Celestial as thou art, oh pardon, love, this wrong, "That sings the heaven's praise with such an "earthly tongue!"

Hol. You find not the apostrophes, and so miss the accent: let me supervise the canzonet. Here are only numbers, ratified; but, for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy, caret. Ovidius Naso was the man: and why, indeed, Naso; but for smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy? the jerks of invention? Imitari, is no-10I thing; so doth the hound' his master, the ape his keeper, the tired' horse his rider. But damosella virgin, was this directed to you?

toiling in a pitch; pitch, that defiles; defile! a foul word. Well, Set thee down, sorrow! for so, they say, the fool said, and so say I, and I the fool. Well prov'd, wit! By the lord, this love is as mad as Ajax: it kills sheep: it kills me, I a sheep: Well prov'd again on my side! I will not love: if I do, hang me; i' faith, I will not. O, but her eye,-by this light, but for her eye, would not love her; yes, for her two eyes. Well,

Jaq. Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Biron, one of the strange queen's lords.

Hol. I will overglance the superscript. "To "the snow-white hand of the most beauteous

do nothing in the world but lie, and lie in my throat. By heaven, I do love: and it hath taught me to rhime, and to be melancholy; and here is part of my rhime, and here my melancholy. Well, she hath one o' my sonnets already; the clown 15 bore it, the fool sent it, and the lady hath it: sweet clown, sweeter fool, sweetest lady!-By the world, I would not care a pin, if the other three were in: Here comes one with a paper; God give him grace to groan ! [He stands aside. Enter the King. King. Ay, me!

lady Rosaline." I will look again on the intellect of the letter, for the nomination of the party writing to the person written unto:

20

"

Your Ladyship's in all desired employment, "BIRON."

Sir Nathaniel, this Biron is one of the votaries with the king and here he hath fram'd a letter to a sequent of the stranger queen's, which, acci-125bird-bolt under the left pap:-I' faith, secrets.

Biron. [Aide.] Shot, by heaven!--Proceed, sweet Cupid; thou hast thump'd him with thy

King. [Reads.] "So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not

dentally, or by the way of progression, hath miscarry'd.-Trip and go, my sweet; deliver this paper into the royal hand of the king; it may concern much: Stay not thy compliment; I forgive thy duty; adieu.

30

Jaq. Good Costard, go with me.-Sir, God save your life!

"To those fresh morning drops upon the rose, "As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote [flows: “The night of dew that on my cheek's down "Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright "Through the transparent bosom of the deep, "As doth thy face through tears of mine give

Cost. Have with thee, my girl.

66

light; "Thou shin'st in every tear that I do weep: "No drop but as a coach doth carry thee,

"So ridest thou triumphing in thy woe; "Do but behold the tears that swell in me,

"And they thy glory through my grief will "shew:

[Exeunt Cost. and Jaq. Nath. Sir you have done this in the fear of God, 35 very religiously: and, as a certain father saith

Hol. Sir, tell not me of the father, I do fear colourable colours'. But, to return to the verses Did they please you, Sir Nathaniel ?

Nath. Marvellous well for the pen.

140

Hol. I do dine to-day at the father's of a certain pupil of mine; where if (being repast) it shall please you to gratify the table with a grace, I will, on my privilege I have with the parents of the aforesaid child or pupil, undertake your ben 45" cenuto; where I will prove those verses to be very unlearned, neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention: I beseech your society.

Nath. And thank you too: for society (saith) the text) is the happiness of life. 150

Hel. And, certes, the text most infallibly concludes it.—Sir, I do invite you too; [To Dull. you shall not say me, nay: pauca verba. Away; the gentles are at their game, and we will to our [Exeunt 55

recreation.

SCENE III.

Enter Biron with a paper.

Biron. The king is hunting the deer; I am coursing myself: they have pitch'd a toil; I am[60

66

66

"But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep My tears for glasses, and still make me weep. "O queen of queens, how far dost thou excel!

No thought can think, nor tongue of mortal tell.” How shall she know my griefs? I'll drop the paper; Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here? [The king steps aside.

Enter Longaville.

What, Longaville! and reading! listen, ear. Biron. [Aside.] Now, in thy likeness, once more fool appear!

Long. Ay me! I am forsworn.

Biron. [Aside.] Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers'. King. [Aside.] In love, I hope; Sweet fellowship in shame!

