Love 's Labour Lost 101.html

<span id = 2081 ></span><span id = 2082 ><p>SCENE I. The king of Navarre's park.</p><p>Enter FERDINAND king of Navarre, BIRON, LONGAVILLE and DUMAIN <br />FERDINAND <br />Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,<br />Live register'd upon our brazen tombs<br />And then grace us in the disgrace of death;<br />When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,<br />The endeavor of this present breath may buy<br />That honour which shall bate his scythe's keen edge<br />And make us heirs of all eternity.<br />Therefore, brave conquerors,--for so you are,<br />That war against your own affections<br />And the huge army of the world's desires,--<br />Our late edict shall strongly stand in force:<br />Navarre shall be the wonder of the world;<br />Our court shall be a little Academe,<br />Still and contemplative in living art.<br />You three, Biron, Dumain, and Longaville,<br />Have sworn for three years' term to live with me<br />My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes<br />That are recorded in this schedule here:<br />Your oaths are pass'd; and now subscribe your names,<br />That his own hand may strike his honour down<br />That violates the smallest branch herein:<br />If you are arm'd to do as sworn to do,<br />Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too.</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />I am resolved; 'tis but a three years' fast:<br />The mind shall banquet, though the body pine:<br />Fat paunches have lean pates, and dainty bits<br />Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />My loving lord, Dumain is mortified:<br />The grosser manner of these world's delights<br />He throws upon the gross world's baser slaves:<br />To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die;<br />With all these living in philosophy.</p><p>BIRON <br />I can but say their protestation over;<br />So much, dear liege, I have already sworn,<br />That is, to live and study here three years.<br />But there are other strict observances;<br />As, not to see a woman in that term,<br />Which I hope well is not enrolled there;<br />And one day in a week to touch no food<br />And but one meal on every day beside,<br />The which I hope is not enrolled there;<br />And then, to sleep but three hours in the night,<br />And not be seen to wink of all the day--<br />When I was wont to think no harm all night<br />And make a dark night too of half the day--<br />Which I hope well is not enrolled there:<br />O, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep,<br />Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep!</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Your oath is pass'd to pass away from these.</p><p>BIRON <br />Let me say no, my liege, an if you please:<br />I only swore to study with your grace<br />And stay here in your court for three years' space.</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />You swore to that, Biron, and to the rest.</p><p>BIRON <br />By yea and nay, sir, then I swore in jest.<br />What is the end of study? let me know.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Why, that to know, which else we should not know.</p><p>BIRON <br />Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from common sense?</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Ay, that is study's godlike recompense.</p><p>BIRON <br />Come on, then; I will swear to study so,<br />To know the thing I am forbid to know:<br />As thus,--to study where I well may dine,<br />When I to feast expressly am forbid;<br />Or study where to meet some mistress fine,<br />When mistresses from common sense are hid;<br />Or, having sworn too hard a keeping oath,<br />Study to break it and not break my troth.<br />If study's gain be thus and this be so,<br />Study knows that which yet it doth not know:<br />Swear me to this, and I will ne'er say no.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />These be the stops that hinder study quite<br />And train our intellects to vain delight.</p><p>BIRON <br />Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain,<br />Which with pain purchased doth inherit pain:<br />As, painfully to pore upon a book<br />To seek the light of truth; while truth the while<br />Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look:<br />Light seeking light doth light of light beguile:<br />So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,<br />Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.<br />Study me how to please the eye indeed<br />By fixing it upon a fairer eye,<br />Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed<br />And give him light that it was blinded by.<br />Study is like the heaven's glorious sun<br />That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks:<br />Small have continual plodders ever won<br />Save base authority from others' books<br />These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights<br />That give a name to every fixed star<br />Have no more profit of their shining nights<br />Than those that walk and wot not what they are.<br />Too much to know is to know nought but fame;<br />And every godfather can give a name.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />How well he's read, to reason against reading!</p><p>DUMAIN <br />Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding!</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />He weeds the corn and still lets grow the weeding.</p><p>BIRON <br />The spring is near when green geese are a-breeding.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />How follows that?</p><p>BIRON <br />Fit in his place and time.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />In reason nothing.</p><p>BIRON <br />Something then in rhyme.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Biron is like an envious sneaping frost,<br />That bites the first-born infants of the spring.</p><p>BIRON <br />Well, say I am; why should proud summer boast<br />Before the birds have any cause to sing?<br />Why should I joy in any abortive birth?<br />At Christmas I no more desire a rose<br />Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled mirth;<br />But like of each thing that in season grows.<br />So you, to study now it is too late,<br />Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Well, sit you out: go home, Biron: adieu.</p><p>BIRON <br />No, my good lord; I have sworn to stay with you:<br />And though I have for barbarism spoke more<br />Than for that angel knowledge you can say,<br />Yet confident I'll keep what I have swore<br />And bide the penance of each three years' day.<br />Give me the paper; let me read the same;<br />And to the strict'st decrees I'll write my name.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />How well this yielding rescues thee from shame!</p><p>BIRON <br />[Reads] 'Item, That no woman shall come within a<br />mile of my court:' Hath this been proclaimed?</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />Four days ago.</p><p>BIRON <br />Let's see the penalty.</p><p>Reads</p><p>'On pain of losing her tongue.' Who devised this penalty?</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />Marry, that did I.</p><p>BIRON <br />Sweet lord, and why?</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />To fright them hence with that dread penalty.</p><p>BIRON <br />A dangerous law against gentility!</p><p>Reads</p><p>'Item, If any man be seen to talk with a woman<br />within the term of three years, he shall endure such<br />public shame as the rest of the court can possibly devise.'<br />This article, my liege, yourself must break;<br />For well you know here comes in embassy<br />The French king's daughter with yourself to speak--<br />A maid of grace and complete majesty--<br />About surrender up of Aquitaine<br />To her decrepit, sick and bedrid father:<br />Therefore this article is made in vain,<br />Or vainly comes the admired princess hither.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />What say you, lords? Why, this was quite forgot.</p><p>BIRON <br />So study evermore is overshot:<br />While it doth study to have what it would<br />It doth forget to do the thing it should,<br />And when it hath the thing it hunteth most,<br />'Tis won as towns with fire, so won, so lost.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />We must of force dispense with this decree;<br />She must lie here on mere necessity.</p><p>BIRON <br />Necessity will make us all forsworn<br />Three thousand times within this three years' space;<br />For every man with his affects is born,<br />Not by might master'd but by special grace:<br />If I break faith, this word shall speak for me;<br />I am forsworn on 'mere necessity.'<br />So to the laws at large I write my name:</p><p>Subscribes</p><p>And he that breaks them in the least degree<br />Stands in attainder of eternal shame:<br />Suggestions are to other as to me;<br />But I believe, although I seem so loath,<br />I am the last that will last keep his oath.<br />But is there no quick recreation granted?</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Ay, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted<br />With a refined traveller of Spain;<br />A man in all the world's new fashion planted,<br />That hath a mint of phrases in his brain;<br />One whom the music of his own vain tongue<br />Doth ravish like enchanting harmony;<br />A man of complements, whom right and wrong<br />Have chose as umpire of their mutiny:<br />This child of fancy, that Armado hight,<br />For interim to our studies shall relate<br />In high-born words the worth of many a knight<br />From tawny Spain lost in the world's debate.<br />How you delight, my lords, I know not, I;<br />But, I protest, I love to hear him lie<br />And I will use him for my minstrelsy.</p><p>BIRON <br />Armado is a most illustrious wight,<br />A man of fire-new words, fashion's own knight.</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />Costard the swain and he shall be our sport;<br />And so to study, three years is but short.</p><p>Enter DULL with a letter, and COSTARD</p><p>DULL <br />Which is the duke's own person?</p><p>BIRON <br />This, fellow: what wouldst?</p><p>DULL <br />I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his<br />grace's tharborough: but I would see his own person<br />in flesh and blood.</p><p>BIRON <br />This is he.</p><p>DULL <br />Signior Arme--Arme--commends you. There's villany<br />abroad: this letter will tell you more.</p><p>COSTARD <br />Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />A letter from the magnificent Armado.</p><p>BIRON <br />How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high words.</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />A high hope for a low heaven: God grant us patience!</p><p>BIRON <br />To hear? or forbear laughing?</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately; or to<br />forbear both.</p><p>BIRON <br />Well, sir, be it as the style shall give us cause to<br />climb in the merriness.</p><p>COSTARD <br />The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta.<br />The manner of it is, I was taken with the manner.</p><p>BIRON <br />In what manner?</p><p>COSTARD <br />In manner and form following, sir; all those three:<br />I was seen with her in the manor-house, sitting with<br />her upon the form, and taken following her into the<br />park; which, put together, is in manner and form<br />following. Now, sir, for the manner,--it is the<br />manner of a man to speak to a woman: for the form,--<br />in some form.</p><p>BIRON <br />For the following, sir?</p><p>COSTARD <br />As it shall follow in my correction: and God defend<br />the right!</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Will you hear this letter with attention?</p><p>BIRON <br />As we would hear an oracle.</p><p>COSTARD <br />Such is the simplicity of man to hearken after the flesh.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />[Reads] 'Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent and<br />sole dominator of Navarre, my soul's earth's god,<br />and body's fostering patron.'</p><p>COSTARD <br />Not a word of Costard yet.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />[Reads] 'So it is,'--</p><p>COSTARD <br />It may be so: but if he say it is so, he is, in<br />telling true, but so.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Peace!</p><p>COSTARD <br />Be to me and every man that dares not fight!</p><p>FERDINAND <br />No words!</p><p>COSTARD <br />Of other men's secrets, I beseech you.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />[Reads] 'So it is, besieged with sable-coloured<br />melancholy, I did commend the black-oppressing humour<br />to the most wholesome physic of thy health-giving<br />air; and, as I am a gentleman, betook myself to<br />walk. The time when. About the sixth hour; when<br />beasts most graze, birds best peck, and men sit down<br />to that nourishment which is called supper: so much<br />for the time when. Now for the ground which; which,<br />I mean, I walked upon: it is y-cleped thy park. Then<br />for the place where; where, I mean, I did encounter<br />that obscene and preposterous event, that draweth<br />from my snow-white pen the ebon-coloured ink, which<br />here thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or seest;<br />but to the place where; it standeth north-north-east<br />and by east from the west corner of thy curious-<br />knotted garden: there did I see that low-spirited<br />swain, that base minnow of thy mirth,'--</p><p>COSTARD <br />Me?</p><p>FERDINAND <br />[Reads] 'that unlettered small-knowing soul,'--</p><p>COSTARD <br />Me?</p><p>FERDINAND <br />[Reads] 'that shallow vassal,'--</p><p>COSTARD <br />Still me?</p><p>FERDINAND <br />[Reads] 'which, as I remember, hight Costard,'--</p><p>COSTARD <br />O, me!</p><p>FERDINAND <br />[Reads] 'sorted and consorted, contrary to thy<br />established proclaimed edict and continent canon,<br />which with,--O, with--but with this I passion to say<br />wherewith,--</p><p>COSTARD <br />With a wench.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />[Reads] 'with a child of our grandmother Eve, a<br />female; or, for thy more sweet understanding, a<br />woman. Him I, as my ever-esteemed duty pricks me on,<br />have sent to thee, to receive the meed of<br />punishment, by thy sweet grace's officer, Anthony<br />Dull; a man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and<br />estimation.'</p><p>DULL <br />'Me, an't shall please you; I am Anthony Dull.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />[Reads] 'For Jaquenetta,--so is the weaker vessel<br />called which I apprehended with the aforesaid<br />swain,--I keep her as a vessel of the law's fury;<br />and shall, at the least of thy sweet notice, bring<br />her to trial. Thine, in all compliments of devoted<br />and heart-burning heat of duty.<br />DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.'</p><p>BIRON <br />This is not so well as I looked for, but the best<br />that ever I heard.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Ay, the best for the worst. But, sirrah, what say<br />you to this?</p><p>COSTARD <br />Sir, I confess the wench.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Did you hear the proclamation?</p><p>COSTARD <br />I do confess much of the hearing it but little of<br />the marking of it.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />It was proclaimed a year's imprisonment, to be taken<br />with a wench.</p><p>COSTARD <br />I was taken with none, sir: I was taken with a damsel.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Well, it was proclaimed 'damsel.'</p><p>COSTARD <br />This was no damsel, neither, sir; she was a virgin.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />It is so varied, too; for it was proclaimed 'virgin.'</p><p>COSTARD <br />If it were, I deny her virginity: I was taken with a maid.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />This maid will not serve your turn, sir.</p><p>COSTARD <br />This maid will serve my turn, sir.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Sir, I will pronounce your sentence: you shall fast<br />a week with bran and water.</p><p>COSTARD <br />I had rather pray a month with mutton and porridge.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />And Don Armado shall be your keeper.<br />My Lord Biron, see him deliver'd o'er:<br />And go we, lords, to put in practise that<br />Which each to other hath so strongly sworn.</p><p>Exeunt FERDINAND, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN</p><p>BIRON <br />I'll lay my head to any good man's hat,<br />These oaths and laws will prove an idle scorn.<br />Sirrah, come on.</p><p>COSTARD <br />I suffer for the truth, sir; for true it is, I was<br />taken with Jaquenetta, and Jaquenetta is a true<br />girl; and therefore welcome the sour cup of<br />prosperity! Affliction may one day smile again; and<br />till then, sit thee down, sorrow!</p><p>Exeunt</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p></span><span id = 2083 ><p>SCENE II. The same.</p><p>Enter DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO and MOTH <br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Boy, what sign is it when a man of great spirit<br />grows melancholy?</p><p>MOTH <br />A great sign, sir, that he will look sad.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Why, sadness is one and the self-same thing, dear imp.</p><p>MOTH <br />No, no; O Lord, sir, no.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />How canst thou part sadness and melancholy, my<br />tender juvenal?</p><p>MOTH <br />By a familiar demonstration of the working, my tough senior.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Why tough senior? why tough senior?</p><p>MOTH <br />Why tender juvenal? why tender juvenal?<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />I spoke it, tender juvenal, as a congruent epitheton<br />appertaining to thy young days, which we may<br />nominate tender.</p><p>MOTH <br />And I, tough senior, as an appertinent title to your<br />old time, which we may name tough.<br />DON ADRIANO DE</p><p>ARMADO <br />Pretty and apt.</p><p>MOTH <br />How mean you, sir? I pretty, and my saying apt? or<br />I apt, and my saying pretty?<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Thou pretty, because little.</p><p>MOTH <br />Little pretty, because little. Wherefore apt?<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />And therefore apt, because quick.</p><p>MOTH <br />Speak you this in my praise, master?<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />In thy condign praise.</p><p>MOTH <br />I will praise an eel with the same praise.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />What, that an eel is ingenious?</p><p>MOTH <br />That an eel is quick.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />I do say thou art quick in answers: thou heatest my blood.</p><p>MOTH <br />I am answered, sir.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />I love not to be crossed.</p><p>MOTH <br />[Aside] He speaks the mere contrary; crosses love not him.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />I have promised to study three years with the duke.</p><p>MOTH <br />You may do it in an hour, sir.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Impossible.</p><p>MOTH <br />How many is one thrice told?<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />I am ill at reckoning; it fitteth the spirit of a tapster.</p><p>MOTH <br />You are a gentleman and a gamester, sir.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />I confess both: they are both the varnish of a<br />complete man.</p><p>MOTH <br />Then, I am sure, you know how much the gross sum of<br />deuce-ace amounts to.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />It doth amount to one more than two.</p><p>MOTH <br />Which the base vulgar do call three.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />True.</p><p>MOTH <br />Why, sir, is this such a piece of study? Now here<br />is three studied, ere ye'll thrice wink: and how<br />easy it is to put 'years' to the word 'three,' and<br />study three years in two words, the dancing horse<br />will tell you.