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So you, to study now it is too late,

Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate.
King. Well, sit you out: go home, Biron; 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 cach 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.

And hath this been proclaim'd?

Long.

Biron. Let's see the penalty. [Reads.]-On pain of losing her

Long. Marry, that did I.

Biron. Sweet lord, and why?

Four days ago.

tongue.

Who devis'd this?

Long. To fright them hence with that dread penalty.

Biron. A dangerous law against gentility."

[Reads.] Item, If any man be seen to talk with a woman within the term of three years, he shall endure such publick 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,

6

A maid of grace, and cómplete majesty,

sit you out:] To sit out, is a term from the card-table. A dangerous law against gentility.] or urbanity.

About surrender-up of Aquitain

To her decrepit, sick, and bed-rid father: Therefore this article is made in vain,

Or vainly comes the admired princess hither. King. What say you, lords? why, this was quite forgot.

Biron. So study evermore is over-shot; While it doth study to have what it would, It doth forget to do the thing it should: And when it hath the thing it hunteth most, "Tis won, as towns with fire; so won, so lost. King. We must, of force, dispense with this de

cree;

She must lie here on mere necessity.

Biron. Necessity will make us all forsworn
Three thousand times within this three years'

space:

For every man with his affects is born;

Not by might master'd, but by special grace:9 If I break faith, this word shall speak for me, I am forsworn on mere necessity.

So to the laws at large I write my name:

[Subscribes. And he, that breaks them in the least de

gree,

Stands in attainder of eternal shame :

Suggestions are to others as to me; But, I believe, although I seem so loth; I am the last that will last keep his oath.

8

lie here-] Means reside here, in the same sense as an ambassador is said to lie leiger.

9 Not by might master'd, but by special grace:] Biron, amidst his extravagancies, speaks with great justness against the folly of Vows. They are made without sufficient regard to the variations of life, and are therefore broken by some unforeseen necessity. They proceed commonly from a presumptuous confidence, and a false estimate of human power. JOHNSON.

1 Suggestions-] Temptations.

But is there no quick recreation2 granted?

King. Ay, that there is: our court, you know, is haunted

With a refined traveller of Spain;

A man in all the world's new fashion planted,
That hath a mint of phrases in his brain:
One, whom the musick of his own vain tongue
Doth ravish, like enchanting harmony;
A man of complements, whom right and wrong
Have chose as umpire of their mutiny:
This child of fancy, that Armado hight,"

3

For interim to our studies, shall relate, In high-born words, the worth of many a knight From tawny Spain, lost in the world's debate. How you delight, my lords, I know not, I; But, I protest, I love to hear him lie, 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?

quick recreation] Lively sport, spritely diversion. 3 A man of complements,] Compliment, in Shakspeare's time, did not signify, at least did not only signify verbal civility, or phrases of courtesy, but, according to its original meaning, the trappings, or ornamental appendages of a character, in the same manner, and on the same principles of speech with accomplish

ment.

+ This child of fancy,] This fantastick.

5 That Armado hight,] Who is called Armado.

And I will use him for my minstrelsy.] i. e. I will make a minstrel of him, whose occupation was to relate fabulous stories. 7 fire-new words,] i. e. words newly coined, new from the forge. Fire-new, new off the irons, and the Scottish expression bren-new, have all the same origin.

Biron. This, fellow; What would'st?

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 Arme-Arme-commends you. There's villainy 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 having: God grant us patience!

Biron. To hear? or forbear hearing?

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 in the merriness.

Cost. The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta. The manner of it is, I was taken with the manner.1

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?

8tharborough:] i. e. Thirdborough, a peace officer, alike" in authority with a headborough or a constable.

A high hope for a low having:] Though you hope for high words, and should have them, it will be but a low acquisition at

best.

taken with the manner.] i. e. in the fact.

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. So it is,

Cost. It may be so: but if he say it is so, he is, in telling true, but so, so.

King. Peace.

Cost. fight!

be to me, and every man that dares not

King. No words.

Cost. of other men's secrets, I beseech you. King. So it is, besieged with sable-coloured melancholy, I did commend the black-oppressing humour to the most wholesome physick 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, Imean, 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 northnorth-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,3

curious-knotted garden :] Ancient gardens abounded with figures of which the lines intersected each other in many directions.

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