape his keeper, the tired horse his rider. But damosella virgin, was this directed to you?

Jaq. Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Biron, one of the strange queen's lords.

Hol. I will overglance the superscript. To the snow-white hand of the most beauteous Lady Rosaline. I will look again on the intellect of the letter, for the nomination of the party writing to the person written unto :

Your Ladyship's in all desired employment, BIRON. Sir Nathaniel, this Birón is one of the votaries with the king; and here he hath framed a letter to a sequent of the stranger queen's, which, accidentally, or by the way of progression, hath miscarried. Trip and go, my sweet; deliver this paper into the royal hand of the king; it may concern much: Stay not thy compliment; I forgive thy duty; adieu. Jaq. Good Costard, go with me. Cost. Have with thee, my girl.

[Exeunt CoST. and JAQ. Nath. Sir, you have done this very religiously; and, as a certain father saith

Hol. Sir, tell not me of the father, I do fear colourable colours. But, to return to the verses; Did they please you, Sir Nathaniel?

Nath. Marvellous well for the pen.

Hol. I do dine to-day at the father's of a certain pupil of mine; where if, before repast, it shall please you to gratify the table with a grace, I will, on my privilege I have with the parents of the foresaid child or pupil, undertake your ben venuto; where I will prove those verses to be very unlearned, neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention: I beseech your society.

Nath. And thank you too: for society, (saith the text,) is the happiness of life.

Hol. And, certes?, the text most infallibly concludes it. Sir, [To DULL.] I do invite you too; you shall not say me, nay: pauca verba. Away; the gentles are at their game, and we will to our recreation.

1 Attired, caparisoned.

[Exeunt.

2 In truth.

SCENE III.

:

Another part of the Park.
Enter BIRON, with a paper.

Biron. The king he is hunting the deer; I am coursing myself. Well, Set thee down, sorrow! for so, they say, the fool said, and so say I, and I the fool. Well proved, wit! This love is as mad as Ajax it kills sheep; it kills me, I a sheep: Well proved again on my side! I will not love: if I do, hang me; i'faith, I will not. O, but her eye, — by this light, but for her eye, I would not love her; yes, for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing in the world but lie, and lie in my throat. By heaven, I do love and it hath taught me to rhyme, and to be melancholy; and here is part of my rhyme, and here my melancholy. Well, she hath one o' my sonnets already; the clown bore it, the fool sent it, and the lady hath it: sweet clown, sweeter fool, sweetest lady! By the world, I would not care a pin if the other three were in: Here comes one with a paper. [Gets up into a tree.

Enter the KING, with a paper.

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King. Ah me! Biron. [Aside.] Shot, by heaven! Proceed, sweet Cupid; thou hast thump'd him with thy birdbolt under the left pap:

King. [Reads.] So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not

To those fresh morning drops upon the rose
As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote
The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows
Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright

Through the transparent bosom of the deep,
As doth thy face through tears of mine give light;
Thou shin'st in every tear that I do weep:
No drop, but as a coach doth carry thee,

So ridest thou triumphing in my woe; Do but behold the tears that swell in me, And they thy glory through my grief will show. But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep My tears for glasses, and still make me weep. 0 queen of queens, how far dost thou excel! No thought can think, nor tongue of mortal tell. How shall she know my griefs? I'll drop the paper; Sweet leaves shade folly. Who is he comes here? [Steps aside.

Enter LONGAVILLE, with a paper.

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And deny himself for Jove, Turning mortal for thy love.

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Did not the heavenly rhetorick of thine eye (Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument) Persuade my heart to this false perjury?

Vows, for thee broke, deserve not punishment. A woman I forswore; but, I will prove,

Thou, being a goddess, I forswore not thee: My tow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;

Thy grace being gain'd, cures all disgrace in me. Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is :

Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth doth shine,

Exhal'st this vapour vow; in thee it is:

If broken, then, it is no o fault of mine: If by me broke: What fool is not so wise, To lose an oath to win a paradise?

Enter DUMAIN, with a paper.

