and I say beside, that 'twas a pricket that the prin- |Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithful cess kill'd.

Hol. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on the death of the deer? and, to humour

prove; Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers bowed.

the ignorant, I have call'd the deer the princess Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine 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;

Some say, a sore; but not a sore, till now made sore with shooting.

The dogs did yell; put L to sore, then sorel jumps| from thicket;

Or pricket, sore, or else sorel; the people fall a hooting.

If sore be sore, then L to sore makes fifty sores; O

sore L!

Of one sore I a hundred make, by adding but

one more L.

Nath. A rare talent!

eyes;

Where all those pleasures live, that art would comprehend:

If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice;

All

Well learned is that tongue, that well can thee

commend:

ignorant 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, oh pardon, love, this wrong, That sings heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue!

Hol. You find not the apostrophes, and so miss

Dull. If a talent be a claw, look how he claws the accent: let me supervise the canzonet. Here him with a talent. are only numbers ratified; but, for the elegancy, Hol. This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; facility, and golden cadence of poesy, caret. Ovia foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, dius Naso was the man: and why, indeed, Nase; shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, but for smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, revolutions: these are begot in the ventricle of the jerks of invention? Imitari, is nothing: so doth memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater; and the hound his master, the ape his keeper, the tired deilver'd upon the mellowing of occasion: But the horse' his rider.-But damosella virgin, was this gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am directed to you? thankful for it.

Jaq. Ay, sir, from one monsieur Biron, one of

Nath. Sir, I praise the Lord for you; and so the strange queen's lords. may my parishioners; for their sons are well tutor'd

Hol. I will overglance the superscript. To the by you, and their daughters profit very greatly un-snow-white hana the most beauteous Lady Rosader you: you are a good member of the common-line. I will look again on the intellect of the letter, wealth. for the nomination of the party writing to the person written unto:

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 parson, 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 from Don Armatho: I beseech you, read it.

Hol. Fauste, precor gelidâ quando pecus omne

sub umbrâ.

Ruminat, and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan!
I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice:
Vinegia, Vinegia,

Chi non le 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. If love make me forsworn, how shall swear to love?

I

Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed!

1) Horse adorned with ribbands.

Your ladyship's in all desired employment,

BIRON. 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, Trip and go, my sweet; deliver this paper into the or by the way of progression, hath miscarried.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 Jan. very religiously; and, as a certain father saithNath. Sir, you have done this in the fear of God,

Hol. Sir, tell not me of the father, I do fear Did they please you, sir Nathaniel ? colourable colours. But to return to the verses ;

Nath. Marvellous well for the pen.

pupil of mine; where if, before repast, it shall
Hol. I do dine to-day at the father's of a certain
please you to gratify the table with a grace, I will,
on my privilege I have with the parents of the fore-
said child or pupil, undertake your ben venuto ;
ed, neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention
where I will prove those verses to be very unlearn-
I beseech your society.

text) is the happiness of life.
Nath. And thank you too: for society (saith the

cludes it.-Sir, [To Dull.] I do invite you too; you
Hol. And certes,2 the text most infallibly con-
gentles are at their game, and we will to our
shall not say me, nay: pauca verba. Away; the
recreation.
[Exeunt.

(2) In truth.

SCENE III-Another part of the same. Enter These numbers will I tear, and write in prose. Biron. [Aside.] O, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid's hose:

This same snall go.

[He reads the sonnet.

Biron, with a paper. Biron. The king he is hunting the deer; I am Disfigure not his slop. coursing myself: they have pitch'd a toil; I am Long. toiling in a pitch; pitch that defiles; defile! a foul word. Well, set thee down, sorrow! for so, they Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye 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 kills sheep; it kills me, I a sheep: Well proved again on my side! I will not love: if A I do, 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, 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 Exhal'st this vapour vow; in thee it is: sonnets already; the clown bore it, the fool sent it, If broken then, it is no fault of mine; and the lady hath it: sweet clown, sweeter fool, If by me broke, What fool is not so wise, sweetest lady! By the world, I would not care a To lose an oath to win a paradise? 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.

('Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,) Persuade my heart to this false perjury? Vows, for thee broke, deserve not punishment. woman I forswore; but, I will prove, Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee; My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love; Thy grace being gained, cures all disgrace in me. Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is: Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth doth shine,

King, Ah me!
Biron. [Aside.] Shot, by heaven !-Proceed,
Sweet Cupid; thou hast thump'd him with thy
bird-bolt under the left pap:-I'faith secrets.—
King. [Reads.] So sweet a kiss the golden sun
gives not

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 wo:
Do but behold the tears that swell in me,

And they thy glory through thy grief will show:
But do not love thyself; then thou will keep
My tears for glasses, and still make me weep.
O queen of queens, how far dost thou excel!
No thought can think, nor tongue of mortal tell.-
How shall she know my grief? I'll drop the paper;
Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here?
[Steps aside.

