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Long. He weeds the co.n, and still lets grow the weeding.

Biron. The spring is near, when green geese are a breeding.

Dum. How follows that?
Biron.

Fit in his place and time.

Dum. In reason nothing.
Biron.
Something then in rhyme.
Long. Biron is like an envious sneaping' frost,
That bites the first-born infants of the spring.
Biron. Well, say I am; why should proud sum-
mer boast,

Before the birds have any cause to sing?
Why should I joy in an abortive birth?
At Christmas Í no more desire a rose
Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled shows;2
But like of each thing that in season grows.
So you, to study now it is too late,

Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate.

King. Well, sit you out: go home, Biron, adieu! Biron. No, my good lord; I have sworn to stay with you:

And, though I have for barbarism spoke more,
Than for that angel knowledge you can say,
Yet confident I'll keep what I have swore,

And bide the penance of each three years' day.
Give me the paper, let me read the same;
And to the strict'st decrees I'll write my name.
King. How well this yielding rescues thee from
shame!

Biron. [Reads.] Item, That no woman shall come within a mile of my court.-Hath this been proclaim'd?

Long. Four days ago.

Biron. Let's see the penalty. [Reals.] On pain of losing her tongue.-Who devis'd this penalty? Long. Marry, that did I.

Biron. Sweet lord, and why?

Long. To fright them hence with that dread penalty.

Biron. A dangerous law against gentility.* [Reads.] Item, If any man be seen to talk with a woman within the term of three years, he shall endure such public shame as the rest of the court can possibly devise.

This article, my liege, yourself must break;

For, well you know, here comes in embassy The French king's daughter, with yourself to speak, A maid of grace, and complete majesty,About surrender-up of Aquitain

To her decrepit, sick, and bed-rid father: Therefore this article is made in vain,

Or vainly comes the admired princess hither. King. What say you, lords? why, this was quite forgot.

Biron. So study evermore is overshot; While it doth study to have what it would, It doth forget to do the thing it should: And when it hath the thing it hunteth most, "Tis won, as towns with fire; so won, so lost. King. We must, of force, dispense with this de

cree;

She must lie here on mere necessity.

Biron. Necessity will make us all forsworn Three thousand times within this three years' space:

For every man with his affect3 is born;

Not by might master'd, but by special grace:

1 i. e. nipping.

2 By these shoirs the poet means May-games, at which a snow would be very unwelcome and unexpected. It is only a periphrasis for May.

3 The word gentility here does not signify that rank of people called gentry; but what the French express by gentilesse, i. e. elegantia, urbanitas.

4 That is, reside here. So in Sir Henry Wotton's equivocal definition: 'An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie (i. e. reside) abroad for the good of his country.'

6 Lively, sprightly.

5 Temptations. 1 Complements is here used in its ancient sense of accomplishments. Vide Note on K. Henry V. Act ii. 8c 2,

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If I break faith, this word shall speak for the, I am forsworn on mere necessity.

So to the laws at large I write my name: [Subscribes. And he, that breaks them in the least degree, Stands in attainder of eternal shame;

Suggestions are to others, as to me;
But, I believe, although I seem so loath,
I am the last that will last keep his oath.
But, is there no quick recreation granted?
King. Ay, that there is: our court, you know,
is haunted

With a refined traveller of Spain;
A man in all the world's new fashion planted,
That hath a mint of phrases in his brain:
One, whom the music of his own vain tongue
Doth ravish, like enchanting harmony;
A man of complements," whom right and wrong
Have chose as umpire of their mutiny:
This child of fancy, that Armado hight,

For interim to our studies, shall relate,
In high-born words, the worth of many a knight
From tawny Spain, lost in the world's debate.
How you delight, my lords, I know not, I;
But, I protest, I love to hear him lie,
And I will use him for my minstrelsy.

Biron. Armado is a most illustrious wight, A man of fire-new10 words, fashion's own knight. Long. Costard the swain, and he, shall be our sport;

And, so to study, three years is but short.

