As doth thy face through tears of mine give light;
Thou shin'st in every tear that I do weep:
No drop but as a coach doth carry thee;
So ridest thou triumphing in my woe.
Do but behold the tears that swell in me,

And they thy glory through my grief will show :
But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep
My tears for glasses, and still make me weep.
O queen of queens, how far thou dost excel,
No thought can think, nor tongue of mortal tell.
How shall she know my griefs? I'll drop the paper.
Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here?
Enter LONGAVILLE, with a paper.

What, Longaville! and reading? listen, ear.

[Steps aside. Biron. [Aside in the tree.] Now, in thy likeness, one more fool appear!

Long. Ay me! I am forsworn.

Biron. [Aside.] Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers.

King. [Aside.] In love, I hope. Sweet fellowship

in shame!

Long. This same shall go. [He reads the sonnet. Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,

'Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument, Persuade my heart to this false perjury?

Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.
A woman I forswore; but I will prove,

Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee:
My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love ;
Thy grace, being gain'd, cures all disgrace in me.
Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is :
Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine,
Exhal'st this vapour-vow; in thee it is:

If broken, then, it is no fault of mine.
If by me broke, what fool is not so wise,
To lose an oath, to win a paradise?

Biron. [Aside.] This is the liver vein, which makes flesh a deity;

A green goose, a goddess: pure, pure idolatry.
God amend us! God amend us! we are much out o'

the way.

Enter DUMAINE, with a paper. Long. By whom shall I send this?-Company! stay. [Steps aside. Biron. [Aside.] All hid, all hid; an old infant play.

Like a demi-god here sit I in the sky,

And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'er-eye.
More sacks to the mill! O heavens! I have my wish:
Dumaine transform'd? four woodcocks in a dish.
Dum. O most divine Kate!

Biron. [Aside.] O most profane coxcomb!
Dum. By heaven, the wonder of a mortal eye!
Biron. [Aside.] By earth, she is most corporal; there
you lie.

Dum. Her amber hairs for foul have amber quoted.

a good word?

Dum. I would forget her; but a fever she Reigns in my blood, and will remember'd be. Biron. [Aside.] A fever in your blood? why, then incision

Would let her out in saucers: sweet misprision!

Dum. Once more I'll read the ode that I have writ. Biron. [Aside.] Once more I'll mark how love can vary wit.

Dum. On a day, alack the day!

Love, whose month is ever May,
Spied a blossom, passing fair,
Playing in the wanton air:
Through the velvet leaves the wind,
All unseen, 'gan passage find;
That the lover, sick to death,
Wish'd himself the heaven's breath.
Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;
Air, would I might triumph so!
But alack! my hand is sworn,
Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn :
Vow, alack! for youth unmeet,
Youth so apt to pluck a sweet.
Do not call it sin in me,

That I am forsworn for thee;

Thou for whom great Jove would swear
Juno but an Ethiop were;
And deny himself for Jove,
Turning mortal for thy love.

This will I send, and something else more plain,
That shall express my true love's lasting pain.
O, would the King, Biron, and Longaville,
Were lovers too! Ill, to example ill,
Would from my forehead wipe a perjur'd note;
For none offend, where all alike do dote.

Long. [Advancing.] Dumaine, 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. [Advancing.] Come, sir, blush you: 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 wreathed arms athwart
His loving bosom, to keep down his heart.
I have been closely shrouded in this bush,
And mark'd you both, and for you both did blush.
I heard your guilty rhymes, observ'd your fashion,
Saw sighs reek from you, noted well your passion:
Ay 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;

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.—
[Coming down from the tree.
Ah, good my liege, I pray thee pardon me.
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 perjur'd, '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 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 to tune 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 Dumaine :
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 men, like men of strange inconstancy.
When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme?
Or groan for love? 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.

[Going.

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!
King.

What, peasant, hast thou there?

Biron. Ah, you whoreson loggerhead! [To COSTARD.] 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, 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 more.
Dum. Now the number is even.

Biron.

True, true; we are four.

Hence, sirs; away!

Cost. Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay. [Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA. Biron. Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O! let us embrace. As true we are, as flesh and blood can be: The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face;

Young blood doth yet 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 head; and, stricken 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 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 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,

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 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 shade of night;
And beauty's best becomes the heavens well.
Biron. Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of
light.

O! if in black my lady's brows be deck'd,

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 these 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 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 see. 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 The street should see, as she walk'd over head. King. But what of this? Are we not all in love? Biron. O! nothing so sure; and thereby all for

sworn.

King. Then leave this chat: and, good Biron, 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.
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 learning 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 beauty's 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 humanity.
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,
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 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 n

Moth. An excellent device! so, if any of the audience hiss, you may cry, "Well done, Hercules! now thou crushest 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?

Hol. I will play three myself.
Moth. Thrice-worthy gentleman.
Arm. Shall I tell you a thing?
Hol. We attend.

Arm. We will have, if this fadge not, an antick, I beseech you, to follow.

Hol. Via!-Goodman Dull, thou hast spoken no word all this while.

Dull. Nor understood none neither, sir.
Hol. Allons! we will employ thee.

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!

SCENE II.-Another part of the Same. the Princess's Pavilion.

[Exeunt. Before

Enter the PRINCESS, KATHARINE, ROSALINE, and MARIA, with presents.

Prin. Beauteous as ink: a good conclusion. Kath. Fair as a text R in a copy-book. Ros. 'Ware pencils! How? let me not die your debtor, My red dominical, my golden letter:

O, that your face were not so full of O's!

Prin.

Prin. A pox of that jest! and I beshrew all shrows! But, Katharine, what was sent to you from fair Dumaine? Kath. Madam, this glove. 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 Longaville: The letter is too long by half a mile.

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,

A lady wall'd about with diamonds!

Look you, what I have from the loving king.

Ros. Madam, came nothing else along with that? Prin. Nothing but this? yes; as much love in rhyme, As would be cramm'd up in a sheet of paper, Writ on both sides the leaf, margin and all, That he was fain to seal on Cupid's name.

Ros. That was the way to make his god-head wax; For he hath been five thousand years a boy.

Kath. Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too. Ros. You'll ne'er be friends with him: a' kill'd your sister.

Kath. He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy; And so she died: had she been light, like you, Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit, She might a' been a grandam ere she died; And so may you, for a light heart lives long.

Ros. What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word?

Kath. A light condition in a beauty dark.

Ros. We need more light to find your meaning out. Kath. You'll mar the light by taking it in snuff; Therefore, I'll darkly end the argument.

Ros. Look, what you do, you do it still i' the dark. Kath. So do not you, for you are a light wench. Ros. Indeed, I weigh not you, and therefore light. Kath. You weigh me not?-O! that's you care not for me.

Ros. Great reason; for, past cure is still past care. Prin. Well bandied both; a set of wit well play'd. But Rosaline, you have a favour too: Who sent it? and what is it?

So potently would I o'ersway his state,
That he should be my fool, and I his fate.

Prin. None are so surely caught, when they are 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! encounterers 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 the breach 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 replied, "An angel is not evil;