-Venegia, Venegia,

Chi non te vede, non te pregia.

Old Mantuan! old Mantuan! Who understandeth thee not, loves thee not.-Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa.Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? or, rather, as Horace says in his-What, my soul, verses?

Nath. Ay, sir, and very learned.

Hol. Let me hear a staff, a stanza, a verse: lege, domine.

Nath. If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?

Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed! 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 music, and sweet fire.

Celestial, as thou art, O! 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.

"To

Hol. I will overglance the superscript. 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 Biron 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.—Sir, God save your life!

Cost. Have with thee, my girl.

[Exeunt CoST. and JAQ. Nath. Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, 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. [Exeunt.

SCENE III.-Another part of the Same.

:

Enter BIRON, with a paper.

Biron. The king he is hunting the deer; I am coursing myself: they have pitch'd a toil; I am toiling in a pitch-pitch that defiles. Defile? a foul word. Well, set thee down, sorrow! for so, they say, the fool said, and so say I, and I the fool. Well proved, wit! By the lord, this love is as mad as Ajax it kills sheep; it kills me, I a sheep. Well proved again o' 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: God give him grace to groan! [Gets up into a tree. Enter the KING, with a paper.

King. Ay me! Biron. [Aside.] Shot, by heaven!-Proceed, sweet Cupid: thou hast thump'd him with thy bird-bolt under the left pap.-In faith, secrets!—

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. O 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. [Aside.] What, Longaville! and reading? listen,

ear.

Biron. [Aside.] Now, in thy likeness, one more fool appear!

This same shall go.-
[He reads the sonnet.

Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,
'Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,
Persuade heart to this false perjury?
Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.
A woman I forswore; but I will prove,

my

Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee: My row 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 dost shine,

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

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

Biron. [Aside.] This is the liver vein, which makes flesh a deity;

A green goose, a goddess: pure, pure idolatry. God amend us, God amend! we are much out o' the way.

Enter DUMAINE, with a paper. Long. By whom shall I send this ?-Company! stay. [Steps 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:
Dumaine transform'd? four woodcocks in a dish!
Dum. O most divine Kate!

Biron. [Aside.] O most profane coxcomb!
Dum. By heaven, the wonder of a mortal eye!
Biron. [Aside.] By earth, she is not :-corporal;
there you lie.

Dum. Her amber hairs for foul have amber quoted.

Biron. [Aside.] An amber-colour'd raven was well noted.

Dum. As upright as the cedar.
Biron.

Her shoulder is with child.

[Aside.] Stoop, I say:

As fair as day.

Dum. Biron. [Aside.] Ay, as some days; but then no sun must shine.

Dum. O, that I had my wish!

Long.

[Aside.] And I had mine!

Would let her out in saucers: sweet misprision! Dum. Once more I'll read the ode that I have writ. Biron. [Aside.] Once more I'll mark how love can vary 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 Jove would swear
Juno but an Ethiop were;
And deny himself for Jove,
Turning mortal for thy love.

This will I send, and something else more plain,
That shall express my true love's fasting pain.
O, would the King, Biron, 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. [Advancing.] Dumaine, 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. [Advancing.] Come, sir, 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 :
Ay 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 LONGAVILLE.

And Jove for your love would infringe an oath.

[TO DUMAINE.

What will Biron say, when that he shall hear
Faith infringed, which such 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.-
[Descends from the tree.

Ah, good my liege, I pray thee pardon me :
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?
You found his mote; the king your mote did see;
But I a beam do find in each of three.
O! what a scene of foolery have I seen,
Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow, and of teen!

O me! with what strict patience have I sat,
To see a king transformed to a gnat!
To see great Hercules whipping a gig,
And profound Solomon to tune a jig,
And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys,
And critic Timon laugh at idle toys!

Where lies thy grief! O! tell me, good Dumaine :
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 men, like men of strange inconstancy. When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme? Or groan for love? 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, A gait, a state, a brow, a breast, a waist, A leg, a limb?—

King.

Soft! Whither away so fast? A true man, or a thief, that gallops so? Biron. I post from love; good lover, let me go.

Enter JAQUENETTA and CoSTARD.

Jaq. God bless the king!
King.

What present hast thou there?

Cost. Some certain treason.
King.

What makes treason here?
Cost. Nay, it makes nothing, sir.
King.

If it mar nothing neither, The treason and you go in peace away together. Jaq. I beseech your grace, let this letter be read: Our parson misdoubts it; 'twas treason, he said. King. Biron, read it over.

Where had'st thou it?

