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lourable colours.' But to return to the verses; Did they please you, sir Nathaniel ?

Nath. Marvellous well for the pen.

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

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

Hal. And, certes, the text most infallibly concludes it.-Sir, [To DULL.] I do invite you too; you shall not say me, nay: pauca verba. Away; the gentles are at their game, and we will to our [Exeunt. SCENE III. Another part of the same. Enter BIRON, with a Paper.

recreation.

Biron. The king he is hunting the deer: I am coursing myself: they have pitch'd a toil; I am 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 proved, wit! by the lord, this love is as mad as Ajax: it kills sheep; it kills me, I a sheep: Well proved 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, I would not love her: yes, for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing in the world but lie, and lie in my throat. By heaven, I do love: and it hath taught me to rhyme, and to be melancholy; and here is part of my rhyme, and here my melancholy. Well, she hath one o'my Sonnets already; the clown 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!

[Gets up into a tree.

Enter the King, with a Paper.

King. Ah me! Biron. [Aside.] Shot, by heaven!-Proceed, sweet Cupid; thou hast thump'd him with thy birdbolt under the left pap:-I'faith, secrets.

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

To those fresh morning drops upon the rose,
As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote
The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows:
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 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 my woe;
Do but behold the tears that swell in me,

And they thy glory through thy grief will show:
But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep,
My tears for glasses, and still make me
O queen of queens, how far dost thou excel!
weep.
No thought can think, no tongue of mortal tell.-
How shall she know my griefs? I'll drop the paper;
Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here?
[Steps aside.
Enter LONGAVILLE, with a Paper.
What, Longaville! and reading! listen ear.
Biron. Now, in thy likeness, one more fool, ap-
pear!

Long. Ah me! I am forsworn.

[Aside.

I That is, specious or fair seeming appearances. 2 Certainly, in truth.

3 Alluding to Rosaline's complexion, who is represented as a black beauty.

4 This is given as a proverb in Fuller's Gnomologia. 5 The ancient punishment of a perjured person was to wear on the breast a paper expressing the crime. 6 By triumviry and the shape of love's Tyburn, Shakspeare alludes to the gallows of the time, which was occasionally triangular.

201

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Did not the heavenly rhetorick of thine eye
[He reads the Sonnet.
Persuade my heart to this false perjury?
(Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,)

A

woman I foreswore; but, I will prove,
Vows for thee broke, deserve not punishment.
My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;
Thou being a goddess, I foreswore not thee,

Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is:
Thy grace being gain'd, cures all disgrace in me.
Exhal' st this vapour vou; in thee it is:
Then, thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine,

If by me broke. What fool is not so wise,
If broken then, it is no fault of mine;
To lose an oath to win a paradise?

Biron. [Aside.] This is the liver vein, which
A green goose, a goddess: pure, pure idolatry.
makes flesh a deity;
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,
Biron. [Aside.] All hid, all hid, an old infant play.
[Stepping aside.

stay.

And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'er-eye.
More sacks to the mill! O heavens, I have my
wish;

Dumain transform'd: four woodcocks in a dish!
Dum. O most divine Kate!
Biron.

O most profane coxcomb!
[Aside.

Dum. By heaven, the wonder of a mortal eye!
Biron. By earth she is but corporal; there you
lie.
Dum. Her amber hairs for foul have amber
[Aside.
coted, 10

Biron. An amber-colour'd raven was well noted.

Dum. As upright as the cedar.
Biron.

Her shoulder is with child.

Dum.

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[Aside.

Stoop, I say;
[Aside.

As fair as day.

[Aside.

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[Aside.

Dum. O that I had my wish!

Long.

And I had mine!

King. And I mine too, good Lord!

Biron, Amen, so I had mine: Is not that a good

word?

Dum. I would forget her; but a fever she
Reigns in my blood, and will remember'd be.

7 Slops were wide kneed breeches, the garb in fashion in Shakspeare's time.

anciently supposed to be the seat of love.
8 It has been already remarked that the liver was

supposed to have no brains.
9 A woodcock means a foolish fellow; that bird being

10 Coted signifies marked or noted. The word is sage will therefore be, her amber hairs have marked from the coter to quote. The construction of this pas or shown that real amber is foul in comparison with themselves."