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />A most fine figure!</p><p>MOTH <br />To prove you a cipher.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />I will hereupon confess I am in love: and as it is<br />base for a soldier to love, so am I in love with a<br />base wench. If drawing my sword against the humour<br />of affection would deliver me from the reprobate<br />thought of it, I would take Desire prisoner, and<br />ransom him to any French courtier for a new-devised<br />courtesy. I think scorn to sigh: methinks I should<br />outswear Cupid. Comfort, me, boy: what great men<br />have been in love?</p><p>MOTH <br />Hercules, master.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Most sweet Hercules! More authority, dear boy, name<br />more; and, sweet my child, let them be men of good<br />repute and carriage.</p><p>MOTH <br />Samson, master: he was a man of good carriage, great<br />carriage, for he carried the town-gates on his back<br />like a porter: and he was in love.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />O well-knit Samson! strong-jointed Samson! I do<br />excel thee in my rapier as much as thou didst me in<br />carrying gates. I am in love too. Who was Samson's<br />love, my dear Moth?</p><p>MOTH <br />A woman, master.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Of what complexion?</p><p>MOTH <br />Of all the four, or the three, or the two, or one of the four.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Tell me precisely of what complexion.</p><p>MOTH <br />Of the sea-water green, sir.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Is that one of the four complexions?</p><p>MOTH <br />As I have read, sir; and the best of them too.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Green indeed is the colour of lovers; but to have a<br />love of that colour, methinks Samson had small reason<br />for it. He surely affected her for her wit.</p><p>MOTH <br />It was so, sir; for she had a green wit.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />My love is most immaculate white and red.</p><p>MOTH <br />Most maculate thoughts, master, are masked under<br />such colours.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Define, define, well-educated infant.</p><p>MOTH <br />My father's wit and my mother's tongue, assist me!<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Sweet invocation of a child; most pretty and<br />pathetical!</p><p>MOTH <br />If she be made of white and red,<br />Her faults will ne'er be known,<br />For blushing cheeks by faults are bred<br />And fears by pale white shown:<br />Then if she fear, or be to blame,<br />By this you shall not know,<br />For still her cheeks possess the same<br />Which native she doth owe.<br />A dangerous rhyme, master, against the reason of<br />white and red.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Is there not a ballad, boy, of the King and the Beggar?</p><p>MOTH <br />The world was very guilty of such a ballad some<br />three ages since: but I think now 'tis not to be<br />found; or, if it were, it would neither serve for<br />the writing nor the tune.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />I will have that subject newly writ o'er, that I may<br />example my digression by some mighty precedent.<br />Boy, I do love that country girl that I took in the<br />park with the rational hind Costard: she deserves well.</p><p>MOTH <br />[Aside] To be whipped; and yet a better love than<br />my master.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Sing, boy; my spirit grows heavy in love.</p><p>MOTH <br />And that's great marvel, loving a light wench.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />I say, sing.</p><p>MOTH <br />Forbear till this company be past.</p><p>Enter DULL, COSTARD, and JAQUENETTA</p><p>DULL <br />Sir, the duke's pleasure is, that you keep Costard<br />safe: and you must suffer him to take no delight<br />nor no penance; but a' must fast three days a week.<br />For this damsel, I must keep her at the park: she<br />is allowed for the day-woman. Fare you well.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />I do betray myself with blushing. Maid!</p><p>JAQUENETTA <br />Man?<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />I will visit thee at the lodge.</p><p>JAQUENETTA <br />That's hereby.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />I know where it is situate.</p><p>JAQUENETTA <br />Lord, how wise you are!<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />I will tell thee wonders.</p><p>JAQUENETTA <br />With that face?<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />I love thee.</p><p>JAQUENETTA <br />So I heard you say.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />And so, farewell.</p><p>JAQUENETTA <br />Fair weather after you!</p><p>DULL <br />Come, Jaquenetta, away!</p><p>Exeunt DULL and JAQUENETTA</p><p>DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Villain, thou shalt fast for thy offences ere thou<br />be pardoned.</p><p>COSTARD <br />Well, sir, I hope, when I do it, I shall do it on a<br />full stomach.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Thou shalt be heavily punished.</p><p>COSTARD <br />I am more bound to you than your fellows, for they<br />are but lightly rewarded.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Take away this villain; shut him up.</p><p>MOTH <br />Come, you transgressing slave; away!</p><p>COSTARD <br />Let me not be pent up, sir: I will fast, being loose.</p><p>MOTH <br />No, sir; that were fast and loose: thou shalt to prison.</p><p>COSTARD <br />Well, if ever I do see the merry days of desolation<br />that I have seen, some shall see.</p><p>MOTH <br />What shall some see?</p><p>COSTARD <br />Nay, nothing, Master Moth, but what they look upon.<br />It is not for prisoners to be too silent in their<br />words; and therefore I will say nothing: I thank<br />God I have as little patience as another man; and<br />therefore I can be quiet.</p><p>Exeunt MOTH and COSTARD</p><p>DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />I do affect the very ground, which is base, where<br />her shoe, which is baser, guided by her foot, which<br />is basest, doth tread. I shall be forsworn, which<br />is a great argument of falsehood, if I love. And<br />how can that be true love which is falsely<br />attempted? Love is a familiar; Love is a devil:<br />there is no evil angel but Love. Yet was Samson so<br />tempted, and he had an excellent strength; yet was<br />Solomon so seduced, and he had a very good wit.<br />Cupid's butt-shaft is too hard for Hercules' club;<br />and therefore too much odds for a Spaniard's rapier.<br />The first and second cause will not serve my turn;<br />the passado he respects not, the duello he regards<br />not: his disgrace is to be called boy; but his<br />glory is to subdue men. Adieu, valour! rust rapier!<br />be still, drum! for your manager is in love; yea,<br />he loveth. Assist me, some extemporal god of rhyme,<br />for I am sure I shall turn sonnet. Devise, wit;<br />write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio.</p><p>Exit</p><p>&nbsp;</p></span><span id = 2084 ></span><span id = 2085 ><p>SCENE I. The same.</p><p>Enter the PRINCESS of France, ROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, BOYET, Lords, and other Attendants <br />BOYET <br />Now, madam, summon up your dearest spirits:<br />Consider who the king your father sends,<br />To whom he sends, and what's his embassy:<br />Yourself, held precious in the world's esteem,<br />To parley with the sole inheritor<br />Of all perfections that a man may owe,<br />Matchless Navarre; the plea of no less weight<br />Than Aquitaine, a dowry for a queen.<br />Be now as prodigal of all dear grace<br />As Nature was in making graces dear<br />When she did starve the general world beside<br />And prodigally gave them all to you.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean,<br />Needs not the painted flourish of your praise:<br />Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye,<br />Not utter'd by base sale of chapmen's tongues:<br />I am less proud to hear you tell my worth<br />Than you much willing to be counted wise<br />In spending your wit in the praise of mine.<br />But now to task the tasker: good Boyet,<br />You are not ignorant, all-telling fame<br />Doth noise abroad, Navarre hath made a vow,<br />Till painful study shall outwear three years,<br />No woman may approach his silent court:<br />Therefore to's seemeth it a needful course,<br />Before we enter his forbidden gates,<br />To know his pleasure; and in that behalf,<br />Bold of your worthiness, we single you<br />As our best-moving fair solicitor.<br />Tell him, the daughter of the King of France,<br />On serious business, craving quick dispatch,<br />Importunes personal conference with his grace:<br />Haste, signify so much; while we attend,<br />Like humble-visaged suitors, his high will.</p><p>BOYET <br />Proud of employment, willingly I go.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />All pride is willing pride, and yours is so.</p><p>Exit BOYET</p><p>Who are the votaries, my loving lords,<br />That are vow-fellows with this virtuous duke?</p><p>First Lord <br />Lord Longaville is one.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Know you the man?</p><p>MARIA <br />I know him, madam: at a marriage-feast,<br />Between Lord Perigort and the beauteous heir<br />Of Jaques Falconbridge, solemnized<br />In Normandy, saw I this Longaville:<br />A man of sovereign parts he is esteem'd;<br />Well fitted in arts, glorious in arms:<br />Nothing becomes him ill that he would well.<br />The only soil of his fair virtue's gloss,<br />If virtue's gloss will stain with any soil,<br />Is a sharp wit matched with too blunt a will;<br />Whose edge hath power to cut, whose will still wills<br />It should none spare that come within his power.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Some merry mocking lord, belike; is't so?</p><p>MARIA <br />They say so most that most his humours know.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Such short-lived wits do wither as they grow.<br />Who are the rest?</p><p>KATHARINE <br />The young Dumain, a well-accomplished youth,<br />Of all that virtue love for virtue loved:<br />Most power to do most harm, least knowing ill;<br />For he hath wit to make an ill shape good,<br />And shape to win grace though he had no wit.<br />I saw him at the Duke Alencon's once;<br />And much too little of that good I saw<br />Is my report to his great worthiness.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Another of these students at that time<br />Was there with him, if I have heard a truth.<br />Biron they call him; but a merrier man,<br />Within the limit of becoming mirth,<br />I never spent an hour's talk withal:<br />His eye begets occasion for his wit;<br />For every object that the one doth catch<br />The other turns to a mirth-moving jest,<br />Which his fair tongue, conceit's expositor,<br />Delivers in such apt and gracious words<br />That aged ears play truant at his tales<br />And younger hearings are quite ravished;<br />So sweet and voluble is his discourse.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />God bless my ladies! are they all in love,<br />That every one her own hath garnished<br />With such bedecking ornaments of praise?</p><p>First Lord <br />Here comes Boyet.</p><p>Re-enter BOYET</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Now, what admittance, lord?</p><p>BOYET <br />Navarre had notice of your fair approach;<br />And he and his competitors in oath<br />Were all address'd to meet you, gentle lady,<br />Before I came. Marry, thus much I have learnt:<br />He rather means to lodge you in the field,<br />Like one that comes here to besiege his court,<br />Than seek a dispensation for his oath,<br />To let you enter his unpeopled house.<br />Here comes Navarre.</p><p>Enter FERDINAND, LONGAVILLE, DUMAIN, BIRON, and Attendants</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Fair princess, welcome to the court of Navarre.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />'Fair' I give you back again; and 'welcome' I have<br />not yet: the roof of this court is too high to be<br />yours; and welcome to the wide fields too base to be mine.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />You shall be welcome, madam, to my court.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />I will be welcome, then: conduct me thither.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Hear me, dear lady; I have sworn an oath.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Our Lady help my lord! he'll be forsworn.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Not for the world, fair madam, by my will.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Why, will shall break it; will and nothing else.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Your ladyship is ignorant what it is.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Were my lord so, his ignorance were wise,<br />Where now his knowledge must prove ignorance.<br />I hear your grace hath sworn out house-keeping:<br />Tis deadly sin to keep that oath, my lord,<br />And sin to break it.<br />But pardon me. I am too sudden-bold:<br />To teach a teacher ill beseemeth me.<br />Vouchsafe to read the purpose of my coming,<br />And suddenly resolve me in my suit.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Madam, I will, if suddenly I may.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />You will the sooner, that I were away;<br />For you'll prove perjured if you make me stay.</p><p>BIRON <br />Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?</p><p>BIRON <br />I know you did.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />How needless was it then to ask the question!</p><p>BIRON <br />You must not be so quick.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />'Tis 'long of you that spur me with such questions.</p><p>BIRON <br />Your wit's too hot, it speeds too fast, 'twill tire.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Not till it leave the rider in the mire.</p><p>BIRON <br />What time o' day?</p><p>ROSALINE <br />The hour that fools should ask.</p><p>BIRON <br />Now fair befall your mask!</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Fair fall the face it covers!</p><p>BIRON <br />And send you many lovers!</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Amen, so you be none.</p><p>BIRON <br />Nay, then will I be gone.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Madam, your father here doth intimate<br />The payment of a hundred thousand crowns;<br />Being but the one half of an entire sum<br />Disbursed by my father in his wars.<br />But say that he or we, as neither have,<br />Received that sum, yet there remains unpaid<br />A hundred thousand more; in surety of the which,<br />One part of Aquitaine is bound to us,<br />Although not valued to the money's worth.<br />If then the king your father will restore<br />But that one half which is unsatisfied,<br />We will give up our right in Aquitaine,<br />And hold fair friendship with his majesty.<br />But that, it seems, he little purposeth,<br />For here he doth demand to have repaid<br />A hundred thousand crowns; and not demands,<br />On payment of a hundred thousand crowns,<br />To have his title live in Aquitaine;<br />Which we much rather had depart withal<br />And have the money by our father lent<br />Than Aquitaine so gelded as it is.<br />Dear Princess, were not his requests so far<br />From reason's yielding, your fair self should make<br />A yielding 'gainst some reason in my breast<br />And go well satisfied to France again.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />You do the king my father too much wrong<br />And wrong the reputation of your name,<br />In so unseeming to confess receipt<br />Of that which hath so faithfully been paid.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />I do protest I never heard of it;<br />And if you prove it, I'll repay it back<br />Or yield up Aquitaine.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />We arrest your word.<br />Boyet, you can produce acquittances<br />For such a sum from special officers<br />Of Charles his father.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Satisfy me so.</p><p>BOYET <br />So please your grace, the packet is not come<br />Where that and other specialties are bound:<br />To-morrow you shall have a sight of them.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />It shall suffice me: at which interview<br />All liberal reason I will yield unto.<br />Meantime receive such welcome at my hand<br />As honour without breach of honour may<br />Make tender of to thy true worthiness:<br />You may not come, fair princess, in my gates;<br />But here without you shall be so received<br />As you shall deem yourself lodged in my heart,<br />Though so denied fair harbour in my house.<br />Your own good thoughts excuse me, and farewell:<br />To-morrow shall we visit you again.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Sweet health and fair desires consort your grace!</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Thy own wish wish I thee in every place!</p><p>Exit</p><p>BIRON <br />Lady, I will commend you to mine own heart.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Pray you, do my commendations; I would be glad to see it.</p><p>BIRON <br />I would you heard it groan.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Is the fool sick?</p><p>BIRON <br />Sick at the heart.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Alack, let it blood.</p><p>BIRON <br />Would that do it good?</p><p>ROSALINE <br />My physic says 'ay.'</p><p>BIRON <br />Will you prick't with your eye?</p><p>ROSALINE <br />No point, with my knife.</p><p>BIRON <br />Now, God save thy life!</p><p>ROSALINE <br />And yours from long living!</p><p>BIRON <br />I cannot stay thanksgiving.</p><p>Retiring</p><p>DUMAIN <br />Sir, I pray you, a word: what lady is that same?</p><p>BOYET <br />The heir of Alencon, Katharine her name.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />A gallant lady. Monsieur, fare you well.</p><p>Exit</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />I beseech you a word: what is she in the white?</p><p>BOYET <br />A woman sometimes, an you saw her in the light.</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />Perchance light in the light. I desire her name.</p><p>BOYET <br />She hath but one for herself; to desire that were a shame.</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />Pray you, sir, whose daughter?</p><p>BOYET <br />Her mother's, I have heard.</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />God's blessing on your beard!</p><p>BOYET <br />Good sir, be not offended.<br />She is an heir of Falconbridge.</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />Nay, my choler is ended.<br />She is a most sweet lady.</p><p>BOYET <br />Not unlike, sir, that may be.</p><p>Exit LONGAVILLE</p><p>BIRON <br />What's her name in the cap?</p><p>BOYET <br />Rosaline, by good hap.</p><p>BIRON <br />Is she wedded or no?</p><p>BOYET <br />To her will, sir, or so.</p><p>BIRON <br />You are welcome, sir: adieu.</p><p>BOYET <br />Farewell to me, sir, and welcome to you.</p><p>Exit BIRON</p><p>MARIA <br />That last is Biron, the merry madcap lord:<br />Not a word with him but a jest.</p><p>BOYET <br />And every jest but a word.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />It was well done of you to take him at his word.</p><p>BOYET <br />I was as willing to grapple as he was to board.</p><p>MARIA <br />Two hot sheeps, marry.</p><p>BOYET <br />And wherefore not ships?<br />No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips.</p><p>MARIA <br />You sheep, and I pasture: shall that finish the jest?</p><p>BOYET <br />So you grant pasture for me.</p><p>Offering to kiss her</p><p>MARIA <br />Not so, gentle beast:<br />My lips are no common, though several they be.</p><p>BOYET <br />Belonging to whom?</p><p>MARIA <br />To my fortunes and me.