Enter DULL, with a Letter, and COSTARD. Dull. Which is the duke's own person? Biron. This, fellow; What would'st? Dull. I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his grace's tharborough:11 but I would see his own person in flesh and blood.

Biron. This is he.

Dull. Signior Arme-Arme-commends you. There's villany abroad; this letter will tell you more. Cost. Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me.

King. A letter from the magnificent Armado. Biron. How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high words.

Long. A high hope for a low having: God grant us patience!

Biron. To hear? or forbear hearing ?12 Long. To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately; or to forbear both.

Biron. Well, sir, be it as the style'' shall give us cause to climb in the merriness.

Cost. The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta. The manner of it is, I was taken with

the manner.14

Biron. In what manner?

Cost. In manner and form following, sir; all those three: was seen with her in the manor house, sitting with her upon the form, and taken following her into the park; which, put together, is, in manner and form following. Now, sir, for the manner,-it is the manner of a man to speak to a woman: for the form,-in some form.

Biron. For the following, sir?

Cost. As it shall follow in my correction; And God defend the right!

King. Will you hear this letter with attention? Biron. As we would hear an oracle.

8 i. e. who is called Armado

9 I will make use of him instead of a minstrel, whose occupation was to relate fabulous stories.

10 i. e. new from the forge; we have still retained a similar mode of speech in the collocuial phrase brandnew. 11 i. e. third-borough, a peace-officer.

12 To hear? or forbear laughing?' is possibly the true reading.

13 A quibble is here intended between a stile and style. 14 That is, in the fact. A thief is said to be taken with the manner (mainour) when he is taken with the thing stolen about him. The thing stolen was called mainour manour, or meinour, from the French manier, many

tractare.

Cost. Such is the simplicity of man to hearken after the flesh.

King. [Reads.] Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent, and sole dominator of Navarre, my soul's. earth's God, and body's fostering patron.

Cost. Not a word of Costard yet.

King. So it 18,

Cost. If it were, I deny her virginity; I was taken with a maid.

King. This maid will not serve your turn, sir.
Cost. This maid will serve my turn, sir.
King. Sir, I will pronounce your sentence;
You shall fast a week with bran and water.
Cost. I had rather pray a month with mutton and

Cost. It may be so: but if he say it is so, he is, porridge.

in telling true, but so, so.

King. Peace.

King. And Don Armado shall be your keeper. -My lord Biron, see him deliver'd o'er.

Cost. -be to me, and every man that dares not And go we, lords, to put in practice that fight!

King. No words.

Cost. of other men's secrets, I beseech you. King. So it is, besieged with sable-coloured melancholy, I did commend the black-oppressing humour to the most wholesome physick of thy health-giving air; and, as I am a gentleman, betook myself to walk. The time when? About the sixth hour; when beasts most graze, birds best peck, and men sit down to that nourishment which is called supper. So much for the time when: Now for the ground which; which, I mean, I walked upon: it is yeleped thy park. Then for the place where; where, I did encounter that obscene and most preposterous event, that draweth from my snow-white pen the ebon-coloured ink, which here thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or seest: But to the place where,-It standeth north-north-east and by east from the west corner of thy curious-knotted garden. There did I see that low-spirited swain, that base minnow of thy mirth,2

Cost. Me.

mean,

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Which each to other hath so strongly sworn.

[Exeunt King, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN. Biron. I'll lay my head to any good man's hat, These oaths and laws will prove an idle scorn.Sirrah, come on.

Cost. I suffer for the truth, sir: for true it is, I
was taken with Jaquenetta, and Jaquenetta is a true
girl; and therefore, Welcome the sour cup of pros-
perity! Affliction may one day smile again, and till
then, Sit thee down, sorrow!
[Exeunt.

SCENE II. Another part of the same. Armado's
House. Enter ARMADO and MOTн.

Arm. Boy, what sign is it, when a man of great spirit grows melancholy?

