The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows: Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright And they thy glory through my grief will show: Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is : Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine, Exhal'st this vapour vow; in thee it is: If broken then, it is no fault of mine; If by me broke, What fool is not so wise, To lose an oath to win a paradise? Biron. [Aside. This is the liver vein, which makes flesh a deity; A green goose, a goddess: pure, pure idolatry. God amend us, God amend! we are much out o' the way. Enter DUMAIN, with a paper. Long. By whom shall I send this? Company! Like a demi-god here sit I in the sky, Dumain transform'd: four woodcocks in a dish! Biron. O most prophane coxcomb! [Aside. Dum. By heaven, the wonder of a mortal eye! Biron. By earth, she is but corporal; there you lie. [Aside. Dum. Her amber hairs for foul have amber coted. Biron. An amber-colour'd raven was well no ted. Aside. Biron. One drunkard loves another of the name. Dum. As fair as day. [Aside. [Aside. [Aside. Long. Am I the first that have been perjur'd so? Biron. [Aside.] I could put thee in comfort; not by two, that I know: Thou mak'st the triumviry, the corner-cap of society, The shane of love's Tyburn that hangs up simplicity. Long. I fear, these stubborn lines lack power Biron. Ay, as some days; but then no sun must shine. [Aside. King. And I mine too, good Lord! good word? Dum. I would forget her; but a fever she Reigns in my blood, and will remember'd be. Biron. A fever in your blood, why, then in cision Would let her out in saucers; sweet misprision! Aside. Dum. Once more I'll read the ode that I have writ. Biron. Once more I'll mark how love can vary wit. Dum. On a day, (alack the day!) [Aside. Love, whose month is ever May, But alack, my hand is sworn, This will I send; and something else more plain, That in love's grief desir'st society: King. Come, sir, [advancing.] you blush; as his your case is such; You chide at him, offending twice as much: [To Long. I would not have him know so much by me. And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys, King. Too bitter is thy jest. Are we betray'd thus to thy over-view? Biron. Not you by me, but I betray'd to you; I, that am honest; I, that hold it sin To break the vow I am engaged in ; I am betray'd, by keeping company With moon-like men, of strange inconstancy. When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme? Or groan for Joan? or spend a minute's time In pruning me? When shall you hear, that I Will praise a hand, a foot, a face, an eye, A gait, a state, a brow, a breast, a waist, A leg, a limb?— King. Soft; whither away so fast? A true man, or a thief, that gallops so? Biron. I post from love; good lover, let me go, name. Dum. It is Biron's writing, and here is his [Picks up the pieces. Biron. Ah, you whoreson loggerhead, [To Costard. you were born to do me shame.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, my liege, and I, more. Dum. Now the number is even. Biron. True, true; we are four :Will these turtles be gone? King. Hence, sirs; away. Cost. Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay. [Exeunt Costard and Jaquenetta. Biron. Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O let us embrace! As true we are, as flesh and blood can be: The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face; Young blood will 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 show some love of thine? Biron. Did they, quoth you? Who sees the heavenly Rosaline, That, like a rude and savage man of Inde, At the first opening of the gorgeous east, Bows not his vassal head; and, strucken blind, Kisses the base ground with obedient breast? What peremptory eagle-sighted eye Dares look upon the heaven of her brow, That is not blinded by her majesty? King. What zeal, what fury hath inspir'd My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon; Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek; Where several worthies make one dignity; Where nothing wants, that want itself doth seek. 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; She passes praise; then praise too short doth blot. A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn, Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye: Beauty doth varnish age, as if new-born, And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy. O, 'tis the sun that maketh all things shine! King. By heaven, thy love is black as ebony. Biron. Is ebony like her? O wood divine! A wife of such wood were felicity. O, who can give an oath? where is a book? That I may swear, beauty doth beauty lack, If that she learn not of her eye to look: No face is fair, that is not full so black. King. O, paradox! black is the badge of hell, The hue of dungeons, and the scowl of night; And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well. Biron. Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light. O, if in black my lady's brows be deckt, It mourns, that painting, and usurping hair, Should ravish doters with a false aspect; And therefore is she born to make black fair. Her favour turns the fashion of the days; For native blood is counted painting now; And therefore red, that would avoid dispraise, Paints itself black, to imitate her brow. Dum. To look like her, are chimney-sweepers black. Long. And, since her time, are colliers counted bright. King. And Ethiops of their sweet complexion crack. Dum. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light. Biron. Your mistresses dare never come in rain, 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 doomsday here. King. No devil will fright thee then so much as she. Dum. I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear. Long. Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face see. [Showing his shoe. Biron. O, if the streets were paved with thine eyes, Her feet were much too dainty for such tread ! Dum. Ovile! then as she goes, what upward lies The street should see, as she walk'd over head. King. But what of this? Are we not all in love? Biron. O, nothing so sure; and thereby all forsworn. King. Then leave this chat; and, good Birón, now prove Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn. Dum. Ay, marry, there;-some flattery for this evil. Long. O, some authority how to proceed; Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil. Dum. Some salve for perjury. Biron. O, 'tis more than need!