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 To those fresh morning drops upon the rose, So ridest thou triumphing in my woe; And they thy glory through thy grief will show: 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 Did not the heavenly rhetorick of thine eye A woman I foreswore; but, I will prove, Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is: If by me broke. What fool is not so wise, Biron. [Aside.] This is the liver vein, which Enter DUMAIN, with a Paper. stay. And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'er-eye. Dumain transform'd: four woodcocks in a dish! O most profane coxcomb! Dum. By heaven, the wonder of a mortal eye! Biron. An amber-colour'd raven was well noted. Dum. As upright as the cedar. Her shoulder is with child. Dum. [Aside. Stoop, I say; As fair as day. [Aside. [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 7 Slops were wide kneed breeches, the garb in fashion in Shakspeare's time. anciently supposed to be the seat of love. supposed to have no brains. 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 Biron. Once more I'll mark how love can vary 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, 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: King. Come, sir, [advancing.] you blush; as his your You chide at him, offending twice as much: 1 Thee-for whom Jove would swear, The old copy reads- Thou for whom Jove would swear.' Pope thought this line defective, and altered it to- 2 Fasting is longing, hungry, wanting. 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. groan Soft; Biron. A toy, my liege, a toy; your grace needs not fear it. Long. It did move him to passion, and therefore Dum. It is Biron's writing, and here is his name. Biron. That you three fools lack'd me fool to He, he, and you, my liege, and I, Dum. Now the number is even. True, true; we are four:- King. Hence, sirs; away. Cost. Walk aside the true folk, and let the trai[Exeunt COST. and JAQ. tors stay. Biron. Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O let us em- As true we are as flesh and blood can be: Biron. Did they, quoth you? Who sees the hea- 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. Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek; Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues, Fye, painted rhetorick! O, she needs it not: A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn, Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye: And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy. No face is fair, that is not full so black. O, if in black my lady's brows be deckt, It mourns, that painting, and usurping hair," For native blood is counted painting now; 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 Biron. Your mistresses dare never come in rain, 1 i. e. at any rate, at all events. Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn. Long. O, some authority how to proceed; Biron. And where that you have vow'd to study, lords, Do we not likewise see our learning there? 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, 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, Long. Now to plain-dealing; lay these glozes by; 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 Then, homeward, every man attach the hand We will with some strange pastime solace them, 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. 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. 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? 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. At your sweet pleasure for the mountain. 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?- Arm. We will have, if this fadge" not, an antic. 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- If fairings thus come plentifully in; up Ros. That was the way to make his god-head wax:10 For he hath been five thousand years a boy. your sister. Kath. He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy ; light word? 11 of this Kath. A light condition in a beauty dark. Ros. Look, what you do, you do it still i'the Kath. So do not you; for you are a light wench. 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 11 This was a term of endearment formerly. |