Moth. A great sign, sir, that he will look sad. Arm. Why, sadness is one and the self-same thing, dear imp.3

Moth. No, no; O lord, sir, no.

Arm. How canst thou part sadness and melan choly, my tender juvenal ?4

Moth. By a familiar demonstration of the work ing, my tough senior.

Arm. Why tough senior? why tough senior? Moth. Why, tender juvenal? why tender juvenal? Arm. I spoke it, tender juvenal, as a congruent epitheton, appertaining to thy young days, which we may nominate tender.

Moth. And I, tough senior, as an appertinent title to your old time, which we may name tough. Arm. Pretty, and apt.

Moth. How mean you, sir? I pretty, and my saying apt? or I apt, and my saying pretty? Arm. Thou pretty, because little.

Moth. Little pretty, because little: Wherefore

King-with a child of our grandmother Eve, a female; or, for thy more sweet understanding, a woman. Him I (as my ever-esteemed duty pricks me on) have sent to thee, to receive the meed of punish-apt? ment, by thy sweet grace's officer, Antony Dull; a man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation.

Dull. Me, an't shall please you; I am Antony Dull.

King-For Jaquenetta, (so is the weaker vessel called, which I apprehended with the aforesaid swain,) I keep her as a vessel of thy law's fury; and shall, at the least of thy sweet notice, bring her to trial. Thine, in all compliments of devoted and heart-burning heat of duty. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.

Biron. This is not so well as I looked for, but the best that ever I heard.

King. Ay, the best for the worst. But, sirrah, what say you to this?

Cost. Sir, I confess the wench.

King. Did you hear the proclamation.

Cost. I do confess much of the hearing it, but httle of the marking of it.

King. It was proclaimed a year's imprisonment, to be taken with a wench.

Cost. I was taken with none, sir; I was taken with a damosel.

King. Well, it was proclaimed damosel, Cost. This was no damosel neither, sir; she was a virgin.

King. It is so varied too; for it was proclaimed, virgin.

1 Ancient gardens abounded with knots or figures, of which the lines intersected each other. In the old books of gardening are devices for them.

2 i. e. the contemptible little object that contributes to thy entertainment.

3 Imp literally means a graft, slip, scion, or sucker; and by metonymy is used for a child or boy. Cromwell, in his last letter to Henry VIII. prays for the imp

Arm. And therefore apt, because quick.
Moth. Speak you this in my praise, master?
Arm. In thy condign praise.

Moth. I will praise an eel with the same praise.
Arm. What? that an eel is ingenious?
Moth. That an eel is quick.

Arm. I do say, thou art quick in answers:
Thou heatest my blood.

Moth. I am answered, sir.

Arm. I love not to be crossed.

Moth. He speaks the mere contrary, crosses love not him.

[Aside.

Arm. I have promised to study three years with the duke.

Moth. You may do it in an hour, sir.
Arm. Impossible.

Moth. How many is one thrice told?

Arm. I am ill at reckoning, it fitteth the spirit of a tapster.

Moth. You are a gentleman, and a gamester, sir. Arm. I confess both; they are both the varnish of a complete man.

Moth. Then I am sure, you know how much the gross sum of deuce-ace amounts to.

Arm. It doth amount to one more than two.
Moth. Which the base vulgar do call three.
Arm. True.

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Moth. Why, sir, is this such a piece of study? Now here is three studied, ere you'll thrice wink: and how easy it is to put years to the word three, and study three years in two words, the dancing horse' will tell you.

[Aside.

Arm. A most fine figure! Moth. To prove you a cypher. Arm. I will hereupon confess, I am in love: and, as it is base for a soldier to love, so am I in love with a base wench. If drawing my sword against the humour of affection would deliver me from the reprobate thought of it, I would take desire prisoner, and ransom him to any French courtier for a new devised courtesy. I think scorn to sigh; methinks, I should out-swear Cupid. Comfort me, boy: What great men have been in love?