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Good wits will be jangling; but, gentles, agree:<br />This civil war of wits were much better used<br />On Navarre and his book-men; for here 'tis abused.</p><p>BOYET <br />If my observation, which very seldom lies,<br />By the heart's still rhetoric disclosed with eyes,<br />Deceive me not now, Navarre is infected.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />With what?</p><p>BOYET <br />With that which we lovers entitle affected.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Your reason?</p><p>BOYET <br />Why, all his behaviors did make their retire<br />To the court of his eye, peeping thorough desire:<br />His heart, like an agate, with your print impress'd,<br />Proud with his form, in his eye pride express'd:<br />His tongue, all impatient to speak and not see,<br />Did stumble with haste in his eyesight to be;<br />All senses to that sense did make their repair,<br />To feel only looking on fairest of fair:<br />Methought all his senses were lock'd in his eye,<br />As jewels in crystal for some prince to buy;<br />Who, tendering their own worth from where they were glass'd,<br />Did point you to buy them, along as you pass'd:<br />His face's own margent did quote such amazes<br />That all eyes saw his eyes enchanted with gazes.<br />I'll give you Aquitaine and all that is his,<br />An you give him for my sake but one loving kiss.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Come to our pavilion: Boyet is disposed.</p><p>BOYET <br />But to speak that in words which his eye hath<br />disclosed.<br />I only have made a mouth of his eye,<br />By adding a tongue which I know will not lie.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Thou art an old love-monger and speakest skilfully.</p><p>MARIA <br />He is Cupid's grandfather and learns news of him.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Then was Venus like her mother, for her father is but grim.</p><p>BOYET <br />Do you hear, my mad wenches?</p><p>MARIA <br />No.</p><p>BOYET <br />What then, do you see?</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Ay, our way to be gone.</p><p>BOYET <br />You are too hard for me.</p><p>Exeunt</p><p>&nbsp;</p></span><span id = 2086 ></span><span id = 2087 ><p>SCENE I. The same.</p><p>Enter DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO and MOTH <br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Warble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing.</p><p>MOTH <br />Concolinel.</p><p>Singing</p><p>DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Sweet air! Go, tenderness of years; take this key,<br />give enlargement to the swain, bring him festinately<br />hither: I must employ him in a letter to my love.</p><p>MOTH <br />Master, will you win your love with a French brawl?<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />How meanest thou? brawling in French?</p><p>MOTH <br />No, my complete master: but to jig off a tune at<br />the tongue's end, canary to it with your feet, humour<br />it with turning up your eyelids, sigh a note and<br />sing a note, sometime through the throat, as if you<br />swallowed love with singing love, sometime through<br />the nose, as if you snuffed up love by smelling<br />love; with your hat penthouse-like o'er the shop of<br />your eyes; with your arms crossed on your thin-belly<br />doublet like a rabbit on a spit; or your hands in<br />your pocket like a man after the old painting; and<br />keep not too long in one tune, but a snip and away.<br />These are complements, these are humours; these<br />betray nice wenches, that would be betrayed without<br />these; and make them men of note--do you note<br />me?--that most are affected to these.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />How hast thou purchased this experience?</p><p>MOTH <br />By my penny of observation.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />But O,--but O,--</p><p>MOTH <br />'The hobby-horse is forgot.'<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Callest thou my love 'hobby-horse'?</p><p>MOTH <br />No, master; the hobby-horse is but a colt, and your<br />love perhaps a hackney. But have you forgot your love?<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Almost I had.</p><p>MOTH <br />Negligent student! learn her by heart.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />By heart and in heart, boy.</p><p>MOTH <br />And out of heart, master: all those three I will prove.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />What wilt thou prove?</p><p>MOTH <br />A man, if I live; and this, by, in, and without, upon<br />the instant: by heart you love her, because your<br />heart cannot come by her; in heart you love her,<br />because your heart is in love with her; and out of<br />heart you love her, being out of heart that you<br />cannot enjoy her.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />I am all these three.</p><p>MOTH <br />And three times as much more, and yet nothing at<br />all.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Fetch hither the swain: he must carry me a letter.</p><p>MOTH <br />A message well sympathized; a horse to be ambassador<br />for an ass.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Ha, ha! what sayest thou?</p><p>MOTH <br />Marry, sir, you must send the ass upon the horse,<br />for he is very slow-gaited. But I go.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />The way is but short: away!</p><p>MOTH <br />As swift as lead, sir.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />The meaning, pretty ingenious?<br />Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow?</p><p>MOTH <br />Minime, honest master; or rather, master, no.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />I say lead is slow.</p><p>MOTH <br />You are too swift, sir, to say so:<br />Is that lead slow which is fired from a gun?<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Sweet smoke of rhetoric!<br />He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that's he:<br />I shoot thee at the swain.</p><p>MOTH <br />Thump then and I flee.</p><p>Exit</p><p>DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />A most acute juvenal; voluble and free of grace!<br />By thy favour, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face:<br />Most rude melancholy, valour gives thee place.<br />My herald is return'd.</p><p>Re-enter MOTH with COSTARD</p><p>MOTH <br />A wonder, master! here's a costard broken in a shin.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Some enigma, some riddle: come, thy l'envoy; begin.</p><p>COSTARD <br />No enigma, no riddle, no l'envoy; no salve in the<br />mail, sir: O, sir, plantain, a plain plantain! no<br />l'envoy, no l'envoy; no salve, sir, but a plantain!<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />By virtue, thou enforcest laughter; thy silly<br />thought my spleen; the heaving of my lungs provokes<br />me to ridiculous smiling. O, pardon me, my stars!<br />Doth the inconsiderate take salve for l'envoy, and<br />the word l'envoy for a salve?</p><p>MOTH <br />Do the wise think them other? is not l'envoy a salve?<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />No, page: it is an epilogue or discourse, to make plain<br />Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain.<br />I will example it:<br />The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,<br />Were still at odds, being but three.<br />There's the moral. Now the l'envoy.</p><p>MOTH <br />I will add the l'envoy. Say the moral again.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,<br />Were still at odds, being but three.</p><p>MOTH <br />Until the goose came out of door,<br />And stay'd the odds by adding four.<br />Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow with<br />my l'envoy.<br />The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,<br />Were still at odds, being but three.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Until the goose came out of door,<br />Staying the odds by adding four.</p><p>MOTH <br />A good l'envoy, ending in the goose: would you<br />desire more?</p><p>COSTARD <br />The boy hath sold him a bargain, a goose, that's flat.<br />Sir, your pennyworth is good, an your goose be fat.<br />To sell a bargain well is as cunning as fast and loose:<br />Let me see; a fat l'envoy; ay, that's a fat goose.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Come hither, come hither. How did this argument begin?</p><p>MOTH <br />By saying that a costard was broken in a shin.<br />Then call'd you for the l'envoy.</p><p>COSTARD <br />True, and I for a plantain: thus came your<br />argument in;<br />Then the boy's fat l'envoy, the goose that you bought;<br />And he ended the market.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />But tell me; how was there a costard broken in a shin?</p><p>MOTH <br />I will tell you sensibly.</p><p>COSTARD <br />Thou hast no feeling of it, Moth: I will speak that l'envoy:<br />I Costard, running out, that was safely within,<br />Fell over the threshold and broke my shin.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />We will talk no more of this matter.</p><p>COSTARD <br />Till there be more matter in the shin.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Sirrah Costard, I will enfranchise thee.</p><p>COSTARD <br />O, marry me to one Frances: I smell some l'envoy,<br />some goose, in this.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />By my sweet soul, I mean setting thee at liberty,<br />enfreedoming thy person; thou wert immured,<br />restrained, captivated, bound.</p><p>COSTARD <br />True, true; and now you will be my purgation and let me loose.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />I give thee thy liberty, set thee from durance; and,<br />in lieu thereof, impose on thee nothing but this:<br />bear this significant</p><p>Giving a letter</p><p>to the country maid Jaquenetta:<br />there is remuneration; for the best ward of mine<br />honour is rewarding my dependents. Moth, follow.</p><p>Exit</p><p>MOTH <br />Like the sequel, I. Signior Costard, adieu.</p><p>COSTARD <br />My sweet ounce of man's flesh! my incony Jew!</p><p>Exit MOTH</p><p>Now will I look to his remuneration. Remuneration!<br />O, that's the Latin word for three farthings: three<br />farthings--remuneration.--'What's the price of this<br />inkle?'--'One penny.'--'No, I'll give you a<br />remuneration:' why, it carries it. Remuneration!<br />why, it is a fairer name than French crown. I will<br />never buy and sell out of this word.</p><p>Enter BIRON</p><p>BIRON <br />O, my good knave Costard! exceedingly well met.</p><p>COSTARD <br />Pray you, sir, how much carnation ribbon may a man<br />buy for a remuneration?</p><p>BIRON <br />What is a remuneration?</p><p>COSTARD <br />Marry, sir, halfpenny farthing.</p><p>BIRON <br />Why, then, three-farthing worth of silk.</p><p>COSTARD <br />I thank your worship: God be wi' you!</p><p>BIRON <br />Stay, slave; I must employ thee:<br />As thou wilt win my favour, good my knave,<br />Do one thing for me that I shall entreat.</p><p>COSTARD <br />When would you have it done, sir?</p><p>BIRON <br />This afternoon.</p><p>COSTARD <br />Well, I will do it, sir: fare you well.</p><p>BIRON <br />Thou knowest not what it is.</p><p>COSTARD <br />I shall know, sir, when I have done it.</p><p>BIRON <br />Why, villain, thou must know first.</p><p>COSTARD <br />I will come to your worship to-morrow morning.</p><p>BIRON <br />It must be done this afternoon.<br />Hark, slave, it is but this:<br />The princess comes to hunt here in the park,<br />And in her train there is a gentle lady;<br />When tongues speak sweetly, then they name her name,<br />And Rosaline they call her: ask for her;<br />And to her white hand see thou do commend<br />This seal'd-up counsel. There's thy guerdon; go.</p><p>Giving him a shilling</p><p>COSTARD <br />Gardon, O sweet gardon! better than remuneration,<br />a'leven-pence farthing better: most sweet gardon! I<br />will do it sir, in print. Gardon! Remuneration!</p><p>Exit</p><p>BIRON <br />And I, forsooth, in love! I, that have been love's whip;<br />A very beadle to a humorous sigh;<br />A critic, nay, a night-watch constable;<br />A domineering pedant o'er the boy;<br />Than whom no mortal so magnificent!<br />This whimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy;<br />This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid;<br />Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms,<br />The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans,<br />Liege of all loiterers and malcontents,<br />Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces,<br />Sole imperator and great general<br />Of trotting 'paritors:--O my little heart:--<br />And I to be a corporal of his field,<br />And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop!<br />What, I! I love! I sue! I seek a wife!<br />A woman, that is like a German clock,<br />Still a-repairing, ever out of frame,<br />And never going aright, being a watch,<br />But being watch'd that it may still go right!<br />Nay, to be perjured, which is worst of all;<br />And, among three, to love the worst of all;<br />A wightly wanton with a velvet brow,<br />With two pitch-balls stuck in her face for eyes;<br />Ay, and by heaven, one that will do the deed<br />Though Argus were her eunuch and her guard:<br />And I to sigh for her! to watch for her!<br />To pray for her! Go to; it is a plague<br />That Cupid will impose for my neglect<br />Of his almighty dreadful little might.<br />Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue and groan:<br />Some men must love my lady and some Joan.</p><p>Exit<br /></p></span><span id = 2088 ></span><span id = 2089 ><p>SCENE I. The same.</p><p>Enter the PRINCESS, and her train, a Forester, BOYET, ROSALINE, MARIA, and KATHARINE <br />PRINCESS <br />Was that the king, that spurred his horse so hard<br />Against the steep uprising of the hill?</p><p>BOYET <br />I know not; but I think it was not he.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Whoe'er a' was, a' show'd a mounting mind.<br />Well, lords, to-day we shall have our dispatch:<br />On Saturday we will return to France.<br />Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush<br />That we must stand and play the murderer in?</p><p>Forester <br />Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice;<br />A stand where you may make the fairest shoot.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />I thank my beauty, I am fair that shoot,<br />And thereupon thou speak'st the fairest shoot.</p><p>Forester <br />Pardon me, madam, for I meant not so.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />What, what? first praise me and again say no?<br />O short-lived pride! Not fair? alack for woe!</p><p>Forester <br />Yes, madam, fair.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Nay, never paint me now:<br />Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow.<br />Here, good my glass, take this for telling true:<br />Fair payment for foul words is more than due.</p><p>Forester <br />Nothing but fair is that which you inherit.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />See see, my beauty will be saved by merit!<br />O heresy in fair, fit for these days!<br />A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise.<br />But come, the bow: now mercy goes to kill,<br />And shooting well is then accounted ill.<br />Thus will I save my credit in the shoot:<br />Not wounding, pity would not let me do't;<br />If wounding, then it was to show my skill,<br />That more for praise than purpose meant to kill.<br />And out of question so it is sometimes,<br />Glory grows guilty of detested crimes,<br />When, for fame's sake, for praise, an outward part,<br />We bend to that the working of the heart;<br />As I for praise alone now seek to spill<br />The poor deer's blood, that my heart means no ill.</p><p>BOYET <br />Do not curst wives hold that self-sovereignty<br />Only for praise sake, when they strive to be<br />Lords o'er their lords?</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Only for praise: and praise we may afford<br />To any lady that subdues a lord.</p><p>BOYET <br />Here comes a member of the commonwealth.</p><p>Enter COSTARD</p><p>COSTARD <br />God dig-you-den all! Pray you, which is the head lady?</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Thou shalt know her, fellow, by the rest that have no heads.</p><p>COSTARD <br />Which is the greatest lady, the highest?</p><p>PRINCESS <br />The thickest and the tallest.</p><p>COSTARD <br />The thickest and the tallest! it is so; truth is truth.<br />An your waist, mistress, were as slender as my wit,<br />One o' these maids' girdles for your waist should be fit.<br />Are not you the chief woman? you are the thickest here.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />What's your will, sir? what's your will?</p><p>COSTARD <br />I have a letter from Monsieur Biron to one Lady Rosaline.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />O, thy letter, thy letter! he's a good friend of mine:<br />Stand aside, good bearer. Boyet, you can carve;<br />Break up this capon.</p><p>BOYET <br />I am bound to serve.<br />This letter is mistook, it importeth none here;<br />It is writ to Jaquenetta.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />We will read it, I swear.<br />Break the neck of the wax, and every one give ear.</p><p>Reads</p><p>BOYET <br />'By heaven, that thou art fair, is most infallible;<br />true, that thou art beauteous; truth itself, that<br />thou art lovely. More fairer than fair, beautiful<br />than beauteous, truer than truth itself, have<br />commiseration on thy heroical vassal! The<br />magnanimous and most illustrate king Cophetua set<br />eye upon the pernicious and indubitate beggar<br />Zenelophon; and he it was that might rightly say,<br />Veni, vidi, vici; which to annothanize in the<br />vulgar,--O base and obscure vulgar!--videlicet, He<br />came, saw, and overcame: he came, one; saw two;<br />overcame, three. Who came? the king: why did he<br />come? to see: why did he see? to overcome: to<br />whom came he? to the beggar: what saw he? the<br />beggar: who overcame he? the beggar. The<br />conclusion is victory: on whose side? the king's.<br />The captive is enriched: on whose side? the<br />beggar's. The catastrophe is a nuptial: on whose<br />side? the king's: no, on both in one, or one in<br />both. I am the king; for so stands the comparison:<br />thou the beggar; for so witnesseth thy lowliness.<br />Shall I command thy love? I may: shall I enforce<br />thy love? I could: shall I entreat thy love? I<br />will. What shalt thou exchange for rags? robes;<br />for tittles? titles; for thyself? me. Thus,<br />expecting thy reply, I profane my lips on thy foot,<br />my eyes on thy picture. and my heart on thy every<br />part. Thine, in the dearest design of industry,<br />DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.'<br />Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar<br />'Gainst thee, thou lamb, that standest as his prey.<br />Submissive fall his princely feet before,<br />And he from forage will incline to play:<br />But if thou strive, poor soul, what art thou then?<br />Food for his rage, repasture for his den.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />What plume of feathers is he that indited this letter?<br />What vane? what weathercock? did you ever hear better?</p><p>BOYET <br />I am much deceived but I remember the style.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Else your memory is bad, going o'er it erewhile.</p><p>BOYET <br />This Armado is a Spaniard, that keeps here in court;<br />A phantasime, a Monarcho, and one that makes sport<br />To the prince and his bookmates.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Thou fellow, a word:<br />Who gave thee this letter?</p><p>COSTARD <br />I told you; my lord.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />To whom shouldst thou give it?</p><p>COSTARD <br />From my lord to my lady.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />From which lord to which lady?</p><p>COSTARD <br />From my lord Biron, a good master of mine,<br />To a lady of France that he call'd Rosaline.