King. T were good, yours did; for, sir, to tell you | But love, first learned in a lady's eyes,
plain,

I'll find a fairer face not wash'd to-day.
Biron. I'll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday

here

King. No devil will fright thee then so much as
she.

Dum. I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear.
Long. Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face see.
[Showing his shoe.
Biron. O, if the streets were paved with thine eyes,
Her feet were much too dainty for such tread!
Dum. O vile! then as she goes, what upward lies
The street should see as she walk'd over head.
King. But what of this? Are we not all in love?
Biron. O, nothing so sure; and thereby all for-

sworn.

King. Then leave this chat; and, good Biron, now

Long. O, some authority how to proceed;
Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil.
Dum. Soine salve for perjury.

Biron.

Lives not alone immured in the brain;
But with the motion of all elements,
Courses as swift as thought in every power;
And gives to every power a double power,
Above their functions and their offices.
It adds a precious seeing to the eye;
A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind;
A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound,
When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd:
Love's feeling is more soft, and sensible,
Than are the tender horns of cockled snails:
Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste:
For valour, is not Love a Hercules,
Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?
Subtle as sphynx; as sweet, and musical,
As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair;
And, when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony."
Never durst poet touch a pen to write,
this Until his ink were temper'd with Love's sighs.
O, then his lines would ravish savage ears,
And plant in tyrants mild humility.
From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That show, contain, and nourish all the world;
Else, none at all in aught proves excellent :
Then fools you were these women to forswear;
Or, keeping what is sworn, you will prove fools
For wisdom's sake, a word that all men love;
Or for love's sake, a word that loves all men ;
Or for men's sake, the authors of these women;
Or women's sake, by whom we men are men;
Let us once lose our oaths, to find ourselves,
Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths:
It is religion to be thus forsworn:
For charity itself fulfils the law;

O, 't is more than need!
Have at you then, affection's men at arms:
Consider, what you first did swear unto;-
To fast,-to study,--and to see no woman;-
Flat treason against the kingly state of youth.
Say, can you fast? your stomachs are too young;
And abstinence engenders maladies.

And where that you have vow'd to study, lords,
In that each of you hath forsworn his book:
Can you still dream, and pore, and thereon look?
For when would you, my lord, or you, or you,
Have found the ground of study's excellence,
Without the beauty of a woman's face?
From women's eyes this doctrine I derive :
They are the ground, the books, the academes,

From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire.
Why, universal plodding prisons up
The nimble spirits in the arteries;
As motion, and long-during action, tires
The sinewy vigour of the traveller.
Now, for not looking on a woman's face,
You have in that forsworn the use of eyes;
And study too, the causer of your vow:
For where is any author in the world,
Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?
Learning is but an adjunct to ourself,
And where we are, our learning likewise is.
Then, when ourselves we see in ladies' eyes,
With ourselves,—

Do we not likewise see our learning there?
O, we have made a vow to study, lords;
And in that vow we have forsworn our books;
For when would you, my liege, or you, or you,
In leaden contemplation, have found out
Such fiery numbers, as the prompting eyes
Of beauty's tutors have enrich'd you with?
Other slow arts entirely keep the brain;
And therefore finding barren practisers,
Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil:

• Quillet and quodlibet each signify a fallacious subtilty-what

you please--an argument without foundation.

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,

In conflict that you get the sun of them.

Long. Now to plain-dealing; lay these glozes by;
Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France?
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
thither;

Then, homeward, every man attach the hand

Of his fair mistress: in the afternoon

We will with some strange pastime solace them,
Such as the shortness of the time can shape;
For revels, dances, masks, and merry hours,
Forerun fair Love, strewing her way with flowers.
King. Away, away! no time shall be omitted,
That will be time, and may by us be fitted.
Biron. Allons! Allons!-Sow'd cockle reap'd no

corn;

And justice always whirls in equal measure: Light wenches may prove plagues to men forsworn; If so, our copper buys no better treasure. [Exeunt

When Love speaks, the responsive harmony of the cice a all the gods makes heaveu drowsy.

ACT V.

SCENE I-Another part of the same. Enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL. Hol. Satis quod sufficit.

