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 wreathéd arms athwart
His loving bosom, to keep down his heart!
I have been closely shrouded in this bush,
And marked you both, and for you both did blush.
I heard your guilty rhymes, observed 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 LONGAVILLE.
And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath.
[To DUMAIN.

What will Birón say, when that he shall hear
A 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.-
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 perjured, 'tis a hateful thing;
Tush, none but minstrels like of sonneting!
But are you not ashamed? 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 tuning 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 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 betrayed thus to thy over-view?

Biron. Not you by me, but I betrayed to you: I that am honest; I that hold it sin

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. Birón, read it over. [ Giving him the letter.

-Where hadst thou it?

Jaq. Of Costard.

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

not fear it.

needs

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

Dum. It is Birón's writing, and here is his name. [Picks up the pieces. Biron. Ah, you whoreson loggerhead, you were born to do me shame. [To COSTARD. Guilty, my lord, guilty; I confess, I confess. King. What?

Biron. That you three fools lacked me fool, to make up the mess:

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

Are pickpurses 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?

We cannot cross the cause why we were born;
Therefore of all hands must we be forsworn.
King. What, did these rent lines shew 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 culled 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 withered 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 decked,

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. Dum. To look like her, are chimney-sweepers

black.

Long. And since her time are colliers counted

bright.

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 vowed 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 beauteous tutors have enriched you with?
Other slow arts entirely keep the brain;
And, therefore, finding barren practisers,
Scarce shew a harvest of their heavy toil:
But love, first learnéd in a lady's eyes,
Lives not alone immuréd 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 stopped:
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 tempered with love's sighs:
O, then his lines would ravish savage ears,

And plant in tyrants mild humility.
From woman's eyes this doctrine I derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That shew, 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 advised, 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 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,
Forerun 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!-Sowed cockle reaped

no corn;

And justice always whirls in equal measure: Light wenches may prove plagues to men for

sworn;

If so, our copper buys no better treasure.

[Exeunt.

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 peregrinate, 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 fantasms, 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 frantic, lunatic.

Nath. Laus Deo, bone intelligo.

Hol. Bone?-bone, for bene: Priscian a little scratched; 't will serve.

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

[To COSTARD, aside. Cost. O, they have lived long on the almsbasket 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 HOLOFERNES], are you not lettered?

Moth. Yes, yes; he teaches boys the hornbook:- -

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.—— 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 Mediterraneum, a sweet touch, a quick venew of wit;

snip, snap, quick and home: it rejoiceth my intellect: true wit.

Moth. Offered by a child to an old man; which is wit-old.

Hol. What is the figure? what is the figure? Moth. Horns.

Hol. Thou disputest like an infant: go, whip thy gig.

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

Cos. 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 halfpenny 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 thy 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 moun

tain.

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 culled, 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 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; and with his royal finger, thus, dally with my excrement, with my mustachio: 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 The pass. of all is, but, sweet heart, I do implore secresy, that the king would have me present the princess, sweet chuck, with some delight

very

all