815

a

You are attaint with faults and perjury;
Therefore, if you my favour mean to get,
A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest, 810

But seek the weary beds of people sick.
Dum. But what to me, my love? but what to me?
Kath. A wife! A beard, fair health, and honesty;

With three-fold love I wish you all these three.
Dum. O! shall I say, I thank you, gentle wife?
Kath. Not so, my lord. A twelvemonth and a day

I'll mark no words that smooth-faced wooers say:
Come when the king doth to my lady come;

Then, if I have much love, I'll give you some.
Dum. I 'll serve thee true and faithfully till then,

820 Kath. Yet swear not, lest you be forsworn again. Long. What says Maria ? Mar.

At the twelvemonth's end I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend. Long. I'll stay with patience; but the time is long. Mar. The liker you; few taller are so young.

825 Biron. Studies my lady? mistress, look on me.

Behold the window of my heart, mine eye,
What humble suit attends thy answer there ;

Impose some service on me for my love. 813. A wife l] Theobald, etc.; A wife ? Qq, Ff 1, 2, 3; A wife, F 4; Dum. (line 812).- . A wife ? Kath. A beard, etc. Cambridge. 829. my) Ff, Q 2; thy Q i.

813. A wife] Furness is very in- commodity (advantage), in King John, sistent upon the excellence of the 11. i. 573; and of peace, in Richard III. “happy emendation" of the Cam

v. v. 33.

He may have met it in bridge editors in shifting back these Greene's Menaphon (Grosart, vi. 41): words to Dumain, in which they were “Some sweare Love Smooth'd face followed by Dyce (1866). But the Love Is sweetest sweete that men can alteration, besides being wrong in have." It occurs also in The Troubleprinciple, spoils the effect of Dumain's some Raigne of King Fohn (Hazlitt's “I thank you, gentle wife.”

Shakes. Lib. p. 263): "A smooth facte 816. A twelvemonth and a day] Nunne (for ought I know) is all the "Halliwell gives quotations from Abbott's wealth." Shakespeare has Ducange and from "Cowell's Inter. at least twenty-five compounds ending preter, which shows that this term in" faced." constituted the full legal year both on 823. friend] sweetheart. See line the Continent and in England. It is 404 above (note). found in Chaucer's Wyf of Bathes 828, 829. suit . . . service] See note Tale (Furness). Hence the common at line 276. This recognised phrase in expression “a year and a day." courtship occurs in The Shepherdess

817. smooth-faced) Shakespeare has Felismena, in Yonge's trans, of Montthis compound twice elsewhere; of mayor's Diana (Shakes. Lib. p. 289, ed.

840

845

Ros. Oft have I heard of you, my Lord Biron,

830
Before I saw you, and the world's large tongue
Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks;
Full of comparisons and wounding flouts,
Which you on all estates will execute
That lie within the mercy of your wit :

835
To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain,
And there withal to win me, if you please,
Without the which I am not to be won,
You shall this twelvemonth term, from day to day,
Visit the speechless sick, and still converse
With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,
With all the fierce endeavour of your wit

To enforce the pained impotent to smile.
Biron. To move wild laughter in the throat of death?

It cannot be; it is impossible :

Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.
Ros, Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit,

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

850
Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it: then, if sickly ears,
Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear groans,
Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,
And I will have you and that fault withal;
But if they will not, throw away that spirit,
And I shall find you empty of that fault,

Right joyful of your reformation.
Biron. A twelvemonth! well, befall what will befall,
I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital.

860 836. fruitful] fructful Q 1. 853. dear] dere Johnson conjecture; drear Jackson conjecture; dire Collier MS. 854. then] them Rann conjecture, Dyce. 1875), 1598: “He should never have got 3, and Hamlet, 1. ii. 182 (“my dearest any other guerdon of his sutes and ser. foe"). vices, but onely to see and to be seene, 859. befall befall] Compare and sometimes to speake to his Mis- " befall what may befall” (2 Henry tresse.” A term in Feudalism primarily. VI. 111. ii. 40, and Titus Andronicus,

834. all estates) people of all sorts. v. i. 57). Similar to “hap what will," 842. fierce) ardent, eager.

"come what come may,” both of 853. dear) heartfelt; see line 780 which occur in Greene's Carde of (note). Craig parallels Sonnet xxxvii. Fancie, 1587.

855

Prin. [To the King:] Ay, sweet my lord ; and so I take my leave.
King. No, madam ; we will bring you on your way.
Biron. Our wooing doth not end like an old play;

Jack hath not Jill: these ladies' courtesy
Might well have made our sport a comedy.

865 King. Come, sir, it wants a twelvemonth and a day,

And then 'twill end. Biron.

That's too long for a play.

870

Re-enter ARMADO.
Arm. Sweet majesty, vouchsafe me, -
Prin. Was not that Hector?
Dum. The worthy knight of Troy.
Arm. I will kiss thy royal finger, and take leave. I am

a votary ; I have vowed to Jaquenetta to hold the
plough for her sweet love three years. But, most
esteemed greatness, will you hear the dialogue that
the two learned men have compiled in praise of the 875
owl and the cuckoo ? it should have followed in the

end of our show.
King. Call them forth quickly; we will do so.
Arm. Holla! approach.

873. years) yeare Q 1.

862. bring you on your way] con- amongst “dialogues set as musical duct, accompany you on your way. compositions," the earliest example The expression occurs again in Winter's being from J. Playford, 1653. In The Tale, iv. iii. 122; and in Measure for Queen's Entertainment at the Earl of Measure, I. i. 62 (see note in Arden Hertford's, 1591 (Nichols' Progresses, edition)

iii. 113), there is a song of a similar 864. Jack Jill] An old say. structure between “Dem "(and) and ing, occurring in Heywood's Dialogue, " Resp "(onse), with an echo to take 1546 (Dyce); and see Sharman's edi- up the closing syllables of each quattion of Heywood's Proverbs, p. 100. rain. It is “ The Song presented by And earlier, in Skelton's Magnyfycence Nereus on the water, sung dialogue(Dyce, i. 234), 1515: "What avayleth wise, everie fourth verse answered lordshyp, yourselfe for to kyll, With with two Echoes." Shakespeare's care and with thought, howe Jack bird-notes replace the already stale shall have Gyl." Gosson has “ Every echo device. John and his Joan" (Schoole of Abuse, 879. Holla] “a shout to excite at. 1579). See Ray, ed. 1742, p. 124; Ben tention " (New Eng. Dict.); "a call to Jonson, Gipsies Metamorphosed, etc. a person to come near

1 (Schmidt). 871. royal finger) See above, v. i. Compare Gascoigne, The Steel Glas 96.

(Arber, p. 72), 1577:

« But holla; here, 872, 873. hold the plough] See note i see a wondrous sight, I see a swarme at lines 712-714 above.

of Saints within my glasse. . . . What 874. dialogue] This use of "dialogue" should they be (my lord), what should is not included by New Eng. Dict. they be ?

Re-enter HOLOFERNES, NATHANIEL, MOTH, COSTARD,

and others. This side is Hiems, Winter, this Ver, the Spring; the 880 one maintained by the owl, the other by the cuckoo. Ver, begin.

THE SONG.

Spring When daisies pied and violets blue

And lady-smocks all silver-white
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue

885
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus sings he,

Cuckoo; Re-enter .) Enter all Q9, Ff. 884, 885. Theobald; the order is 885, 884 in Ff, Qq. 885. cuckoo-buds] cowslip-buds Farmer conjecture; crocus-buds Whalley conjecture. 886. with delight] much bedight Warburton.

881. maintained] “ represented” smock," like "Lady's Mantle," " Lady's (Schmidt)? Rather “backed," "sup- Bedstraw.” A general provincial name. ported.” The “support " is more an It occurs in Ben Jonson's Pan's Anniexercise of the imagination, than a versary: “ kingspear, holyhocks, Sweet real stage property, as is doubtfully Venus-navel, and soft Lady-smocks.” implied in New Eng. Dict., giving New Eng. Dict. quotes Gerard's Herbal. no other example. Compare Greene, 885. cuckoo-buds] Britten and HolPenelope's Web (Grosart, v. 217), 1587: land, English Plant Names (Eng. "he there complayned of the Collyar, Dialect Soc. 1886), give this name how he had abused him in mayntayn. from Northampton and Sussex to ing his boy to give him ill language.” Ranunculus bulbosus, or Crowfoot, one No doubt the performers imitate the of the first buttercups to bloom. In notes of the birds in the song.

