You may look pale, but I should blush, I know, | When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme? To be o'erheard, and taken napping so. King. Come, sir, [advancing.] you blush; as You chide at him, offending twice as much: I heard your guilty rhymes, observ'd your fashion; Saw sighs reek from you, noted well your passion: Ab me! says one; O Jove! the other cries; You would for paradise break faith and troth; Ah, good my liege, I pray thee pardon me: But I a beam do find in each of three. King. Too bitter is thy jest. Are we betray'd thus to thy over-view? Or groan for Joan? or spend a minute's time King. Soft; Whither away so fast? Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD. What present hast thou there? Cost. Some certain treason. Long. It did move him to passion, and therefore let's hear it. name. Dum. It is Biron's writing, and here is his [Picks up the pieces. Biron. Ah, you whoreson loggerhead, [To Costard. you were born to do me shame.Guilty, my lord, guilty; I confess, I confess. King. What? you Biron. That three fools lack'd me fool to make up the mess: He, hc, and you, my liege, and I, Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die. more. Dum. Now the number is even. As true we are, as flesh and blood can be: Biron. Not you by me, but I betray'd to you; Therefore, of all hands must we be forsworn. I, that am honest; I, that hold it sin To break the vow I am engaged in ; With moon-like men, of strange inconstancy. King. What, did these rent lines show some love of thine? Biron. Did they, quoth you? Who sces the heavenly Rosaline, 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? King. What zeal, what fury hath inspir'd thee My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon; Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek; Where nothing wants, that want itself doth seck. 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 A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn, eye: 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, If that she learn not of her eye to look: 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 And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well. Biron. Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light. O, if in black my lady's brows be deckt, 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; 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. 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 forsworn. King. Then leave this chat; and, good Birón, now prove Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn. Dum. Ay, marry, there;-some flattery for this evil. Long. O, some authority how to proceed; Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil. Dum. Some salve for perjury. Biron. And where that you have vow'd to study, lords, Why, universal plodding prisons up Biron. Your mistresses dare never come in Do we not likewise see our learning there? rain, For fear their colours should be wash'd away. King. Twere good, yours did; for, sir, to tell you plain, I'll find a fairer face not wash'd to-day. O, we have made a vow to study, lords; 1231 Of beauteous tutors have enrich'd you with? taste: For valour, is not love a Hercules, Or for men's sake, the authors of these women; 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, Fore-run 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 ACT THE FIFTH. SCENE I. Another part of the same. Nath. A most singular and choice epithet. [Takes out his table-book: Hol. He draweth out the thread of his ver Enter HOLOFERNES, Sir NATHANIEL, and DULL. bosity finer than the staple of his argument. I 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 af fection, 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. Novi hominem tanquam te: His humour is lofty, his discourse 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 perigrinate, as may call it. 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, nebour; neigh, abbreviated, ne: This is abhominable, (which he would call abominable,) it insinuateth me of insanie; Ne intelligis domine? to make frantick, lunatick. Nath. Laus deo, bone intelligo. Hol. Bone- -bone, for benè: Priscian a little scratch'd; 'twill serve. Enter ARMADO, MOTH, and Costard. f Arm. Chirra! [To Moth. Hol. Quare Chirra, not sirrah? Arm. Men of peace, well encounter'd. Hol. Most military sir, salutation. Moth. They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps. [To Costard aside. Cost. O, they have lived long in the almsbasket of words! I marvel, thy master hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon. Moth. Peace; the peal begins. Arm. Monsieur, [To Hol.] are you not let ter'd? Moth. Yes, yes; he teaches boys the hornbook: 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 his learning. Hol. Quis, quis, thou consonant? rous sir, is liable, congruent, and measurable for the afternoon: the word is well cull'd, chose; sweet and apt, I do assure you, sir, I do assure. Arm. Sir, the king is a noble gentleman; and my 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 pass. By the world, I recount no fable; some certain' special honours it pleaseth his greatness to impart to Armado, a soldier, a inan 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 Moth. The third of the five vowels, if you delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant, or repeat them; or the fifth, if I. Hol. I will repeat them, a, e, i.— Moth. The sheep: the other two concludes it; o, u. Arm. Now, by the salt wave of the Mediter raneum, 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? Hol. Thou disputest like an infant: go, whip thy gig. Moth. Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your infamy circùm circà; A gig of a cuckold's horn! Cost. An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy gingerbread: hold, there is the very remuneration I had of thy master, thou half-penny purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of discretion. O, an the heavens were so pleased, that thou wert but my bastard! 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 falso Latin; dunghill for unguem. Arm. Arts-man, præambula; we will be singled from the barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the 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 gene antick, 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 withal, to the end to crave your assistance. Hol. Sir, you shall present before her the nine worthies. 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. Arm. Pardon, sir, error: he is not quantity enough for that worthy's thumb: he is not so big as the end of his club. 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?- Arm. We will have, if this fadge not, an antick. I beseech you, follow. Hol. Via, goodman Dull! thou hast spoken no word all this while. Dull. Nor understood none neither, sir. Hol. Alions! 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 bay. lol. Most dull, honest Dull, to our sport, [Exeunt. away. SCENE II. Another part of the same. Before the Princess's pavilion. Nay, I have verses too, I thank Birón: I were the fairest goddess on the ground: Kos. Much, in the letters; nothing in the Prin. Beauteous as ink; a good conclusion. Enter the Princess, KATHARINE, ROSALINE, My red dominical, my golden letter: and MARIA. wax; 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 And so she died: had she been light, like you, Kath. A light condition in a beauty dark. 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. O, that your face were not so full of O's! Prin. But what was sent to you from fair Dumain? ing so. That same Birón I'll torture ere I go. O, that I knew, he were but in by the week! And wait the season, and observe the times, So portent-like would I o'ersway his state, Prin. None are so surely caught, when they As wit turn'd fool: folly, in wisdom hatch'd, Ros. The blood of youth burns not with such |