Obrázky stránek
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar,
Nor mark prodigious, such as are
Despised in nativity,

Shall upon their children be.—
With this field-dew consecrate,
Every fairy take his gait ;

And each several chamber bless,
Through this palace with sweet peace:
E'er shall it in safety rest,

And the owner of it blest.
Trip away;

Make no stay;

Meet me all by break of day.

[Exeunt Oberon, Titania, and train.

Puck. If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, (and all is mended,)
That you have but slumber'd here,
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend;
If you pardon, we will mend.
And, as I'm an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck

Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends, ere long:
Else the Puck a liar call.

So, good night unto you all.

Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends. [Exit.

[blocks in formation]

And make us heirs of all eternity.

SCENE I.-Navarre. A park, with a palace Therefore, brave conquerors!—for so you are,

in it.

Enter the King, BIRON, LONGAVILLE, and
DUMAIN.

That war against your own affections,
And the huge army of the world's desires,-
Our late edict shall strongly stand in force:
Navarre shall be the wonder of the world;

King. Let fame, that all hunt after in their Our court shall be a little academe,

lives,

Live register'd upon our brazen tombs,
And then grace us in the disgrace of death;
When, spite of cormorant devouring time,
The endeavour of this present breath may buy
That honour, which shall bait his scythe's keen
edge,

Still and contemplative in living art.
You three, Birón, Dumain, and Longaville,
Have sworn for three years' term to live with me,
My fellow scholars, and to keep those statutes,
That are recorded in this schedule here:
Your oaths are past, and now subscribe your
names;

That his own hand may strike his honour down, | Which, with pain purchas'd, doth inherit pain: That violates the smallest branch herein: As, painfully to pore upon a book,

If you are arm'd to do, as sworn to do,
Subscribe to your deep oath, and keep it too.
Long. I am resolv'd: 'tis but a three years'
fast;

The mind shall banquet, though the body pine:
Fat paunches have lean pates; and dainty bits
Make rich the ribs, but bank'rout quite the wits.
Dum. My loving lord, Dumain is mortified;
The grosser manner of these world's delights
He throws upon the gross world's baser slaves:
To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die;
With all these living in philosophy.

Biron. I can but say the protestation over.
So much, dear liege, I have already sworn,
That is, to live and study here three years.
But there are other strict observances:
As, not to see a woman in that term;
Which, I hope well, is not enrolled there:
And, one day in a week to touch no food;
And but one meal on every day beside;
The which, I hope, is not enrolled there:
And then, to sleep but three hours in the night,
And not be seen to wink of all the day;
(When I was wont to think no harm all night,
And make a dark night too of half the day ;)
Which, I hope well, is not enrolled there:
0, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep;
Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep.

King. Your oath is pass'd to pass away from these.

Biron. Let me say no, my liege, an if you please;

I only swore, to study with your grace,

And stay here in your court for three years' space.

Long. You swore to that, Biron, and to the

rest.

Biron. By yea and nay, sir, then I swore in jest.

What is the end of study? let me know. King. Why, that to know, which else we should not know.

Biron. Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from common sense?

King. Ay, that is study's god-like recompense. Biron. Come on then, I will swear to study so, To know the thing I am forbid to know: As thus,-To study where I well may dine, When I to feast expressly am forbid; Or, study where to meet some mistress fine, When mistresses from common sense are hid: Or, having sworn too hard-a-keeping oath, Study to break it, and not break my troth. If study's gain be thus, and this be so, Study knows that, which yet it doth not know: Swear me to this, and I will ne'er say, no.

King. These be the stops that hinder study quite,

And train our intellects to vain delight.

To seek the light of truth; while truth the while

Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look:

Light seeking light, doth light of light beguile: So, ere you find where light in darkness lies, Your light grows dark, by losing of your eyes. Study me how to please the eye indeed,

By fixing it upon a fairer eye;

Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed,
And give him light that was it blinded by.
Study is like the heaven's glorious sun,
That will not be deep-search'd with saucy
looks;

Small have continual plodders ever won,

Save base authority from others' books. These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights, That give a name to every fixed star, Have no more profit of their shining nights, Than those that walk, and wot not what they

are.

Too much to know, is to know nought but fame; And every godfather can give a name.