Nath. I praise God for you, sir: your reasons at 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 lufty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitions, his gait majestical, and his general behaviour van, ridiculous, and thrasonical. He is too picked, 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 fanatical phantasms, such insociable and point-devise companions; such rackers of orthography, as to speak, dout, 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, hauf; neighbour, vocatur, Detour; neigh, abbreviated, ne: This is abhominable, (which he would call abominable,) it insinuateth me of inanie; Ne intelligis domine? to make frantic, lunatic. Nath. Laus Deo bone intelligo.

Hol. Bone?-bone, for bene: Priscian a little scratch'd; 't will serve.

Enter ARMADO, MоTH, and COSTARD. Nath. Videsne quis venit?

Hol. Video et gauleo.

Arm. Chirra!

Hol. Quare Chirra, not sirrah?

Arm. Men of peace, well encountered. Hol. Most military sir, salutation. Moth. They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps. [To COSTARD aside. Cust. O, they have lived long on the alms-basket of wrds! I marvel, thy master hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not so long by the head as honorifi

Arm. Now, 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. Offer'd by a child to an old man; which is wit-old.

Hol. What is the figure? what is the figure?
Moth. Horns.

Hol. Thou disputest like an infant: go, whip thy giz whip about your infamy circum circà: A gig of a Moth. Lend me your horn to make one, and I wil

cuckold's horn!

shouldst have it to buy gingerbread: hold, there is the Cost. An I had but one penny in the world, thou very remuneration I had of thy master, thou halfpenny Heavens were so pleased that thou wert but my bastard! purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of discretion. O, an the 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. from the barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the Arm. Arts-man, præambula; we will be singled charge-house on the top of the mountain?

Hol. Or, mons, the hill.

Arm. At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain.
Hol. I do, sans question.

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 measurable for the afternoon: the word is well culled, chose; sweet and apt, I do assure you, sir, I do assure.

Arm. Sir, the king is a noble gentleman; and my [To MOTH. familiar, I do assure you, very good friend :-For what is inward between us, let it pass :-I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy :-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 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 fire-work. 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

estitudinitatibus: thou art easier swallowed than a Lip-dragon.

Meth. Peace! the peal begins.

Arm. Monsieur [to HoL.], are you not lettered?
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

Lis learning.

Hol Quis, quis, thou consonant?

pass.

Moth. The third of the five vowels, if you repeat them; withal, to the end to crave your assistance. or the fifth, if I.

Hol. I will repeat them, a, e, i.—

Moth. The sheep: the other two concludes it; o, u.s
Artic-affectation.
b Filed-polished.

• Tranmical-from Thraso, the boasting soldier of Terence.
• Picked-trimmed.

• Primo-derise-bice to excess, and sometimes, adverbially, faixety, with the utmost nicety.

Taylor, the water-poet, has given us a syllable more of this elight of schoolboys--honorificicabilitudinitatibus. But he has tequailed Rabelis, who has thus furnished the title of a ok that might puzzle Paternoster Row-Antipericatamctaparemplueribrationes.

The pedant asks who is the silly sheep-quis, quis? "The end of the five towels, if you repeat them." says Moth; and e pecant does repeat them-a, e,I; the other two clinches it, * ya Muth, o, a (O vou).

Hol. Sir, you shall present before her the nine wor thies.-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; I say, none so fit as to present the nine worthies.

Nath. Where will you find men worthy enough to present them?

Hol. Joshua, yourself; myself, or this gallant gentleman, Judas Maccabæus; this swain, because of his great limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the great; the Page, Hercules.

• l'enew and bout equally denote a nut in fencing.

E

Arm. Pardon, sir, error: ne is not quantity enough | The numbers true; and, were the numb'ring too, for that worthy's thumb: he is not so big as the end of I were the fairest goddess on the ground: his club. I am compard to twenty thousand fairs. O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter! Prin. Anything like?

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?Hol. I will play three myself. Moth. Thrice-worthy gentleman! Arm. Shall I tell you a thing? Hol. We attend.

a

Arm. We will have, if this fadge not, an antic. I beseech you, follow.

Hol. Via, goodman Dull! thou hast spoken no word all this while.

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 depart,
If fairings come thus plentifully in:
A lady wall'd about with diamonds!
Look you, what I have from the loving king.