[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!)

Biron. A fever in your blood, why, then incision | But are you not asham'd? nay, are you not, Would let her out in saucers; Sweet misprision! All three of you, to be thus much o'ershot? 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 gnat!" To see great Hercules whipping a gigg, And profound Solomon to tune a jigg, And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys, And critick Timon laugh at idle toys? Where lies thy grief, O tell me, good Dumain? And gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain? And where my liege's? all about the breast:A caudle, ho!

Love, whose month is ever May,
Spied a blossom, passing fair,
Playing in the wanton air:
Through the velvet leaves the wind,
All unseen, 'gan passage find;
That the lover, sick to death,
Wish'd himself the heaven's breath,
Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;
Air, would I might triumph so!
But alack, my hand is sworn,
Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn
Vow, alack, for youth unmeet;
Youth so apt to pluck a sweet.,
Do not call it sin in me,
That I am forsworn for thee;-
Thee-for whom Jove would swear,'
Juno but an Ethiop were;
And deny himself for Jove,
Turning mortal for thy love.-

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! Ill, to example ill,
Would from my forehead wipe a perjur'd note;
For none offend, where all alike do dote.

Long. Dumain, [advancing.] thy love is far from
charity,

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;

your

You chide at him, offending twice as much:
You do not love Maria; Longaville
Did never sonnet for her sake compile ;
Nor never lay his wreathed arms athwart
His loving bosom, to keep down his heart,
I have been closely shrouded in this bush,"
And mark'd you both, and for you both did blush.
I heard your guilty rhymes, observ'd fashion;
Saw sighs reek from you, noted well your passion:
Ah me! says one; Ó Jove! the other cries;
One, her hairs were gold, crystal the other's eyes:
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
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.
Biron. Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy.--
Ah, good my liege, I pray thee pardon me:
[Descends from the Tree.
Good heart, what grace hast thou, thus to reprove
These worms for loving, that art most in love?
Your do make no coaches ;3 in your tears,
eyes
There is no certain princess that appears:
You'll not be perjur'd, 'tis a hateful thing;
Tush, none but minstrels like of sonneting.

1 Thee-for whom Jove would swear,
Juno but an Ethiop were.'

The old copy reads-

Thou for whom Jove would swear.'

Pope thought this line defective, and altered it to-
Thou for whom even Jove would swear."

2 Fasting is longing, hungry, wanting.
8 Alluding to a passage in the King's Sonnet:
'No drop but as a coach doth carry thee.'
4 Grief.

Gnatis the reading of the old copy, and there seems no necessity for changing it to knot or any other word, as some of the editors have been desirous of doing.

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 in 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 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.
Whither away so fast?
A true man, or a thief, that gallops so?
Biron. I post from love: good lover, let me go.

groan

Soft;

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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 whoreson loggerhead. [To Cos-
TARD.] 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,
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.
Biron.

True, true; we are four:-
Will these turtles be gone?

King.

Hence, sirs; away. Cost. Walk aside the true folk, and let the trai[Exeunt COST. and JAQ.

tors stay.

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Biron. Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O let us em-
brace!

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 hea-
venly Rosaline,

That like a rude and savage man of Inde,

At the first opening of the gorgeous east,2 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 thee now?

My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon;

She, an attending star, scarce seen a light.
Biron. My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Biron :3
O, but for my love, day would turn to night!
Of all complexions the cull'd sovereignty

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;
Sae 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.
0, '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.
0, 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.4
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.

1 i. e. at any rate, at all events.

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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!-
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.
Say, can you fast? your stomachs are too young;
And abstinence engenders maladies.

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?
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 bocks, the academes,
From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire.
Why, universal plodding prisons up
The nimble spirits in the arteries;
As motion, and long during action, tires
The sinewy vigour of the traveller.
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,
With ourselves,"

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 show a harvest of their heavy toil:
But love, first learned in a lady's eyes,
Lives not alone immured in the brain;

5 This alludes to the fashion prevalent among la dies in Shakspeare's time, of wearing false hair, or

2 Mikon has transplanted this into the third line of periwigs as they were then called, before that covering

the second book of Paradise Lost:

'Or where the gorgeous east.'