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. [Aside.] This is the liver vein, which
makes flesh a deity;

A green goose a goddess: pure, pure idolatry.
God amend us, God amend! we are much out o'
the way.

Enter Dumain, with a paper.

stay.

Long. By whom shall I send this?-Company!
[Stepping aside.
Biron. [Aside.] All hid, all hid, an old infant
play:

Like a demi-god here sit I in the sky,
And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'er-eye..
More sacks to the mill! O heavens, I have my wish:
Dumain transform'd: four woodcocks in a dish!
Dum. O most divine Kate!

Biron. O most profane coxcomb! [Aside.
Dum. By heaven, the wonder of a mortal eye!
Biron. By earth, she is but corporal; there you
lie.
[Aside.

Dum. Her amber hairs for foul have amber
coted.1

Biron. An amber-colour'd raven was well noted.

Dum. As upright as the cedar.
Biron.

Her shoulder is with child.
Dum.

[Aside.

Stoop, I say;
[Aside.

As fair as day. but then no sun must [Aside.

And I had mine! Aside

Biron. Ay, as some days;
shine.

Dum. O that I had my wish!
Long.

King. And I mine too, good Lord! [Aside.
Biron. Amen, so I had mine: Is not that a good

word?
[Aside.
Dum. I would forget her; but a fever she
Aside. Reigns in my blood, and will remember'd be.
Biron. A fever in your blood, why, then inci-

Biron. Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers.

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,

The shape of love's Tyburn that hangs up simplicity.

Long. I fear these stubborn lines lack power to

move:

O sweet Maria, empress of my love!

(1) Outstripped, surpassed.

sion

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,
Spied a blossom, passing fair,
Playing in the wanton air:
Through the velvet leaves the wind,
All unseen, 'gan passage find;
That the lover, sick to death,
Wish'd himself the heaven's breath.

Y

My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon;

She, an attending star, scarce seen a light.
Biron. My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Birón:
O, but for my love, day would turn to night!
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 rhetoric! O, she needs it not: To things of sale a seller's praise belongs;

She passes praise; then praise too short doth blot.

A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn,

Might shake off fifty, 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,
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 night;
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 aspect;
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.

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

Biron.
O, 'tis 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 'gainst 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 académes,
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,
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 beauteous 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:
But love, first learned in a lady's eyes,
Lives not alone immured in the brain;
But with the motion of all elements,
Courses as swift as thought in every power,

Dum. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is And gives to every power a double power,
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 plain,

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

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 sphinx; 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, Her feet were much too dainty for such tread! Until his ink were temper'd with love's sighs; Dum. O vile! then as she goes, what upward O, then his lines would ravish savage ears,

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,

lies

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 académes,
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;

(1) Law chicane.

Or for love's sake, a word that loves all men ;
Or for men's sake, the author's 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;
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,
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

SCENE I-Another part of the same.
Holofernes, Sir Nathaniel, and Dull.

Hol. Satis quod sufficit.

Enter

Nath. I praise God for you, sir: your reasons'

Hol. Bone?-bone, for benè: Priscian a little scratch'd; 'twill serve.

Enter Armado, Moth, and Costard.

Nath. Videsne quis venit?

Hol. Video, et gaudeo.
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 lan-
guages, and stolen the scraps. [To Costard aside.

Cost. O, they have lived long in the alms-basket 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 letter'd? Moth. Yes, yes; he teaches boys the hornbook:What is a, b, spelt backward, with a horn on his

head?

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 gig.

Moth. Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your infamy circùm circà; A gig at dinner have been sharp and sententious; plea- of a cuckold's horn! sant without scurrility, witty without affection, Cost. An I had but one penny in the world, audacious without impudency, learned without thou should'st have it to buy gingerbread: hold, opinion, and strange without heresy. I did con- there is the very remuneration I had of thy master, verse this quondam day with a companion of the thou half-penny purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of king's, who is intituled, nominated, or called, Don discretion. O, an the heavens were so pleased, that Adriano de Armado. thou wert but my bastard! what a joyful father would'st thou make me! Go to; thou hast it ad dunghill, at the fingers' ends, as they say.

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 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; Hol. The posterior of the day, most generous neighbour, vocatur, nebour; neigh, abbreviated, sir, is liable, congruent, and measurable for the ne: This is abhominable (which he would call afternoon: the word is well cull'd, chose; sweet abominable,) it insinuateth me of insanie; Ne and apt, I do assure you, sir, I do assure.

Hol. O, I smell false 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.

intelligis do nine? to make frantic, lunatic.

Nath. Laus deo, bone intelligo.

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.

Arm. Sir, the king is a noble gentleman; and my familiar, I do assure you, very good friend :

(6) A small inflammable substance, swallowed in a glass of wine.