King. Biron, read it over. Giving him the letter. Jaq. Of Costard. Where hadst thou it? King. Where hadst thou it? Cost. Of Dun Adramadio. Dun Aaramedio King. How now! what is in you? why dost thou tear it? 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, you were born to do me shame. Guilty, my lord, guilty; I confess, I confess. King. What? [TO COSTARD 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. Biron. True, true; we are four : Will these turtles be gone? King. Hence, sirs; away. Cost. Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay. [Exeunt CoSTARD and JAQ. Biron. Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O let us embrace! As true we are, as flesh and blood can be: The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face, King. What, did these rent lines show some love of thine? That, like a rude and savage man of Inde, At the first opening of the gorgeous east, 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? VOL. 111. 12 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 Birón: 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 rhetoric! O, she needs it not: To things of sale a seller's praise belongs; She passes praise; then praise too short doth blot. 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. It mourns, that painting, and usurping hair, Should ravish doters with a false aspéct; And therefore is she born to make black fair. Her favour turns the fashion of the days; For native blood is counted painting now; [6] Something like this is a stanza of sir Henry Wotton, of which the poetical reader will forgive the insertion: "You meaner beauties of the night, "That poorly satisfy our eyes "More by your number than your light, JOHNSON. [7] In heraldry, a crest is a device placed above a coat of arms. Shakespeare therefore assumes the liberty to use it in a sense equivalent to top or almost height, as he bas used spire in Coriolanus. TOLLET. [8] Usurping hair alludes to the fashion, which prevailed among ladies in our author's time, of wearing false hair or periwigs, as they were then called, before that kind of covering for the head was worn by men. MALONE And therefore red, that would avoid dispraise, For fear their colours should be wash'd away. I'll find a fairer face not wash'd to-day. Biron. I'll prove her fair, or talk till dooms-day here. see. Long. Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face The street should see as she walk'd overhead. prove Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn. Dum. Ay, marry, there ;-some flattery for this evil. Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil. Biron. O, 'tis more than need! Have at you then, affection's men at arms :' And where that you have vow'd to study, lords, Can you still dream, and pore, and thereon look? [9] Quillet is the peculiar word applied to law-chicane. I imagine the original to be this, in the French pleadings, every several allegation in the plaintiff's, charge, and every distinct plea in the defendant's answer, began with the words qui'il-est-from whence was formed the word quillet, to signify a false charge or an evasive answer. WARBURTON. [1] A man at arms, is a soldier armed at all points both offensively and defersively. It is no more than, Ye soldiers of affection. JOHNSON. For when would you, my lord, or you, or you, The nimble spirits in the arteries ;' A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound, [1] In the old system of physic they gave the same office to the arteries as is DOW given to the nerves WARBURTON. [2] i. e a lady's eyes give a fuller notion of beauty than any author. JOHN. [3] i. e. our true books from which we derive most information;-the eyes of women. MALONE. [4] Numbers are, in this passage, nothing more than poetical measures. Coul you,' says Biron, by solitary contemplation, have attained such poetical fire, surt spritely numbers, as have been prompted by the eyes of beauty JOHNSON [5] As we say, keep the house, or keep their bed. M. MASON. When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd;" Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste: Still climbing trees in the Hesperides ? Subtle as sphinx ; as sweet, and musical, As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair;" Until his ink were tempered with love's sighs; From women's eyes this doctrine I derive : For charity itself fulfils 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, [6] i. e A lover in pursuit of his mistress has his sense of hearing quicker than a thief (who suspects every sound he hears) in pursuit of his prey. WARB. [7] This expression, like that other in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, of Orpheus' harp was strung with poets' sinews, is extremely beautiful, and highly figurative. Apollo, as the sun, is represented with golden hair; so that a lute strung with his hair, means no more than strung with gilded wire. WARBURTON. [8] The meaning is, whenever love speaks all the gods join their voices with his in harmonious concert. HEATH.For makes, read make. See the sacred writings: "The number of the names together were about an hundred and twenty." Acts i. 15. MALONE. |