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Thou hast mistaken his letter. Come, lords, away.</p><p>To ROSALINE</p><p>Here, sweet, put up this: 'twill be thine another day.</p><p>Exeunt PRINCESS and train</p><p>BOYET <br />Who is the suitor? who is the suitor?</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Shall I teach you to know?</p><p>BOYET <br />Ay, my continent of beauty.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Why, she that bears the bow.<br />Finely put off!</p><p>BOYET <br />My lady goes to kill horns; but, if thou marry,<br />Hang me by the neck, if horns that year miscarry.<br />Finely put on!</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Well, then, I am the shooter.</p><p>BOYET <br />And who is your deer?</p><p>ROSALINE <br />If we choose by the horns, yourself come not near.<br />Finely put on, indeed!</p><p>MARIA <br />You still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes<br />at the brow.</p><p>BOYET <br />But she herself is hit lower: have I hit her now?</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Shall I come upon thee with an old saying, that was<br />a man when King Pepin of France was a little boy, as<br />touching the hit it?</p><p>BOYET <br />So I may answer thee with one as old, that was a<br />woman when Queen Guinover of Britain was a little<br />wench, as touching the hit it.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it,<br />Thou canst not hit it, my good man.</p><p>BOYET <br />An I cannot, cannot, cannot,<br />An I cannot, another can.</p><p>Exeunt ROSALINE and KATHARINE</p><p>COSTARD <br />By my troth, most pleasant: how both did fit it!</p><p>MARIA <br />A mark marvellous well shot, for they both did hit it.</p><p>BOYET <br />A mark! O, mark but that mark! A mark, says my lady!<br />Let the mark have a prick in't, to mete at, if it may be.</p><p>MARIA <br />Wide o' the bow hand! i' faith, your hand is out.</p><p>COSTARD <br />Indeed, a' must shoot nearer, or he'll ne'er hit the clout.</p><p>BOYET <br />An if my hand be out, then belike your hand is in.</p><p>COSTARD <br />Then will she get the upshoot by cleaving the pin.</p><p>MARIA <br />Come, come, you talk greasily; your lips grow foul.</p><p>COSTARD <br />She's too hard for you at pricks, sir: challenge her to bowl.</p><p>BOYET <br />I fear too much rubbing. Good night, my good owl.</p><p>Exeunt BOYET and MARIA</p><p>COSTARD <br />By my soul, a swain! a most simple clown!<br />Lord, Lord, how the ladies and I have put him down!<br />O' my troth, most sweet jests! most incony<br />vulgar wit!<br />When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it<br />were, so fit.<br />Armado o' th' one side,--O, a most dainty man!<br />To see him walk before a lady and to bear her fan!<br />To see him kiss his hand! and how most sweetly a'<br />will swear!<br />And his page o' t' other side, that handful of wit!<br />Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!<br />Sola, sola!</p><p>Shout within</p><p>Exit COSTARD, running<br /></p></span><span id = 2090 ><p>SCENE II. The same.</p><p>Enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL <br />SIR NATHANIEL <br />Very reverend sport, truly; and done in the testimony<br />of a good conscience.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />The deer was, as you know, sanguis, in blood; ripe<br />as the pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in<br />the ear of caelo, the sky, the welkin, the heaven;<br />and anon falleth like a crab on the face of terra,<br />the soil, the land, the earth.</p><p>SIR NATHANIEL <br />Truly, Master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly<br />varied, like a scholar at the least: but, sir, I<br />assure ye, it was a buck of the first head.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />Sir Nathaniel, haud credo.</p><p>DULL <br />'Twas not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />Most barbarous intimation! yet a kind of<br />insinuation, as it were, in via, in way, of<br />explication; facere, as it were, replication, or<br />rather, ostentare, to show, as it were, his<br />inclination, after his undressed, unpolished,<br />uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather,<br />unlettered, or ratherest, unconfirmed fashion, to<br />insert again my haud credo for a deer.</p><p>DULL <br />I said the deer was not a haud credo; twas a pricket.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />Twice-sod simplicity, his coctus!<br />O thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!</p><p>SIR NATHANIEL <br />Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred<br />in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he<br />hath not drunk ink: his intellect is not<br />replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in<br />the duller parts:<br />And such barren plants are set before us, that we<br />thankful should be,<br />Which we of taste and feeling are, for those parts that<br />do fructify in us more than he.<br />For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a fool,<br />So were there a patch set on learning, to see him in a school:<br />But omne bene, say I; being of an old father's mind,<br />Many can brook the weather that love not the wind.</p><p>DULL <br />You two are book-men: can you tell me by your wit<br />What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five<br />weeks old as yet?</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />Dictynna, goodman Dull; Dictynna, goodman Dull.</p><p>DULL <br />What is Dictynna?</p><p>SIR NATHANIEL <br />A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />The moon was a month old when Adam was no more,<br />And raught not to five weeks when he came to<br />five-score.<br />The allusion holds in the exchange.</p><p>DULL <br />'Tis true indeed; the collusion holds in the exchange.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />God comfort thy capacity! I say, the allusion holds<br />in the exchange.</p><p>DULL <br />And I say, the pollusion holds in the exchange; for<br />the moon is never but a month old: and I say beside<br />that, 'twas a pricket that the princess killed.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph<br />on the death of the deer? And, to humour the<br />ignorant, call I the deer the princess killed a pricket.</p><p>SIR NATHANIEL <br />Perge, good Master Holofernes, perge; so it shall<br />please you to abrogate scurrility.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />I will something affect the letter, for it argues facility.<br />The preyful princess pierced and prick'd a pretty<br />pleasing pricket;<br />Some say a sore; but not a sore, till now made<br />sore with shooting.<br />The dogs did yell: put L to sore, then sorel jumps<br />from thicket;<br />Or pricket sore, or else sorel; the people fall a-hooting.<br />If sore be sore, then L to sore makes fifty sores<br />one sorel.<br />Of one sore I an hundred make by adding but one more L.</p><p>SIR NATHANIEL <br />A rare talent!</p><p>DULL <br />[Aside] If a talent be a claw, look how he claws<br />him with a talent.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; a<br />foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures,<br />shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions,<br />revolutions: these are begot in the ventricle of<br />memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater, and<br />delivered upon the mellowing of occasion. But the<br />gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am<br />thankful for it.</p><p>SIR NATHANIEL <br />Sir, I praise the Lord for you; and so may my<br />parishioners; for their sons are well tutored by<br />you, and their daughters profit very greatly under<br />you: you are a good member of the commonwealth.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />Mehercle, if their sons be ingenuous, they shall<br />want no instruction; if their daughters be capable,<br />I will put it to them: but vir sapit qui pauca<br />loquitur; a soul feminine saluteth us.</p><p>Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD</p><p>JAQUENETTA <br />God give you good morrow, master Parson.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />Master Parson, quasi pers-on. An if one should be<br />pierced, which is the one?</p><p>COSTARD <br />Marry, master schoolmaster, he that is likest to a hogshead.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />Piercing a hogshead! a good lustre of conceit in a<br />tuft of earth; fire enough for a flint, pearl enough<br />for a swine: 'tis pretty; it is well.</p><p>JAQUENETTA <br />Good master Parson, be so good as read me this<br />letter: it was given me by Costard, and sent me<br />from Don Armado: I beseech you, read it.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />Fauste, precor gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra<br />Ruminat,--and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! I<br />may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice;<br />Venetia, Venetia,<br />Chi non ti vede non ti pretia.<br />Old Mantuan, old Mantuan! who understandeth thee<br />not, loves thee not. Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa.<br />Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? or rather,<br />as Horace says in his--What, my soul, verses?</p><p>SIR NATHANIEL <br />Ay, sir, and very learned.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />Let me hear a staff, a stanze, a verse; lege, domine.</p><p>SIR NATHANIEL <br />[Reads]<br />If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?<br />Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vow'd!<br />Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithful prove:<br />Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like<br />osiers bow'd.<br />Study his bias leaves and makes his book thine eyes,<br />Where all those pleasures live that art would<br />comprehend:<br />If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice;<br />Well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend,<br />All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder;<br />Which is to me some praise that I thy parts admire:<br />Thy eye Jove's lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder,<br />Which not to anger bent, is music and sweet fire.<br />Celestial as thou art, O, pardon, love, this wrong,<br />That sings heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />You find not the apostraphas, and so miss the<br />accent: let me supervise the canzonet. Here are<br />only numbers ratified; but, for the elegancy,<br />facility, and golden cadence of poesy, caret.<br />Ovidius Naso was the man: and why, indeed, Naso,<br />but for smelling out the odouriferous flowers of<br />fancy, the jerks of invention? Imitari is nothing:<br />so doth the hound his master, the ape his keeper,<br />the tired horse his rider. But, damosella virgin,<br />was this directed to you?</p><p>JAQUENETTA <br />Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Biron, one of the strange<br />queen's lords.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />I will overglance the superscript: 'To the<br />snow-white hand of the most beauteous Lady<br />Rosaline.' I will look again on the intellect of<br />the letter, for the nomination of the party writing<br />to the person written unto: 'Your ladyship's in all<br />desired employment, BIRON.' Sir Nathaniel, this<br />Biron is one of the votaries with the king; and here<br />he hath framed a letter to a sequent of the stranger<br />queen's, which accidentally, or by the way of<br />progression, hath miscarried. Trip and go, my<br />sweet; deliver this paper into the royal hand of the<br />king: it may concern much. Stay not thy<br />compliment; I forgive thy duty; adieu.</p><p>JAQUENETTA <br />Good Costard, go with me. Sir, God save your life!</p><p>COSTARD <br />Have with thee, my girl.</p><p>Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA</p><p>SIR NATHANIEL <br />Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very<br />religiously; and, as a certain father saith,--</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />Sir tell me not of the father; I do fear colourable<br />colours. But to return to the verses: did they<br />please you, Sir Nathaniel?</p><p>SIR NATHANIEL <br />Marvellous well for the pen.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />I do dine to-day at the father's of a certain pupil<br />of mine; where, if, before repast, it shall please<br />you to gratify the table with a grace, I will, on my<br />privilege I have with the parents of the foresaid<br />child or pupil, undertake your ben venuto; where I<br />will prove those verses to be very unlearned,<br />neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention: I<br />beseech your society.</p><p>SIR NATHANIEL <br />And thank you too; for society, saith the text, is<br />the happiness of life.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />And, certes, the text most infallibly concludes it.</p><p>To DULL</p><p>Sir, I do invite you too; you shall not<br />say me nay: pauca verba. Away! the gentles are at<br />their game, and we will to our recreation.</p><p>Exeunt<br /></p></span><span id = 2091 ><p>SCENE III. The same.</p><p>Enter BIRON, with a paper <br />BIRON <br />The king he is hunting the deer; I am coursing<br />myself: they have pitched a toil; I am toiling in<br />a pitch,--pitch that defiles: defile! a foul<br />word. Well, set thee down, sorrow! for so they say<br />the fool said, and so say I, and I the fool: well<br />proved, wit! By the Lord, this love is as mad as<br />Ajax: it kills sheep; it kills me, I a sheep:<br />well proved again o' my side! I will not love: if<br />I do, hang me; i' faith, I will not. O, but her<br />eye,--by this light, but for her eye, I would not<br />love her; yes, for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing<br />in the world but lie, and lie in my throat. By<br />heaven, I do love: and it hath taught me to rhyme<br />and to be melancholy; and here is part of my rhyme,<br />and here my melancholy. Well, she hath one o' my<br />sonnets already: the clown bore it, the fool sent<br />it, and the lady hath it: sweet clown, sweeter<br />fool, sweetest lady! By the world, I would not care<br />a pin, if the other three were in. Here comes one<br />with a paper: God give him grace to groan!</p><p>Stands aside</p><p>Enter FERDINAND, with a paper</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Ay me!</p><p>BIRON <br />[Aside] Shot, by heaven! Proceed, sweet Cupid:<br />thou hast thumped him with thy bird-bolt under the<br />left pap. In faith, secrets!</p><p>FERDINAND <br />[Reads]<br />So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not<br />To those fresh morning drops upon the rose,<br />As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote<br />The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows:<br />Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright<br />Through the transparent bosom of the deep,<br />As doth thy face through tears of mine give light;<br />Thou shinest in every tear that I do weep:<br />No drop but as a coach doth carry thee;<br />So ridest thou triumphing in my woe.<br />Do but behold the tears that swell in me,<br />And they thy glory through my grief will show:<br />But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep<br />My tears for glasses, and still make me weep.<br />O queen of queens! how far dost thou excel,<br />No thought can think, nor tongue of mortal tell.<br />How shall she know my griefs? I'll drop the paper:<br />Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here?</p><p>Steps aside</p><p>What, Longaville! and reading! listen, ear.</p><p>BIRON <br />Now, in thy likeness, one more fool appear!</p><p>Enter LONGAVILLE, with a paper</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />Ay me, I am forsworn!</p><p>BIRON <br />Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />In love, I hope: sweet fellowship in shame!</p><p>BIRON <br />One drunkard loves another of the name.</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />Am I the first that have been perjured so?</p><p>BIRON <br />I could put thee in comfort. Not by two that I know:<br />Thou makest the triumviry, the corner-cap of society,<br />The shape of Love's Tyburn that hangs up simplicity.</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />I fear these stubborn lines lack power to move:<br />O sweet Maria, empress of my love!<br />These numbers will I tear, and write in prose.</p><p>BIRON <br />O, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid's hose:<br />Disfigure not his slop.</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />This same shall go.</p><p>Reads</p><p>Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,<br />'Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,<br />Persuade my heart to this false perjury?<br />Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.<br />A woman I forswore; but I will prove,<br />Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee:<br />My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;<br />Thy grace being gain'd cures all disgrace in me.<br />Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is:<br />Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine,<br />Exhalest this vapour-vow; in thee it is:<br />If broken then, it is no fault of mine:<br />If by me broke, what fool is not so wise<br />To lose an oath to win a paradise?</p><p>BIRON <br />This is the liver-vein, which makes flesh a deity,<br />A green goose a goddess: pure, pure idolatry.<br />God amend us, God amend! we are much out o' the way.</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />By whom shall I send this?--Company! stay.</p><p>Steps aside</p><p>BIRON <br />All hid, all hid; an old infant play.<br />Like a demigod here sit I in the sky.<br />And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'ereye.<br />More sacks to the mill! O heavens, I have my wish!</p><p>Enter DUMAIN, with a paper</p><p>Dumain transform'd! four woodcocks in a dish!</p><p>DUMAIN <br />O most divine Kate!</p><p>BIRON <br />O most profane coxcomb!</p><p>DUMAIN <br />By heaven, the wonder in a mortal eye!</p><p>BIRON <br />By earth, she is not, corporal, there you lie.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />Her amber hair for foul hath amber quoted.</p><p>BIRON <br />An amber-colour'd raven was well noted.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />As upright as the cedar.</p><p>BIRON <br />Stoop, I say;<br />Her shoulder is with child.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />As fair as day.</p><p>BIRON <br />Ay, as some days; but then no sun must shine.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />O that I had my wish!</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />And I had mine!</p><p>FERDINAND <br />And I mine too, good Lord!</p><p>BIRON <br />Amen, so I had mine: is not that a good word?</p><p>DUMAIN <br />I would forget her; but a fever she<br />Reigns in my blood and will remember'd be.</p><p>BIRON <br />A fever in your blood! why, then incision<br />Would let her out in saucers: sweet misprision!</p><p>DUMAIN <br />Once more I'll read the ode that I have writ.</p><p>BIRON <br />Once more I'll mark how love can vary wit.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />[Reads]<br />On a day--alack the day!--<br />Love, whose month is ever May,<br />Spied a blossom passing fair<br />Playing in the wanton air:<br />Through the velvet leaves the wind,<br />All unseen, can passage find;<br />That the lover, sick to death,<br />Wish himself the heaven's breath.<br />Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;<br />Air, would I might triumph so!<br />But, alack, my hand is sworn<br />Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn;<br />Vow, alack, for youth unmeet,<br />Youth so apt to pluck a sweet!<br />Do not call it sin in me,<br />That I am forsworn for thee;<br />Thou for whom Jove would swear<br />Juno but an Ethiope were;<br />And deny himself for Jove,<br />Turning mortal for thy love.<br />This will I send, and something else more plain,<br />That shall express my true love's fasting pain.