King. How well he's read, to reason against reading!

Dum. Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding!

Long. He weeds the corn, and still lets grow the weeding.

Biron. The spring is near, when green geese are a-breeding.

Dum. How follows that?

Biron. Fit in his place and time.
Dum. In reason nothing.

Biron. Something then in rhyme.

Long. Biron is like an envious sneaping frost,

That bites the first-born infants of the spring. Biron. Well, say I am; why should proud summer boast,

Before the birds have any cause to sing? Why should I joy in an abortive birth? At Christmas I no more desire a rose, Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled shows; But like of each thing, that in season grows. So you, to study now it is too late, Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate. King. Well, sit you out: go home, Biron; adieu!

Biron. No, my good lord; I have sworn to

stay with you:

And, though I have for barbarism spoke more,
Than for that angel knowledge you can say,
Yet confident I'll keep what I have swore,

And bide the penance of each three years' day.
Give me the paper, let me read the same;
And to the strict'st decrees I'll write my name.
King. How well this yielding rescues thee
from shame!

Biron. [Reads. Item, That no woman shall come within a mile of my court.Biron. Why, all delights are vain; but that And hath this been proclaim'd?

most vain,

Long. Four days ago.

Biron. Let's see the penalty.

[Reads.

On pain of losing her tongue.-Who devis'd this?

Long. Marry, that did I.

Biron. Sweet lord, and why?

Long. To fright them hence with that dread penalty.

Biron. A dangerous law against gentility. [Reads] Item, if any man be seen to talk with a woman within the term of three years, he shall endure such publick shame as the rest of the court can possibly devise.

This article, my liege, yourself must break;

For, well you know, here comes in embassy The French king's daughter, with yourself to speak,

A maid of grace, and complete majesty,— About surrender-up of Aquitain

To her decrepit, sick, and bed-rid father: Therefore this article is made in vain,

Or vainly comes the admired princess hither. King. What say you, lords? why, this was

quite forgot.

Biron. So study evermore is overshot; While it doth study to have what it would, It doth forget to do the thing it should: And, when it hath the thing it hunteth most, 'Tis won, as towns with fire; so won, so lost. King. We must, of force, dispense with this decree;

She must lie here on mere necessity.

Biron. Necessity will make us all forsworn Three thousand times within this three years'

space:

For every man with his affects is born;

Not by might master'd, but by special grace: If I break faith, this word shall speak for me, I am forsworn on mere necessity.So to the laws at large I write my name:

[Subscribes. And he, that breaks them in the least degree, Stands in attainder of eternal shame :

Suggestions are to others as to me; But, I believe, although I seem so loth, I am the last, that will last keep his oath. But is there no quick recreation granted? King. Ay, that there is: our court you know is haunted

With a refined traveller of Spain;

A man in all the world's new fashion planted,
That hath a mint of phrases in his brain :
One, whom the musick of his own vain tongue
Doth ravish, like enchanting harmony;
A man of complements, whom right and wrong
Have chose as umpire of their mutiny:
This child of fancy, that Armado hight,

For interim to our studies, shall relate,
In high-born words, the worth of many a knight
From tawny Spain, lost in the world's de-

bate.

How you delight, my lords, I know not, I;
But, I protest, I love to hear him lie,
And I will use him for my minstrelsy.

Biron. Armado is a most illustrious wight, A man of fire-new words, fashion's own knight. Long. Costard the swain, and he, shall be our sport;

And so to study, three years is but short.

Enter DULL with a letter, and CoSTARD. Dull. Which is the duke's own person? Biron. This, fellow; What would'st? Dull. I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his grace's tharborough: but I would see his own person in flesh and blood. Biron. This is he.

Dull. Signior Arme-Arme-commends you. There's villainy abroad; this letter will tell you

more.

Cost. Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me.

King. A letter from the magnificent Armado. Biron. How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high words.

Long. A high hope for a low having: God grant us patience!

Biron. To hear? or forbear hearing? Long. To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately; or to forbear both.

Biron. Well, sir, be it as the style shall give us cause to climb in the merriness.

Cost. The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta. The manner of it is, I was taken with the manner.

Biron. In what manner?

