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 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,- blot. A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn, And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy. 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 deckt, 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 dooms-day here. King. No devil will fright thee then so much as she. 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. Ó, '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 académes, 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 n 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 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 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 académes, 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; 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 them thither; Then, homeward every man attach the hand We will with some strange pastime solace them, SCENE I-Another part of the same. Holofernes, Sir Nathaniel, and Dull. Hol. Satis quod sufficit. Enter Nath. I praise God for you, sir: your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection,2 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.3 He is too picked,4 too spruce, too affected, too odd,| as it were, too perigrinate, 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-devises 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. (1) Discourses. (2) Affectation. (3) Boastful. (4) Over-dressed. (5) Finical exactness. Hol. Bone?-bone, for benè: Priscian a little scratch'd; 'twill serve. Enter Armado, Moth, and Costard. [To Moth. Hol. Quare Chirra, not sirrah? 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.6 Moth. Peace; the peal begins. Arm. Monsieur, [To Hol.] are you not letter'd? 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; Moth. Offer'd by a child to an old man; which is wit-old. Hol. What is the figure? what is the figure? 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! Cost. An I had but one penny in the world, thou should'st have it to buy gingerbread: hold, there is the very remuneration I had 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 would'st 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 un guem. 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: (6) A small inflammable substance, swallowed in a glass of wine. (7) A hit. (8) Free-school Prin. Nothing but this? yes, as much love in As would be cramm'd up in a sheet of paper, For he hath been five thousand years a boy. 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,2 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 Kath. He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy; seen the world: but let that pass.-The very all of And so she died: had she been light, like you, all is, but, sweet heart, I do implore secrecy,-Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit, that the king would have me present the princess, sweet chuck,3 with some delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant, or antic, or fire-work. Now, understanding that the curate and your sweet self, are good at such eruptions, and sudden breaking out of mirth, as it were, I have acquainted you withal, to the end to crave your assistance. Hol. Sir, you shall present before her the nine worthies. Sir Nathaniel, as concerning some entertainment of time, some show in the posterior of this day, to be rendered by our assistance,-the king's command, and this most gallant, illustrate, and learned gentleman,-before the princess; I say, none so fit as to present the nine worthies. Nath. Where will you find men worthy enough to present them? Hol. Joshua, yourself; myself, or this gallant gentleman, Judas Maccabæus; this swain, because of his great limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the great; the page, Hercules. Arm. Pardon, sir, error: he is not quantity enough for that worthy's thumb: he is not so big as the end of his club. Hol. Shall I have audience? he shall present Hercules in minority: his enter and exit shall be strangling a snake; and I will have an apology for that purpose. Moth. An excellent device! so, if any of the audience hiss, you may cry well done, Hercules! now thou crusheth the snake! that is the way to make an offence gracious; though few have the grace to do it. Arm. For the rest of the worthies?- Arm. We will have, if this fadge4 not, an antic. I beseech you, follow. Hol. Via, good man Dull! thou hast spoken no word all this while. Dull. Nor understood none neither, sir. Dull. I'll make one in a dance, or so; or I will play on the tabor to the worthies, and let them dance the hay. Hol. Most dull, honest Dull, to our sport, away. [Exeunt. SCENE II-Another part of the same. Before the Princess's Pavilion. Enter the Princess, Katharine, Rosaline, and Maria. Prin. Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart, If fairings come thus plentifully in: A lady wall'd about with diamonds!— Look you, what I have from the loving king. Ros. madam, came nothing else along with that? (3) Chick. (5) Courage. (6) Grow. (1) Confidential (2) Beard. (4) Suit. She might have been a grandam ere she died: Kath. A light condition in a beauty dark. out. Kath. You'll mar the light, by taking it in snuff;8 for me. Ros. Great reason; for, Past cure is still past care. Ros. I would, you knew: Ros. Much, in the letters; nothing in the praise. My red dominical, my golden letter: Kath. A pox of that jest! and beshrew all shrows! Prin. The letter is too long by half a mile. Prin. I think no less: Dost thou not wish in The chain were longer, and the letter short? part. Prin. We are wise girls, to mock our lovers so. O, that I knew he were but in by the week! (7) Formerly a term of endearment. (8) In anger. And shape his service wholly to my behests; Prin. None are so surely caught, when they are catch'd, As wit turn'd fool: folly, in wisdom hatch'd, 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? That charge their breath against us? say, scout, say. Making the bold wag by their praises bolder. Prin. But what, but what, come they to visit us? Prin. And will they so? the gallants shall be task'd: For, ladies, we will every one be mask'd; Hold, Rosaline, this favour thou shalt wear; 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 views! 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, vouchsafe Not to behold 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 176 Is in one mile: if they have measur'd many, Boyet. If,to come hither you have measur'd miles, How many weary steps, Biron. We number nothing that we spend for you; That we may do it still without accompt. Ros. My face is but a moon, and clouded too. Ros. O vain petitioner! beg a greater matter; Thou now request'st but moonshine in the water. King. Then, in our measure do but vouchsafe one change: soon. Thou bid'st me beg; this begging is not strange. King. Yet still she is the moon, and I the man. Ros. Your absence only. That can never be. Prin. Honey, and milk, and sugar; there is Biron. Nay then, two treys (an if you grow so Metheglin, wort, and malmsey ;-Well run, dice! Prin. Seventh sweet, adieu! Since you can cog, I'll play no more with you. Biron. One word in secret. Prin. Biron. Thou griev'st my gall. Biron. Gall? bitter. Dum. Will you vouchsafe with me to change a [They converse apart. word? (1) Falsify dice, lie. (2) A quibble on the French adverb of negation. Act F. Say you so? Fair lord,-. Take that for your fair lady. Please it you, As much in private, and I'll bid adieu. [They converse apart. Kath. What, was your visor made without a tongue? Long. I know the reason, lady, why you ask. And would afford my speechless visor half. No, a fair lord calf. Take all, and wean it; it may prove an ox. Will you give horns, chaste lady? do not so. [Exeunt King, Lords, Moth, music, and attend ants. Prin. Twenty adieus, my frozen Muscovites.Are these the breed of wits so wonder'd at? Boyet. Tapers they are, with your sweet breaths puff'd out. Ros. Well-liking wits they have; gross, gross Will they not, think you, hang themselves to-night? Prin. Birón did swear himself out of all suit. |