I am betray'd by keeping company
With men like men, of ftrange inconftancy.
When fhall you fee me write a thing in rhime?
Or groan for Joan? or spend a minute's time.
In pruning me? when fhall 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 fo faft?

A true man or a thief, that gallops fo?

Biron. I poft from love; good lover, let me go.

Enter Jaquenetta and Coftard.

Jaq. God bless the king!

King. What prefent haft thou there?
Coft. Some certain treafon.

King. What makes treafon here?
Coft. Nay it makes nothing, Sir.
King. If it mar nothing neither,

The treason, and you, go in peace away together.
Jaq. I beseech your grace, let this letter be

read;

Our parfon mifdoubts it; it was treafon, he faid. King. Biron, read it over.

Where hadst thou it?

Jaq. Of Coftard.

King. Where hadst thou it?

[He reads the letter.

Coft. Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio.

2 With men-like men- -] This is a ftrange fenfeless line, and fhould be read thus,

With vane-like men, of firange inconfancy.

WARBURTON.

This is well imagined, but perhaps the poet may mean, with men like common men. JOHNSON.

King,

King. How now, what is in you? why doft thou

⚫ tear it? Biron. A toy, my liege, a toy: your grace needs not fear it.

Long. It did move him to paffion, and therefore let's hear it.

Dum. It is Biron's writing, and here is his name. Biron. Ah, you whorefon loggerhead, you were born to do me shame. [To Coftard. Guilty my lord, guilty: I confefs, I confefs. King. What?

Biron. That you three fools lack'd me fool to make up the mess.

He, he, and you; and you, my liege, and I
Are pick-purfes in love, and we deferve to die.
O difmifs this audience, and I fhall tell you more.
Dum. Now the number is even.

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

King. Hence, Sirs, away.

Coft. Walk afide the true folk, and let the traitors [Exeunt Coftard and Jaquenetta. Biron. Sweet lords, fweet lovers, O, let us em

stay.

brace!

As true we are, as flesh and blood can be: The fea will ebb and flow, heaven will fhew his face :

Young blood doth not obey an old decree. We cannot cross the cause why we were born: Therefore, of all hands muft we be forfworn.

King. What, did thefe rent lines fhew fome love of
thine?

Biron. Did they, quoth you? Who fees the heavenly
Rofaline,

That (like a rude and savage man of Inde,

At the first opening of the gorgeous east)

Bows not his vaffal head; and, ftrucken blind, Kiffes the base ground with obedient breast ? What peremptory eagle-fighted eye

Dares look upon the heaven of her brow, That is not blinded by her majesty?

King. What zeal, what fury, hath infpir'd thee now?

My love (her mistress) is a gracious moon!
She (an attending star) scarce feen a light.
Biron. My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Biron.
O, but for my love, day would turn to night!
Of all complexions the cull'd fovereignty

Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek
Where several worthies make one dignity;

Where nothing wants, that want itself doth feek. Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues;

Fy, painted rhetorick! O, fhe needs it not: To things of fale a feller's praise belongs:

She paffes praife; then praife, too fhort doth

blot.

A wither'd hermit, fivefcore 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 fun, that maketh all things fhine! King. By heaven, thy love is black as ebony. Biron. Is ebony like her? O wood divine! + A wife of fuch wood were felicity.

3 She (an attending far)] Something like this is a ftanza of fir Henry Wotton, of which the poetical reader will forgive the infertion.

-Ye fars, the train of night,
That poorly fatisfy our eyes
More by your number than

your light:

Ye common people of the skies,

What are ye when the fun shall rise. JOHNSON.

4 Is ebony like ber? O word divine!] This is the reading of all

the

O, who can give an oath? where is a book? That I may fwear, Beauty doth beauty lack, If that he learn not of her eye to look ?

No face is fair, that is not full fo black? King. O paradox! Black is the badge of hell, s The hue of dungeons, and the fcowl of night; And beauty's creft becomes the heavens well. Biron. Devils fooneft tempt, refembling fpirits of

light.

the editions that I have feen: but both Dr. Thirlby and Mr. Warburton concurr'd in reading, (as I had likewife conjectured,)

Black being the School of night, is a piece of myftery above my comprehenfion. I had gueffed, it fhould be,

the ftole of night:

but I have preferred the conjecture of my friend Mr. Warburton, who reads,

the fcowl of night,

as it comes nearer in pronunciation to the corrupted reading, as well as agrees better with the other images. THEOBALD.

And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well.] This is a contention between two lovers about the preference of a black or white beauty. But, in this reading, he who is contending for the white, takes for granted the thing in difpute; by faying, that white is the creft of beauty. His adverfary had juft as much reafon to call black fo. The queftion debated between them being which was the craft of beauty, black or white. Shakespeare could never write fo abfurdly nor has the Oxford editor at all mended the matter by fubftituting dress for creft. We fhould read,

And beauty's crete becomes the heavens well.

i. e. beauty's white, from creta. In this reading the third line is a proper antithefis to the firft. I fuppofe the blunder of the tran fcriber arofe from hence, the French word crefte in that pronunciation and orthography is crete, which he understanding, and

know

O, if in black my lady's brow be deckt,

It mourns, that painting, and ufurping hair Should ravish doters with a false afpect;

And therefore is the born to make black fair. Her favour turns the fashion of the days;

For native blood is counted painting now: And therefere red that would avoid difpraise,

Paints itself black, to imitate her brow. Dum. To look like her, are chimney-sweepers black.

Long. And fince her time, are colliers counted bright.

King. And Ethiops of their fweet complexion. crack.

Dum. Dark needs no candle now, for dark is

light.

Biron. Your miftreffes dare never come in rain, For fear their colours fhould be wafh'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 dooms-day here.

King. No devil will fright thee then so much as

fhe.

Dum. I never knew man hold vile ftuff fo dear. Long. Look, here's thy love; my foot and her face

fee.

[Showing bis fhoe.

knowing nothing of the other fignification of crete from creta, critically altered it to the English way of spelling, crefte.

WARBURTON.

This emendation cannot be received till its authour can prove that crete is an English word. Befides, creft is here properly oppofed to badge. Black, fays the King, is the badge of bell, but that which graces the heaven is the creft of beauty. Black darkens hell, and is therefore hateful: white adorns heaven, and is therefore lovely. JOHNSON.

Biron.