Co. Donegal (S.W.) the name“Cuckoo883. When daisies pied, etc.) Furness flower " is applied to Lotus cornicuwrites: “Whalley speaks of this song latus, the Bird's-foot Trefoil. See • which gave so much pleasure to the Appendix to my Flora of Donegal, Town, and was in everybody's mouth Schmidt decides in favour of the cowabout seven years ago.' This must slip, for which there is not the slightest have been about 1740. Genest records proof or evidence. The choice lies no production of Love's Labour's Lost between buttercup and bird's-foot (both at or about this date, or in fact at any called also crowfoot or crowtoe), and date. But we know that this song was I am rather inclined to the latter, introduced into As You Like It; which, as a spring meadow flower. Its buds Genest says, was acted in November, are more numerous and more worthy 1740, for the first time for forty years. of a special name than those of butterIt had an unusual run of twenty-five cup. Has not the "yellow hue" here nights. This is probably the occasion a special force of jealousy, appropriate which made the song so popular.” to the context ? Nym's yellowness, in Whalley's remark was in connection Merry Wives of Windsor, 1. . 111, with his proposed “crocus-buds will be recalled. (line 885).

887, 888. cuckoo . . . thus sings he] 884. lady-smocks] The flowers of See note at "cuckoo birds do sing," Cardamine pratensis, or Cuckoo-flower; Merry Wives of Windsor, II. i. 124 probably a corruption of “ Our Lady's (Arden ed. p. 71).

890

Cuckoo, cuckoo: 0 word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!
When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,

And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,

And maidens bleach their summer smocks,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus sings he,

Cuckoo;
Cuckoo, cuckoo: 0 word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!

895

900

Winter. When icicles hang by the wall,

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,

And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,

905 Then nightly sings the staring owl,

Tu-whit; 905. foul] fall Q 1. 907, 908. Tu-whit; Tu-who) Qq, Ff; Tu-who; Tuwhit, to-who Capell.

892. pipe on oaten straws) Compare the while with the Porter, blowing his T. Watson, Eclogue upon Death of nailes" (Jests of George Peele (HazWalsingham (Arber, p. 163), 1590: litt's repr. p. 276), 1607); "there was “ An humble style befitts a simple a time when nothing would have been swain, My Muse shall pipe but on an denied her ... but that heat being oaten quill.” And Golding's Ovid, i. cooled, she may blow her nails twice 842: “Some good plaine soule that before it kindle again" (Letter of had some flocke to feede And as he Chamberlain, in Court and Times of went he pyped still upon an Oten James I. ii. 56 (1617]); “knocke her Reede” (1567). Spenser speaks of the knees and blow her nailes at the doore shepherd's “ oaten pipe" in Shepheard's like a poore black-bitten stal-creeper " Calendar for January (1579). Gabriel (Thos. Brewer, Merry Devil of EdmonHarvey quotes the expression from ton (prose) (repr. of 1631 ed. p. 48), Spenser, in a letter (1580), in Grosart's 1608). We have Cotgrave to explain Harvey, i. 92.

this in v. ceincture : “pull straws, pluck 893. larks . . . clocks] “rise with daisies, pick rushes, or blow their the lark” occurs in Lyly's Euphues fingers; generally the phrase imports and his England (Arber, p. 229), 1580; an idle and lazie fashion, or posture." and “up with the lark in Greene's In Churchyard's Challenge (Nichols, Never Too Late (Grosart, viii, 124). ii. 178), 1592 : “picke your fingers'

902. blows his nail] wait patiently endes, Or blow your nailes, or gnaw, while one has nothing to do. Schmidt and bite your thumbs," is descriptive

to warm his hands,” an acci- of being out of employment of any dental property of the saying, arising sort; while in verses by Campion from out of idleness in cold. The expres. Davison's Poetical Rhapsodie, 1611 sion occurs again as descriptive of (quoted by Nichols, iii. 350), cold is listlessness in 3 Henry VI. 11. v. 3. A specified : " But in their brests, where few examples must be quoted : “he Love his Court should hold, Poor was driven to daunce attendaunce Cupid sits, and blowes his nailes for without doores and blowe his nailes” cold.” And see Todd's Spenser, vii. 236. (North, Doni's Philosophie (edited 907, 908. Tu-whit; Tu-who] Holt Jacobs, p. 231), 1570); “who sate all White refers to Lyly's Mother Bombie