<br />O, would the king, Biron, and Longaville,<br />Were lovers too! Ill, to example ill,<br />Would from my forehead wipe a perjured note;<br />For none offend where all alike do dote.</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />[Advancing] Dumain, thy love is far from charity.<br />You may look pale, but I should blush, I know,<br />To be o'erheard and taken napping so.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />[Advancing] Come, sir, you blush; as his your case is such;<br />You chide at him, offending twice as much;<br />You do not love Maria; Longaville<br />Did never sonnet for her sake compile,<br />Nor never lay his wreathed arms athwart<br />His loving bosom to keep down his heart.<br />I have been closely shrouded in this bush<br />And mark'd you both and for you both did blush:<br />I heard your guilty rhymes, observed your fashion,<br />Saw sighs reek from you, noted well your passion:<br />Ay me! says one; O Jove! the other cries;<br />One, her hairs were gold, crystal the other's eyes:</p><p>To LONGAVILLE</p><p>You would for paradise break faith, and troth;</p><p>To DUMAIN</p><p>And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath.<br />What will Biron say when that he shall hear<br />Faith so infringed, which such zeal did swear?<br />How will he scorn! how will he spend his wit!<br />How will he triumph, leap and laugh at it!<br />For all the wealth that ever I did see,<br />I would not have him know so much by me.</p><p>BIRON <br />Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy.</p><p>Advancing</p><p>Ah, good my liege, I pray thee, pardon me!<br />Good heart, what grace hast thou, thus to reprove<br />These worms for loving, that art most in love?<br />Your eyes do make no coaches; in your tears<br />There is no certain princess that appears;<br />You'll not be perjured, 'tis a hateful thing;<br />Tush, none but minstrels like of sonneting!<br />But are you not ashamed? nay, are you not,<br />All three of you, to be thus much o'ershot?<br />You found his mote; the king your mote did see;<br />But I a beam do find in each of three.<br />O, what a scene of foolery have I seen,<br />Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow and of teen!<br />O me, with what strict patience have I sat,<br />To see a king transformed to a gnat!<br />To see great Hercules whipping a gig,<br />And profound Solomon to tune a jig,<br />And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys,<br />And critic Timon laugh at idle toys!<br />Where lies thy grief, O, tell me, good Dumain?<br />And gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain?<br />And where my liege's? all about the breast:<br />A caudle, ho!</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Too bitter is thy jest.<br />Are we betray'd thus to thy over-view?</p><p>BIRON <br />Not you to me, but I betray'd by you:<br />I, that am honest; I, that hold it sin<br />To break the vow I am engaged in;<br />I am betray'd, by keeping company<br />With men like men of inconstancy.<br />When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme?<br />Or groan for love? or spend a minute's time<br />In pruning me? When shall you hear that I<br />Will praise a hand, a foot, a face, an eye,<br />A gait, a state, a brow, a breast, a waist,<br />A leg, a limb?</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Soft! whither away so fast?<br />A true man or a thief that gallops so?</p><p>BIRON <br />I post from love: good lover, let me go.</p><p>Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD</p><p>JAQUENETTA <br />God bless the king!</p><p>FERDINAND <br />What present hast thou there?</p><p>COSTARD <br />Some certain treason.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />What makes treason here?</p><p>COSTARD <br />Nay, it makes nothing, sir.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />If it mar nothing neither,<br />The treason and you go in peace away together.</p><p>JAQUENETTA <br />I beseech your grace, let this letter be read:<br />Our parson misdoubts it; 'twas treason, he said.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Biron, read it over.</p><p>Giving him the paper</p><p>Where hadst thou it?</p><p>JAQUENETTA <br />Of Costard.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Where hadst thou it?</p><p>COSTARD <br />Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio.</p><p>BIRON tears the letter</p><p>FERDINAND <br />How now! what is in you? why dost thou tear it?</p><p>BIRON <br />A toy, my liege, a toy: your grace needs not fear it.</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />It did move him to passion, and therefore let's hear it.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />It is Biron's writing, and here is his name.</p><p>Gathering up the pieces</p><p>BIRON <br />[To COSTARD] Ah, you whoreson loggerhead! you were<br />born to do me shame.<br />Guilty, my lord, guilty! I confess, I confess.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />What?</p><p>BIRON <br />That you three fools lack'd me fool to make up the mess:<br />He, he, and you, and you, my liege, and I,<br />Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die.<br />O, dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you more.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />Now the number is even.</p><p>BIRON <br />True, true; we are four.<br />Will these turtles be gone?</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Hence, sirs; away!</p><p>COSTARD <br />Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay.</p><p>Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA</p><p>BIRON <br />Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O, let us embrace!<br />As true we are as flesh and blood can be:<br />The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face;<br />Young blood doth not obey an old decree:<br />We cannot cross the cause why we were born;<br />Therefore of all hands must we be forsworn.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />What, did these rent lines show some love of thine?</p><p>BIRON <br />Did they, quoth you? Who sees the heavenly Rosaline,<br />That, like a rude and savage man of Inde,<br />At the first opening of the gorgeous east,<br />Bows not his vassal head and strucken blind<br />Kisses the base ground with obedient breast?<br />What peremptory eagle-sighted eye<br />Dares look upon the heaven of her brow,<br />That is not blinded by her majesty?</p><p>FERDINAND <br />What zeal, what fury hath inspired thee now?<br />My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon;<br />She an attending star, scarce seen a light.</p><p>BIRON <br />My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Biron:<br />O, but for my love, day would turn to night!<br />Of all complexions the cull'd sovereignty<br />Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek,<br />Where several worthies make one dignity,<br />Where nothing wants that want itself doth seek.<br />Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues,--<br />Fie, painted rhetoric! O, she needs it not:<br />To things of sale a seller's praise belongs,<br />She passes praise; then praise too short doth blot.<br />A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn,<br />Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye:<br />Beauty doth varnish age, as if new-born,<br />And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy:<br />O, 'tis the sun that maketh all things shine.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />By heaven, thy love is black as ebony.</p><p>BIRON <br />Is ebony like her? O wood divine!<br />A wife of such wood were felicity.<br />O, who can give an oath? where is a book?<br />That I may swear beauty doth beauty lack,<br />If that she learn not of her eye to look:<br />No face is fair that is not full so black.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />O paradox! Black is the badge of hell,<br />The hue of dungeons and the suit of night;<br />And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well.</p><p>BIRON <br />Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light.<br />O, if in black my lady's brows be deck'd,<br />It mourns that painting and usurping hair<br />Should ravish doters with a false aspect;<br />And therefore is she born to make black fair.<br />Her favour turns the fashion of the days,<br />For native blood is counted painting now;<br />And therefore red, that would avoid dispraise,<br />Paints itself black, to imitate her brow.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />To look like her are chimney-sweepers black.</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />And since her time are colliers counted bright.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />And Ethiopes of their sweet complexion crack.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light.</p><p>BIRON <br />Your mistresses dare never come in rain,<br />For fear their colours should be wash'd away.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />'Twere good, yours did; for, sir, to tell you plain,<br />I'll find a fairer face not wash'd to-day.</p><p>BIRON <br />I'll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />No devil will fright thee then so much as she.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear.</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face see.</p><p>BIRON <br />O, if the streets were paved with thine eyes,<br />Her feet were much too dainty for such tread!</p><p>DUMAIN <br />O, vile! then, as she goes, what upward lies<br />The street should see as she walk'd overhead.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />But what of this? are we not all in love?</p><p>BIRON <br />Nothing so sure; and thereby all forsworn.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Then leave this chat; and, good Biron, now prove<br />Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />Ay, marry, there; some flattery for this evil.</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />O, some authority how to proceed;<br />Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />Some salve for perjury.</p><p>BIRON <br />'Tis more than need.<br />Have at you, then, affection's men at arms.<br />Consider what you first did swear unto,<br />To fast, to study, and to see no woman;<br />Flat treason 'gainst the kingly state of youth.<br />Say, can you fast? your stomachs are too young;<br />And abstinence engenders maladies.<br />And where that you have vow'd to study, lords,<br />In that each of you have forsworn his book,<br />Can you still dream and pore and thereon look?<br />For when would you, my lord, or you, or you,<br />Have found the ground of study's excellence<br />Without the beauty of a woman's face?</p><p>From women's eyes this doctrine I derive; They are the ground, the books, the academes From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire</p><p>Why, universal plodding poisons up<br />The nimble spirits in the arteries,<br />As motion and long-during action tires<br />The sinewy vigour of the traveller.<br />Now, for not looking on a woman's face,<br />You have in that forsworn the use of eyes<br />And study too, the causer of your vow;<br />For where is any author in the world<br />Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?<br />Learning is but an adjunct to ourself<br />And where we are our learning likewise is:<br />Then when ourselves we see in ladies' eyes,<br />Do we not likewise see our learning there?<br />O, we have made a vow to study, lords,<br />And in that vow we have forsworn our books.<br />For when would you, my liege, or you, or you,<br />In leaden contemplation have found out<br />Such fiery numbers as the prompting eyes<br />Of beauty's tutors have enrich'd you with?<br />Other slow arts entirely keep the brain;<br />And therefore, finding barren practisers,<br />Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil:<br />But love, first learned in a lady's eyes,<br />Lives not alone immured in the brain;<br />But, with the motion of all elements,<br />Courses as swift as thought in every power,<br />And gives to every power a double power,<br />Above their functions and their offices.<br />It adds a precious seeing to the eye;<br />A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind;<br />A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound,<br />When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd:<br />Love's feeling is more soft and sensible<br />Than are the tender horns of cockl'd snails;<br />Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste:<br />For valour, is not Love a Hercules,<br />Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?<br />Subtle as Sphinx; as sweet and musical<br />As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair:<br />And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods<br />Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.<br />Never durst poet touch a pen to write<br />Until his ink were temper'd with Love's sighs;<br />O, then his lines would ravish savage ears<br />And plant in tyrants mild humility.<br />From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:<br />They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;<br />They are the books, the arts, the academes,<br />That show, contain and nourish all the world:<br />Else none at all in ought proves excellent.<br />Then fools you were these women to forswear,<br />Or keeping what is sworn, you will prove fools.<br />For wisdom's sake, a word that all men love,<br />Or for love's sake, a word that loves all men,<br />Or for men's sake, the authors of these women,<br />Or women's sake, by whom we men are men,<br />Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves,<br />Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths.<br />It is religion to be thus forsworn,<br />For charity itself fulfills the law,<br />And who can sever love from charity?</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field!</p><p>BIRON <br />Advance your standards, and upon them, lords;<br />Pell-mell, down with them! but be first advised,<br />In conflict that you get the sun of them.</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />Now to plain-dealing; lay these glozes by:<br />Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France?</p><p>FERDINAND <br />And win them too: therefore let us devise<br />Some entertainment for them in their tents.</p><p>BIRON <br />First, from the park let us conduct them thither;<br />Then homeward every man attach the hand<br />Of his fair mistress: in the afternoon<br />We will with some strange pastime solace them,<br />Such as the shortness of the time can shape;<br />For revels, dances, masks and merry hours<br />Forerun fair Love, strewing her way with flowers.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Away, away! no time shall be omitted<br />That will betime, and may by us be fitted.</p><p>BIRON <br />Allons! allons! Sow'd cockle reap'd no corn;<br />And justice always whirls in equal measure:<br />Light wenches may prove plagues to men forsworn;<br />If so, our copper buys no better treasure.</p><p>Exeunt<br /></p></span><span id = 2092 ></span><span id = 2093 ><p>SCENE I. The same.</p><p>Enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL <br />HOLOFERNES <br />Satis quod sufficit.</p><p>SIR NATHANIEL <br />I praise God for you, sir: your reasons at dinner<br />have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without<br />scurrility, witty without affection, audacious without<br />impudency, learned without opinion, and strange with-<br />out heresy. I did converse this quondam day with<br />a companion of the king's, who is intituled, nomi-<br />nated, or called, Don Adriano de Armado.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />Novi hominem tanquam te: his humour is lofty, his<br />discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye<br />ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general<br />behavior vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical. He is<br />too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it<br />were, too peregrinate, as I may call it.</p><p>SIR NATHANIEL <br />A most singular and choice epithet.</p><p>Draws out his table-book</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer<br />than the staple of his argument. I abhor such<br />fanatical phantasimes, such insociable and<br />point-devise companions; such rackers of<br />orthography, as to speak dout, fine, when he should<br />say doubt; det, when he should pronounce debt,--d,<br />e, b, t, not d, e, t: he clepeth a calf, cauf;<br />half, hauf; neighbour vocatur nebor; neigh<br />abbreviated ne. This is abhominable,--which he<br />would call abbominable: it insinuateth me of<br />insanie: anne intelligis, domine? to make frantic, lunatic.</p><p>SIR NATHANIEL <br />Laus Deo, bene intelligo.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />Bon, bon, fort bon, Priscian! a little scratch'd,<br />'twill serve.</p><p>SIR NATHANIEL <br />Videsne quis venit?</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />Video, et gaudeo.</p><p>Enter DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO, MOTH, and COSTARD</p><p>DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Chirrah!</p><p>To MOTH</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />Quare chirrah, not sirrah?<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Men of peace, well encountered.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />Most military sir, salutation.</p><p>MOTH <br />[Aside to COSTARD] They have been at a great feast<br />of languages, and stolen the scraps.</p><p>COSTARD <br />O, they have lived long on the alms-basket of words.<br />I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word;<br />for thou art not so long by the head as<br />honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier<br />swallowed than a flap-dragon.</p><p>MOTH <br />Peace! the peal begins.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />[To HOLOFERNES] Monsieur, are you not lettered?</p><p>MOTH <br />Yes, yes; he teaches boys the hornbook. What is a,<br />b, spelt backward, with the horn on his head?</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />Ba, pueritia, with a horn added.</p><p>MOTH <br />Ba, most silly sheep with a horn. You hear his learning.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />Quis, quis, thou consonant?</p><p>MOTH <br />The third of the five vowels, if you repeat them; or<br />the fifth, if I.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />I will repeat them,--a, e, i,--</p><p>MOTH <br />The sheep: the other two concludes it,--o, u.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum, a sweet<br />touch, a quick venue of wit! snip, snap, quick and<br />home! it rejoiceth my intellect: true wit!</p><p>MOTH <br />Offered by a child to an old man; which is wit-old.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />What is the figure? what is the figure?</p><p>MOTH <br />Horns.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />Thou disputest like an infant: go, whip thy gig.</p><p>MOTH <br />Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about<br />your infamy circum circa,--a gig of a cuckold's horn.</p><p>COSTARD <br />An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst<br />have it to buy gingerbread: hold, there is the very<br />remuneration I had of thy master, thou halfpenny<br />purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of discretion. O, an<br />the heavens were so pleased that thou wert but my<br />bastard, what a joyful father wouldst thou make me!<br />Go to; thou hast it ad dunghill, at the fingers'<br />ends, as they say.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />O, I smell false Latin; dunghill for unguem.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Arts-man, preambulate, we will be singled from the<br />barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the<br />charge-house on the top of the mountain?</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />Or mons, the hill.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />I do, sans question.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Sir, it is the king's most sweet pleasure and<br />affection to congratulate the princess at her<br />pavilion in the posteriors of this day, which the<br />rude multitude call the afternoon.