3 Here, and indeed throughout the play, the name of Biron is accented on the second syllable. In the first and quarto copies it is spelled Beroune. From the line before us it appears that it was pronounced Bi

roon.

for the head had been adopted by men.

6 A quillet is a sly trick or turn in argument, or excuse. N. Bailey derives it, with much probability, from quibblet, as a diminutive of quibble.

7 This hemistich is omitted in all the modern editions except that by Mr. Boswell. It is found in the first quarto and first folio.

8 i. e. our true books, from which we derive most information; the eyes of woman.

9 So in Milton's Il Penseroso :

4 Creat is here properly opposed to badge. Black, ays the King, is the badge of hell, but that which graces heaven is the crest of beauty. Black darkens hell, and is therefore hateful: white adorns heaven, and is therefore lovely. Crest, is the very top, the height of And in Gray's Hymn to Adversity: beauty or utmost degree of fairness.

With a sad leaden, downward cast.'

With leaden eye that loves the ground.'

2

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;
Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste:
For valour, is not love a Hercules,
Still climbing trees in the Hesperides ?1
Subtile as sphinx; as sweet, and musical,
As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair;
And, when love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Make heaven drowsy with the harmony.
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 woman's eyes this doctrine I derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That show, 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 fulfills the law;

And who can sever love from charity?

King. Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field!

Biron. Advance your standards, and upon them,

lords;

Pell-mell, down with them! but be first advis'd,
In conflict that you get the sun of them.4

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
Of his fair mistress: in the afternoon

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

ACT V.

Enter Ho

SCENE I. Another part of the same. LOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL.

Hol. Satis quod sufficit.

Nath. I praise God for you, sir: your reasons" al 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. Nori 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,1° too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were, too peregrinate, 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 fantastical phantasms, such insociable and pointdevise11 companions; such rackers of orthography, as to speak, doubt, 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, bauf; neighbour, vocatur, nebour, neigh, abbreviated, ne: This is abhominable, (which he would call abomi nable,) it insinuateth me of insanie; Ne intelligis, domine? to make frantic, lunatic.

Nath. Laus deo, bone intelligo.

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

Enter ARMADO, MOTH, and COSTARD.
Nath. Videsne quis venit?

Hol. Video, et gaudeo.

Arm. Chirra!

[TO MOTH.

Hol. Quare Chirra, not sirrah? Arm. Men of peace, well encounter'd. Hol. Most military sir, salutation. Moth. They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps. [To COSTARD aside.

Cost. O, they have lived long in the alms-basket12 of words! I marvel, thy master hath not eaten thee for a word: for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus:13 thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon.14

Moth. Peace; the peal begins.

Arm. Monsieur, [To HoL.] are you not letter'd Moth. Yes, yes; he teaches boys the horn-book: 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.

Shakspeare intends to obtain for his vicar, but he has here put into his mouth a finished representation of col

Light wenches may prove plagues to men forsworn,loquial excellence. It is very difficult to add any thing If so, our copper buys no better treasure.

[Exeunt.

1 Shakspeare had read of the gardens of the Hesperides, and thought the latter word was the name of the garden. Some of his contemporaries have made the same mistake.

2 Few passages have been more discussed than this. The most plausible interpretation of it is, 'Whenever love speaks, all the gods join their voices in harmonious

concert.'

3 i. e. that is pleasing to all men. So in the language of the time it likes me well, for it pleases me. Shakspeare uses the word licentiously for the sake of the antithesis.

4 In the days of archery, it was of consequence to have the sun at the back of the bowmen, and in the face of the enemy. This circumstance was of great advantage to our Henry V. at the Battle of Agincourt. Shakspeare had, perhaps, an equivoque in his thoughts. 6 Fair love is Venus. So in Antony and Cleopatra: Now for the love of love, and her soft hours.'

6 i. c. enough's as good as a feast.

to his character of the school-master's table talk, and perhaps all the precepts of Castiglione will scarcely be found to comprehend a rule for conversation so justly delineated, so widely dilated, and so nicely limited.'

Reason, here signifies discourse; audacious is use 1 in a good sense for spirited, animated, confident; af trete. fection is affectation; opinion is obstinacy, opinia8 Filed is polished.

9 Thrasonical is vainglorious, boastful.

that is, too nice in his dress. The substantive is used 10 Picked, piked, or picket, neat, spruce, over nice; by Ben Johnson in his Discoveries: Pickedness for nicety in dress.