Moth. Hercules, master.

Arm. Most sweet Hercules!-More authority, dear boy, name more; and, sweet my child, let them be men of good repute and carriage.

Moth. Samson, master: he was a man of good carriage, great carriage! for he carried the towngates on his back, like a porter: and he was in love.

Arm. O well-knit Samson! strong-jointed Samson! I do excel thee in my rapier, as much as thou didst me in carrying gates. I am in love too,Who was Samson's love, my dear Moth?

Moth. A woman, master.

Arm. Of what complexion?

Moth. Of all the four, or the three, or the two; or one of the four.

Arm. Tell me precisely of what complexion?
Moth. Of the sea-water green, sir.
Arm. Is that one of the four complexions?
Moth. As I have read, sir; and the best of them

'00.

Arm. Green, indeed, is the colour of lovers: but to have a love of that colour, methinks, Samson had small reason for it. He, surely, affected her for her wit.

Moth. It was so, sir; for she had a green wit. Arm. My love is most immaculate white and red. Moth. Most maculate thoughts, master, are masked under such colours.

Arm. Define, define, well-educated infant. Moth. My father's wit, and my mother's tongue, assist me!

Arm. Sweet invocation of a child; most pretty, and pathetical!

Moth. If she be made of white and red,

Her faults will ne'er be known;

For blushing cheeks by faults are bred,
And fears by pale white shown:

Then, if she fear, or be to blame,

By this you shall not know;

For still her cheeks possess the same,
Which native she doth owe.'

A dangerous rhyme, master, against the reason of
white and red.

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Arm. I say, sing.

Moth. Forbear till this company be past.

Enter DULL, Costard, and JaquENETTA. Dull. Sir, the duke's pleasure is, that you keep Costard safe: and you must let him take no delight, nor no penance; but a'must fast three days a-week For this damsel, I must keep her at the park; she is allowed for the day-woman.' Fare you well. Arm. I do betray myself with blushing.-Maid. Jaq. Man.

Arm. I will visit thee at the lodge,

Jaq. That's hereby.

Arm. I know where it is situate.
Jaq. Lord, how wise you are!
Arm. I will tell thee wonders.
Jaq. With that face?"
Arm. I love thee.

Jaq. So I heard you say.
Arm. And so farewell.

Jaq. Fair weather after you!
Dull. Come, Jaquenetta, away.

[Exeunt DULL and JAQUENETTA. Arm. Villain, thou shalt fast for thy offences, ere thou be pardoned.

Cost. Well, sir, I hope, when I do it, I shall do it on a full stomach.

Arm. Thou shalt be heavily punished. Cost. I am more bound to you, than your fellows, for they are but lightly rewarded.

Arm. Take away this villain; shut him up. Moth. Come, you transgressing slave; away. Cost. Let me not be pent up, sir; I will fast, being loose.

Moth. No, sir; that were fast and loose: thou shalt to prison.

Cost. Well, if ever I do see the merry days of desolation that I have seen, some shall seeMoth, What shall some see?

Cost. Nay, nothing, master Moth, but what they look upon. It is not for prisoners to be too silent in their words; and, therefore, I will say nothing: I thank God, have as little patience as another man; and, therefore, I can be quiet.

[Exeunt MOTH and COSTARD. Arm. I do affect the very ground, which is base, where her shoe, which is baser, guided by her foot, which is basest, doth tread. I shall be forsworn, (which is a great argument of falsehood,) if I love: And how can that be true love, which is falsely attempted? Love is a familiar: love is a Moth. The world was very guilty of such a bal-devil: there is no evil angel but love. Yet Samlad some three ages since: but, I think, now 'tis not to be found; or, if it were, it would neither serve for the writing, nor the tune.