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is<br />liable, congruent and measurable for the afternoon:<br />the word is well culled, chose, sweet and apt, I do<br />assure you, sir, I do assure.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Sir, the king is a noble gentleman, and my familiar,<br />I do assure ye, very good friend: for what is<br />inward between us, let it pass. I do beseech thee,<br />remember thy courtesy; I beseech thee, apparel thy<br />head: and among other important and most serious<br />designs, and of great import indeed, too, but let<br />that pass: for I must tell thee, it will please his<br />grace, by the world, sometime to lean upon my poor<br />shoulder, and with his royal finger, thus, dally<br />with my excrement, with my mustachio; but, sweet<br />heart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no<br />fable: some certain special honours it pleaseth his<br />greatness to impart to Armado, a soldier, a man of<br />travel, that hath seen the world; but let that pass.<br />The very all of all is,--but, sweet heart, I do<br />implore secrecy,--that the king would have me<br />present the princess, sweet chuck, with some<br />delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant, or<br />antique, or firework. Now, understanding that the<br />curate and your sweet self are good at such<br />eruptions and sudden breaking out of mirth, as it<br />were, I have acquainted you withal, to the end to<br />crave your assistance.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />Sir, you shall present before her the Nine Worthies.<br />Sir, as concerning some entertainment of time, some<br />show in the posterior of this day, to be rendered by<br />our assistants, at the king's command, and this most<br />gallant, illustrate, and learned gentleman, before<br />the princess; I say none so fit as to present the<br />Nine Worthies.</p><p>SIR NATHANIEL <br />Where will you find men worthy enough to present them?</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />Joshua, yourself; myself and this gallant gentleman,<br />Judas Maccabaeus; this swain, because of his great<br />limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the Great; the<br />page, Hercules,--<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Pardon, sir; error: he is not quantity enough for<br />that Worthy's thumb: he is not so big as the end of his club.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />Shall I have audience? he shall present Hercules in<br />minority: his enter and exit shall be strangling a<br />snake; and I will have an apology for that purpose.</p><p>MOTH <br />An excellent device! so, if any of the audience<br />hiss, you may cry 'Well done, Hercules! now thou<br />crushest the snake!' that is the way to make an<br />offence gracious, though few have the grace to do it.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />For the rest of the Worthies?--</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />I will play three myself.</p><p>MOTH <br />Thrice-worthy gentleman!<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Shall I tell you a thing?</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />We attend.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />We will have, if this fadge not, an antique. I<br />beseech you, follow.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />Via, goodman Dull! thou hast spoken no word all this while.</p><p>DULL <br />Nor understood none neither, sir.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />Allons! we will employ thee.</p><p>DULL <br />I'll make one in a dance, or so; or I will play<br />On the tabour to the Worthies, and let them dance the hay.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />Most dull, honest Dull! To our sport, away!</p><p>Exeunt<br /></p></span><span id = 2094 ><p>SCENE II. The same.</p><p>Enter the PRINCESS, KATHARINE, ROSALINE, and MARIA <br />PRINCESS <br />Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart,<br />If fairings come thus plentifully in:<br />A lady wall'd about with diamonds!<br />Look you what I have from the loving king.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Madame, came nothing else along with that?</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Nothing but this! yes, as much love in rhyme<br />As would be cramm'd up in a sheet of paper,<br />Writ o' both sides the leaf, margent and all,<br />That he was fain to seal on Cupid's name.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />That was the way to make his godhead wax,<br />For he hath been five thousand years a boy.</p><p>KATHARINE <br />Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />You'll ne'er be friends with him; a' kill'd your sister.</p><p>KATHARINE <br />He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy;<br />And so she died: had she been light, like you,<br />Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit,<br />She might ha' been a grandam ere she died:<br />And so may you; for a light heart lives long.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word?</p><p>KATHARINE <br />A light condition in a beauty dark.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />We need more light to find your meaning out.</p><p>KATHARINE <br />You'll mar the light by taking it in snuff;<br />Therefore I'll darkly end the argument.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Look what you do, you do it still i' the dark.</p><p>KATHARINE <br />So do not you, for you are a light wench.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Indeed I weigh not you, and therefore light.</p><p>KATHARINE <br />You weigh me not? O, that's you care not for me.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Great reason; for 'past cure is still past care.'</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Well bandied both; a set of wit well play'd.<br />But Rosaline, you have a favour too:<br />Who sent it? and what is it?</p><p>ROSALINE <br />I would you knew:<br />An if my face were but as fair as yours,<br />My favour were as great; be witness this.<br />Nay, I have verses too, I thank Biron:<br />The numbers true; and, were the numbering too,<br />I were the fairest goddess on the ground:<br />I am compared to twenty thousand fairs.<br />O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter!</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Any thing like?</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Much in the letters; nothing in the praise.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Beauteous as ink; a good conclusion.</p><p>KATHARINE <br />Fair as a text B in a copy-book.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />'Ware pencils, ho! let me not die your debtor,<br />My red dominical, my golden letter:<br />O, that your face were not so full of O's!</p><p>KATHARINE <br />A pox of that jest! and I beshrew all shrows.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />But, Katharine, what was sent to you from fair Dumain?</p><p>KATHARINE <br />Madam, this glove.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Did he not send you twain?</p><p>KATHARINE <br />Yes, madam, and moreover<br />Some thousand verses of a faithful lover,<br />A huge translation of hypocrisy,<br />Vilely compiled, profound simplicity.</p><p>MARIA <br />This and these pearls to me sent Longaville:<br />The letter is too long by half a mile.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />I think no less. Dost thou not wish in heart<br />The chain were longer and the letter short?</p><p>MARIA <br />Ay, or I would these hands might never part.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />We are wise girls to mock our lovers so.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />They are worse fools to purchase mocking so.<br />That same Biron I'll torture ere I go:<br />O that I knew he were but in by the week!<br />How I would make him fawn and beg and seek<br />And wait the season and observe the times<br />And spend his prodigal wits in bootless rhymes<br />And shape his service wholly to my hests<br />And make him proud to make me proud that jests!<br />So perttaunt-like would I o'ersway his state<br />That he should be my fool and I his fate.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />None are so surely caught, when they are catch'd,<br />As wit turn'd fool: folly, in wisdom hatch'd,<br />Hath wisdom's warrant and the help of school<br />And wit's own grace to grace a learned fool.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />The blood of youth burns not with such excess<br />As gravity's revolt to wantonness.</p><p>MARIA <br />Folly in fools bears not so strong a note<br />As foolery in the wise, when wit doth dote;<br />Since all the power thereof it doth apply<br />To prove, by wit, worth in simplicity.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Here comes Boyet, and mirth is in his face.</p><p>Enter BOYET</p><p>BOYET <br />O, I am stabb'd with laughter! Where's her grace?</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Thy news Boyet?</p><p>BOYET <br />Prepare, madam, prepare!<br />Arm, wenches, arm! encounters mounted are<br />Against your peace: Love doth approach disguised,<br />Armed in arguments; you'll be surprised:<br />Muster your wits; stand in your own defence;<br />Or hide your heads like cowards, and fly hence.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Saint Denis to Saint Cupid! What are they<br />That charge their breath against us? say, scout, say.</p><p>BOYET <br />Under the cool shade of a sycamore<br />I thought to close mine eyes some half an hour;<br />When, lo! to interrupt my purposed rest,<br />Toward that shade I might behold addrest<br />The king and his companions: warily<br />I stole into a neighbour thicket by,<br />And overheard what you shall overhear,<br />That, by and by, disguised they will be here.<br />Their herald is a pretty knavish page,<br />That well by heart hath conn'd his embassage:<br />Action and accent did they teach him there;<br />'Thus must thou speak,' and 'thus thy body bear:'<br />And ever and anon they made a doubt<br />Presence majestical would put him out,<br />'For,' quoth the king, 'an angel shalt thou see;<br />Yet fear not thou, but speak audaciously.'<br />The boy replied, 'An angel is not evil;<br />I should have fear'd her had she been a devil.'<br />With that, all laugh'd and clapp'd him on the shoulder,<br />Making the bold wag by their praises bolder:<br />One rubb'd his elbow thus, and fleer'd and swore<br />A better speech was never spoke before;<br />Another, with his finger and his thumb,<br />Cried, 'Via! we will do't, come what will come;'<br />The third he caper'd, and cried, 'All goes well;'<br />The fourth turn'd on the toe, and down he fell.<br />With that, they all did tumble on the ground,<br />With such a zealous laughter, so profound,<br />That in this spleen ridiculous appears,<br />To cheque their folly, passion's solemn tears.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />But what, but what, come they to visit us?</p><p>BOYET <br />They do, they do: and are apparell'd thus.<br />Like Muscovites or Russians, as I guess.<br />Their purpose is to parle, to court and dance;<br />And every one his love-feat will advance<br />Unto his several mistress, which they'll know<br />By favours several which they did bestow.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />And will they so? the gallants shall be task'd;<br />For, ladies, we shall every one be mask'd;<br />And not a man of them shall have the grace,<br />Despite of suit, to see a lady's face.<br />Hold, Rosaline, this favour thou shalt wear,<br />And then the king will court thee for his dear;<br />Hold, take thou this, my sweet, and give me thine,<br />So shall Biron take me for Rosaline.<br />And change your favours too; so shall your loves<br />Woo contrary, deceived by these removes.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Come on, then; wear the favours most in sight.</p><p>KATHARINE <br />But in this changing what is your intent?</p><p>PRINCESS <br />The effect of my intent is to cross theirs:<br />They do it but in mocking merriment;<br />And mock for mock is only my intent.<br />Their several counsels they unbosom shall<br />To loves mistook, and so be mock'd withal<br />Upon the next occasion that we meet,<br />With visages displayed, to talk and greet.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />But shall we dance, if they desire to't?</p><p>PRINCESS <br />No, to the death, we will not move a foot;<br />Nor to their penn'd speech render we no grace,<br />But while 'tis spoke each turn away her face.</p><p>BOYET <br />Why, that contempt will kill the speaker's heart,<br />And quite divorce his memory from his part.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Therefore I do it; and I make no doubt<br />The rest will ne'er come in, if he be out<br />There's no such sport as sport by sport o'erthrown,<br />To make theirs ours and ours none but our own:<br />So shall we stay, mocking intended game,<br />And they, well mock'd, depart away with shame.</p><p>Trumpets sound within</p><p>BOYET <br />The trumpet sounds: be mask'd; the maskers come.</p><p>The Ladies mask</p><p>Enter Blackamoors with music; MOTH; FERDINAND, BIRON, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN, in Russian habits, and masked</p><p>MOTH <br />All hail, the richest beauties on the earth!--</p><p>BOYET <br />Beauties no richer than rich taffeta.</p><p>MOTH <br />A holy parcel of the fairest dames.</p><p>The Ladies turn their backs to him</p><p>That ever turn'd their--backs--to mortal views!</p><p>BIRON <br />[Aside to MOTH] Their eyes, villain, their eyes!</p><p>MOTH <br />That ever turn'd their eyes to mortal views!--Out--</p><p>BOYET <br />True; out indeed.</p><p>MOTH <br />Out of your favours, heavenly spirits, vouchsafe<br />Not to behold--</p><p>BIRON <br />[Aside to MOTH] Once to behold, rogue.</p><p>MOTH <br />Once to behold with your sun-beamed eyes,<br />--with your sun-beamed eyes--</p><p>BOYET <br />They will not answer to that epithet;<br />You were best call it 'daughter-beamed eyes.'</p><p>MOTH <br />They do not mark me, and that brings me out.</p><p>BIRON <br />Is this your perfectness? be gone, you rogue!</p><p>Exit MOTH</p><p>ROSALINE <br />What would these strangers? know their minds, Boyet:<br />If they do speak our language, 'tis our will:<br />That some plain man recount their purposes<br />Know what they would.</p><p>BOYET <br />What would you with the princess?</p><p>BIRON <br />Nothing but peace and gentle visitation.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />What would they, say they?</p><p>BOYET <br />Nothing but peace and gentle visitation.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Why, that they have; and bid them so be gone.</p><p>BOYET <br />She says, you have it, and you may be gone.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Say to her, we have measured many miles<br />To tread a measure with her on this grass.</p><p>BOYET <br />They say, that they have measured many a mile<br />To tread a measure with you on this grass.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />It is not so. Ask them how many inches<br />Is in one mile: if they have measured many,<br />The measure then of one is easily told.</p><p>BOYET <br />If to come hither you have measured miles,<br />And many miles, the princess bids you tell<br />How many inches doth fill up one mile.</p><p>BIRON <br />Tell her, we measure them by weary steps.</p><p>BOYET <br />She hears herself.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />How many weary steps,<br />Of many weary miles you have o'ergone,<br />Are number'd in the travel of one mile?</p><p>BIRON <br />We number nothing that we spend for you:<br />Our duty is so rich, so infinite,<br />That we may do it still without accompt.<br />Vouchsafe to show the sunshine of your face,<br />That we, like savages, may worship it.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />My face is but a moon, and clouded too.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Blessed are clouds, to do as such clouds do!<br />Vouchsafe, bright moon, and these thy stars, to shine,<br />Those clouds removed, upon our watery eyne.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />O vain petitioner! beg a greater matter;<br />Thou now request'st but moonshine in the water.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Then, in our measure do but vouchsafe one change.<br />Thou bid'st me beg: this begging is not strange.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Play, music, then! Nay, you must do it soon.</p><p>Music plays</p><p>Not yet! no dance! Thus change I like the moon.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Will you not dance? How come you thus estranged?</p><p>ROSALINE <br />You took the moon at full, but now she's changed.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Yet still she is the moon, and I the man.<br />The music plays; vouchsafe some motion to it.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Our ears vouchsafe it.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />But your legs should do it.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Since you are strangers and come here by chance,<br />We'll not be nice: take hands. We will not dance.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Why take we hands, then?</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Only to part friends:<br />Curtsy, sweet hearts; and so the measure ends.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />More measure of this measure; be not nice.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />We can afford no more at such a price.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Prize you yourselves: what buys your company?</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Your absence only.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />That can never be.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Then cannot we be bought: and so, adieu;<br />Twice to your visor, and half once to you.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />If you deny to dance, let's hold more chat.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />In private, then.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />I am best pleased with that.</p><p>They converse apart</p><p>BIRON <br />White-handed mistress, one sweet word with thee.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Honey, and milk, and sugar; there is three.</p><p>BIRON <br />Nay then, two treys, and if you grow so nice,<br />Metheglin, wort, and malmsey: well run, dice!<br />There's half-a-dozen sweets.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Seventh sweet, adieu:<br />Since you can cog, I'll play no more with you.</p><p>BIRON <br />One word in secret.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Let it not be sweet.</p><p>BIRON <br />Thou grievest my gall.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Gall! bitter.</p><p>BIRON <br />Therefore meet.</p><p>They converse apart</p><p>DUMAIN <br />Will you vouchsafe with me to change a word?</p><p>MARIA <br />Name it.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />Fair lady,--</p><p>MARIA <br />Say you so? Fair lord,--<br />Take that for your fair lady.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />Please it you,<br />As much in private, and I'll bid adieu.</p><p>They converse apart</p><p>KATHARINE <br />What, was your vizard made without a tongue?</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />I know the reason, lady, why you ask.</p><p>KATHARINE <br />O for your reason! quickly, sir; I long.</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />You have a double tongue within your mask,<br />And would afford my speechless vizard half.</p><p>KATHARINE <br />Veal, quoth the Dutchman. Is not 'veal' a calf?</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />A calf, fair lady!</p><p>KATHARINE <br />No, a fair lord calf.</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />Let's part the word.