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 favor 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 colors should be washed away.

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

I'll find a fairer face not washed 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 [Showing his shoe. 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

see.

The street should see as she walked overhead. King. But what of this? Are we not all in love? Biron. O, nothing so sure; and thereby all forsworn. King. Then leave this chat; and, good Birón, 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!

1 A quillet is a sly trick or turn in argument, or excuse.

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 vigor 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,1

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; 2
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;

1 This hemistich is omitted in all the modern editions except that by

Mr. Boswell. It is found in the first quarto and first folio.

2 i. e. our true books, from which we derive most information; the eyes of woman.

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 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 valor, is not love a Hercules,

1

Still climbing trees in the Hesperides ?1
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 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;

1 Shakspeare had read of "the gardens of the Hesperides," and thought the latter word was the name of the garden. Some of his contemporaries have made the same mistake.

2 Few passages have been more discussed than this. The most plausible interpretation of it is, "Whenever love speaks, all the gods join their voices in harmonious concert."

1

Or for love's sake, a word that loves all men ;1
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.2

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!-Sowed cockle reaped 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.

1 i. e. that is pleasing to all men. So in the language of the time :it likes me well, for it pleases me.

2 In the days of archery, it was of consequence to have the sun at the back of the bowmen, and in the face of the enemy.

ACT V.

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 reasons1at 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 humor is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general behavior vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical.3 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, doubt, 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; haf, hauf: neighbor, vocatur, nebor, neigh, abbreviated, ne. This is abhominable, (which he would call abominable;) it insinuateth me of insanie. Ne intelligis, domine? To make frantic lunatic.

1 Reason here signifies discourse; audacious is used in a good sense for spirited, animated, confident; affection is affectation; opinion is obstinacy, opiniâtreté.

2 Filed is polished.

3 Thrasonical is vain-glorious, boastful.

4 Picked, that is, too nice in his dress.

5 A common expression for exact, precise, or finical.