Biron. Aside.] O, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid's hose: Disfigure not his slop. Long. This same shall go. Did not the heavenly rhetorick of thine eye Vows, for thee broke, deserve not punishment. A woman I forswore; but, I will prove, Thou, being a goddess, I forswore not thee: My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love; Thy grace being gain'd, cures all disgrace in me. Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is: Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth doth 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? 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! O most prophane coxcomb! [Aside. Dum. As fair as day. Biron. Ay, as some days; but then no sun must shine. [Aside. And I had mine! [Aside. King. And I mine too, good lord! [Aside. Biron. Amen, so I had mine: Is not that a good word? [Aside. Dum. O that I had my wish! 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 incision 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. [Aside. Dum. On a day, (alack the day!) Love, whose month is ever May, And deny himself for Jove, Turning mortal for thy love. — This will I send; and something else more plain, Long. Dumain, [Advancing.] thy love is far from That in love's grief desir'st society: You may look pale, but I should blush, I know, To be o'erheard, and taken napping so. King. Come, sir, [Advancing.] you blush; as his your case is such; You chide at him, offending twice as much: [To LONG. And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath. [To DUMAIN. What will Birón say, when that he shall hear King. Enter JAQUENETTA and CoSTARD. What present hast thou there? Cost. Some certain treason. What makes treason here? Where hadst thou it? Jaq. Of Costard. Biron. Is ebony like her? O wood divine! No face is fair, that is not full so black. It mourns, that painting, and usurping hair, And therefore is she born to make black fair. Her favour turns the fashion of the days; For native blood is counted painting now; [Giving him the letter. And therefore red, that would avoid dispraise, King. Where hadst thou it? Cost. Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio. 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. Long. It did move him to passion, and therefore let's hear it. Dum. It is Biron's writing, and here is his name. [Picks up the pieces. Biron. Ah, you loggerhead, [To COSTARD.] you were born to do me shame. Guilty, my lord, guilty; I confess, I confess. Paints itself black, to imitate her brow. Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn. Dum. Ay, marry, there, some flattery for this evil. Long. O, some authority how to proceed; Biron. Biron. That you three fools lack'd me fool to Say, can you fast? your stomachs are too young make up the mess : He, he, and you, my liege, and I, Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die. True, true; we are four: Hence, sirs; away. Will these turtles be gone? 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, Dares look upon the heaven of her brow, She, an attending star, scarce seen a light. 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; | And abstinence engenders maladies. And where that you have vow'd to study, lords, As motion, and long-during action, tires She passes praise; then praise too short doth blot. Lives not alone immured in the brain; 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. But with the motion of all elements, 6 Law.chicane. It adds a precious seeing to the eye; As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair; For wisdom's sake, a word that all men love And who can sever love from charity? ; King. Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the Long. Shall we resolve to woo these girls of King. And win them too: therefore let us devise Biron. First, from the park let us conduct them Then, homeward, every man attach the hand [Exeunt. ACT V. SCENE I. - A Street. Enter HOLOFERNES, Sir NATHANIEL, and DULL. Nath. Sir, your reasons 7 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. Quare Chirra, not sirrah? Cost. O, they have lived long in the alms-basket of words! I marvel, thy master hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon. 3 Moth. Peace; the peal begins. Arm. Monsieur, [To HoL.] are you not letter'd? head? Hol. Ba, puerilia, with a horn added. Moth. Ba, most silly sheep, with a horn: 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. Novi hominem tanquam te: Ilis humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical.9 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 verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical phantasms, such insociable and point-devise 2 companions; such rackers of orthography, as to speak, dout, fine, when he should say, doubt; | o, u. 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. I will repeat them, a, e, i. - Arm. Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum, a sweet touch, a quick venew of wit: snip, snap, quick and home; it rejoiceth my intellect : true wit. Moth. Offer'd by a child to an old man. Cost. And I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy gingerbread: hold, there is Hol. Bone? bone, for benè: Priscian a little the very remuneration I had of thy master, thou scratch'd; 'twill serve. halfpenny purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of discretion. Arm. At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain. 3 A small inflammable substance, swallowed in a glass of Free-school. wine. M Hol. I do, sans question. Arm. Sir, the king is a noble gentleman; and my familiar, I do assure you, very good friend: - For what is inward beween us, let it pass: I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy ; I beseech thee, apparel thy head; and among other importunate and most serious designs, and of great import indeed, too; but let that pass: for I must tell thee, it will please his grace (by the world) sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder; 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. Nath. Where will you find men worthy enough to present them? Hol. Yourself; myself, or this gallant gentleman; this swain, because of his great limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the great; the page, Hercules. Arm. Pardon, sir, error: he is not quantity enough for that worthy's thumb: he is not so big as the end of his club. Hol. Shall I have audience? he shall present Hercules in minority: his enter and exit shall be strangling a snake; and I will have an apology for that purpose. Moth. An excellent device! so, if any of the audience hiss, you may cry, Well done, Hercules! now thou crushest the snake! that is the way to make an offence gracious; though few have the grace to do it. Arm. For the rest of the worthies? Arm. We will have, if this fadge 5 not, an antick. I beseech you follow. Hol. Via, goodman Dull! thou hast spoken no word all this while. Dull. Nor understood none neither, sir. Dull. I'll make one in a dance, or so; or I will play on the tabor to the worthies, and let them dance the hay. Hol. Most dull, honest Dull, to our sport, away. [Exeunt. A lady wall'd about with diamonds! - As would be cramm'd up in a sheet of paper, Ros. That was the way to make his god-head wax 7; For he hath been five thousand years a boy. your sister. Kath. He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy ; Kath. A light condition in a beauty dark. Ros. Great reason; for, Past cure is still past care. Prin. Well bandied both; a set of wit well play'd. But, Rosaline, you have a favour too : Who sent it? and what is it? Ros. I would, you knew : An if my face were but as fair as yours, My favour were as great; be witness this. Nay, I have verses too, I thank Birón : The numbers true; and, were the numb'ring too, I were the fairest goddess on the ground: I am compar'd to twenty thousand fairs. O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter! Prin. Any thing like? Ros. Much, in the letters: nothing in the praise. Prin. Beauteous as ink; a good conclusion. Kath. Fair as a text B in a copy-book. Ros. 'Ware pencils! How? let me not die your debtor, My red dominical, my golden letter: O, that your face were not so full of O's! Kath. A plague of that jest! and beshrew all shrows! Prin. But what was sent to you from fair Dumain? Kath. Madam, this glove. Prin. Did he not send you twain ? Kath. Yes, madam; and moreover, Some thousand verses of a faithful lover: A huge translation of hypocrisy, Vilely compil'd, profound simplicity. Mar. This, and these pearls, to me sent Longaville; The letter is too long by half a mile. Prin. I think no less: Dost thou not wish in heart, The chain were longer, and the letter short? Mar. Ay, or I would these hands might never Prin. We are wise girls to mock our lovers so. Ros. They are worse fools to purchase mocking so. That same Birón I'll torture ere I go. O, that I knew he were but in by the week! Prin. None are so surely caught, when they are catch'd, As wit turn'd fool: folly, in wisdom hatch'd, Mar. Folly in fools bears not so strong a note, Enter BOYET. Prin. Here comes Boyet, and mirth is in his face. Boyet. O, I am stabb'd with laughter! Where's her grace? Prin. Thy news, Boyet? 1 Boyet. Making the bold wag by their praises bolder. Prin. But what, but what, come they to visit us? Like Muscovites, or Russians: as I guess, Their purpose is, to parle, to court, and dance: Ros. But shall we dance, if they desire us to't? Prin. No: to the death, we will not move a foot, Nor to their penn'd speech render we no grace; But, while 'tis spoke, each turn away her face. Boyet. Why, that contempt will kill the speaker's heart, And quite divorce his memory from his part. Prin. Therefore I do it; and I make no doubt The rest will ne'er come in, if he be out. There's no such sport, as sport by sport o'erthrown; To make theirs ours, and ours none but our own: So shall we stay, mocking intended game; And they, well mock'd, depart away with shame. [Trumpets sound within. Boyet. The trumpet sounds; be mask'd, the maskers come. [The Ladies mask. Enter the KING, BIRON, LONGAVILLE, and DuMAIN, in Russian habits, and masked; Moтн, Musicians, and Attendants. Moth. All hail, the richest beauties on the earth! Boyet. Beauties no richer than rich taffata. Moth. A holy parcel of the fairest dames, [The Ladies turn their backs to him. That ever turn'd their -backs -to mortal views! Biron. Their eyes, villain, their eyes. Moth. That ever turn'd their eyes to mortal views! If they do speak our language, 'tis our will Boyet. What would you with the princess? |