Jaq. Of Costard.

[BIRON reads the letter.

King. Where had'st 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. [Picking up the pieces. Biron. Ah, you whoreson loggerhead!-[To CosTARD]-you were born to do me shame.Guilty, my lord, guilty! I confess, I confess. King. What?

Biron. That you three fools lack'd me, fool, to make up the mess.

He, he, and you, 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 COSTARD and Jaquenetta. Biron. Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O! let us embrace.

As true we are, as flesh and blood can be: The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face; Young blood doth not obey an old decree: We cannot cross the cause why we were born; Therefore, of all hands must we be forsworn. 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, stricken 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 inspir'd 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 no Biron.
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,-
Fie, painted rhetoric! 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.
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.
King. O paradox! Black is the badge of hell,
The hue of dungeons, and the scowl of night;
And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well.
Biron. Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of
light.

O! if in black my lady's brows be deck'd,

It mourns, that painting, and usurping hair,
Should ravish doters with a false aspect;
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.
Dum. To look like her are chimney-sweepers
black.

Long. And since her time are colliers counted bright.

King. And Ethiops of their sweet complexion
crack.

Dum. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light.
Biron. Your mistresses dare never come in rain,
For fear their colours should be wash'd away.

King. "Twere good, yours did; for, sir, to tell you plain,

I'll find a fairer, face not wash'd to-day.
Biron. I'll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday

here.

King. No devil will fright thee then so much as she.

Dum. I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear. Long. Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face see.

Biron. O! if the streets were paved with thine eyes,

Her feet were much too dainty for such tread. Dum. O vile! then, as she goes, what upward lies The street should see, as she walk'd over head. King. But what of this? Are we not all in love? Biron. O! nothing so sure; and thereby all for

sworn.

King. Then leave this chat: and, good Biron, 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.
Say, can you fast? your stomachs are too young,
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,
With ourselves,

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 beauty's 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;
26

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.
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,
Or for men's sake, the authors of these women,
Or women's sake, by whom we men are 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!

Biron. Advance your standards, and upon them,
lords!

Pell-mell, down with them! but be first advis'd,
In conflict that you get the sun of them.

Long. Now to plain-dealing: lay these glozes by 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 then
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.
Biron. Allons! allons!-Sow'd cockle reap'd no

corn;

And justice always whirls in equal measure: Light wenches may prove plagues to men forsworn ; If so, our copper buys no better treasure.

[Exeunt.

SCENE I.- Another part of the Same.

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

Nath. I praise God for you, sir: your reasons 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: his humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical. 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. [Draws 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 nebur; neigh abbreviated ne. This is abhominable, (which he would call abominable,) it insinuateth me of insanie: ne intelligis domine? to make frantic, lunatic.

Nath. Laus Deo, bone intelligo.

Hol. Bone?-bone, for bene: Priscian a little scratch'd; 'twill serve.

Enter ARMADO, MOTH, and COSTARD.

Arm. Men of peace, well encounter'd. Hol. Most military sir, salutation.

[TO MOTH.

Moth. They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps.

Cost. O! they have lived long on 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.

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 the horn on his head?

Hol. Ba, pueritia, with a horn added.

Moth. Ba! most silly sheep, with a horn.-You hear his learning.

Hol. Quis, quis, thou consonant?

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 Mediterranean, 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; which is wit-old.

Moth. Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your infamy circùm circà. A gig of a cuckhold's horn!

Cost. An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy gingerbread: hold, there is the very remuneration I had of thy master, thou half-penny purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of discretion. O! an the heavens were so pleased, that thou wert but my bastard, what a joyful father wouldst thou make me. Go to; thou hast it ad dunghill, at the fingers' ends, as they say.

Hol. O! I smell false Latin; dunghill for unguem. Arm. Arts-man, præambula: we will be singled from the barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the charge-house on the top of the mountain? Hol. Or mons, the hill.

Arm. At your sweet pleasure for the mountain. Hol. I do, sans question.

Arm. Sir, it is the king's most sweet pleasure and affection, to congratulate the princess at her pavilion in the posteriors of this day, which the rude multitude call the afternoon.

Hol. The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is liable, congruent, and measurable for the afternoon: the word is well cull'd, chose; sweet and apt, I do assure you, sir; I do assure.

Arm. Sir, the king is a noble gentleman, and my familiar, I do assure you, very good friend.-For what is inward between us, let it pass.-I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy ;-I beseech thee, apparel thy head:-and among other important and most serious designs, and of great import indeed,