You would for paradise break faith and troth:

[To Long.
And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath.
[To Dumain.
What will Biron say, when that he shall hear
A faith infringed, which such zeal did swear?
How will he scoru? 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.
Ah, good my liege, I pray thee, pardon me:
[Coming forward.
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'er-shot?
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 I have 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 knot?!
To see great Hercules whipping a gigg.
And profound Solomon tuning a jigg,
And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys,
And critic3 Timon laugh at idle toys!
Where lyes thy grief? O tell me, good Dumain!
And, gentle Longaville, where lyes 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 rhine?
Or groan for Joan? 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. 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 present hast thou there?
Cost. Some certain treason.
King. What makes treason here?

Cost. Nay, it makes nothing, sir.

15)

20

25

30

135

40

45

Biron. A toy, my liege, a toy; your grace

needs not fear it.

[fore let's hear it. Long. It did move him to passion, and thereDum. It is Biron's writing, and here is his name. Biron. Ah, you whoreson loggerhead, you were born to do me shame. [To Costard. 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 :-
Will these turtles be gone?

King. Hence, sirs; away.

Cost. Walk aside the true folk, and let the trai tors stay. [Exeunt Costard & Jaqueneita. Biron. Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O let us em

brace!

As true we are, as flesh and blood can be: The sea will ebb & flow,heaven will shew 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 shew 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, 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? [now? King. What zeal, what fury, hath inspir'd thee 50My love, my mistress, is a gracious moon;

155

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; [seek. Where nothing wants, that want itself doth

To leap means in this place to exult. 2 Some critics have conjectured, that Shakspeare here alludes to the Knott, a Lincolnshire bird of the snipe kind, which, from the easiness with which it was ensnared, was deemed foolish even to a proverb. Mr. Steevens, however, thinks that our author alludes to a true lover's knot; meaning, that the king remained so long in the lover's posture, that he seemed actually transformed into a knot. Critic and critical are often used by Shakspeare in the same sense as cynic and cynical. A bird is said to prune himself when he picks and sleeks his

feathers.

Lend

Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues

Fye, painted rhetorick! O, she needs it not: To things of sale a seller's praise belongs; [blot. She passes praise; then praise too short doth A wither'd hermit, fivescore 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,

Dum. Ay, marry, there;-some flattery for this
Long. O, some authority how to proceed; [evil.
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.
10 Say, can you fast? your stomachs are too young;
And abstinence engenders maladies.

The hue of dungeons, and the scowl of night; And beauty's crest' becomes the heavens well. Biron. Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits 20 O, if in black my lady's brow be deckt, [of light.

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 the 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. [bright. 30 Long. And, since her time, are colliers counted King. And Ethiops of their sweet complexion crack. [light.

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?
15 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 woman's eyes this doctrine I derive:
They are the ground, the book, the academes,
From whence doth spring the true Promethean
Why, universal plodding prisons up [tire.
The nimble spirits in the arteries*;
As motion, and long-during action, tires
The sinewy vigour of the traveller.
25 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 beauty 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 forsworn 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 beauteous tutors have enrich'd you with?
Other slow arts entirely keep the brain:
And therefore finding barren practisers,
Scarce shew 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;

Dum. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is
Biron. Your mistresses dare never come in rain, 35
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 dooms-40
day here.
[as she.
King. No devil will fright thee then so much
Dum. I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear.
Long. Look, here's thy love; my foot and her
face see.
[Shewing his shoe. 45
Biron.O,if the streets were paved with thine eyes,
Her feet were too much dainty for such tread!
Dun. O vile! then as she goes, what upward lies

The street should see as she walk'd overhead. King. But what of this? Are we not all in love? Biron. Nothing so sure; and thereby all forsworn. King. Then leave this chat; and, good Biron, now prove

Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn.

50

1 In heraldry, a crest is a device placed above a coat of arms. Shakspeare therefore uses it here in a sense equivalent to top or utmost height. Dr. Warburton says, that quillet is the peculiar word applied to law-chicane, and imagines the original to be this: In the French pleadings, every several allegation in the plaintiff's charge, and every distinct plea in the defendant's answer, began with the words qu'il est ;-from whence was formed the word quillet, to signify a false charge or an evasive answer. 3 That is, ye soldiers of affection. In the old system of physic they gave the same office to the arteries as is now given to the nerves. Alluding to the discoveries in modern astronomy, at that time greatly improving, in which the ladies' eyes are compared, as usual, to stars. That is, a lover in pursuit of his mistress has his sense of hearing quicker than a thief (who suspects every sound he hears) in pursuit of his prey.

4

M 2

Love's

[taste;

Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in
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 humility.

From women's eves this doctrine I derive :
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That shew, 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! [them, lords; Biron. Advance your standards, and upon 5 Pell-mell, down with them! but be first advis`d, In conflict that you get the sun of them. [by: Long. Now to plain-dealing; lay these glozes Shail we resolve to woo these girls of France? King. And win them too: therefore let us devise 10Some 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
15 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
no corn';

20

ACT V.