- Why, universal plodding prisons up Then, when ourselves we see in ladies' eyes, For valour, is not love a Hercules, Then fools you were these women to forswear; Biron. Advance your standards, and upon Pell-mell, down with them! but be first advis'd, In conflict that you get the sun of them. Long. Now to plain-dealing; lay these glozes by: Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France? King. And win them too; therefore let us devise Some entertainment for them in their tents. Biron. First, from the park let us conduct them thither; Then, homeward, every man attach the hand 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 ACT V. SCENE 1.-Another part of the same. Enter HOLOFERNES, Sir NATHANIEL, and DULL. Hol. Satis quod sufficit. Nath. I praise God for you, sir: your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy. I did converse this quondam day with a companion of the king's, who is intituled, nominated, or called, Don Adriano de Armado. Hol. Novi hominem tanquam te: His humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical. He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were, too perigrinate, as I may call it. Nath. A most singular and choice epithet. [Takes out his table-book. Hol. He draweth out the thread of his verbo sity finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical phantasms, such insociable and point-devise 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 abhomi nable, (which he would call abominable,) it in- | youth at the charge-house on the top of the sinuateth me of insanie; Ne intelligis domine? mountain? to make frantick, lunatick. Nath. Laus deo, bone intelligo. Hol. Bone?- -bone, for benè: Priscian a little scratch'd; 'twill serve. Enter ARMADO, MOTH, and COSTARD. Arm. Men of peace, well encounter'd. Hol. Most military sir, salutation. Hol. Or, mons, the hill. Arm. At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain. Hol. I do, sans question. Arm. Sir, it is the king's most sweet pleasure and affection, to congratulate the princess at her pavilion, in the posteriors of this day; which the rude multitude call, the afternoon. Hol. The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is liable, congruent, and measurable for the afternoon: the word is well cull'd, chose ; sweet and apt, I do assure you, sir, I do assure. Arm. Sir, the king is a noble gentleman ; and my familiar, I do assure you, very good friend :Moth. They have been at a great feast of lan- For what is inward between us, let it pass :-I guages, and stolen the scraps. [To Costard aside. do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy ;-I beCost. O, they have lived long in the alms-seech thee, apparel thy head ;-and among other basket of words! I marvel, thy master hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon. Moth. Peace; the peal begins. Arm. Monsieur, [To Hol.] are you not let ter'd? Moth. Yes, yes; he teaches boys the hornbook:-What is a, b, spelt backward with a horn on his head? Hol. Ba, pueritia, with a horn added. Moth. Ba, most silly sheep, with a horn:— You hear his learning. Hol. Quis, quis, thou consonant? Moth. The third of the five vowels, if you repeat them; or the fifth, if I. Hol. I will repeat them, a, e, i,— Hol. Thou disputest like an infant: go, whip thy gig. Moth. Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your infamy circùm circà; A gig of a cuckold's horn! Cost. An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy gingerbread : hold, there is the very remuneration I had of thy master, thou half-penny purse of wit, thou pigeonegg of discretion. O, an the heavens were so pleased, that thou wert but my bastard! what a joyful father wouldst thou make me! Go to; thou hast it ad dunghill, at thy fingers' ends, as they say. Hol. O, I smell false Latin; dunghill for unguem. Arm. Arts-man, præambula; we will be singled from the barbarous. Do you not educate importunate and most serious designs,—and of great import indeed, too;-but let that pass:for I must tell thee, it will please his grace (by the world) sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder; and with his royal finger, thus, dally with my excrement, with my mustachio: but, sweet heart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no fable; some certain special honours it pleaseth his greatness to impart to Armado, a soldier, a man of travel, that hath seen the world: but let that pass.-The very all of all is,—but, sweet heart, I do implore secrecy,-that the king would have me present the princess, sweet chuck, with some delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant, or antick, or fire-work. Now, understanding that the curate and your sweet self are good at such eruptions, and sudden breaking out of mirth, as it were, I have acquainted you withal, to the end to crave your assistance. Hol. Sir, you shall present before her the nine worthies.-Sir Nathaniel, as concerning some entertainment of time, some show in the posterior of this day, to be rendered by our assistance,—the king's command, and this most gallant, illustrate, and learned gentleman,—before the princess; I say, none so fit as to present the nine worthies. Nath. Where will you find men worthy enough to present them? Hol. Joshua, yourself; myself, or this gallant gentleman, Judas Maccabæus; this swain, because of his great limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the great; the page, Hercules. Arm. Pardon, sir, error: he is not quantity enough for that worthy's thumb: he is not so big as the end of his club. Hol. Shall I have audience? he shall present Hercules in minority: his enter and exit shall be strangling a snake; and I will have an apology for that purpose. Moth. An excellent device! so, if any of the audience hiss, you may cry,-well done, Hercules! now thou crushest the snake! that is the way to make an offence gracious; though few | have the grace to do it. |