scraped out of the painted cloth for this: your lion, that holds his poll-ax sitting on a close-stool, will be given to Ajax: he will be the ninth worthy. A conqueror, and afeard to speak! run away for shame, Alisander. [NATHANIEL retires.] There, an't shall please you: a foolish mild man; an honest man, look you, and soon dashed! He is a marvelous good neighbor, in sooth; and a very good bowler but for Alisander, alas, you see how

Biron. A death's face in a ring.
Long. The face of an old Roman coin, scarce

seen.

Boyet. The pummel of Cæsar's faulchion.
Dum. The carved-bone face on a flask.
Biron. St. George's half-cheek in a brooch.
Dum. Ay, and in a brooch of lead.

Biron. Ay, and worn in the cap of a toothdrawer:

a coming will speak their mind in some other sort. Prin. Stand aside, good Pompey.

Enter HOLOFERNES, armed, for Judas, and MoтH, armed, for Hercules.

HOLOFERNES.

Great Hercules is presented by this imp,

Whose club killed Cerberus, that three-headed canus; And, when he was a babe, a child, a shrimp,

Thus did he strangle serpents in his manus; Quoniam, he seemeth in minority;

Ergo, I come with this apology.—

Keep some state in thy exit, and vanish.

[Exit MOTH.

Judas I am,

Dum. A Judas!

Hol. Not Iscariot, sir:

Judas I am, ycleped Maccabæus.

Dum. Judas Maccabæus clipt, is plain Judas. Biron. A kissing traitor.-How art thou proved

Judas?

HOLOFERNES.

Judas I am,

Dum. The more shame for
you, Judas.
Hol. What mean you, sir?
Boyet. To make Judas hang himself.
Hol. Begin, sir; you are my elder.

Biron. Well followed: Judas was hanged on an

elder.

Hol. I will not be put out of countenance. Biron. Because thou hast no face.

Hol. What is this?

Boyet. A cittern head.

Dum. The head of a bodkin.

tenance.

Hol. You have put me out of countenance. Biron. False; we have given thee faces. Hol. But you have outfaced them all. Biron. An thou wert a lion, we would do so. Boyet. Therefore, as he is an ass, let him go. And so adieu, sweet Jude! nay, why dost thou stay?

Dum. For the latter end of his name.

Biron. For the ass to the Jude; give it him :Jud-as, away.

Hol. This is not generous, not gentle, not

humble.

Boyet. A light for Monsieur Judas: it grows dark, he may stumble.

Prin Alas, poor Maccabæus, how hath he been baited!

Enter ARMADO, armed, for Hector.

Biron. Hide thy head, Achilles; here comes Hector in arms.

Dum. Though my mocks come home by me, I will now be merry.

King. Hector was but a Trojan in respect of

this.

Boyet. But is this Hector?

Dum. I think Hector was not so clean-tim

bered.

Long. His leg is too big for Hector.

Dum. More calf, certain.

Boyet. No; he is best endued in the small.

Biron. This cannot be Hector.

Dum. He's a god or a painter; for he makes faces.

ARMADO.

The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty,

Gave Hector a gift,—

Arm. The sweet war-man is dead and rotten; sweet chucks, beat not the bones of the buried: when he breathed, he was a man - but I will forward with my device. Sweet royalty [to the PRINCESS], bestow on me the sense of hearing. [BIRON whispers COSTARD. Prin. Speak, brave Hector; we are much delighted.

Arm. I do adore thy sweet grace's slipper.
Boyet. Loves her by the foot.

Dum. He may not by the yard.

ARMADO.

This Hector far surmounted Hannibal,

Dum. Hector will challenge him.

Biron. Ay, if he have no more man's blood in 's belly than will sup a flea.

Arm. By the north pole, I do challenge thee.

Cost. I will not fight with a pole, like a northern man. I'll flash; I'll do it by the sword. I pray you, let me borrow my arms again.

Dum. Room for the incensed worthies.

Cost. I'll do it in my shirt.

Dum. Most resolute Pompey!

Moth. Master, let me take you a button-hole lower. Do you not see, Pompey is uncasing for the combat? What mean you? you will lose your reputation.

Arm. Gentlemen and soldiers, pardon me; I will not combat in my shirt.

Dum. You may not deny it; Pompey hath made the challenge.

Arm. Sweet bloods, I both may and will.
Biron. What reason have you for 't?

Arm. The naked truth of it is, I have no shirt; I go woolward for penance.

Boyet. True, and it was enjoined him in Rome for want of linen: since when, I'll be sworn, he wore none, but a dishclout of Jaquenetta's; and that a' wears next his heart, for a favor.

Enter MERCADE.

Mer. God save you, madam!
Prin. Welcome, Mercade;

gone; she is two months on her way.

Arm. What meanest thou?

Cost. Faith, unless you play the honest Trojan, the poor wench is cast away: she's quick; the child brags in her belly already; 't is yours.

Arm. Dost thou infamonise me among potentates? thou shalt die.