Arm. Is there not a ballad, boy, of the King and the Beggar ?4

son was so tempted: and he had an excellent strength: yet was Solomon so seduced; and he had a very good wit. Cupid's butt-shaft is too hard for Hercules' club, and therefore too much odds for

1 This alludes to the celebrated bay horse Morocco, belonging to one Bankes, who exhibited his docile and 7 Taberna Casearia is interpreted in the old DictionBagacious animal through Europe. Many of his re-aries a daye house, where cheese is made. A day-wo. markable pranks are mentioned by cotemporary wri-man is therefore a dairy-woman. Johnson says day is ters, and he is alluded to by numbers besides Shak- an old word for milk. A dairy-maid is still called a dey speare. The fate of man and horse is not known with or day in the northern parts of Scotland. certainty, but it has been asserted that they were both burnt at Rome, as magicians, by order of the Pope. The best account of Baukes and his horse is to be found in the notes to a French translation of Apuleius's Gold-He takes it in the sense of just by. en Ass, by Jean de Montlyard, 1602.

8 Jaquenetta and Armado are at cross-purposes. Hereby is used by her, (as among the common peopie of some counties,) in the sense of as it may happen.

9 This odd phrase was still in use in Fielding's time,

2 The allusion probably is to the willow, the suppo-who, putting it into the mouth of Beau Didapper, thinks sed ornament of unsuccessful lovers.

3 Of which she is naturally possessed.

4 See Percy's Reliques of Antient Poetry, fourth edi

tion, vol. i. p. 199.

5 Digression is here used for the act of going out of the right way, transgression.

6 Armado applies this epithet ironically to Costard.

it necessary to apologize (in a note) for its want of sense, by adding that it was taken verbatim from very polite conversation.

10 Love.

11 A kind of arrow used for shooting at butts with The butt was the place on which the mark to be shot was placed.

I

a Spaniard's rapier. The first and second cause | Most power to do most harm, least knowing ill: will not serve my turn; the passado he respects For he hath wit to make an ill shape good, not, the duello he regards not: his disgrace is to And shape to win grace though he had no wit. be called boy; but his glory is to subdue men. saw him at the duke Alençon's once: Adieu, valour! rust, rapier! be still, drum! for And much too little of that good I saw, your manager is in love; yea, he loveth. Assist Is my report, to his great worthiness. me, some extemporal god of rhyme, for, I am sure, I shall turn sonneteer. Devise, wit; write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio. [Exit.

ACT II.

A Pavilion

SCENE I. Another part of the same.
and Tents at a distance. Enter the Princess of
France, ROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, BO-
YET, Lords, and other Attendants.

Boyet. Now, madam, summon up your dearest spirits:

Consider who the king your father sends;
To whom he sends; and what's his embassy:
Yourself, held precious in the world's esteem;
To parley with the sole inheritor

Of all perfections that a man may owe,
Matchless Navarre; the plea of no less weight
Than Aquitain; a dowry for a queen.
Be now as prodigal of all dear grace,
As nature was in making graces dear,
When she did starve the general world beside,
And prodigally gave them all to you.

Prin. Good lord Boyet, my beauty, though but

mean,

Needs not the painted flourish of your praise;
Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye,
Not utter'd by base sale of chapmen's tongues;
I am less proud to hear you tell my worth,
Than you much willing to be counted wise
In spending your wit in the praise of mine.
But now to task the tasker,-Good Boyet,
You are not ignorant, all-telling fame

Doth noise abroad, Navarre hath made a vow,
Till painful study shall out-wear three years,
No woman may approach his silent court:
Therefore to us seemeth it a needful course,
Before we enter his forbidden gates,
To know his pleasure; and in that behalf,
Bold' of your worthiness, we single you
As our best moving fair solicitor:

Tell him the daughter of the king of France,
On serious business, craving quick despatch,
Importunes personal conference with his grace.
Haste, signify so much; while we attend,
Like humbly-visag'd suitors, his high will.