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

i. e. The hound and the ape are taught to imitate the tricks of their masters. 2 Tired here means affired, alluding to Banks's horse, mentioned in a former note, p.150. That is, specious appearances. * Convicted perimers, when punished, wear on the breast a paper expressing the crime.

Long.

This will I send; and something else more plain,
That shall express my true love's fasting' pain.
O, would the king, Biron, and Longaville,
Were lovers too! till, to example ill,
Would from my forehead write a perjur'd note;
For none offend, where all alike do dote.

Long. Dumain, thy love is far from charity,
Thatinlove'sgriefdesir'stsociety: [comingforward.
45 You may look pale, but I should blush, I know,
To be o'er-heard, and taken napping so.

King. Come, sir, you blush; as his, your case is such; [coming forward. You chide at him, offending twice as much:

Biron. O most prophane coxcomb! [Aside.
Dum. By heaven, the wonder of a mortal eye!
Biron. By earth, she is not corporal'; there
[Aside.

you lie.

Dum. Her amber hair for foul hath amber coted'. 50 You do not love Maria? Longaville
Biron. An amber-colour'd raven was well

noted.

[Aside.

[Aside. 55

1

Slops are large and wide-knee'd breeches, the garb in fashion in our author's days, as we may observe from old family pictures; but they are now worn only by boors and sea-faring men. 2 The liver was supposed to be the seat of love." Corporal here means corporeal. To cote, is to outstrip, to overpass. Fasting here signifies longing, wanting.

3

M

You

You would for paradise break faith and troth:

[To Long. And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath. [To Dumain.

What will Biron say, when that he shall hear
A faith infringed, which such zeal did swear?
How will he scorn? how will he spend his wit?
How will he triumph, leap', and laugh at it?
For all the wealth that ever I did see,

I would not have him know so much by me.

15

Biron. Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy.-
Ah, good my liege, I pray thee, pardon me:
[Coming forward.
Good heart, what grace hast thou, thus to reprove
These worms for loving, that art most in love?
Your eyes do make no coaches; in your tears,
There is no certain princess that appears;
You'll not be perjur'd, 'tis a hateful thing;
Tush, none but minstrels like of sonneting.
But are you not asham'd? nay, are you not,
All three of you, to be thus much o'er-shot?
You found his mote; the king your mote did see;
But I a beam do find in each of three.
O, what a scene of foolery I have seen,
Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow, and of teen!
O me, with what strict patience have I sat,
To see a king transformed to a knot?!
To see great Hercules whipping a gigg,
And profound Solomon tuning a jigg,
And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys,
And critic' Timon laugh at idle toys!
Where lyes thy grief? O tell me, good Dumain!
And, gentle Longaville, where lyes thy pain?
And where my liege's? all about the breast:-
A caudle, ho!

King. Soft; Whither away so fast?
A true man, or a thief, that gallops so?
Biron. I post from love; good lover, let me go.
Enter Jaquenetta and Costard.
Jaq. God bless the king!
King. What present hast thou there?
Cost. Some certain treason.

King. What makes treason here?
Cost. Nay, it makes nothing, sir.

King. If it mar nothing neither,

The treason, and you, go in peace away together.
Jaq. I beseech your grace, let this letter be read;
Our parson misdoubts it; it was treason, he said.
King. Biron, read it over. [He reads the letter.
Where hadst thou it?

5

aq. Of Costard.

King. Where hadst thou it?

Cost. Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio. 10 King. How now! what is in you? why dost thou tear it?

Biron. A toy, my liege, a toy; your grace needs not fear it. [fore let's hear it. Long. It did move him to passion, and thereDum. It is Biron's writing, and here is his name. Biron. Ah, you whoreson loggerhead, you were born to do me shame. [To Costard. Guilty, my lord, guilty; I confess, I confess. King. What?

Biron. That you three fools lack'd me fool to
make up the mess.

He, he, and you, and you, my liege, and I,
Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die.
O, dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you more.
Dum. Now the number is even.

25

20

30

King. Too bitter is thy jest.
Are we betray'd thus to thy over-view?

Biron. Did they, quoth you? Who sees the
heavenly Rosaline,

That, like a rude and savage man of Inde,

Biron. Not you by me, but I betray'd to you:
I, that am honest; I, that hold it sin
To break the vow I am engaged in ;
I am betray'd, by keeping company
With men like men, of strange inconstancy.
When shall you see me write a thing in rhime?
Or groan for Joan? or spend a minute's time
In pruning me? When shall you hear, that I
Will praise a hand, a foot, a face, an eye,
A gait, a state, a brow, a breast, a waist,
A leg, a limb-

At the first opening of the gorgeous east,
Bows not his vassal head; and, strucken blind,

45

Kisses the base ground with obedient breast? What peremptory eagle-sighted eye

Dares look upon the heaven of her brow, That is not blinded by her majesty? [now? King. What zeal, what fury, hath inspir'd thee 50 My love, my mistress, is a gracious moon;

She, an attending star, scarce seen a light. Biron. My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Biron :

O, but for my love, day would turn to night! Of all complexions the cull'd sovereignty

55

Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek; Where several worthies make one dignity; [seek. Where nothing wants, that want itself doth

Biron. True, true; we are four:

Will these turtles be gone?

King. Hence, sirs; away.

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

brace!

35

As true we are, as flesh and blood can be: The sea will ebb & flow,heaven will shew his face; Young blood doth not obey an old decree: We cannot cross the cause why we were born; Therefore, of all hands must we be forsworn. King. What, did these rent lines shew some love of thine?

40

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

3

2

Lend

Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues-
Fye, painted rhetorick! O, she needs it not:
To things of sale a seller's praise belongs; [blot.
She passes praise; then praise too short doth
A wither'd hermit, fivescore winters worn,

5

Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye:
Beauty doth varnish age, as if new born,

And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy.
O, 'tis the sun that maketh all things shine!
King. By heaven, thy love is black as ebony.
Biron. Is ebony like her? O wood divine !
A wife of such wood were felicity.
O, who can give an oath? where is a book,

That I may swear, Beauty doth beauty lack,
If that she learn not of her eye to look?

eavens w

No face is fair, that is not full so black.
King. O paradox! Black is the badge of hell,
The hue of dungeons, and the scowl of night;
And beauty's crest' becomes the
Biron. Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits 20
O, if in black my lady's brow be deckt, [of fight.
It mourns, that painting, and usurping hair,
Should ravish doters with a false aspect;

Have at you then, affection's men at arms":
Consider, what you first did swear unto ;—
To fast,-to study,-and to see no woman;-
Flat treason 'gainst the kingly state of youth.
10 Say, can you fast? your stomachs are too young;
And abstinence engenders maladies.

now prove

Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn.

Dum. Ay, marry, there;-some flattery for this Long. O, some authority how to proceed; [evil. Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil. Dum. Some salve for perjury.

Biron. O, 'tis more than need!

And therefore is she born to make black fair. Her favour turns the fashion of the days;

black.

For native blood is counted painting now:
And therefore red, that would avoid dispraise,
Paints itself black, to imitate her brow.
Dum. To look like her, are chimney-sweepers
[bright. 30
Long. And, since her time, are colliers counted
King. And Ethiops of their sweet complexion
crack.
[light.
Dum. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is
Biron. Your mistresses dare never come in rain, 35
For fear their colours should be wash'd away.
King. 'Twere good, yours did; for, sir, to tell
you plain,

I'll find a fairer face not wash'd to-day.
Biron. I'll prove her fair, or talk till dooms-40
day here.
[as she.
King. No devil will fright thee then so much
Dum. I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear.
Long. Look, here's thy love; my foot and her
face see.
[Shewing his shoc. 45
Biron. O,if the streets were paved with thine eyes,
Her feet were too much dainty for such tread
Dun. O vile! then as she goes, what upward lies
The street should see as she walk'd overhead.
King. But what of this? Are we not all in love?
Biron. Nothing so sure; and thereby all forsworn.
King. Then leave this chat; and, good Biron,

And where that you have vow'd to study, lords,
In that each of you hath forsworn his book :
Can you still dream, and pore, and thereon look?
15 For when would you, my lord, or you, or you,
Have found the ground of study's excellence,
Without the beauty of a woman's face?
From woman's eyes this doctrine I derive:
They are the ground, the book, the academes,
From whence doth spring the true Promethean
Why, universal plodding prisons up [fire.
The nimble spirits in the arteries*;
As motion, and long-during action, tires
The sinewy vigour of the traveller.
25 Now, for not looking on a woman's face,
You have in that forsworn the use of eyes;
And study too, the causer of your vow:
For where is any author in the world,
Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?
Learning is but an adjunct to ourself,
And where we are, our learning likewise is.
Then, when ourselves we see in ladies' eyes,
Do we not likewise see our learning there?
O, we have made a vow to study, lords;
And in that vow we have forsworn our books;
For when would you, my liege, or you, or you,
In leaden contemplation, have found out
Such fiery numbers', as the prompting eyes
Of beauteous tutors have enrich'd you with?
Other slow arts entirely keep the brain:
And therefore finding barren practisers,
Scarce shew a harvest of their heavy toil:
But, love, first learned in a lady's eyes,
Lives not alone immured in the brain;
But with the motion of all elements,
Courses as swift as thought in every power;
And gives to every power a double power,
Above their functions and their offices.
It adds a precious seeing to the eye,
A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind;
A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound,
When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd:
Love's feeling is more soft, and sensible,
Than are the tender horns of cockled snails;

50

In heraldry, a crest is a device placed above a coat of arms. Shakspeare therefore uses it here in a sense equivalent to top or utmost height. 2 Dr. Warburton says, that quillet is the peculiar word applied to law-chicane, and imagines the original to be this: In the French pleadings, every se veral allegation in the plaintiff's charge, and every distinct plea in the defendant's answer, began with the words qu'il est ;-from whence was formed the word quillet, to signify a false charge or an evasive answer. 3 That is, ye soldiers of affection. In the old system of physic they gave the same of fice to the arteries as is now given to the nerves. Alluding to the discoveries in modern astronomy, at that time greatly improving, in which the ladies' eyes are compared, as usual, to stars. 6 That is, a lover in pursuit of his mistress has his sense of hearing quicker than a thief (who suspects every sound he hears) in pursuit of his prey.

5

M 2

Love's

[taste;

Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in
For valour, is not love a Hercules,
Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?
Subtle as sphinx; as sweet and musical,
As bright Apolio's lute, strung with his hair';
And, when love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony2.
Never durst poet touch a pen to write,
Until his ink were temper'd with love's sighs;
O, then his lines would ravish savage ears,
And plant in tyrants mild humility.
From women's eves this doctrine I derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That shew, contain, and nourish, all the world;
Else, none at all in aught proves excellent :
Then fools you were, these women to forswear;
Or, keeping what is sworn, you will prove fools.
For wisdom's sake, a word that all men love;
Or for love's sake, a word that loves all men;
Or for men's sake, the authors of these women
Or women's sake, by whom we men are men;
Let us once lose our oaths, to find ourselves,
Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths:
It is religion, to be thus forsworn:
For charity itself fulfils the law;

And who can sever love from charity?

King. Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field! [them, lords; Biron. Advance your standards, and upon 5 Pell-mell, down with them! but be first advis d, In conflict that you get the sun of them. [by: Long. Now to plain-dealing; lay these glozes Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France? King. And win them too: therefore let us devise 10Some entertainment for them in their tents.

Biron. First, from the park let us conduct them thither;

5

15 We will with some strange pastime solace them,
Such as the shortness of the time can shape;
For revels, dances, inasks, and merry hours,
Fore-run fair love, strewing her way with flowers.

20

King. Away, away! no time shall be omitted, That will be time, and may by us be fitted. Biron. Allons-allons !-Sow'd cockle reap'd no corn';

And justice always whirls in equal measure: Light wenches mayprove plagues to men forsworn; 1231 If so, our copper buys no better treasure.

[Exeunt.

ACT V

SCENE I.

The Street.

Enter Holofernes, Nathaniel, and Dull. Hol. ATIS quod sufficit.

SATIS

Nat. I praise God for you, sir: your reasons' at dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affec-| tion,audacious' without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy. I did converse this quondam day with a companion of 45 the king's, who is intituled, nominated, or called, Don Adriano de Armado.

Then, homeward, every man attach the hand
Of his fair mistress: in the afternoon

1351

40

Nath. A most singular and choice epithet. [Draws out his table-book. Hol. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor such phanatical phantasms, such insociable and pointdevise companions; such rackers of orthography, as to speak, dout, fine, when he should say, doubt; det, when he should pronounce, debt; d, e, b, t; not d, e, t: he clepeth a calf, cauf; half, hauf; neighbour, vocatur, nebour; neigh, abbreviated, ne: This is abhominable, (which he would call abominable) it insinuateth me of insanie: Ne intelligis, domine? to make frantick, lunatick? Nath. Laus deo, bone intelligo.

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

Enter Armado, Moth, and Costurd.
Nath. Videsne quis venit?
Hol. Video & gaudeo.

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

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

Arm.