Mer. I am sorry, madam; for the news I bring Is heavy in my tongue. The king your fatherPrin. Dead, for my life. Mer. Even so; my tale is told.

Biron. Worthies, away; the scene begins to cloud.

pey that is dead by him.

Dum. Most rare Pompey!

Boyet. Renowned Pompey!

Biron. Greater than great, great, great, great Pompey! Pompey the huge!

Dum. Hector trembles.
Biron. Pompey is moved:
Ates; stir them on! stir them on !

-

In your rich wisdom, to excuse, or hide,
The liberal opposition of our spirits:
If over-boldly we have borne ourselves
In the converse of breath, your gentleness
Was guilty of it. - Farewell, worthy lord!
A heavy heart bears not a humble tongue :
Excuse me so, coming so short of thanks
For my great suit so easily obtained.

King. The extreme parts of time extremely form
All causes to the purpose of his speed;
And often, at his very loose, decides
That which long process could not arbitrate:
And though the morning brow of progeny
Forbid the smiling courtesy of love,
The holy suit which fain it would convince;
Yet, since love's argument was first on foot,
Let not the cloud of sorrow justle it

Is not by much so wholesome, profitable,

As to rejoice at friends but newly found.

If for my love (as there is no such cause) You will do aught, this shall you do for me:

double.

of grief;

And by these badges understand the king.

For your fair sakes have we neglected time,

There stay, until the twelve celestial signs Have brought about their annual reckoning. If this austere insociable life

dies,

Hath much deformed us, fashioning our humors
Even to the opposéd end of our intents:
And what in us hath seemed ridiculous,-
As love is full of unbefitting strains;
All wanton as a child, skipping and vain;
Formed by the eye, and therefore, like the eye,
Full of strange shapes, of habits, and of forms,
Varying in subjects as the eye doth roll
To every varied object in his glance:
Which party-coated presence of loose love
Put on by us, if in your heavenly eyes,
Have misbecomed our oaths and gravities,
Those heavenly eyes, that look into these faults,
Suggested us to make. Therefore, ladies,
Our love being yours, the error that love makes
Is likewise yours: we to ourselves prove false,
By being once false for ever to be true

To those that make us both, fair ladies, you:
And even that falsehood, in itself a sin,
Thus purifies itself, and turns to grace.

If frosts and fasts, hard lodging and thin weeds,

Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love,
But that it bear this trial, and last love;
Then, at the expiration of the year,
Come challenge, challenge me by these deserts,
And by this virgin palm, now kissing thine,

I will be thine; and till that instant shut
My woeful self up in a mourning house;
Raining the tears of lamentation

For the remembrance of my father's death.
If this thou do deny, let our hands part;
Neither intitled in the other's heart.

King. If this, or more than this, I would deny, To flatter up these powers of mine with rest, The sudden hand of death close up mine eye!

Hence ever, then, my heart is in thy breast. Biron. And what to me, my love, and what to me?

Ros. You must be purgéd too, your sins are

rank;

You are attaint with faults and perjury:

I'll mark no words that smooth-faced wooers say:
Come when the king doth to my lady come,
Then, if I have much love, I'll give you some.
Dum. I'll serve thee true and faithfully till then.
Kath. Yet swear not, least you be forsworn again.
Long. What
says
Maria?
Mar.
At the twelvemonth's end,
I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend.
Long. I'll stay with patience; but the time is
long.

Mar. The liker you; few taller are so young.
Biron. Studies my lady? Mistress look on me,
Behold the window of my heart, mine eye,
What humble suit attends thy answer there :
Impose some service on me for thy love.

Ros. Oft have I heard of you, my lord Birón, Before I saw you: and the world's large tongue Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks; Full of comparisons and wounding flouts; Which you on all estates will execute, That lie within the mercy of your wit:

To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain, And therewithal to win me, if you please (Without the which I am not to be won),

Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it. Then, if sickly ears,
Deafed with the clamors of their own dear groans,
Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,
And I will have you, and that fault withal;
But if they will not, throw away that spirit,
And I shall find you empty of that fault,
Right joyful of your reformation.

Biron. A twelvemonth? Well, befall what will befall,

I'll jest a twelvemonth in a hospital.

Prin. Ay, sweet my lord; and so I take my leave. [To the KING. King. No, madam; we will bring you on your

King. Call them forth quickly; we will do so. Arm. Holla! approach.

It cannot be; it is impossible:

Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.

Ros. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing 'spirit,

Whose influence is begot of that loose grace
Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools.
A jest's prosperity lies in the ear

Enter HOLOFERNES, NATHANIEL, MOTH, COSTARD, and others.

This side is Hiems, winter; this Ver, the spring; the one maintained by the owl, the other by the cuckoo. Ver, begin.

SONG. SPRING.

When daisies pied, and violets blue,

And lady-smocks all silver-white,

And Tom bears logs into the hall,

And milk comes frozen home in pail;
When blood is nipped, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-who;

Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,

And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,

And Marian's nose looks red and raw;
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-who;

Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

Arm. The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo. You that way; we this way.

[Exeunt.