Nor never lay his wreathed arms athwart [To LONG. And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath. [To DUMAIN. What will Birón say, when that he shall hear I would not have him know so much by 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 11; in your tears, eyes There is no certain princess that appears: You'll not be perjur'd, 'tis a hateful thing; O, what a scene of foolery I have seen, Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow, and of teen 12! 11 Alluding to a passage in the King's Sonnet: 'No drop but as a coach doth carry thee.' 12 Grief. O me, with what strict patience have I sat, 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 it sin To break the vow I am engaged in ; I am betray'd, by keeping company With moon-like men, of strange inconstancy. King. Soft; Whither away so fast? A true man, or a thief, that gallops so? Biron. I post from love; good lover, let me go. 13 Gnat is 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. Neither do I think there is any allusion to the singing of the gnat, as others have supposed; but it is merely put as an insignificant insect, just as he calls the others worms above. 14 Cynic. 15 A bird is said to be pruning himself when he picks and sleeks his feathers. So in K. Henry IV. Part I. 'Which makes him prune himself, and bristle up Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD. Jaq. God bless the king! King. What present hast thou there? Cost. Some certain treason. What makes treason here 16? Cost. 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 parson misdoubts it; 'twas treason, he said. Biron. Biron, read it over. [Giving him the letter. Where hadst thou it? Jaq. Of Costard. King. Where hadst thou it? Cost. Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio, King. How now! what is in you? why dost thou tear it? 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. Guilty, my lord, guilty; I confess, I confess. 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. 16 That is what does treason here?' What makest thou there? or, what hast thou there to do? Quid istic tibi negotii est?-Baret. Shakspeare plays on this phrase in the same manner in As You Like It, Act i. Sc. 1. and in King Richard III. Act i. Sc. 3. O, dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you more. Dum. Now the number is even. Biron. True, true; we are four: Hence, sirs; away. Will these turtles be gone? King. Cost. Walk aside the true folk, and let the trai- As true we are, as flesh and blood can be: Biron. Did they, quoth you? Who sees the heavenly Rosaline, That like a rude and savage man of Inde, At the first opening of the gorgeous east 18, 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; 18 Milton has transplanted this into the third line of the second book of Paradise Lost: 'Or where the gorgeous east.' 19 Here, and indeed throughout the play, the name of Birón is accented on the second syllable. In the first folio and quarto 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; She passes praise; then praise too short doth A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn, And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy. O, who can give an oath? where is a book? 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 20 copies it is spelled Berowne. From the line before us it appears that it was pronounced Biroon. Mr. Boswell has remarked that this was the mode in which all French words of this termination were pronounced in English. Mr. Fox always said Touloon when speaking of Toulon in the House of Commons. 20 Crest is here properly opposed to badge. Black, says 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 beauty or utmost degree of fairness. So in K. John: this is the very top The height, the crest, or crest unto the crest |