SCENE I.

The Street.

Enter Holofernes, Nathaniel, and Dull. Hol.

ATIS quod sufficit.

SATIS

135) Nath. A most singular and choice epithet. [Draws out his table-book. Hol. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor such phanatical phantasms, such insociable and pointNat. I praise God for you, sir: your 40 devise companions; such rackers of orthography, reasons' at dinner have been sharp and sententi- as to speak, dout, fine, when he should say, doubt; ous; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affec- det, when he should pronounce, debt; d, e, b, t; tion,audacious' without impudency, learned with- not d, e, t: he clepeth a calf, cauf; half, hauf; out opinion, and strange without heresy. I did neighbour, cocatur, nebour; neigh, abbreviated, converse this quondam day with a companion of 45 ne: This is abhominable. (which he would call the king's, who is intituled, nominated, or called, abominable) it insinuateth me of insanie: Ne in Don Adriano de Armado. telligis, domine? to make frantick, lunatick?

Hol. Novi hominem tanquam te: His humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, histongue filed,| his eye ambitious, his gait majestical, and his gene-50 ral behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical. He is too picked", too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were; too peregrinate, as

may

call it.

Nath. Laus deo, bone intelligo.

Hol. Bone?- -bone, for bene: Priscian a little scratch'd; 'twill serve.

Enter Armado, Moth, and Costard.
Nath. Videsne quis venit?

Hol. Video & gaudeo.

3

Apollo, as the sun, is represented with golden hair; so that a lute strung with his hair means no more than strung with gilded wire. 2 This passage has been very fully canvassed by all the various commentators upon our author: the following explanation, however, strikes us as the most simple and intelligible: "When love speaks, (says Biron) the assembled gods reduce the elements of the sky to a calm, by their harmonious applauses of this favoured orator." This proverbial expression intimates that, beginning with perjury, they can expect to reap nothing but falshood. That is, enough's as good as a feast. Reason here, as in other passages of our author's plays, signifies discourse. That is, without affectation. Audacious is used for spirited, animated; and opinion imports the same with obstinacy or opiniutreté. Meaning, too nicely dressed; alluding probably to a bird picking out or raning its feathers; a metaphor which our author has before used in this play.

Arm

Arm. Chirra!

Hol. Quare Chirra, not sirrah? Arm. Men of peace, well encounter'd. Hol. Most military, sir, salutation. Moth. They have been at a great feast of lan- 5 guages, and stolen the scraps. [To Costard aside. Cost. O, they have liv'd long on the alms-basket of words'! I marvel, thy master hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier swa-10 lowed than a flap-dragon'.

Moth. Peace, the peal begins.

Arm. Monsieur, are you not letter'd?

oon: the word is well cull'd, chose: sweet and apt, I do assure you, sir, I do assure.

Arm. Sir, the king is a noble gentleman; and my familiar, I do assure you, very good friend:For what is inward between us, let it pass:-I do beseech thee, rememberthy courtesy; I beseech hee, apparel thy head:—and among other importunate and most serious designs,and of great import indeed, too;--but let that pass:--for I must tell thee, it will please his grace (by the world) sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder; and with his royal finger, thus, dally with my excrement, with my mustachio; but, sweet heart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no fable: some certain special honours it pleaseth his greatness to impart to Armado a soldier, a man of travel, that hath seen the world: but let that pass.-The very all of all is,-but, sweet heart, I do implore secresy,-that the king would have me present 20the princess, sweet chuck, with some delightful Jostentation, or show, or pageant, or antick,or fire

Moth. Yes, yes; he teaches boys the horn-book: What is a, b, spelt backward, with a horn on his 15 head?

Hol. Ba, pueritia, with a horn added.

Moth. Ba, most silly sheep, with a horn:-You hear his learning.

Hol. Quis, quis, thou consonant?

Moth. The third of the five vowels, if you repeat them; or the fifth, if I.

Hol. I will repeat them, a, e, i.—

Moth. The sheep: the other two concludes it; o, u'.

Arm. Now, by the salt water of the Mediterra-nean, a sweet touch, a quick venew* of wit: snip, snap, quick and home; it rejoiceth my intellect:

true wit.

25

Cost. An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy ginger-bread: hold, there is 40 the very remuneration I had of thy master, thou half-penny purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of discretion. O, an the heavens were so pleased, that thou wert but my bastard! what a joyful father wouldst thou make me? Go to; thou hast it ad dunghill, 45 at the fingers' ends, as they say.

Hol. Oh, I smell false Latin; dunghill for unguem.

Arm. Arts-man, præambula; we will be singled
from the barbarous. Do you not educate youth at 50
the charge-house' on the top of the mountain?
Hol. Or, mons the hill.