Long. By whom shall I send this? - Company! stay. [Stepping aside. Biron. [Aside.] All hid, all hid, an old infant play:

Like a demi-god here sit I in the sky,

And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'er-eye. More sacks to the mill! O heavens, I have my wish;

Dumain transform'd: four woodcocks in a dish!
Dum. O most divine Kate!
Biron.

Dum. O that I had my wish!
Long.

O most prophane coxcomb! [Aside. Dum. As fair as day. Biron. Ay, as some days; but then no sun must shine. [Aside. And I had mine! [Aside. King. And I mine too, good lord! Aside. Biron. Amen, so I had mine: Is not that a good word? [Aside.

Dum. I would forget her; but a fever she Reigns in my blood, and will remember'd be. Biron. A fever in your blood, why then incision Would let her out in saucers; Sweet misprision!

[Aside. Dum. Once more I'll read the ode that I have writ.

Biron. Once more I'll mark how love can vary [Aside.

wit.

Dum. On a day, (alack the day!

Love, whose month is ever May,
Spied a blossom, passing fair,
Playing in the wanton air:
Through the velvet leaves the wind,
All unseen, 'gan passage find;
That the lover, sick to death,
Wish'd himself the heaven's breath.
Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;
Air, would I might triumph so!
But, alack, my hand is sworn,
Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn:
Vow, alack, for youth unmeet;
Youth so apt to pluck a sweet.
Do not call it sin in me,
That I am forsworn for thee:

Thou for whom even Jove would swear,
Juno but an Ethiop were;

This will I send; and something else more plain,
That shall express my true love's fasting pain.
O would the King, Birón, and Longaville,
Were lovers too! Ill to example ill,
Would from my forehead wipe a perjur'd note;
For none offend, where all alike do dote.

Long. Dumain, [Advancing.] thy love is far from
charity,

That in love's grief desir'st society:

You may look pale, but I should blush, I know, To be o'erheard, and taken napping so.

King. Come, sir, [Advancing.] you blush; as
his your case is such;

You chide at him, offending twice as much:
You do not love Maria; Longaville
Did never sonnet for her sake compile ;
Nor never lay his wreathed arms athwart
His loving bosom, to keep down his heart.
I have been closely shrouded in this bush,
And mark'd you both, and for you both did blush.
I heard your guilty rhymes, observ'd your fashion;
Saw sighs reek from you, noted well your passion :
Ah me! says one; O Jove! the other cries;
One, her hairs were gold, crystal the other's eyes:
You would for paradise break faith and troth;

[To LONG.
And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath.
[TO DUMAIN.
What will Birón say, when that he shall hear
A faith infring'd, which such a zeal did swear?
How will he scorn? how will he spend his wit?
How will he triumph, leap, and laugh at it?
For all the wealth that ever I did see,
I would not have him know so much by me.
Biron. Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy. -
Ah, good my liege, I pray thee pardon me :
[Descends from the tree.
Good heart, what grace hast thou, thus to reprove
These worms for loving, that art most in love?
Your eyes do make no coaches; in your tears,
There is no certain princess that appears:
You'll not be perjur'd, 'tis a hateful thing;
Tush, none but minstrels like of sonneting.
But are you not asham'd? nay, are you not,
All three of you, to be thus much o'ershot?
O what a scene of foolery I have seen,
Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow, and of teen! 3
O me, with what strict patience have I sat,
To see a king transformed to a gnat!
And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys,
And critick 4 Timon laugh at idle toys!
Where lies thy grief, O tell me, good Dumain?
And, gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain?
And where my liege's? all about the breast:-
A caudle, ho!
King.
Too bitter is thy jest.
Are we betray'd thus to thy over-view?
Biron. Not you by me, but I betray'd to you;
I, that am honest; I, that hold it sin
To break the vow I am engaged in ?

I am betray'd, by keeping company
With moon-like men of strange inconstancy.
When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme?
Or groan for Joan? or spend a minute's time
In pruning me? When shall you hear that I
Will praise a hand, a foot, a face, an eye?

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Jaq. Of Costard.

