Dog. Oh, that he were here to write me down-an ass ! Act 4, Sc. 2.

Leon. 'Tis all men's office to speak patience

To those that wring under the load of sorrow;
But no man's virtue nor sufficiency

To be so moral when he shall endure
The like himself.-Act 5, Sc. I.

Leon. There was never yet philosopher,

That could endure the toothache patiently;
However, they have writ the style of gods,

And made a push at chance and sufferance.—Act 5, Sc. I.

Bene. In a false quarrel there is no true valour.

Act 5, Sc. I.

Bene. Get thee a wife, get thee a wife; there is no staff more reverend than one tipped with horn.—Act 5, Sc. 4.

LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST.

Biron. Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile.

Act 1, Sc. I.

Prin. Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye,
Not utter'd by base sale of chapmen's tongues.

Ros.

Act 2, Sc. I.

A merrier man,

Act 2, Sc. I.

Within the limit of becoming mirth,
I never spent an hour's talk withal.

Biron. This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid :
Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms,
The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans,

Liege of all loiterers and malcontents.-Act 3, Sc. I.

Biron.

I seek a wife!
A woman that is like a German clock,*
Still a-repairing; ever out of frame;
And never going aright, being a watch,
But being watch'd that it may still go right!

Prin. And out of question so it is sometimes,
Glory grows guilty of detested crimes.

Act 3, Sc. I.

Act 4, Sc. I.

Sir Nath. Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book.-Act 4, Sc. 2.

King. Black is the badge of hell.-Act 4, Sc. 3.

Biron. Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light.

Act 4, Sc. 3.

Long. O! Some authority how to proceed;
Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil.
Act 4, Sc. 3.

Biron. From women's eyes this doctrine I derive :
They are the ground, the books, the academes,
From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire.
Act 4, Sc. 3.

Biron. 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?

Act 4, Sc. 3.

*Ben Jonson, in "A Silent Woman," Act 4, Sc. 1, uses the same simile. "She takes herself asunder still when she goes to bed, into some twenty boxes; and about next day, noon, is put together again like a great German clock." The expression is also employed by Middleton

in "A Mad World my Master," 1608, and in Decker and Webster's "Westward Hoe," 1607. Mistress Birdlime says, "No German clock, nor mathematical engine whatsoever, requires so much reparation as a woman's face."-Act 1, Sc. I.

Biron. A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind :

A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound,—Act 4, Sc. 3.

Biron. 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;

Act 4, Sc. 3.

Biron. For Charity itself fulfils the law,

And who can sever love from charity?

Act 4, Sc. 3.

Moth. They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps.-Act 5, Sc. I.

Prin. None are so surely caught, when they are catch'd,
As wit turn'd fool; folly, in wisdom hatch'd,
Hath wisdom's warrant and the help of school,
And wit's own grace to grace a learned fool.
Ros. The blood of youth burns not with such excess,
As gravity's revolt to wantonness.

Mar. Folly in fools bears not so strong a note,
As foolery in the wise when wit doth dote;
Since all the power thereof it doth apply,
To prove, by wit, worth in simplicity.

Act 5, Sc. 2.

Boyet. The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen
As is the razor's edge invisible,

Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen;
Above the sense of sense; so sensible

Seemeth their conference; their conceits have wings,
Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter
things.-Act 5, Sc. 2.

Biron. Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief.

Act 5, Sc. 2.

Biron. Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.-Act 5, Sc. 2.

Ros. A jest's prosperity lies in the ear

Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it.-Act 5, Sc. 2.

THE SONG.

Spring.

When daisies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue

Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus sings he,
Cuckoo ;

Cuckoo, cuckoo: O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,

And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks, When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws, And maidens bleach their summer smocks,

The cuckoo then, on every tree,

Mocks married men; for thus sings he,

Cuckoo ;

Cuckoo, cuckoo: O word of fear,

Unpleasing to a married ear!

Winter.

When icicles hang by the wall

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,

And Tom bears logs into the hall,

And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,

Tu-whit;

Tu-who, a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

The.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,

And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,

And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,

Then nightly sings the staring owl,

Tu-whit;

Tu-who, a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.--Act 5, Sc. 2.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.

Be advis'd, fair maid;

To you your father should be as a god;

One that compos'd your beauties, yea, and one
To whom you are but as a form in wax,

By him imprinted and within his power

To leave the figure or disfigure it.—Act 1, Sc. I.

The. But earthly happier is the rose distill'd,
Than that, which, withering on the virgin thorn,
Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.

Lys. Ay me! for aught that I could ever read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,

Act 1, Sc. I.

The course of true love never did run smooth.*

Act 1, Sc. I.

Hel. Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind :
Nor has Love's mind of any judgment taste :
Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste:
And therefore is Love said to be a child,
Because in choice he is so oft beguil❜d.

As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,

So the boy Love is perjur'd everywhere.—Act 1, Sc. I.

* The same sentiment, in very different language, has been expressed by Milton, in "Paradise Lost," Book X., line 896, and following lines.