11 A common expression for exact, precise, or finical. 12 i. e. the refuse of words. The refuse meat of families was put mto a basket, and given to the poor, in Shakspeare's time.

13 This word, whencesoever it comes, is often mentioned as the longest word known.

14 A flap-dragon was some small combustible body set on fire and put afloat in a glass of liquor. It was an act of dexterity in the toper to swallow it without burn

7I know not (says Johnson) what degree of respecting his mouth.

Hol. Quis, quis, thou consonant?

Moth. The third of the five vowels, if you repeat gentleman, Judas Maccabeus; this swain, because them; or the fifth, if I.

Hol. I will repeat them, a, e, i.

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Moth. The sheep: the other two concludes it; o, u. Arm. No 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. Offered by a child to an old man; which

is wit-old.

Hol. What is the figure; what is the figure?
Moth. Horns.

gig.

Hol. Thou disputest like an infant: go, whip thy

Moth. Lend me your horn to make one, and I whip about your infamy circum circa; A gig of a cuckold's horn!

will

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 pigeon-egg 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 the fingers' ends, as they say.

Hol. O, I smell false Latin; dunghill for unguem.
Arm. Árts-man, præambula; we will be singled
from the barbarous. Do you not educate youth at
the charge-house on the top of the mountain?
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 measureable 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 :-For what is inward between us, let it pass :-I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy ;4-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; 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 antic, or firework. 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; none so fit as to present the nine worthies. Nath. Where will you find men worthy enough to present them?

2 Free-school.

say,

Hol. Joshua, yourself; myself, or this gallant 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?-
Hol. I will play three myself.
Moth. Thrice worthy gentleman!
Arm. Shall I tell you a thing
Hol. We attend.

Arm. We will have, if this fadge" not, an antic.
I beseech
you, follow.
Hol. Via, goodman Dull! thou hast spoken no
word all this while.

Dull. Nor understood none neither, sir.

Hol. Allons! we will employ thee.

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. SCENE II. Another part of the same. Before the Princess's Pavilion. Enter the Princess, KATHARINE, ROSALINE, and MARIA.

Prin. Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we de-
part,

If fairings thus come plentifully in;
A lady wall'd about with diamonds!-
Look you, what I have from the loving king
Ros. Madam, came nothing else along with that?
Prin. Nothing but this? yes, as much love in
As would be cramm'd
rhyme,
Writ on both sides the leaf, margent and all;
in a sheet of paper,
That he was fain to seal on Cupid's name.

up

Ros. That was the way to make his god-head

wax:10

For he hath been five thousand years a boy.
Kath. Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too.
Ros. You'll ne'er be friends with him; he kill'd

your sister.

Kath. He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy ;
And so she died: had she been light like you,
Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit,
She might have been a grandam ere she died:
And so may you; for a light heart lives long.
Ros. What's your dark meaning, mouse,'

light word?

11 of this

Kath. A light condition in a beauty dark.
Ros. We need more light to find your meaning out.
Kath. You'll mar the light by taking it in snuff;12
Therefore I'll darkly end the argument.

Ros. Look, what you do, you do it still i'the
dark.

Kath. So do not you; for you are a light wench.
Ros. Indeed, I weigh not you; and therefore light.
Kath. You weigh me not,-O, that's you care not

for me.

Ros. Great reason; for, Past cure is still past

care.

Prin. Well bandied both: a set of wit well play'd.

7 That is, convert our offence against yourselves into a dramatic propriety.

8 i. e. suit not, go not.

1 A hit. 3 Confidential. 4 By remember thy courtesy, Armado probably means remember that all this time thou art standing with thy hat off. The putting off the hat at table is a kind of courtesie or ceremonie rather to be avoided than other-on! Wise.-Florio's Second Frutes, 1591.

5 The beard is called valour's excrement in the Merchant of Venice.

6. e. shall march, or walk in the procession for Pompey.

9 An Italian exclamation, signifying Courage! Come
10 Grow.

11 This was a term of endearment formerly.
snuff of a candle. See King Henry IV. Act i. Sc. 3
12 Snuff is here used equivocally for anger, and the
13 A set is a term at tennis for a game.

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