[Giving him the letter.

King. Where hadst thou it?

Cost. Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio. King. How now! what is in you? why dost thou tear it?

Biron. A toy, my liege, a toy; your grace needs not fear it.

Long. It did move him to passion, and therefore let's hear it.

Dum. It is Biron's writing, and here is his name. [Picks up the pieces. Biron. Ah, you loggerhead, [To COSTARD.] you were born to do me shame.

Guilty, my lord, guilty; I confess, I confess. King. What?

Biron. Is ebony like her? O wood divine! A wife of such wood were felicity. O, who can give an oath? where is a book? That I may swear, beauty doth beauty lack, If that she learn not of her eye to look :

No face is fair, that is not full so black. O, if in black my lady's brows be deckt,

It mourns, that painting, and usurping hair, Should ravish doters with a false aspéct ;

And therefore is she born to make black fair. Her favour turns the fashion of the days;

For native blood is counted painting now; And therefore red, that would avoid dispraise, Paints itself black, to imitate her brow. King. But what of this? Are we not all in love? Biron. Nothing so sure; and thereby all forsworn. King. Then leave this chat: and, good Birón, now prove

Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn.

Dum. Ay, marry, there,—some flattery for this evil.

Long. O, some authority how to proceed; Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil. Dum. Some salve for perjury.

Biron.

O, 'tis more than need! Have at you then, affection's men at arms: Consider, what you first did swear unto; To fast, -to study, and to see no woman; Flat treason 'gainst the kingly state of youth.

Biron. That you three fools lack'd me fool to Say, can you fast? your stomachs are too young

make up the mess :

He, he, and you, my liege, and I,

Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die.
O, dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you more.
Dum. Now the number is even.
Biron.

True, true; we are four :

Will these turtles be gone?

King. Hence, sirs; away. Cost. Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay. [Exeunt COST. and JAQ. King. What, did these rent lines show some love

of thine?

Biron. Did they, quoth you? Who sees the heavenly Rosaline,

That, like a rude and savage man of Inde,

At the first opening of the gorgeous east, Bows not his vassal head; and, strucken blind,

Kisses the base ground with obedient breast? What peremptory eagle-sighted eye

Dares look upon the heaven of her brow, That is not blinded by her majesty? King. What zeal, what fury hath inspired thee now? My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon;

She, an attending star, scarce seen a light. Biron. My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Birón : O, but for my love, day would turn to night! Of all complexions the cull'd sovereignty

Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek; Where several worthies make one dignity; Where nothing wants, that want itself doth seek. Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues

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Fye, painted rhetorick! O, she needs it not; To things of sale a seller's praise belongs;

She passes praise; then praise too short doth blot. A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn,

Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye: Beauty doth varnish age, as if new-born,

And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy. O, 'tis the sun, that maketh all things shine! King. By heaven, thy love is black as ebony.

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And abstinence engenders maladies. And where that you have vow'd to study, lords, In that each of you hath forsworn his book: Can you still dream, and pore, and thereon look? For when would you, my lord, or you, or you, Have found the ground of study's excellence, Without the beauty of a woman's face? From women's eyes this doctrine I derive : They are the ground, the books, the academes, From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire. Why, universal plodding prisons up The nimble spirits in the arteries; As motion, and long-during action, tires The sinewy vigour of the traveller. Now, for not looking on a woman's face, You have in that forsworn the use of eyes; And study too, the causer of your vow: For where is any author in the world, Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye? Learning is but an adjunct to ourself, And where we are, our learning likewise is. Then, when ourselves we see in ladies' eyes, Do we not likewise see our learning there? O, we have made a vow to study, lords; And in that vow we have forsworn our books; For when would you, my liege, or you, or you, In leaden contemplation, have found out Such fiery numbers, as the prompting eyes Of beauteous tutors have enrich'd you with? Other slow arts entirely keep the brain; And therefore finding barren practisers, Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil: But love, first learned in a lady's eyes, Lives not alone immured in the brain; But with the motion of all elements, Courses as swift as thought in every power; And gives to every power a double power, Above their functions and their offices.

6 Law-chicane.

It adds a precious seeing to the eye;
A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind;
A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound,
When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd;
Love's feeling is more soft, and sensible,
Than are the tender horns of cockled snails;
Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste:
For valour, is not love a Hercules,

Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?
Subtle as sphinx; as sweet, and musical,

As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair;
And, when love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.
Never durst poet touch a pen to write,
Until his ink were temper'd with love's sighs;
O, then his lines would ravish savage ears,
And plant in tyrants mild humility.
From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That show, contain, and nourish all the world;
Else none at all in aught proves excellent :
Then fools you were these women to forswear;
Or, keeping what is sworn, you will prove fools.

For wisdom's sake, a word that all men love;
Or for love's sake, a word that loves all men;
Let us once lose our oaths, to find ourselves,
Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths:
It is religion to be thus forsworn:
For charity itself fulfils the law;

And who can sever love from charity?

King, Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field!

Long. Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France ?

King. And win them too: therefore let us devise Some entertainment for them in their tents.

Biron. First, from the park let us conduct them thither;

Then, homeward, every man attach the hand
Of his fair mistress: in the afternoon

We will with some strange pastime solace them,
Such as the shortness of the time can shape;
For revels, dances, masks, and merry hours,
Fore-run fair Love, strewing her way with flowers.
King. Away, away! no time shall be omitted,
That will be time, and may by us be fitted.
[Exeunt,

ACT V.

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Enter HOLOFERNES, Sir NATHANIEL, and DULL. Hol. Satis quod sufficit.

Nath. Sir, your reasons 7 at dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy. I did converse this quondam day with a companion of the king's, who is intituled, nominated, or called, Don Adriano de Armado.

Hol. Novi hominem tanquam te: Ilis humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical.9 He is too picked', too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were, too perigrinate, as I may call it. Nath. A most singular and choice epithet. [Takes out his table-book. Hol. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical phantasms, such insociable and point-devise companions; such rackers of orthography, as to speak, dout, fine, when he should say, doubt; det, when he should pronounce, debt; d, e, b, t; not, d, e, t: he clepeth a calf, cauf; half, hauf; neighbour, vocatur, nebour, neigh, abbreviated, ne : This is abhominable, (which he would call abominable,) it insinuateth me of insanie; Ne intelligis domine? to make frantick, lunatick.

Nath. Laus deo, bone intelligo.

Hol. Quare Chirra, not sirrah? Arm. Men of peace well encounter'd. Hol. Most military sir, salutation. Moth. They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps. [To COSTARD aside. Cost. O, they have lived long in the alms-basket of words! I marvel, thy master hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon, 3

Moth. Peace; the peal begins.

Arm. Monsieur, [To HoL.] are you not letter'd? Moth. Yes, yes; he teaches boys the horn-book: What is a, b, spelt backward with a horn on his

head?

Hol. Ba, pueritia, with a horn added. Moth. Ba, most silly sheep, with a horn: hear his learning.

Hol. Quis, quis, thou consonant?

You

Moth. The third of the five vowels, if you repeat them; or the fifth, if I.

Hol. I will repeat them, a, e, i. —

Moth. The sheep the other two concludes it; o, u.

Arm. Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum, a sweet touch, a quick venew of wit: snip, snap, quick and home; it rejoiceth my intellect : true wit.

Moth. Offer'd by a child to an old man.

Cost. And I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy gingerbread: hold, there is

Hol. Bone? bone, for benè: Priscian a little the very remuneration I had of thy master, thou scratch'd; 'twill serve.

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halfpenny purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of discretion. Arm. Arts-man, præambula; we will be singled from the barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the charge-house 4 on the top of the mountain? Hol. Or, mons, the hill.

Arm. At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain,

3 A small inflammable substance, swallowed in a glass of wine. 4 Free-school.

M

Hol. I do, sans question.