Cost. In manner and form following, sir; all those three: I was seen with her in the manorhouse, sitting with her upon the form, and taken following her into the park; which, put together, is in manner and form following. Now, sir, for the manner,-it is the manner of a man to speak to a woman: for the form,-in some form. Biron. For the following, sir?

Cost. As it shall follow in my correction; And God defend the right!

King. Will you hear this letter with attention? Biron. As I would hear an oracle.

Cost. Such is the simplicity of man to hearken after the flesh.

King. [Reads. Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent, and sole dominator of Navarre, my soul's earth's God, and body's fostering patron,Cost. Not a word of Costard yet.

[blocks in formation]

sixth hour; when beasts most graze, birds best peck, and men sit down to that nourishment which is called supper. So much for the time when : Now for the ground which; which, I mean, I walked upon: it is ycleped thy park. Then for the place where; where, I mean, I did encounter that obscene and most preposterous event, that draweth from my snow-white pen the ebon-coloured ink, which here thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or seest: But to the place, where,-It standeth north-north-east and by east from the west corner of thy curious-knotted garden: There did I see that low-spirited swain, that base minnow of thy mirth,

[blocks in formation]

King. -with a child of our grandmother Eve, female; or, for thy more sweet understanding, a woman. Him I (as my ever-esteemed duty pricks me on) have sent to thee, to receive the meed of punishment, by thy sweet grace's officer, Antony Dull; a man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation.

Dull. Me, an't shall please you; I am Antony Dull.

King. For Jaquenetta, (so is the weaker vessel called, which I apprehended with the aforesaid swain,) I keep her as a vessel of thy law's fury; and shall, at the least of thy sweet notice, bring her to trial. Thine, in all compliments of devoted and heart-burning heat of duty,

Don Adriano de Armado. Biron. This is not so well as I looked for, but the best that ever I heard.

King. Ay, the best for the worst.-But, sirrah, what say you to this?

Cost. Sir, I confess the wench.

King. Did you hear the proclamation?

Cost. I do confess much of the hearing it, but little of the marking of it.

King. It was proclaimed a year's imprisonment, to be taken with a wench.

Cost. I was taken with none, sir; I was taken with a damosel.

King. Well, it was proclaimed damosel. Cost. This was no damosel neither, sir; she was a virgin.

King. It so varied too; for it was proclaimed virgin.

Cost. If it were, I deny her virginity; I was taken with a maid.

King. This maid will not serve your turn, sir. Cost. This maid will serve my turn, sir.

|

King. Sir, I will pronounce your sentence; You shall fast a week with bran and water. Cost. I had rather pray a month with mutton and porridge.

King. And Don Armado shall be your keeper.-My lord Biron, see him deliver'd o'erAnd go we, lords, to put in practice that, Which each to other hath so strongly sworn.

[Exeunt King, Longaville, and Dumain. Biron. I'll lay my head to any good man's hat, These oaths and laws will prove an idle

[blocks in formation]

Enter ARMADO and MOTH.

Arm. Boy, what sign is it, when a man of great spirit grows melancholy?

Moth. A great sign, sir, that he will look sad. Arm. Why, sadness is one and the self-same thing, dear imp.

Moth. No, no; O lord, sir, no.

Arm. How canst thou part sadness and melancholy, my tender juvenal?

Moth. By a familiar demonstration of the working, my tough senior.

Arm. Why tough senior? why tough senior? Moth. Why tender juvenal? why tender juvenal?

Arm. I spoke it, tender juvenal, as a congruent epitheton, appertaining to thy young days, which we may nominate tender.

Moth. And I, tough senior, as an appertinent title to your old time, which we may name tough. Arm. Pretty, and apt.

Moth. How mean you, sir? I pretty, and my saying apt? or I apt, and my saying pretty? Arm. Thou pretty, because little.

Moth. Little pretty, because little: Wherefore apt?

Arm. And therefore apt, because quick. Moth. Speak you this in my praise, master? Arm. In thy condign praise.

Moth. I will praise an eel with the same praise. Arm. What? that an eel is ingenious? Moth. That an cel is quick.

Arm. I do say, thou art quick in answers: Thou heatest my blood.

Moth. I am answered, sir.

[blocks in formation]
« PředchozíPokračovat »