Ros. Madam, came nothing else along with that?
Prin. Nothing but this? yes, as much love in rhyme,
As would be cramm'd up in a sheet of paper,
Writ on both sides of the leaf, margent and all;
That he was fain to seal on Cupid's name.

Ros. That was the way to make his godhead wax ;b
For he hath been five thousand years a boy.
Kath. Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too.
Ros. You'll ne'er be friends with him; he kill'd

your sister.

Kath. He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy;
And so she died: had she been light, like you,
Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit,
She might have been a grandam ere she died:
And so may you; for a light heart lives long.

Ros. What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this light
word?

Kath. A light condition in a beauty dark.

Ros. We need more light to find your meaning out.
Kath. You'll mar the light, by taking it in snuff;
Therefore, I'll darkly end the argument.
Ros. Look, what you do; you do it still i' the dark.
Kath. So do not you; for you are a light wench.
Ros. Indeed, I weigh not you; and therefore light.
Kath. You weigh me not,-O, that's you care not

for me.

An if my face were but as fair as yours,
My favour were as great; be witness this.
Nay, I have verses too, I thank Biron:

Ros. Much in the letters; nothing in the praise.
Prin. Beauteous as ink; a good conclusion.
Kath. Fair as a text B in a copy-book.

Ros. 'Ware pencils! How? let me not die your debtor,
My red dominical, my golden letter :a

O that your face were not so full of O's!

Kath. A pox of that jest! and I beshrew all shrows!
Prin. But, Katharine, what was sent to you from fair
Dumain?

Kath. Madam, this glove.

Prin.

Did he not send you twain?
Kath. Yes, madam; and moreover,
Some thousand verses of a faithful lover;
A huge translation of hypocrisy,
Vilely compil'd, profound simplicity.

Mar. This, and these pearls, to me sent Longaville;
The letter is too long by half a mile.

Prin. I think no less: Dost thou not wish in heart,
The chain were longer, and the letter short?
Mar. Ay, or I would these hands might never part.
Prin. We are-wise girls to mock our lovers so.
Ros. They are worse fools to purchase mocking so.
That same Biron I'll torture ere I go.
O, that I knew he were but in by the week!
How I would make him fawn, and beg, and seek ;
And wait the season, and observe the times,
And spend his prodigal wits in bootless rhymes;
And shape his service wholly to my behests;
And make him proud to make me proud that jests!
So portent-like would I o'ersway his state,
That he should be my fool, and I his fate.

Prin. None are so surely caught, when they are
As wit turn'd fool: folly, in wisdom hatch'd,
catch'd,
Hath wisdom's warrant, and the help of school;
And wit's own grace to grace a learned fool.

Ros. The blood of youth burns not with such excess,
As gravity's revolt to wantonness.

Mar. Folly in fools bears not so strong a note,
As foolery in the wise, when wit doth dote;
Since all the power thereof it doth apply,
To prove, by wit, worth in simplicity.

Enter BOYET.

Prin. Here comes Boyet, and mirth is in his face.
Boyet. O, I am stabb'd with laughter! Where's her
grace?
Prin. Thy news, Boyet?
Boyet.
Prepare, madam, prepare!—
Arm, wenches, arm! encounters mounted are
Against your peace: Love doth approach disguis'd,
Armed in arguments; you'll be surpris'd:
Muster your wits; stand in your own defence;
Or hide your heads like cowards, and fly hence.
Prin. Saint Dennis to saint Cupid! What are they,
That charge their breath against us? say, scout, say.
Boyet. Under the cool shade of a sycamore,

I thought to close mine eyes some half an hour;
When, lo! to interrupt my purpos'd rest,
Toward that shade I might behold address'd
The king and his companions: warily
I stole into a neighbour thicket by,
And overheard what you shall overhear;
That, by and by, disguis'd they will be here.

a Rosaline, it appears, was a brunet e; Katharine far, Fadge. This word is from the Anglo-Saxon feg-an-to join perhaps red haired, marked with small pox In the early together, and thence to fit, to agree. alphabets for children, A was printed in red, B, as well as the remainder of the alphabet, in black; and thus the ladies jest upon their complexions.

Tar-to grow; as we say, the moon waxeth.

• Set of wit. Set is a term used at tennis.