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Arm. Sir, the king is a noble gentleman; and my familiar, I do assure you, very good friend: For what is inward beween us, let it pass: I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy ; I beseech thee, apparel thy head; and among other importunate and most serious designs, and of great import indeed, too; but let that pass : — for I must tell thee, it will please his grace (by the world) sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder; but sweet heart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no fable; some certain special honours it pleaseth his greatness to impart to Armado, a soldier, a man of travel, that hath seen the world: but let that pass. -The very all of all is, -but, sweet heart, I do implore secrecy, that the king would have me present the princess, sweet chuck, with some delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant, or antick, or fire-work. Now, understanding that the curate and your sweet self, are good at such eruptions, and sudden breaking out of mirth, as it were, I have acquainted you withal, to the end to crave your

assistance.

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Nath. Where will you find men worthy enough to present them?

Hol. Yourself; myself, or this gallant gentleman; this swain, because of his great limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the great; the page, Hercules.

Arm. Pardon, sir, error: he is not quantity enough for that worthy's thumb: he is not so big as the end of his club.

Hol. Shall I have audience? he shall present Hercules in minority: his enter and exit shall be strangling a snake; and I will have an apology for that purpose.

Moth. An excellent device! so, if any of the audience hiss, you may cry, Well done, Hercules! now thou crushest the snake! that is the way to make an offence gracious; though few have the grace to do it.

Arm. For the rest of the worthies? —
Hol. I will play three myself.
Moth. Thrice-worthy gentleman!
Arm. Shall I tell you a thing?

Hol. We attend.

Arm. We will have, if this fadge 5 not, an antick. beseech you follow.

Hol. Via, goodman Dull! thou hast spoken no word all this while.

Dull. Nor understood none neither, sir.
Hol. Allons! we will employ thee.

Dull. I'll make one in a dance, or so; or I will play on the tabor to the worthies, and let them dance the hay.

Hol. Most dull, honest Dull, to our sport, away. [Exeunt. SCENE II. Before the Princess's Pavilion. Enter the PRINCESS, KATHARINE, ROSALINE, and MARIA.

Prin. Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart, If fairings come thus plentifully in:

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A lady wall'd about with diamonds!
Look you, what I have from the loving king.
Ros. Madam, came nothing else along with that?
Prin. Nothing but this? yes, as much love in
rhyme,

As would be cramm'd up in a sheet of paper,
Writ on both sides the leaf, margent and all;
That he was fain to seal on Cupid's name.

Ros. That was the way to make his god-head wax 7;

For he hath been five thousand years a boy.
Kath. Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too.
Ros. You'll ne'er be friends with him; he kill'd

your sister.

Kath. He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy;
And so she died: had she been light, like you,
Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit,
She might have been a grandam ere she died:
And so may you; for a light heart lives long.
Ros. What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this
light word?

Kath. A light condition in a beauty dark.
Ros. We need more light to find your meaning

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Ros. Great reason; for, Past cure is still past care. Prin. Well bandied both; a set of wit well play'd. But, Rosaline, you have a favour too : Who sent it? and what is it?

Ros.

I would, you knew:
An if my face were but as fair as yours,
My favour were as great; be witness this.
Nay, I have verses too, I thank Birón :
The numbers true; and, were the numb'ring too,
I were the fairest goddess on the ground:
I am compar'd to twenty thousand fairs.
O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter!
Prin. Any thing like?

Ros. Much, in the letters: nothing in the praise.
Prin. Beauteous as ink; a good conclusion.
Kath. Fair as a text B in a copy-book.
Ros. 'Ware pencils! How? let me not die your
debtor,

My red dominical, my golden letter:

O, that your face were not so full of O's!

Kath. A plague of that jest! and beshrew all

shrows!

Prin. But what was sent to you from fair Dumain? Kath. Madam, this glove.

Prin. Did he not send you twain? Kath. Yes, madam; and moreover, Some thousand verses of a faithful lover: A huge translation of hypocrisy, Vilely compil'd, profound simplicity.

Mar. This, and these pearls, to me sent Longaville;

The letter is too long by half a mile.

Prin. I think no less: Dost thou not wish in heart, The chain were longer, and the letter short? Mar. Ay, or I would these hands might never part.

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