</p><p>KATHARINE <br />No, I'll not be your half<br />Take all, and wean it; it may prove an ox.</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />Look, how you butt yourself in these sharp mocks!<br />Will you give horns, chaste lady? do not so.</p><p>KATHARINE <br />Then die a calf, before your horns do grow.</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />One word in private with you, ere I die.</p><p>KATHARINE <br />Bleat softly then; the butcher hears you cry.</p><p>They converse apart</p><p>BOYET <br />The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen<br />As is the razor's edge invisible,<br />Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen,<br />Above the sense of sense; so sensible<br />Seemeth their conference; their conceits have wings<br />Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter things.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Not one word more, my maids; break off, break off.</p><p>BIRON <br />By heaven, all dry-beaten with pure scoff!</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Farewell, mad wenches; you have simple wits.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Twenty adieus, my frozen Muscovits.</p><p>Exeunt FERDINAND, Lords, and Blackamoors</p><p>Are these the breed of wits so wonder'd at?</p><p>BOYET <br />Tapers they are, with your sweet breaths puff'd out.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Well-liking wits they have; gross, gross; fat, fat.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />O poverty in wit, kingly-poor flout!<br />Will they not, think you, hang themselves tonight?<br />Or ever, but in vizards, show their faces?<br />This pert Biron was out of countenance quite.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />O, they were all in lamentable cases!<br />The king was weeping-ripe for a good word.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Biron did swear himself out of all suit.</p><p>MARIA <br />Dumain was at my service, and his sword:<br />No point, quoth I; my servant straight was mute.</p><p>KATHARINE <br />Lord Longaville said, I came o'er his heart;<br />And trow you what he called me?</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Qualm, perhaps.</p><p>KATHARINE <br />Yes, in good faith.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Go, sickness as thou art!</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Well, better wits have worn plain statute-caps.<br />But will you hear? the king is my love sworn.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />And quick Biron hath plighted faith to me.</p><p>KATHARINE <br />And Longaville was for my service born.</p><p>MARIA <br />Dumain is mine, as sure as bark on tree.</p><p>BOYET <br />Madam, and pretty mistresses, give ear:<br />Immediately they will again be here<br />In their own shapes; for it can never be<br />They will digest this harsh indignity.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Will they return?</p><p>BOYET <br />They will, they will, God knows,<br />And leap for joy, though they are lame with blows:<br />Therefore change favours; and, when they repair,<br />Blow like sweet roses in this summer air.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />How blow? how blow? speak to be understood.</p><p>BOYET <br />Fair ladies mask'd are roses in their bud;<br />Dismask'd, their damask sweet commixture shown,<br />Are angels vailing clouds, or roses blown.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Avaunt, perplexity! What shall we do,<br />If they return in their own shapes to woo?</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Good madam, if by me you'll be advised,<br />Let's, mock them still, as well known as disguised:<br />Let us complain to them what fools were here,<br />Disguised like Muscovites, in shapeless gear;<br />And wonder what they were and to what end<br />Their shallow shows and prologue vilely penn'd<br />And their rough carriage so ridiculous,<br />Should be presented at our tent to us.</p><p>BOYET <br />Ladies, withdraw: the gallants are at hand.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Whip to our tents, as roes run o'er land.</p><p>Exeunt PRINCESS, ROSALINE, KATHARINE, and MARIA</p><p>Re-enter FERDINAND, BIRON, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN, in their proper habits</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Fair sir, God save you! Where's the princess?</p><p>BOYET <br />Gone to her tent. Please it your majesty<br />Command me any service to her thither?</p><p>FERDINAND <br />That she vouchsafe me audience for one word.</p><p>BOYET <br />I will; and so will she, I know, my lord.</p><p>Exit</p><p>BIRON <br />This fellow pecks up wit as pigeons pease,<br />And utters it again when God doth please:<br />He is wit's pedler, and retails his wares<br />At wakes and wassails, meetings, markets, fairs;<br />And we that sell by gross, the Lord doth know,<br />Have not the grace to grace it with such show.<br />This gallant pins the wenches on his sleeve;<br />Had he been Adam, he had tempted Eve;<br />A' can carve too, and lisp: why, this is he<br />That kiss'd his hand away in courtesy;<br />This is the ape of form, monsieur the nice,<br />That, when he plays at tables, chides the dice<br />In honourable terms: nay, he can sing<br />A mean most meanly; and in ushering<br />Mend him who can: the ladies call him sweet;<br />The stairs, as he treads on them, kiss his feet:<br />This is the flower that smiles on every one,<br />To show his teeth as white as whale's bone;<br />And consciences, that will not die in debt,<br />Pay him the due of honey-tongued Boyet.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />A blister on his sweet tongue, with my heart,<br />That put Armado's page out of his part!</p><p>BIRON <br />See where it comes! Behavior, what wert thou<br />Till this madman show'd thee? and what art thou now?</p><p>Re-enter the PRINCESS, ushered by BOYET, ROSALINE, MARIA, and KATHARINE</p><p>FERDINAND <br />All hail, sweet madam, and fair time of day!</p><p>PRINCESS <br />'Fair' in 'all hail' is foul, as I conceive.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Construe my speeches better, if you may.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Then wish me better; I will give you leave.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />We came to visit you, and purpose now<br />To lead you to our court; vouchsafe it then.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />This field shall hold me; and so hold your vow:<br />Nor God, nor I, delights in perjured men.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Rebuke me not for that which you provoke:<br />The virtue of your eye must break my oath.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />You nickname virtue; vice you should have spoke;<br />For virtue's office never breaks men's troth.<br />Now by my maiden honour, yet as pure<br />As the unsullied lily, I protest,<br />A world of torments though I should endure,<br />I would not yield to be your house's guest;<br />So much I hate a breaking cause to be<br />Of heavenly oaths, vow'd with integrity.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />O, you have lived in desolation here,<br />Unseen, unvisited, much to our shame.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Not so, my lord; it is not so, I swear;<br />We have had pastimes here and pleasant game:<br />A mess of Russians left us but of late.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />How, madam! Russians!</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Ay, in truth, my lord;<br />Trim gallants, full of courtship and of state.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Madam, speak true. It is not so, my lord:<br />My lady, to the manner of the days,<br />In courtesy gives undeserving praise.<br />We four indeed confronted were with four<br />In Russian habit: here they stay'd an hour,<br />And talk'd apace; and in that hour, my lord,<br />They did not bless us with one happy word.<br />I dare not call them fools; but this I think,<br />When they are thirsty, fools would fain have drink.</p><p>BIRON <br />This jest is dry to me. Fair gentle sweet,<br />Your wit makes wise things foolish: when we greet,<br />With eyes best seeing, heaven's fiery eye,<br />By light we lose light: your capacity<br />Is of that nature that to your huge store<br />Wise things seem foolish and rich things but poor.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />This proves you wise and rich, for in my eye,--</p><p>BIRON <br />I am a fool, and full of poverty.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />But that you take what doth to you belong,<br />It were a fault to snatch words from my tongue.</p><p>BIRON <br />O, I am yours, and all that I possess!</p><p>ROSALINE <br />All the fool mine?</p><p>BIRON <br />I cannot give you less.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Which of the vizards was it that you wore?</p><p>BIRON <br />Where? when? what vizard? why demand you this?</p><p>ROSALINE <br />There, then, that vizard; that superfluous case<br />That hid the worse and show'd the better face.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />We are descried; they'll mock us now downright.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />Let us confess and turn it to a jest.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Amazed, my lord? why looks your highness sad?</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Help, hold his brows! he'll swoon! Why look you pale?<br />Sea-sick, I think, coming from Muscovy.</p><p>BIRON <br />Thus pour the stars down plagues for perjury.<br />Can any face of brass hold longer out?</p><p>Here stand I <br />lady, dart thy skill at me;<br />Bruise me with scorn, confound me with a flout;<br />Thrust thy sharp wit quite through my ignorance;<br />Cut me to pieces with thy keen conceit;<br />And I will wish thee never more to dance,<br />Nor never more in Russian habit wait.<br />O, never will I trust to speeches penn'd,<br />Nor to the motion of a schoolboy's tongue,<br />Nor never come in vizard to my friend,<br />Nor woo in rhyme, like a blind harper's song!<br />Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise,<br />Three-piled hyperboles, spruce affectation,<br />Figures pedantical; these summer-flies<br />Have blown me full of maggot ostentation:<br />I do forswear them; and I here protest,<br />By this white glove;--how white the hand, God knows!--<br />Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express'd<br />In russet yeas and honest kersey noes:<br />And, to begin, wench,--so God help me, la!--<br />My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Sans sans, I pray you.</p><p>BIRON <br />Yet I have a trick<br />Of the old rage: bear with me, I am sick;<br />I'll leave it by degrees. Soft, let us see:<br />Write, 'Lord have mercy on us' on those three;<br />They are infected; in their hearts it lies;<br />They have the plague, and caught it of your eyes;<br />These lords are visited; you are not free,<br />For the Lord's tokens on you do I see.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />No, they are free that gave these tokens to us.</p><p>BIRON <br />Our states are forfeit: seek not to undo us.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />It is not so; for how can this be true,<br />That you stand forfeit, being those that sue?</p><p>BIRON <br />Peace! for I will not have to do with you.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Nor shall not, if I do as I intend.</p><p>BIRON <br />Speak for yourselves; my wit is at an end.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Teach us, sweet madam, for our rude transgression<br />Some fair excuse.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />The fairest is confession.<br />Were not you here but even now disguised?</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Madam, I was.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />And were you well advised?</p><p>FERDINAND <br />I was, fair madam.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />When you then were here,<br />What did you whisper in your lady's ear?</p><p>FERDINAND <br />That more than all the world I did respect her.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />When she shall challenge this, you will reject her.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Upon mine honour, no.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Peace, peace! forbear:<br />Your oath once broke, you force not to forswear.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Despise me, when I break this oath of mine.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />I will: and therefore keep it. Rosaline,<br />What did the Russian whisper in your ear?</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Madam, he swore that he did hold me dear<br />As precious eyesight, and did value me<br />Above this world; adding thereto moreover<br />That he would wed me, or else die my lover.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />God give thee joy of him! the noble lord<br />Most honourably doth unhold his word.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />What mean you, madam? by my life, my troth,<br />I never swore this lady such an oath.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />By heaven, you did; and to confirm it plain,<br />You gave me this: but take it, sir, again.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />My faith and this the princess I did give:<br />I knew her by this jewel on her sleeve.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Pardon me, sir, this jewel did she wear;<br />And Lord Biron, I thank him, is my dear.<br />What, will you have me, or your pearl again?</p><p>BIRON <br />Neither of either; I remit both twain.<br />I see the trick on't: here was a consent,<br />Knowing aforehand of our merriment,<br />To dash it like a Christmas comedy:<br />Some carry-tale, some please-man, some slight zany,<br />Some mumble-news, some trencher-knight, some Dick,<br />That smiles his cheek in years and knows the trick<br />To make my lady laugh when she's disposed,<br />Told our intents before; which once disclosed,<br />The ladies did change favours: and then we,<br />Following the signs, woo'd but the sign of she.<br />Now, to our perjury to add more terror,<br />We are again forsworn, in will and error.<br />Much upon this it is: and might not you</p><p>To BOYET</p><p>Forestall our sport, to make us thus untrue?<br />Do not you know my lady's foot by the squier,<br />And laugh upon the apple of her eye?<br />And stand between her back, sir, and the fire,<br />Holding a trencher, jesting merrily?<br />You put our page out: go, you are allow'd;<br />Die when you will, a smock shall be your shroud.<br />You leer upon me, do you? there's an eye<br />Wounds like a leaden sword.</p><p>BOYET <br />Full merrily<br />Hath this brave manage, this career, been run.</p><p>BIRON <br />Lo, he is tilting straight! Peace! I have done.</p><p>Enter COSTARD</p><p>Welcome, pure wit! thou partest a fair fray.</p><p>COSTARD <br />O Lord, sir, they would know<br />Whether the three Worthies shall come in or no.</p><p>BIRON <br />What, are there but three?</p><p>COSTARD <br />No, sir; but it is vara fine,<br />For every one pursents three.</p><p>BIRON <br />And three times thrice is nine.</p><p>COSTARD <br />Not so, sir; under correction, sir; I hope it is not so.<br />You cannot beg us, sir, I can assure you, sir we know<br />what we know:<br />I hope, sir, three times thrice, sir,--</p><p>BIRON <br />Is not nine.</p><p>COSTARD <br />Under correction, sir, we know whereuntil it doth amount.</p><p>BIRON <br />By Jove, I always took three threes for nine.</p><p>COSTARD <br />O Lord, sir, it were pity you should get your living<br />by reckoning, sir.</p><p>BIRON <br />How much is it?</p><p>COSTARD <br />O Lord, sir, the parties themselves, the actors,<br />sir, will show whereuntil it doth amount: for mine<br />own part, I am, as they say, but to parfect one man<br />in one poor man, Pompion the Great, sir.</p><p>BIRON <br />Art thou one of the Worthies?</p><p>COSTARD <br />It pleased them to think me worthy of Pompion the<br />Great: for mine own part, I know not the degree of<br />the Worthy, but I am to stand for him.</p><p>BIRON <br />Go, bid them prepare.</p><p>COSTARD <br />We will turn it finely off, sir; we will take<br />some care.</p><p>Exit</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Biron, they will shame us: let them not approach.</p><p>BIRON <br />We are shame-proof, my lord: and tis some policy<br />To have one show worse than the king's and his company.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />I say they shall not come.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Nay, my good lord, let me o'errule you now:<br />That sport best pleases that doth least know how:<br />Where zeal strives to content, and the contents<br />Dies in the zeal of that which it presents:<br />Their form confounded makes most form in mirth,<br />When great things labouring perish in their birth.</p><p>BIRON <br />A right description of our sport, my lord.</p><p>Enter DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</p><p>DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Anointed, I implore so much expense of thy royal<br />sweet breath as will utter a brace of words.</p><p>Converses apart with FERDINAND, and delivers him a paper</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Doth this man serve God?</p><p>BIRON <br />Why ask you?</p><p>PRINCESS <br />He speaks not like a man of God's making.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />That is all one, my fair, sweet, honey monarch; for,<br />I protest, the schoolmaster is exceeding<br />fantastical; too, too vain, too too vain: but we<br />will put it, as they say, to fortuna de la guerra.<br />I wish you the peace of mind, most royal couplement!</p><p>Exit</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Here is like to be a good presence of Worthies. He<br />presents Hector of Troy; the swain, Pompey the<br />Great; the parish curate, Alexander; Armado's page,<br />Hercules; the pedant, Judas Maccabaeus: And if<br />these four Worthies in their first show thrive,<br />These four will change habits, and present the other five.</p><p>BIRON <br />There is five in the first show.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />You are deceived; 'tis not so.</p><p>BIRON <br />The pedant, the braggart, the hedge-priest, the fool<br />and the boy:--<br />Abate throw at novum, and the whole world again<br />Cannot pick out five such, take each one in his vein.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />The ship is under sail, and here she comes amain.</p><p>Enter COSTARD, for Pompey</p><p>COSTARD <br />I Pompey am,--</p><p>BOYET <br />You lie, you are not he.</p><p>COSTARD <br />I Pompey am,--</p><p>BOYET <br />With libbard's head on knee.</p><p>BIRON <br />Well said, old mocker: I must needs be friends<br />with thee.</p><p>COSTARD <br />I Pompey am, Pompey surnamed the Big--</p><p>DUMAIN <br />The Great.</p><p>COSTARD <br />It is, 'Great,' sir:--<br />Pompey surnamed the Great;<br />That oft in field, with targe and shield, did make<br />my foe to sweat:<br />And travelling along this coast, I here am come by chance,<br />And lay my arms before the legs of this sweet lass of France,<br />If your ladyship would say, 'Thanks, Pompey,' I had done.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Great thanks, great Pompey.</p><p>COSTARD <br />'Tis not so much worth; but I hope I was perfect: I<br />made a little fault in 'Great.'</p><p>BIRON <br />My hat to a halfpenny, Pompey proves the best Worthy.</p><p>Enter SIR NATHANIEL, for Alexander</p><p>SIR NATHANIEL <br />When in the world I lived, I was the world's<br />commander;<br />By east, west, north, and south, I spread my<br />conquering might:<br />My scutcheon plain declares that I am Alisander,--</p><p>BOYET <br />Your nose says, no, you are not for it stands too right.</p><p>BIRON <br />Your nose smells 'no' in this, most tender-smelling knight.