a O, that's the Latin word for three farthings: three Prin. I thank my beauty, I am fair that shoot, well met. Enter Biron. Biron. O, my good knave Costard exceedingly may a man buy for a remuneration? Cost. Marry, sir, half-penny farthing. Cost. When would you have it done, sir? Cost. Well, I will do it, sir: Fare you well. Cost. I shall know, sir, when I have done it. Biron. It must be done this afternoon. Hark, slave, The princess comes to hunt here in the park, And in her train there is a gentle lady; For. Yea, madam, fair. When, for fame's sake, for praise, an outward part, Prin. Only for praise and praise we may afford When tongues speak sweetly, then they name her To any lady that subdues a lord. And Rosaline they call her ask for her; And to her white hand see thou do commend [name, This seal'd up counsel. There's thy guerdon; go. [Gives him Money. Cost. Guerdon, O sweet guerdon! better than remuneration; eleven-pence farthing better: Most sweet gaerdon!-I will do it, sir, in print. Guerdon-remuneration. [Exit. Biron. O! And I, forsooth, in love! I, that have been love's whip; rayward boy; A very headle to a humorous sigh; ? Of trotting paritors, O my little heart!- Enter Costard. Prin. Here comes a member of the commonwealth. head lady? Prin. Thou shalt know her, fellow, by the rest that have no heads. Cost. Which is the greatest lady, the highest? Prin. The thickest, and the tallest. [truth. Cost. The thickest, and the tallest! it is so; truth is An your waist, mistress, were as slender as my wit, One of these maids' girdles for your waist should be fit. Are not you the chief woman? you are the thickest here. Prin. What's your will, sir? what's your will? Cost, I have a letter from monsieur Biron, to one [mine: lady Rosaline. Prin. O, thy letter, thy letter; he's a good friend of Boyet. We will read it, I swear: Break the neck of the wax, and every one give ear. Boyet. [Reads] By heaven, that thou art fair is most inj injallible; true, th that thou art beauteous; truth itself, that thou art lovely: More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous; truer than truth itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal! The magnanimous and most illustrate king Cophetua set eye upon the pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon; and he it was that might rightly say, veni, vidi, vici; which to anatomize in the vulgar, (O base and obscure vulgar!) videlicet, he came, saw, and overcame he came, one; saw, two overcame, three. Who came the king, Why did he come? to see; Why did he see? to overcome: To whom came he? to the beggar; What saw he? the beggar; Who overcame he? the the beggar: The conclusion is victory On whose side? the king's: the captive is enrich'd; ; Some men must love my lady, and some Joan. [Exit. On whose side? the beggar's: The catastrophe is a ACT IV. SCENE I. Another Part of the same. Enter the Princess, Rosaline, Maria, Katharine, nuptial; On whose side! the king's?-no, on both in thy love! I will. What shalt thou exchange for Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar Prin. What plume of feathers is he, that indited sinuation, as it were, in via, in way of explication; this letter? [better? facere, as it were, replication, or, rather, ostentare, What vane? what weather-cock? did you ever hear to show, as it were, his inclination, after his unBoyet. I am much deceived, but I remember the style. dressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, Prin. Else Else your memory is bad, bad, going going o'er o'e it erew hile. or rather unlettered, or, ratherest, unconfirmed fashion, Boyet. This Armado is a Spaniard, that keeps here to insert again my haud credo for a deer. in court; A phantasm, a Monarcho, and one that makes sport Prin. Who gave thee this letter? Cost. I told you; my lord. Prin. To whom shouldst thou give it? From my lord to my lady. Boyet. Who is the suitor? who is the suitor? Ros. Shall I teach you to know? Boyet. Ay, my continent of beauty. Ros. Why, she that bears the bow. [marry, Boyet. My lady goes to kill horns; but, if thou Hang me by the neck, if horns that year miscarry. Finely put on! Finely put off! Ros. Well then, I am the shooter. And who is your deer? Ros. If we choose by the horns, yourself: come near. Finely put on, indeed! Mar. You still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at the brow. [now? Boyet. But she herself is hit lower: Have I hit her Ros. Shall I come upon thee with an old saying, that was a man when king Pepin of France was a little boy, as touching the hit it? Boyet. So I may answer thee with one as old, that was a woman when queen Guinever of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit it. Ros. Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it, [Singing, Boyet. An I cannot, cannot, cannot, [Exeunt Ros. and Kath. Cost. By my troth, most pleasant! how both did fit it! Mar. A mark marvellous well shot; for they both did hit it. [says my lady! Boyet. A mark! O, mark but that mark; A mark, Let the mark have a prick in't to mete at, if it may be. Mar. Wide o'the bow hand! I'faith your hand is out. Cost. Indeed, a'must shoot nearer, or he'll ne'er hit the clout. [is in. Boyet. An if my hand be out, then, belike your hand Cost. Then will she get the upshot by cleaving the pin. Mar. Come, come, you talk greasily, your lips grow foul. [her bowl. Cost. She's too hard for you at pricks, sir; challenge Boyet. I fear too much rubbing; good night my good owl. [Exeunt Boyet and Maria. Cost. By my soul, a swain! a most simple clown! Lord, lord! how the ladies and I have put him down! O'my troth, most sweet jests! most incony vulgar wit! When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it were, so fit. Armatho o'the one side, O, a most dainty man! And his page o't'other side, that handful of wit! Sola, Sola! [Shouting within. Exit Costard, running. SCENE II. The same. Enter Holofernes, Sir Nathaniel, and Dull. Nath. Very reverend sport, truly; and done in the testimony of a good conscience. Hol. The deer was, as you know, in sanguis,blood; ripe as a pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of cælo, the sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crab, on the face of terra, the soil, the land, the earth. Nath. Truly, master Holofernes, the epithels are sweetly varied, like a scholar at the least: But, sir, I assure ye, it was a buck of the first head. Hol. Sir Nathaniel, haud credo. Dull. "Twas not a haud credo, 'twas a pricket. Dull. I said, the deer was not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket. Hol. Twice sod simplicity, bis coctus/-0 thou monster ignorance, how deformed dost thou look! Nath. Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink: his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts; thankful should be And such barren plants are set before us, that we (Which we of taste and feeling are,) for those parts that do fructify in us more than he. [a fool, For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or So, were there a patch set on learning, to see him in a school: But, omne bene, say I; being of an old father's mind, Many can brook the weather, that love not the wind. Dull. You two are book-men: Can you tell by your wit, [weeks old as yet? What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five Hol. Dictynna, good man Duli; Dietynna, good man Dull. Dull. What is Dictynna? Nath. A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon. Hol. The moon was a month old, when Adam was no more; [score. And raught not to five weeks, when he came to fiveThe allusion holds in the exchange. Dull. 'Tis true indeed; the collusion holds in the exchange. Hol. God comfort thy capacity! I say, the allusion holds in the exchange. Dull. And I say the pollusion holds in the exchange; for the moon is never but a month old and I say beside, that 'twas a pricket that the princess kill'd. Hol. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on the death of the deer? and, to humour the ignoraut, I have call'd the deer the princess kill'd, a pricket. Nath. Perge, good master Holofernes, perge; so it shall please you to abrogate scurrility. Hol. I will something affect the letter; for it argues facility. The praiseful princess pierc'd and prick'd a pretty pleasing pricket; [with shooting. Some say, a sore; but not a sore, till now made sore The dogs did yell; put I to sore, then sorel jumps from thicket; [hooting. Or pricket, sore, or else sorel: the people fall a If sore be sore, then L-to sore makes fifty sores; O [more L. of one sore I an hundred make, by adding but one sore L! Nath. A rare talent! Dull. If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a talent. Hol. This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; a foolishextravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions: these are begot in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater; and deliver'd upon the mellowing of occasion: But the gift is good good in those in whom it is acute, and I am it who thankful for it. Nath. Sir, I praise the Lord for you; and so may my parishioners; for their sons are well tutor'd by you, and their daughters profit very greatly under you you are a good member of the commonwealth. Hol. Mehercle, if their sons be ingenious, they shall want no instruction: if their daughters be capable, I will put it to them: But, vir sapit, qui pauca loquitur: a soul feminine saluteth us. Enter Jaquenetta and Costard. Jaq. God give you good morrow, master person. Hol. Master person, quasi pers-on. And if one should be pierced, which is the one? Cost. Marry, master schoolmaster, he that is likest to a hogshead. Hol. Of piercing a hogshead! a good lustre of conceit in a turf of earth; fire enough for a flint, pearl enough for a swine: 'tis pretty; it is well. Jaq. Good master parson, be so good as read me this letter; it was given me by Costard, and sent me Hol. Most barbarous intimation! yet a kind of in- from Don Armatho: I beseech you read it. umbra Hol. Fauste, precor gelida quando pecus omne sub Ruminat, and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice: -Vinegia, Vinegia, Chi non te vede, ei non te pregia. Old Mantuan! old Mantuan! Who understandeth thee not, loves thee not. Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa. Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? or, rather, as Horace says in his-What, my soul, verses? Nath. Ay, sir, and very learned. Hol. Let me hear a staff, a stanza, a verse; Lege, domine. Nath. [Reads] If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love? Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed! Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithjul prove; Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers bowed. Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine eyes; Where all those pleasures live, that art would comprehend: If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice; Well learned is that tongue, that well can thee com mend: Allignorant that soul, that sees thee without wonder, (Which is to me some praise, that I thy parts admire;) Thy eye Jove's lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder, Which, not to anger bent, is music, and sweet fire. Celestial, as thou art, On pardon, love, this wrong, That sings heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue! Hol. You find not the apostrophes, and so miss the accent: let me surpervise the canzonet. Here are only numbers ratified; but, for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy, caret. Ovidius Naso was the man and why, indeed, Naso; but for smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention? Imitari, is nothing so doth the hound his master, the ape his keeper, the tired horse his rider. But damosella virgin, was this directed to you? Jaq. Ay, sir, from one monsieur Biron, one of the strange queen's lords. Hol. I will overglance the superscript. To the snowwhite hand of the most beauteous Lady Rosaline. I will look again on the intellect of the letter, for the nomination of the party writing to the person written unto: Your ladyship's in all desired employment, Sir Nathaniel, this Biron is one of the votaries with the king; and here he hath framed a letter to a sequent of the stranger queen's, which, accidentally, or by the way vay of progression, hath miscarried. Trip and go, my sweet; deliver this paper into the royal hand of the king; it may concern much: Stay not thy compliment; I forgive thy duty; adieu! Jaq. Good Costard, go with me. Sir, God save your life! Cost. Have with thee, my girl. [Exeunt Cost. and Jaq. Nath. Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very religionsly; and, as a certain father saith Hol. Sir, tell not me of the father, I do fear colourable colours. But, to return to the verses; Did they please y you, Sir Nathaniel Nath. Marvellous well for the pen. Hol. I do dine to-day at the father's of a certain pupil of mine; where if, before repast, it shall please you to gratify the table with a grace, I will, on my privilege I have with the parents of the foresaid child or pupil, undertake your ben venuto; where I will prove those verses to be very unlearned, neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention: I beseech your society. Nath. And thank you too for society, (saith the text,) is the happiness of life. Hol. And, certes, the text most infallibly concludes it. Sir, [To Dull.] I do invite you too; you shall not say me, nay: pauca verba. Away; the gentles are at their game, and we will to our recreation. [Exeunt. SCENE III. Another Part of the same. Biron. The king he is hunting the deer; I am coursing myself: they have pitch'd a toil; I am toiling in a pitch; pitch that defiles; detile! a foul word. Well, Set thee down, sorrow! for so they say, the fool said, and so say I, and I the fool. Well proved, wit! By the lord, this love is as mad as Ajax: it on my side! I will not kills sheep; ; it kills me, I a a she sheep Well proved again love : if I do, hang hang me; i'faith, I will not. O, but her eye, by this light, but for her eye, I would not love her; yes, for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing in the world but lie, and lie in my throat. By heaven, I do love: and it hath taught me to rhyme, and to be melancholy; and here is part of my rhyme, and here my melancholy. Well, she hath one o'my sonnets already; the clown bore it, the fool sent it, and the lady hath it: sweet clown, sweeter fool, sweetest lady! By the world, I would not care a pin if the other three were in: Here comes one with a paper; God give him grace to groan! [Gets up into a Tree. Enter the King, with a Paper. King. Ah me! [not Biron. [Aside.] Shot, by heaven!-Proceed, sweet Cupid; thou hast thump thump'd him with thy bird-bolt under the left pap-I'faith secrets.King. [Reads] So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives To those fresh morning drops upon the rose, As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows: Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright Through the transparent bosom of the deep, As doth thy face through tears of mine give light Thou shin'st in every tear that I do weep: No drop but as a coach doth carry thee, So ridest thou triumphing in my woe; Do but behold the tears that swell in me, And they thy glory through thy grief will show keep then thou wilt But do not love thyself; Enter Longaville, with a Paper. What, Longaville! and reading! listen, ear. Biron. Now, in thy likeness, one more fool, appear! [Aside. Long. Ah me! I am forsworn. Biron. Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers. [Aside. King. In love, I hope; Sweet fellowship in shame! [Aside. Biron. One drunkard loves another of the name. [Aside. Long. Am I the first that have been perjur'd so? Biron. [Aside.] I could put thee in comfort; not by two, that I know: Thou mak'st the triumviry, the corner-cap of society. Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye Vows, for thee broke, deserve not punishment. Thy grace being gain'd, cures all disgrace in me. Exhal'st this vapour vow; in thee it is: Biron. [Aside. This is the liver vein, which makes King. And I mine too, good lord! Biron. Amen, so I had mine: Is not that a good word? [Aside. Dum. I would forget her; but a fever she Reigns in my blood, and will remember'd be. Biron. A fever in your blood, why, then incision Would let her out in saucers; Sweet misprision! [Aside. Dum. Once more I'll read the ode that I have writ. Biron. Once more I'll mark how love can vary wit. [Aside. Dum. On a day, (alack the day!) Love, whose month is ever May, But alack, my hand is sworn, That I am forsworn for thee: Thou for whom even Jove would swear, Juno but an Ethiop were; And deny himself for Jove, Turning mortal for thy love. This will I send; and something else more plain, to example i ill, Would from my forehead wipe a perjur'd note; Long. Dumain, [Advancing.] thy love is far from [charity, That in love's grief desir'st society: You may look pale, but I should blush, I know, To be o'erheard, and taken napping so. You found his mote; the king your mote did see; King. betray'd to you; Too bitter is thy jest. Are we betray'd thus to thy over-view? Biron. Not you by me, but I 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. When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme? Or groan for Joan? or spend a minute's time In pruning me? When shall 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 so fast? A true man, or a thief, that gallops so? Biron. I post from love; good lover, let me go. Enter Jaquenetta and Costard. Jaq. God bless the king! What present hast thou there? Cost. Some certain treason. What makes treason here? King. 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. King. Biron, read it over. [Giving him the Letter. Where hadst thou it? King. Come, sir, [Advancing.] you blush; as his He, he, and you, my liege, and I, [up the mess : your case is such; You chide at him, offending twice as much : You do not love Maria; Longaville Did never sonnet for her sake compile; Nor never lay his wreathed arms athwart His loving bosom, to keep down his heart. closely shrouded in this bush, [To Dumain. What will Biron say, when that he shall hear [Descends from the Tree. Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die. Dum. Now the number is even. Biron. stay. True, true; we are four: Will these turtles be gone? Dares look upon the heaven of her brow, 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,-Fie, painted rhetorie! O, she needs it not: To things of sale a seller's praise belongs; Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil: But love, first learned in a lady's eyes, Lives not alone immured in the brain; She passes praise; then praise too short doth blot. But with the motion of all elements, A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn, Might shake off tifty, looking in her eye: Beauty doth varnish age, as if new-born, And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy. O, 'tis the sun, that maketh all things shine! King. By heaven, thy love is black as ebony. Biron. Is ebony like her? O wood divine! A wife of such wood were felicity. O, who can give an oath? where is a book? That I may swear, beauty doth beauty lack, 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 erest becomes the heavens well. Biron. Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of O, if in black my lady's brows be deckt, It mourns, that painting, and usurping hair, Should ravish doters with a false aspect; And therefore is she born to make black fair. Her favour turns the fashion of the days; If that she learn not of her eye to look: [light. For native blood is counted painting now; And therefore red, that would avoid dispraise, Paints itself black, to imitate her brow. Dum. To look like her, are chimney-sweepers black. Long. And, since her time, are colliers counted bright. King. And Ethiops of their sweet complexion crack. Dum. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light. Biron. Your mistresses dare never come in rain, For fear their colours should be wash'd away. King. "Twere good, yours did; for, sir, to tell you I'll find a fairer face not wash'd to-day. [plain, 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 wild stuff so dear. Long. Look, here's thy love my foot and her face [Showing his Shoe. see. 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 overhead. King. But what of this? Are we not all in love? Biron. O, nothing so sure; and thereby all forsworn. King. Then leave this chat; and, good Biron, now Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn. [prove Dum. Ay, marry, 'marry, there; -some flattery for this evil. Long. 0, O, some authority how to proceed: Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil. Dum. Some salve for perjury. Biron. O, tis more than need! And where that you have vow'd to study, lords, The nimble spirits in the arteries; " As motion, and long during action, tires Courses as swift as thought in every power; Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste: lords; 1 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. [thither; Biron. First, from the park let us conduct them Then, homeward, every man attach the hand And justice always whirls in equal measure: 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, audacions without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy. Ldid converse this quondam day with a companion of the king's, who is intituled, nominated, or called, Don Adriano de Armado. Hol. Novi hominem tanquam te: His humour is lofty, his discou peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general behaviour vain, 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 |