Arm At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain
Hol. I do, sans question.

Arm. Sir, it is the king's most sweet pleasure and 55 affection, to congratulate the princess at her pavilion, in the posteriors of this day; which the rude multitude call the afternoon.

work. Now understanding that the curate, and your sweet self, are good at such eruptions, and sudden breakings out of mirth, as it were, I have acquainted you withal, to the end to crave your assistance.

Hol. Sir, you shall present before her the nine worthies.-Sir Nathaniel, as concerning some entertainment of time, some show in the posterior of this day, to be render'd by our assistance,―atthe king's command; and this most gallant, illustrate, and learned gentleman,-before the princess; I say, none so fit as to present the nine worthies.

Nach. Where will you find men worthy enough to present them?

Hol. Joshua, yourself; myself, or this gallant gentleman, Judas Maccabæus; this swain, because of his great limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the great; the page, Hercules.

Arm. Pardon, sir, error; he is not quantity enough for that worthy's thumb: he is not so big as the end of his club.

Hol. Shall I have audience? he shall present Hercules in minority: his enter and exit shall be strangling a snake; and I will have an apology for that purpose.

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.
beseech you, follow.

Hol. Via, goodman Dull! thou hast spoken no

Hol. The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is liable, congruent, and measurable for the after-60 word all this while.

3

That is, the very offal, or refuse of words. 2 A flap-dragon is a small inflammable substance, which topers swallow in a glass of wine. By o, u, Moth would mean-Oh, you—i. e. You are the sheep still, either way; no matter which of us repeats them. A venew is the technical term at the fencing school for a bout. Mr. Steevens supposes the charge-house to mean the free-school, Meaning, his beard. That is, suit not. An Italian exclamation, signifying Courage! come on!

Dull.

[part,

Prin. Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we de-
If fairings come thus plentifully in:
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? yea, as much love in
As would be cramm'dup in asheet of paper [rhime,
Writ on both sides the leaf, margent 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 ; he 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 have been a grandam ere she dy'd:
And so may you, for a light heart lives long.
Ros. What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this
light word?

Mar. This, and these pearls, to me sent LongaThe letter is too long by half a mile.

[so.

Prin. I think no less; Dost thou not wish in heart,
15 The chain were longer, and the letter short? [part.
Mar. Ay, or I would these hands might never
Prin. We are wise girls, to mock our lovers so.
Ros. They are worse fools to purchase mocking
That same Biron I'll torture ere I go.
200, 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 wit in bootless rhines;
And shape his service all to my behests:
25 Andmake him proud to make me proud that jests!
So portent-like would I o'ersway his state,
That he should be my fool, and I his fate! [catch'd,
Prin. None are so surely caught, when they are
As wit turn'd fool: folly, in wisdom hatch'd,
30 Hath wisdom's warrant, and the help of school;
And wit's own grace to grace a learned fool.

Kath. A light condition in a beauty dark. [out. Ros. We need more light to find your meaning Kath. You'llmar the light, by taking it in snuff2:35 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 40

not for me.

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

Ros. I would, you knew:
Anif my face were but as fair as yours,
My favour were as great, be witness this.
Nay, I have verses too, I thank Biron :

The numbers true; and, were the numb'ring too,
I were the fairest goddess on the ground:

I am compar'd to twenty thousand fairs.

O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter!
Prin. Any thing like?

Ros. The blood of youth burns not with such
As gravity's revolt to wantonness. [excess,
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
Prin. Thy news, Boyet?
[her grace?

Boyet. Prepare, madam, prepare!
Arm, wenches, arm!-encounters mounted are
Against your peace: Love doth approach disguis'd,
45 Armed in arguments; you'll be surpris'd:

50

Muster your wits; stand in your own defence;
Or hide your heads like cowards, and fly hence.
Prin. St. Dennis to St. Cupid! What are they,
That charge their breath against us? say, scout,
Boyet. Under the cool shade of a sycamore, [say.
I thought to close my eyes some half an hour:
When, lo! to interrupt my purpos'd rest,
Towards that shade I might behold addrest
The king and his companions: warily

Ros. Much, in the letters; nothing in the praise. 55 stole into a neighbour thicket by,

Prin. Beauteous as ink: a good conclusion.

Kath. Fair as a text B in a copy-book.

1

4

2

And overheard what you shall overhear;
That, by and by, disguis'd they will be here.

To wir here signifies to grow. Snuff is here used equivocally for anger, and the snuff of a candle. "Meaning "'Ware painting." Alluding, perhaps, to the pits in her face, occasioned by the smallpox. This expression probably alludes to the practice of hiring servants or artificers by the week; and the meaning of the passage may be, I wish I was as sure of his service for any time limited, as if I had hired him. 'See note 4, p. 87, in Measure for Measure. The meaning is, I would be his fate or destiny, and like a portent, hang over and influence his fortunes. For portents were not only thought to forebode, but to influence.