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />The conqueror is dismay'd. Proceed, good Alexander.</p><p>SIR NATHANIEL <br />When in the world I lived, I was the world's<br />commander,--</p><p>BOYET <br />Most true, 'tis right; you were so, Alisander.</p><p>BIRON <br />Pompey the Great,--</p><p>COSTARD <br />Your servant, and Costard.</p><p>BIRON <br />Take away the conqueror, take away Alisander.</p><p>COSTARD <br />[To SIR NATHANIEL] O, sir, you have overthrown<br />Alisander the conqueror! You will be scraped out of<br />the painted cloth for this: your lion, that holds<br />his poll-axe sitting on a close-stool, will be given<br />to Ajax: he will be the ninth Worthy. A conqueror,<br />and afeard to speak! run away for shame, Alisander.</p><p>SIR NATHANIEL retires</p><p>There, an't shall please you; a foolish mild man; an<br />honest man, look you, and soon dashed. He is a<br />marvellous good neighbour, faith, and a very good<br />bowler: but, for Alisander,--alas, you see how<br />'tis,--a little o'erparted. But there are Worthies<br />a-coming will speak their mind in some other sort.</p><p>Enter HOLOFERNES, for Judas; and MOTH, for Hercules</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />Great Hercules is presented by this imp,<br />Whose club kill'd Cerberus, that three-headed canis;<br />And when he was a babe, a child, a shrimp,<br />Thus did he strangle serpents in his manus.<br />Quoniam he seemeth in minority,<br />Ergo I come with this apology.<br />Keep some state in thy exit, and vanish.</p><p>MOTH retires</p><p>Judas I am,--</p><p>DUMAIN <br />A Judas!</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />Not Iscariot, sir.<br />Judas I am, ycliped Maccabaeus.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />Judas Maccabaeus clipt is plain Judas.</p><p>BIRON <br />A kissing traitor. How art thou proved Judas?</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />Judas I am,--</p><p>DUMAIN <br />The more shame for you, Judas.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />What mean you, sir?</p><p>BOYET <br />To make Judas hang himself.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />Begin, sir; you are my elder.</p><p>BIRON <br />Well followed: Judas was hanged on an elder.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />I will not be put out of countenance.</p><p>BIRON <br />Because thou hast no face.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />What is this?</p><p>BOYET <br />A cittern-head.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />The head of a bodkin.</p><p>BIRON <br />A Death's face in a ring.</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />The face of an old Roman coin, scarce seen.</p><p>BOYET <br />The pommel of Caesar's falchion.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />The carved-bone face on a flask.</p><p>BIRON <br />Saint George's half-cheek in a brooch.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />Ay, and in a brooch of lead.</p><p>BIRON <br />Ay, and worn in the cap of a tooth-drawer.<br />And now forward; for we have put thee in countenance.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />You have put me out of countenance.</p><p>BIRON <br />False; we have given thee faces.</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />But you have out-faced them all.</p><p>BIRON <br />An thou wert a lion, we would do so.</p><p>BOYET <br />Therefore, as he is an ass, let him go.<br />And so adieu, sweet Jude! nay, why dost thou stay?</p><p>DUMAIN <br />For the latter end of his name.</p><p>BIRON <br />For the ass to the Jude; give it him:--Jud-as, away!</p><p>HOLOFERNES <br />This is not generous, not gentle, not humble.</p><p>BOYET <br />A light for Monsieur Judas! it grows dark, he may stumble.</p><p>HOLOFERNES retires</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Alas, poor Maccabaeus, how hath he been baited!</p><p>Enter DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO, for Hector</p><p>BIRON <br />Hide thy head, Achilles: here comes Hector in arms.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />Though my mocks come home by me, I will now be merry.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Hector was but a Troyan in respect of this.</p><p>BOYET <br />But is this Hector?</p><p>FERDINAND <br />I think Hector was not so clean-timbered.</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />His leg is too big for Hector's.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />More calf, certain.</p><p>BOYET <br />No; he is best endued in the small.</p><p>BIRON <br />This cannot be Hector.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />He's a god or a painter; for he makes faces.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty,<br />Gave Hector a gift,--</p><p>DUMAIN <br />A gilt nutmeg.</p><p>BIRON <br />A lemon.</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />Stuck with cloves.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />No, cloven.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Peace!--<br />The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty<br />Gave Hector a gift, the heir of Ilion;<br />A man so breathed, that certain he would fight; yea<br />From morn till night, out of his pavilion.<br />I am that flower,--</p><p>DUMAIN <br />That mint.</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />That columbine.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Sweet Lord Longaville, rein thy tongue.</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />I must rather give it the rein, for it runs against Hector.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />Ay, and Hector's a greyhound.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />The sweet war-man is dead and rotten; sweet chucks,<br />beat not the bones of the buried: when he breathed,<br />he was a man. But I will forward with my device.</p><p>To the PRINCESS</p><p>Sweet royalty, bestow on me the sense of hearing.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Speak, brave Hector: we are much delighted.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />I do adore thy sweet grace's slipper.</p><p>BOYET <br />[Aside to DUMAIN] Loves her by the foot,--</p><p>DUMAIN <br />[Aside to BOYET] He may not by the yard.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />This Hector far surmounted Hannibal,--</p><p>COSTARD <br />The party is gone, fellow Hector, she is gone; she<br />is two months on her way.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />What meanest thou?</p><p>COSTARD <br />Faith, unless you play the honest Troyan, the poor<br />wench is cast away: she's quick; the child brags in<br />her belly already: tis yours.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Dost thou infamonize me among potentates? thou shalt<br />die.</p><p>COSTARD <br />Then shall Hector be whipped for Jaquenetta that is<br />quick by him and hanged for Pompey that is dead by<br />him.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />Most rare Pompey!</p><p>BOYET <br />Renowned Pompey!</p><p>BIRON <br />Greater than great, great, great, great Pompey!<br />Pompey the Huge!</p><p>DUMAIN <br />Hector trembles.</p><p>BIRON <br />Pompey is moved. More Ates, more Ates! stir them<br />on! stir them on!</p><p>DUMAIN <br />Hector will challenge him.</p><p>BIRON <br />Ay, if a' have no man's blood in's belly than will<br />sup a flea.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />By the north pole, I do challenge thee.</p><p>COSTARD <br />I will not fight with a pole, like a northern man:<br />I'll slash; I'll do it by the sword. I bepray you,<br />let me borrow my arms again.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />Room for the incensed Worthies!</p><p>COSTARD <br />I'll do it in my shirt.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />Most resolute Pompey!</p><p>MOTH <br />Master, let me take you a buttonhole lower. Do you<br />not see Pompey is uncasing for the combat? What mean<br />you? You will lose your reputation.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Gentlemen and soldiers, pardon me; I will not combat<br />in my shirt.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />You may not deny it: Pompey hath made the challenge.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Sweet bloods, I both may and will.</p><p>BIRON <br />What reason have you for't?<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />The naked truth of it is, I have no shirt; I go<br />woolward for penance.</p><p>BOYET <br />True, and it was enjoined him in Rome for want of<br />linen: since when, I'll be sworn, he wore none but<br />a dishclout of Jaquenetta's, and that a' wears next<br />his heart for a favour.</p><p>Enter MERCADE</p><p>MERCADE <br />God save you, madam!</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Welcome, Mercade;<br />But that thou interrupt'st our merriment.</p><p>MERCADE <br />I am sorry, madam; for the news I bring<br />Is heavy in my tongue. The king your father--</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Dead, for my life!</p><p>MERCADE <br />Even so; my tale is told.</p><p>BIRON <br />Worthies, away! the scene begins to cloud.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />For mine own part, I breathe free breath. I have<br />seen the day of wrong through the little hole of<br />discretion, and I will right myself like a soldier.</p><p>Exeunt Worthies</p><p>FERDINAND <br />How fares your majesty?</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Boyet, prepare; I will away tonight.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Madam, not so; I do beseech you, stay.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Prepare, I say. I thank you, gracious lords,<br />For all your fair endeavors; and entreat,<br />Out of a new-sad soul, that you vouchsafe<br />In your rich wisdom to excuse or hide<br />The liberal opposition of our spirits,<br />If over-boldly we have borne ourselves<br />In the converse of breath: your gentleness<br />Was guilty of it. Farewell worthy lord!<br />A heavy heart bears not a nimble tongue:<br />Excuse me so, coming too short of thanks<br />For my great suit so easily obtain'd.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />The extreme parts of time extremely forms<br />All causes to the purpose of his speed,<br />And often at his very loose decides<br />That which long process could not arbitrate:<br />And though the mourning brow of progeny<br />Forbid the smiling courtesy of love<br />The holy suit which fain it would convince,<br />Yet, since love's argument was first on foot,<br />Let not the cloud of sorrow justle it<br />From what it purposed; since, to wail friends lost<br />Is not by much so wholesome-profitable<br />As to rejoice at friends but newly found.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />I understand you not: my griefs are double.</p><p>BIRON <br />Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief;<br />And by these badges understand the king.<br />For your fair sakes have we neglected time,<br />Play'd foul play with our oaths: your beauty, ladies,<br />Hath much deform'd us, fashioning our humours<br />Even to the opposed end of our intents:<br />And what in us hath seem'd ridiculous,--<br />As love is full of unbefitting strains,<br />All wanton as a child, skipping and vain,<br />Form'd by the eye and therefore, like the eye,<br />Full of strange shapes, of habits and of forms,<br />Varying in subjects as the eye doth roll<br />To every varied object in his glance:<br />Which parti-coated presence of loose love<br />Put on by us, if, in your heavenly eyes,<br />Have misbecomed our oaths and gravities,<br />Those heavenly eyes, that look into these faults,<br />Suggested us to make. Therefore, ladies,<br />Our love being yours, the error that love makes<br />Is likewise yours: we to ourselves prove false,<br />By being once false for ever to be true<br />To those that make us both,--fair ladies, you:<br />And even that falsehood, in itself a sin,<br />Thus purifies itself and turns to grace.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />We have received your letters full of love;<br />Your favours, the ambassadors of love;<br />And, in our maiden council, rated them<br />At courtship, pleasant jest and courtesy,<br />As bombast and as lining to the time:<br />But more devout than this in our respects<br />Have we not been; and therefore met your loves<br />In their own fashion, like a merriment.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />Our letters, madam, show'd much more than jest.</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />So did our looks.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />We did not quote them so.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Now, at the latest minute of the hour,<br />Grant us your loves.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />A time, methinks, too short<br />To make a world-without-end bargain in.<br />No, no, my lord, your grace is perjured much,<br />Full of dear guiltiness; and therefore this:<br />If for my love, as there is no such cause,<br />You will do aught, this shall you do for me:<br />Your oath I will not trust; but go with speed<br />To some forlorn and naked hermitage,<br />Remote from all the pleasures of the world;<br />There stay until the twelve celestial signs<br />Have brought about the annual reckoning.<br />If this austere insociable life<br />Change not your offer made in heat of blood;<br />If frosts and fasts, hard lodging and thin weeds<br />Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love,<br />But that it bear this trial and last love;<br />Then, at the expiration of the year,<br />Come challenge me, challenge me by these deserts,<br />And, by this virgin palm now kissing thine<br />I will be thine; and till that instant shut<br />My woeful self up in a mourning house,<br />Raining the tears of lamentation<br />For the remembrance of my father's death.<br />If this thou do deny, let our hands part,<br />Neither entitled in the other's heart.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />If this, or more than this, I would deny,<br />To flatter up these powers of mine with rest,<br />The sudden hand of death close up mine eye!<br />Hence ever then my heart is in thy breast.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />But what to me, my love? but what to me? A wife?</p><p>KATHARINE <br />A beard, fair health, and honesty;<br />With three-fold love I wish you all these three.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />O, shall I say, I thank you, gentle wife?</p><p>KATHARINE <br />Not so, my lord; a twelvemonth and a day<br />I'll mark no words that smooth-faced wooers say:<br />Come when the king doth to my lady come;<br />Then, if I have much love, I'll give you some.</p><p>DUMAIN <br />I'll serve thee true and faithfully till then.</p><p>KATHARINE <br />Yet swear not, lest ye be forsworn again.</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />What says Maria?</p><p>MARIA <br />At the twelvemonth's end<br />I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend.</p><p>LONGAVILLE <br />I'll stay with patience; but the time is long.</p><p>MARIA <br />The liker you; few taller are so young.</p><p>BIRON <br />Studies my lady? mistress, look on me;<br />Behold the window of my heart, mine eye,<br />What humble suit attends thy answer there:<br />Impose some service on me for thy love.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Oft have I heard of you, my Lord Biron,<br />Before I saw you; and the world's large tongue<br />Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks,<br />Full of comparisons and wounding flouts,<br />Which you on all estates will execute<br />That lie within the mercy of your wit.<br />To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain,<br />And therewithal to win me, if you please,<br />Without the which I am not to be won,<br />You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day<br />Visit the speechless sick and still converse<br />With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,<br />With all the fierce endeavor of your wit<br />To enforce the pained impotent to smile.</p><p>BIRON <br />To move wild laughter in the throat of death?<br />It cannot be; it is impossible:<br />Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.</p><p>ROSALINE <br />Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit,<br />Whose influence is begot of that loose grace<br />Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools:<br />A jest's prosperity lies in the ear<br />Of him that hears it, never in the tongue<br />Of him that makes it: then, if sickly ears,<br />Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear groans,<br />Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,<br />And I will have you and that fault withal;<br />But if they will not, throw away that spirit,<br />And I shall find you empty of that fault,<br />Right joyful of your reformation.</p><p>BIRON <br />A twelvemonth! well; befall what will befall,<br />I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital.</p><p>PRINCESS <br />[To FERDINAND] Ay, sweet my lord; and so I take my leave.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />No, madam; we will bring you on your way.</p><p>BIRON <br />Our wooing doth not end like an old play;<br />Jack hath not Jill: these ladies' courtesy<br />Might well have made our sport a comedy.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Come, sir, it wants a twelvemonth and a day,<br />And then 'twill end.</p><p>BIRON <br />That's too long for a play.</p><p>Re-enter DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</p><p>DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Sweet majesty, vouchsafe me,--</p><p>PRINCESS <br />Was not that Hector?</p><p>DUMAIN <br />The worthy knight of Troy.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />I will kiss thy royal finger, and take leave. I am<br />a votary; I have vowed to Jaquenetta to hold the<br />plough for her sweet love three years. But, most<br />esteemed greatness, will you hear the dialogue that<br />the two learned men have compiled in praise of the<br />owl and the cuckoo? It should have followed in the<br />end of our show.</p><p>FERDINAND <br />Call them forth quickly; we will do so.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />Holla! approach.</p><p>Re-enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, MOTH, COSTARD, and others</p><p>This side is Hiems, Winter, this Ver, the Spring;<br />the one maintained by the owl, the other by the<br />cuckoo. Ver, begin.</p><p>THE SONG</p><p>SPRING.<br />When daisies pied and violets blue<br />And lady-smocks all silver-white<br />And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue<br />Do paint the meadows with delight,<br />The cuckoo then, on every tree,<br />Mocks married men; for thus sings he, Cuckoo;<br />Cuckoo, cuckoo: O word of fear,<br />Unpleasing to a married ear!<br />When shepherds pipe on oaten straws<br />And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,<br />When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,<br />And maidens bleach their summer smocks<br />The cuckoo then, on every tree,<br />Mocks married men; for thus sings he, Cuckoo;<br />Cuckoo, cuckoo: O word of fear,<br />Unpleasing to a married ear!<br />WINTER.<br />When icicles hang by the wall<br />And Dick the shepherd blows his nail<br />And Tom bears logs into the hall<br />And milk comes frozen home in pail,<br />When blood is nipp'd and ways be foul,<br />Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-whit;<br />Tu-who, a merry note,<br />While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.<br />When all aloud the wind doth blow<br />And coughing drowns the parson's saw<br />And birds sit brooding in the snow<br />And Marian's nose looks red and raw,<br />When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,<br />Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-whit;<br />Tu-who, a merry note,<br />While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.<br />DON</p><p>ADRIANO DE ARMADO <br />The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of<br />Apollo. You that way: we this way.</p><p>Exeunt<br /></p></span>