Or, having sworn too hard-a-keeping oath, Study knows that which yet it doth not know: King. These be the stops that hinder study quite, Biron. Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain, Which, with pain purchas'd, doth inherit pain: As, painfully to pore upon a book To seek the light of truth; while truth the while Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile : Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed, That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks: That give a name to every fixèd star, Than those that walk and wot not what they are. Too much to know, is to know naught but fame; And every godfather can give a name. King. How well he's read, to reason against reading! Biron. Fit in his place and time. Something, then, in rhyme. King. Birón is like an envious sneaping frost, That bites the first-born infants of the spring. Biron. Well, say I am; why should proud summer boast, Why should I joy in an abortive birth ?(3) At Christmas I no more desire a rose Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled shows; Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate. King. Well, sit you out:(4) go home, Birón: adieu. Biron. No, my good lord; I have sworn to stay with you : And though I have for barbarism spoke more Than for that angel knowledge you can say, Yet confident I'll keep what I have swore, And bide the penance of each three years' day. Give me the paper,-let me read the same; And to the strict'st decrees I'll write my name. King. How well this yielding rescues thee from shame! Biron [reads]. "Item, That no woman shall come within a mile of my court,”-Hath this been proclaimed? Long. Four days ago. Biron. Let's see the penalty.-[Reads] "on pain of losing her tongue."-Who devised this penalty? Long. Marry, that did I. Biron. Sweet lord, and why? Long. To fright them hence with that dread penalty. Biron. A dangerous law against gentility !(5) [Reads] "Item, If any man be seen to talk with a woman within the term of three years, he shall endure such public shame as the rest of the court can possibly devise.” This article, my liege, yourself must break; For well you know here comes in embassy The French king's daughter with yourself to speak,- About surrender-up of Aquitain To her decrepit, sick, and bedrid father: Therefore this article is made in vain, Or vainly comes th' admired princess hither. King. What say you, lords? why, this was quite forgot. While it doth study to have what it would, King. We must of force dispense with this decree; Biron. Necessity will make us all forsworn Three thousand times within this three years' space; Not by might master'd, but by special grace: So to the laws at large I write my name: And he that breaks them in the least degree Suggestions are to others as to me; But is there no quick recreation granted? [Subscribes. King. Ay, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted A man in all the world's new fashion planted, For interim to our studies, shall relate, And I will use him for my minstrelsy. Biron. Armado is a most illustrious wight, A man of fire-new words, fashion's own knight. Long. Costard the swain and he shall be our sport; And, so to study, three years is but short. Enter DULL with a letter, and COSTARD. Dull. Which is the duke's own person? Biron. This, fellow: what wouldst ? Dull. I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his grace's tharborough: but I would see his own person in flesh and blood. Biron. This is he. Dull. Signior Arm-Arm—commends you. There's villany abroad: this letter will tell you more. Cost. Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me. King. A letter from the magnificent Armado. Biron. How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high words. Long. A high hope for a low heaven: (7) God grant us patience! Biron. To hear? or forbear laughing? (8) Long. To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately; or to forbear both. Biron. Well, sir, be it as the style shall give us cause to climb(9) in the merriness. Cost. The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta. The manner of it is, I was taken with the manner. Biron. In what manner? Cost. In manner and form following, sir; all those three: I was seen with her in the manor-house, sitting with her upon the form, and taken following her into the park; which, put together, is in manner and form following. Now, sir, for the manner,—it is the manner of a man to speak to a woman: for the form,-in some form. Biron. For the following, sir? Cost. As it shall follow in my correction: and God defend the right! King. Will you hear this letter with attention? Biron. As we would hear an oracle. Cost. Such is the simplicity of man to hearken after the flesh. King [reads]. "Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent, and sole dominator of Navarre, my soul's earth's god, and body's fostering patron," Cost. Not a word of Costard yet. King [reads]. "So it is," Cost. It may be so: but if he say it is so, he is, in telling true, but so. King. Peace! Cost. Be to me, and every man that dares not fight! Cost. Of other men's secrets, I beseech you. King [reads]. "So it is, besieged with sable-coloured melancholy, I did commend the black-oppressing humour to the most wholesome physic of thy health-giving air; and, as I am a gentleman, betook myself to walk. The time when? About the sixth hour; when beasts most graze, birds best peck, and men sit down to that nourishment which is called supper: so much for the time when. Now for the ground which; which, I mean, I walked upon : it is ycleped thy park. Then for the place where; where, I mean, I did encounter that obscene and most preposterous event, that draweth from my snow-white pen the ebon-coloured ink, which here thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or seest: but to the place where, it standeth north-north-east and by east from the west corner of thy curious-knotted garden: there did I see that lowspirited swain, that base minnow of thy mirth," Cost. Me. King [reads]. "that unlettered small-knowing soul,”— King [reads]. "that shallow vassal,” Cost. Still me. King [reads]. "which, as I remember, hight Costard,”— King [reads]. "sorted and consorted, contrary to thy established proclaimed edict and continent canon, with(10)—with,—O, with-but with this I passion to say wherewith," Cost. With a wench. King [reads]. "with a child of our grandmother Eve, a female ; or, for thy more sweet understanding, a woman. Him I- -as my everesteemed duty pricks me on-have sent to thee, to receive the meed of punishment, by thy sweet grace's officer, Antony Dull; a man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation." |