And even that falsehood, in itself a sin,
Thus purifies itself, and turns to grace.
Prin. We have received your letters full of love;
Your favours, the ambassadors of love;
And, in our maiden council, rated them
At courtship, pleasant jest and courtesy,
As bombast and as lining to the time;
But more devout than this in our respects
Have we not been; and therefore met your loves
In their own fashion, like a merriment.

Dum. Our letters, madam, show'd much more than jest
Long. So did our looks.

Ros.

We did not quote them so.

King. Now, at the latest minute of the hour,
Grant us your loves.

Prin.

A time, methinks, too short
To make a world-without-end bargain in.
No, no, my lord, your grace is perjured much,
Full of dear guiltiness; and therefore this :-
If for my love, as there is no such cause,
You will do aught, this shall you do for me:
Your oath I will not trust; but go with speed
To some forlorn and naked hermitage,
Remote from all the pleasures of the world;
There stay until the twelve celestial signs
Have brought about the annual reckoning.
If this austere insociable life

Change not your offer made in heat of blood;
If frosts and fasts, hard lodging and thin weeds
Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love;
But that it bear this trial, and last love;
Then, at the expiration of the year,

Come challenge me, challenge me by these deserts,
And, by this virgin palm now kissing thine,"

I will be thine; and till that instant shut
My woeful self up in a mourning house,
Raining the tears of lamentation

For the remembrance of my father's death.
If this thou do deny, let our hands part,
Neither intitled in the other's heart.
King. If this, or more than this, I would deny,

To flatter up these powers of mine with rest,
The sudden hand of death close up mine eye!

Hence ever then my heart is in thy breast. Biron. And what to me, my love? and what to me?

Ros. You must be purged too, your sins are rack'd,
You are attaint with faults and perjury:
Therefore if you my favour mean to get,

A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest,
But seek the weary beds of people sick.

Dum. But what to me, my love? but what to me?
A wife?

Kath.

A beard, fair health, and honesty ; With three-fold love I wish you all these three. Dum. O, shall I say, I thank you, gentle wife? Kath. Not so, my lord; a twelvemonth and a day I'll mark no words that smooth-faced wooers say: Come when the king doth to my lady come; Then, if I have much love, I'll give you some. Dum. I'll serve thee true and faithfully till then. Kath. Yet swear not, lest ye be forsworn again. Long. What says Maria?

Mar.

At the twelvemonth's end I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend. Long. I'll stay with patience: but the time is long. Mar. The liker you; few taller are so young. Biron. Studies my lady? mistress, look on me; Behold the window of my heart, mine eye, What humble suit attends thy answer there: Impose some service on me for thy love. Ros. Oft have I heard of you, my Lord Biron, Before I saw you; and the world's large tongue Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks, Full of comparisons and wounding flouts, Which you on all estates will execute That lie within the mercy of your wit.

To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain,
And therewithal to win me, if you please,
Without the which I am not to be won,

You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day
Visit the speechless sick, and still converse
With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,
With all the fierce endeavour of your wit

To enforce the pained impotent to smile.

Biron. To move wild laughter in the throat of death? It cannot be; it is impossible:

Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.

Ros. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit,
Whose influence is begot of that loose grace

Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools:

A jest's prosperity lies in the ear

Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it: then, if sickly ears,
Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear groans,
Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,
And I will have you and that fault withal;
But if they will not, throw away that spirit,
And I shall find you empty of that fault,
Right joyful of your reformation.

Biron. A twelvemonth! well; befall what will befall,

I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital.

Prin. [To the King] Ay, sweet my Lord; and so I take my

King. No, madam; we will bring you on your way.

Biron. Our wooing doth not end like an old play;
Jack hath not Jill: these ladies' courtesy
Might well have made our sport a comedy.

King. Come, sir, it wants a twelvemonth and a day,
And then 'twill end.

Biron.

That's too long for a play.

Re-enter Armado.

Arm. Sweet Majesty, vouchsafe me,—
Prin. Was not that Hector?

Dum. The worthy knight of Troy.

[leave.

Arm. I will kiss thy royal finger, and take leave. I am a votary; I have vowed to Jaquenetta to hold the plough for her sweet love three years. But, most esteemed greatness, will you hear the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled in praise of the owl and the cuckoo? it should have followed in the end of our show.

King. Call them forth quickly; we will do so.
Arm. Holla! approach.

Re-enter Holofernes, Nathaniel, Moth, Costard and others. This side is Hiems, Winter, this Ver, the Spring; the one maintained by the owl, the other by the cuckoo. Ver, begin.

The Song.

SPRING. When daisies pied and violets blue

And lady-smocks all silver-white

And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus sings he,
Cuckoo ;

Cuckoo, cuckoo: O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer smocks,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,

Mocks married men; for thus sings he,
Cuckoo ;

Cuckoo, cuckoo: O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!

WINTER. When icicles hang by the wall,

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,

1

And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp'd and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-whit;

Tu-who, a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,

And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-whit;

Tu-who, a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

Arm. The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo.

You that way,we this way.

[Exeunt.

ACT I-SCENE I

Athens. The palace of Theseus.

Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, Philostrate, and Attendants.
The. Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
Draws on apace; four happy days bring in
Another moon: but, O, methinks, how slow
This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires,
Like 'to a step-dame, or a dowager,

Long withering out a young man's revenue.

Hip. Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;
Four nights will quickly dream away the time;

And then the moon, like to a silver bow

New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night
Of our solemnities.

Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;
Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth :
Turn melancholy forth to funerals ;

The pale companion is not for our pomp. [Exit Philostrate.
Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword,

And won thy love, doing thee injuries;

But I will wed thee in another key,

With pomp, with triumph and with revelling.
Enter Egeus, Hermia, Lysander, and Demetrius.

Ege. Happy be Theseus, our renowned duke!

The. Thanks, good Egeus: what's the news with thee ?
Ege. Full of vexation come I, with complaint
Against my child, my daughter Hermia.
Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,
This man hath my consent to marry her.
Stand forth, Lysander: and, my gracious duke,
This man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my

child: