And not be seen to wink of all the day,— KING. Your oath is pass'd to pass away from these. And stay here in your court for three years' space. LONG. You swore to that, Biron, and to the rest. BIRON. By yea and nay, sir, then I swore in jest. What is the end of study? let me know. KING. Why, that to know, which else we should not know. BIRON. Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from common sense? KING. Ay, that is study's god-like recompence. To know the thing I am forbid to know : 43 of all the day] all the day long. 57 common sense] the light of nature; cf. line 75, "the light of truth." 62 feast] Theobald's obviously correct emendation of the fast of the earlier editions. 50 60 If study's gain be thus, and this be so, Study knows that which yet it doth not know: KING. These be the stops that hinder study quite, BIRON. Why, all delights are vain; but 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 Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile : Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed, That will not be deep search'd with saucy looks: Save base authority from others' books. These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights, That give a name to every fixed star, 77-79 Light, seeking... your eyes] The sense is, that a man by too close study may read himself blind. 80-83 Study me blinded by] When the eye has been dazzled or half-blinded by fixing its gaze on a "fairer eye," that " fairer eye" shall become its "heed," or lode-star, and give back to it the light of which it has been deprived. Cf. Mids. N. Dr., I, i, 183: "Your eyes are lode-stars." 70 80 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 nought but fame; And every godfather can give a name. KING. How well he's read, to reason against reading! DUM. Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding! LONG. He weeds the corn, and still lets grow the weeding. BIRON. The spring is near, when green geese are a-breeding. DUM. How follows that? BIRON. DUM. In reason nothing. Fit in his place and time. Something, then, in rhyme. KING. Biron is like an envious sneaping frost, That bites the first-born infants of the spring. BIRON. Well, say I am; why should proud summer boast, Before the birds have any cause to sing? Why should I joy in any abortive birth? At Christmas I no more desire a rose Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled shows; So you, to study now it is too late, Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate. 90 100 KING. Well, sit you out: go home, Biron: adieu. 110 95 Proceeded] A quibble upon the academic use of this word for graduating. 110 sit you out] stand out, take no part; an expression used in connec tion with indoor games. BIRON. No, my good lord; I have sworn to stay with you: And though I have for barbarism spoke more And bide the penance of each three years' day KING. How well this yielding rescues thee from shame! BIRON [reads]. "Item, That no woman shall come within a mile of my court," Hath this been proclaimed? LONG. Four days ago. BIRON. Let's see the penalty. [Reads] "on pain of losing her tongue." Who devised this penalty? LONG. Marry, that did I. BIRON. Sweet lord, and why? LONG. To fright them hence with that dread penalty. BIRON. A dangerous law against gentility! [Reads] "Item, If any man be seen to talk with a woman within the term of three years, he shall endure such public shame as the rest of the court can possibly devise.” This article, my liege, yourself must break; For well you know here comes in embassy The French king's daughter with yourself to speak, — To her decrepit, sick, and bedrid father: Or vainly comes the admired princess hither. 120 130 KING. What say you, lords? why, this was quite forgot. BIRON. So study evermore is overshot: While it doth study to have what it would, It doth forget to do the thing it should; And when it hath the thing it hunteth most, "Tis won as towns with fire, so won, so lost. KING. We must of force dispense with this decree; She must lie here on mere necessity. BIRON. Necessity will make us all forsworn Three thousand times within this three years' space; For every man with his affects is born, Not by might master'd, but by special grace: So to the laws at large I write my name: And he that breaks them in the least degree Suggestions are to other as to me; But is there no quick recreation granted? [Subscribes. KING. Ay, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted With a refined traveller of Spain; A man in all the world's new fashion planted, 147-158 Necessity... his oath] These twelve lines are formed of two sixains, or six-line stanzas, rhyming ababcc (cf. IV, iii, 210–215, infra). This is the metre of Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis, and of much narrative verse of the period. It is rarely used in drama. 140 150 160 |