Biron. [Aside.] Now, in thy likeness, one more fool appear!

Enter LONGAVILLE, with a paper. Long. Ah me, I am forsworn!

Biron. [Aside.] Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers! 70

King. [Aside.] In love, I hope: sweet fellowship in shame!

Biron. [Aside.] One drunkard loves another of the name.

Long. Am I the first that have been perjur'd so? Biron. [Aside.] I could put thee in comfort,not by two that I know: Thoumak'st the triumviry, the corner-cap of society, The shape of Love's Tyburn" that hangs up simplicity.

Long. I fear these stubborn lines lack power to

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. Heav'n amend us, Heav'n amend! we are much

out o' the way.

10. Like a perjure, wearing papers. "Perjure" is an old form of perjurer;' and it was the penalty for one convicted of perjury to wear papers on the breast, describing the offence. 71. Shape of Love's Tyburn. The gallows at Tyburn was of triangular form.

72. Guards. Trimmings, facings, ornaments. See Note 21,

Act iii., "Measure for Measure."

13. Disfigure not his slop. The Folio gives 'shop' (altered by some editors to 'shape') for "slop," which accords best with "hase" in the preceding line. See Note 25, Act iii., “Much Ado about Nothing."

74 This is the liver vein. See Note 7, Act iv., "Tempest." | 75 All hid, all hid. The child's game now known as 'hideand-seek.'

76. More sacks to the mill. The name of a boyish sport; where there is a heaping up of players.

77. Four woodcocks. "Woodcock" was used for a brainless fellow. See Note 26, Act v., "Much Ado about Nothing." 78. By earth, she is not: corporal, &c. This has been

Stoop, I say;

As fair as day.

Biron. [Aside.] Ay, as some days; but then no

altered in stopping, and in changing "not" to 'but,' by those who find the passage, as it stands, difficult of comprehension. But, to our thinking, it may be thus interpreted: Bironcontradicts Dumain in his assertion that Katharine is "the wonder of a mortal eye;" and styles him " corporal," as he has before called himself a "corporal of his (Love's) field," and in allusion to his being "mortal," material, or corporeal,-for which latter word Shakespeare often uses "corporal."

79. Her amber hairs for foul have amber coted. "Coted" is here used in its sense of gone side by side with, surpassed, outvied; and in its sense of quoted (often thus pronounced), observed, marked, noted. Thus Dumain means that in the varied shades of colour and clouded beauty of amber, his mistress's hair surpasses it; and that in comparison with her hair, amber may be cited as ugly.

80. Incision would let her out in saucers. "Incision" is (strictly) cutting as in surgery but Shakespeare here, and elsewhere, uses it for "blood-letting." It was a fashion for young gallants to wound themselves in the arm, as a proof of devotion,

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 Jove 81 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 fasting pain.
Oh, would the king, Birón, 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.] Dumain, 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, you blush: 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 wreathèd arms83 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: Ah me! says one; O Jove! the other cries; One, her hairs were gold, crystal the other's eyes: [To Long.] You would for paradise break faith and troth;

that they might toast their lady's name, or write it, in the liquor that flowed.

་

81. Thou, for whom Jove. "Thou" (as printed in the old copies) has been sometimes changed to Thee,' as an emphatic repetition of the final word of the preceding line; but the change is not needful.

82. Fasting. Used in the sense of famishing, hungering, longing, desirous.

83. Wreathed arms. Crossed arms, folded arms. The same expression occurs in "The Two Gentlemen of Verona," Act ii., Sc. 1, where Speed tells his master that he has "learned to wreathe his arms like a mal-content."

84. These vorms. Biron uses this epithet here for human beings submitting to their mortal destiny of falling in love, as Prospero uses it when he sees his daughter yield to her fascination for Ferdinand :-" Poor worm! thou art infected."

85. Your eyes do make no coaches. Biron alludes to the line

[To Dum.] And Jove, for your love, would in

fringe an oath.

What will Birón say when that he shall hear
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.
[Descends from the tree.

Ah, good my liege, I pray thee, pardon me!
Good heart! what grace hast thou, thus to re-

in the king's sonnet, "No drop but as a coach doth carry thee." The Folio misprints 'couches' for "coaches" here. 86. Teen. Grief, trouble. See Note 19, Act i., "Tempest." 87. Gnat. Used here, and elsewhere, by Shakespeare, to express something extra small and insignificant.

88. Gig. A kind of top, made of horn; like a cup, and hollow.

89. Critic Timon. "Critic" is here used in the sense of 'cynic;' as Biron has previously used the same word for a harsh censor, a rigorous reviewer, where he says he has been "a very beadle to a humorous sigh; a critic, nay, a night-watch constable." The term originally meant a judger, an examiner : one who discerned and pronounced on the beauties as well as defects of a literary work; but in the proneness of men to find fault, the word soon came to signify almost wholly a discoverer of blemishes and blamer of demerits.

90. With men, like men. This has been variously changed to

Where hadst thou it?

Jaq. Of Costard.

King. Where hadst thou it ?

Cost. Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio. [BIRON tears the letter. King. How now! what is in you? why dost thou tear it?

Biron. A toy, my liege, a toy: your grace needs not fear it.

Long. It did move him to passion, and therefore let's hear it.

Dum. [Picking up the pieces.] It is Birón's writing, and here is his name., Biron. [To COSTARD.] Ah, you loggerhead! you were born to do me shame.— Guilty, my lord, guilty! I confess, I confess. King. What?

'moon-like men, vane-like men,' &c.; but the passage, as it stands, appears to us to mean-' with men, like men (men in general, or mankind), of strange inconstancy.' The first Folio omits the word "strange; "which was supplied in the second, 1632. 91. Grean for Joan? This has been altered to 'groan for love; '1 ;' but besides that we lose the jocular effect of the chiming sound between "groan " and "Joan," it has been already pointed out that Shakespeare uses "Joan" to represent the ordinary race of womankind. See Note 44, Act iii.

ga. Pruning me. Arranging myself, setting myself in order, making myself spruce; as a bird trims and smooths out his feathers.

93. A state. The word "state" here seems to include the meaning of stationary position, dignity and grace while standing still, and stature.

94 A true man, or a thief. See Note 40, Act iii., "Much Ado about Nothing."

95 What present hast thou there? The word "present"

Cost. Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay.

[Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA. Biron. Sweet lords, sweet lovers, oh, 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 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 100 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, 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 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 Birón: Oh, 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! oh, she needs it not:

here has been changed to 'peasant,' and to 'presentment.' But "present" is here used in the sense (which it bears in legal language) of a letter or mandate exhibited per presentes (by these presents). Shakespeare has introduced this very law phrase in "As You Like It," i. 2:-" Be it known unto all men by these presents.”

96. What makes treason here? What does treason do here? See Note 26, Act ii., "Merry Wives"

97. Our person. See Note 49, Act iv.

98. Mess. As at great festive dinners the company was usually divided into fours, called messes, and served together, the word came to mean a set of four persons.

99. Of all hands. This idiomatic phrase has been explained to have the same signification as 'in any hand;' that is, in any "of" was often case, at any rate, at all events. But inasmuch as used for 'on,' the phrase seems to us to mean ' on all hands,' on all sides, on every account.

100. Quoth. Said. Gothic, quithan, to say.