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 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 I have 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 gigg,
And profound Solomon to tune a jigg,
And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys,
And critick 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,
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!

Dum. It is Biron's writing, and here is his name. [Picks up the pieces. Biron. Ah, you whoreson loggerhead, [to Cos-, tard.] 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, my liege, and I,

Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die.
O, dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you inore.
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 Jaquenet. Biron. Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O let us em

brace !

As true we are, as flesh and blood can be: The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face. Young blood will 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 he d; 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 inspir'd thee My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon; [now? She, an attending star, scarce seen a light.

Biron. My eyes are then no eyes, nor I 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,

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

[blot.

She passes praise: then praise too short doth 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 O, if in black my lady's brows be deckt, [of light. 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. [bright. Long. And, since her time, are colliers counted King. And Ethiops of their sweet complexion crack. [light.

Dum. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is 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 dooms-day here. [she.

King. No devil will fright thee then so much as Dum. I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear. Long. Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face see. [Showing his shoe.

Biron. O, if the streets were paved with thine

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,
Do we not likewise see our learning there?
O, we have made a vow to study, lords;
And in that vow we have fors worn 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.
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 ought 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 fors worn:
For charity itself fulfils the law;
And who can sever love from charity?

King. Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field! [lords, Biron. Advance your standards, and upon them, 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 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.
Biron. Allons! Allons!-Sow'd cockle reap'd no

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

Enter Armado, Moth, and Costard.

Nath. Videsne quis venit?

Hol. Video, et gaudeo.

Arm. Chirra!

Hol. Quare Chirra, not sirrah?

[To Moth.

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.

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?

My red dominical, my golden letter:
O, that your face was not so full of O's!
Kath. A pox 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 LongaThe letter is too long by half a mile. [ville; 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.

Prin. We are wise girls, to mock our lovers so. Ros. They are worse fools to purchase mocking so. That same Biron I'll torture ere I go.

O, that I knew he were but in by the week!
How I would make him fawn, and beg, and seek;
And wait the season, and observe the times,
And spend his prodigal wits in bootless rhymes;
And shape his service wholly to my behests;
And make him proud to make me proud that jests!
So portent-like would I o'ersway his state,
That he should be my fool, and I his fate.

With that, they all did tumble on the ground,
With such a zealous laughter, so profound,
That in this spleen ridiculous appears,
To check their folly, passion's solemn tears.
Prin. But what, but what, come they to visit us?
Boyet. They do, they do; and are apparel'd
thus,-

Like Muscovites, or Russians: as I guess,
Their purpose is, to parle, to court, and dance :
And every one his love-feat will advance
Unto his several mistress; which they'll know
By favours several, which they did bestow.
Prin. And will they so? the gallants shall be
task'd :-

For, ladies, we will every one be mask'd;
And not a man of them shall have the grace,
Despite of suit, to see a lady's face.-

Hold, Rosaline, this favour thou shalt wear;
And then the king will court thee for his dear;
Hold, take thou this, my sweet, and give me thine;
So shall Biron take me for Rosaline.
And change your favours too; so shall your loves
Woo contrary, deceiv'd by these removes.

Ros. Come on then; wear the favours most in

sight.

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.

Enter Boyet.

Prin. Here comes Boyet, and mirth is in his face. Boyet. O, I am stabb'd with laughter! Where's her grace?

Prin. Thy news, Boyet?
Boyet.
Prepare, madam, prepare!-
Arm, wenches, arm! encounters mounted are
Against your peace: Love doth approach disguis'd,
Armed in arguments; you'll be surpris'd:
Muster your wits; stand in your own defence;
Or hide your heads like cowards, and fly hence.
Prin Saint Dennis to Saint Cupid! What are
they,

That charge their breath against us? say, scout, say.
Boyet. Under the cool shade of a sycamore,
I thought to close mine eyes some half an hour:
When, lo! to interrupt my purpos'd rest,
Toward that shade I might behold addrest
The king and his companions: warily
I stole into a neighbour thicket by,
And overheard what you shall overhear;
That, by and by, disguis'd they will be here.
Their herald is a pretty knavish page,
That well by heart hath conn'd his embassage:
Action, and accent, did they teach him there;
Thus must thou speak, and thus thy body bear:
And ever and anon they made a doubt,
Presence majestical would put him out;
For, quoth the king, An angel shalt thou see;
Yet fear not thou, but speak audaciously.
The boy reply'd, An angel is not evil;

I should have fear'd her, had she been a devil.
With that all laugh'd, and clapp'd him on the
shoulder;

Making the bold wag by their praises bolder.
One rubb'd his elbow, thus; and fleer'd, and swore,
A better speech was never spoke before:
Another with his finger and his thumb,
Cry'd, Via! we will do't, come what will come :
The third he caper'd, and cried, All goes well:
The fourth turn'd on the toe, and down he fell.

Their several counsels they unbosom shall
To loves mistook; and so be mock'd withal,
Upon the next occasion that we meet,
With visages display'd, to talk and greet.

Ros. But shall we dance, if they desire us to't? Prin, No; to the death, we will not move a foot: Nor to their penn'd speech render we no grace: But, while 'tis spoke, each turn away her face. Boyet. Why, that contempt will kill the speaker's

heart,

And quite divorce his memory from his part.

Prin. Therefore I do it; and, I make no doubt, The rest will ne'er come in, if he be out. There's no such sport, as sport by sport o'erthrown; To make theirs ours, and ours none but our own: So shall we stay, mocking intended game; And they well mock'd, depart away with shame. [Trumpets sound within. Boyet. The trumpet sounds; be mask'd, the maskers come. [The ladies mask. Enter the King, Biron, Longaville, and Dumain, in Russian habits, and masked; Moth, Musicians, and Attendants.

Moth. All hail the richest beauties on the earth! Boyet. Beauties no richer than rich taffata. Moth. A holy parcel of the fairest dames,

The ladies turn their backs to him. That ever turn'd their-backs-to mortal viewvs! Biron. Their eyes, villain, their eyes. Moth. That ever turn'd their eyes to mortal views! Out

Boyet. True; out, indeed.

Moth. Out of your favours, heavenly spirits vouchNot to behold

[sufe

Biron. Once to behold, rogue.

Moth. Once to behold with your sun-beamed eyes,

with your sun-beamed eyes

Boyet. They will not answer to that epithet, You were best call it, daughter-beamed eyes. Moth. They do not mark me, and that brings me

out.

Biron. Is this your perfectness? be gone, you

rogue.

Ros. What would these strangers? know their minds, Boyet:

If they do speak our language, 'tis our will
That some plain man recount their purposes:
Know what they would.

Boyet. What would you with the princess?
Biron. Nothing but peace, and gentle visitation.
Ros. What would they, say they?

Boyet. Nothing but peace, and gentle visitation.