Boyet. Proud of employment, willingly I go. [Exit.
Prin. All pride is willing pride, and yours is so,
Who are the votaries, my loving lords,
That are vow-fellows with this virtuous duke?
1 Lord. Longaville is one.
Prin.
Know you the man?
Mar. I know him madam; at a marriage feast,
Between lord Perigort and the beauteous heir
Of Jaques Falconbridge, solemnized
In Normandy, saw I this Longaville :
A man of sovereign parts he is esteem'd;
Well fitted in the arts, glorious in arms:
Nothing becomes him ill, that he would well.
The only soil of his fair virtue's gloss
(If virtue's gloss will stain with any soil,)
Is a sharp wit match'd with too blunt a will;
Whose edge hath power to cut, whose will still wills
It should none spare that come within his

power.

Prin. Some merry mocking lord, belike; is't so? Mar. They say so most, that most his humours know.

Prin. Such short-liv'd wits do wither as they grow. Who are the rest?

Kath. The young Dumain, a well accomplish'd

youth,

Of all that virtue love for virtue lov'd;

1 See Notes on the last Act of As You Like It.

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Ros. Another of these students at that time
Was there with him: if I have heard a truth,
Biron they call him; but a merrier man,
Within the limit of becoming mirth,
I never spent an hour's talk withal:
His eye begets occasion for his wit;
For every object that the one doth catch,
The other turns to a mirth-moving jest;
Which his fair tongue (conceit's expositor,)
Delivers in such apt and gracious words,
That aged ears play truant at his tales,
And younger hearings are quite ravished:
So sweet and voluble is his discourse.

Prin. God bless my ladies; are they all in love.
That every one her own hath garnish'd
With such bedecking ornaments of praise?
Mar. Here comes Boyet.

Re-enter BOYET.

Prin. Now, what admittance, lord? Boyet. Navarre had notice of your fair approach; And he, and his competitors' in oath, Were all address'd to meet you, gentle lady, Before I came. Marry, thus much have I learnt, He rather means to lodge you in the field (Like one that comes here to besiege his court,) Than seek a dispensation for his oath, To let you enter his unpeopled house. Here comes Navarre. [The Ladies mask. Enter KING, LONGAVILLE, DUMAIN, BIRON, and Attendants.

King. Fair princess, welcome to the court of Navarre.

Prin. Fair, I give you back again: and, welcome I have not yet: the roof of this court is too high to be yours; and welcome to the wild fields too base to be mine.

King. You shall be welcome, madam, to my court. Prin. I will be welcome then; conduct me thither. King. Hear me, dear lady; I have sworn an oath. Prin. Our lady help my lord! he'll be forsworn. King. Not for the world, fair madam, by my will. Prin. Why, will shall break it; will, and nothing else.

King. Your ladyship is ignorant what it is.

Prin. Where my lord so, his ignorance were wise Where' now his knowledge must prove ignorance. hear your grace has sworn-out house-keeping: "Tis deadly sin to keep that oath, my lord, And sin to break it:

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Ros. Fair fall tne face it covers!
Biron. And send you many iovers!
Ros. Amen, so you be none.
Biron. Nay, then will I be gone.

King. Madam, your father here doth intimate
The payment of a hundred thousand crowns;
Being but the one half of an entire sum,
Disbursed by my father in his wars.

But say, that he, or we (as neither have,)
Receiv'd that sum; yet there remains unpaid

A hundred thousand more; in surety of the which,
One part of Aquitain is bound to us,
Although not valued to the money's worth.
If then the king your father will restore
But that one half which is unsatisfied,
We will give up our right to Aquitain,
And hold fair friendship with his majesty.
But that, it seems, he little purposeth,
For here he doth demand to have repaid

A hundred thousand crowns; and not demands,
On payment of a hundred thousand crowns,
To have his title live in Aquitain;
Which we much rather had depart' withal,
And have the money by our father lent,
Than Aquitain so gelded2 as it is.

Dear princess, were not his requests so far
From reason's yielding, your fair self should make
A yielding 'gainst some reason, in my breast,
And go well satisfied to France again.

Prin. You do the king my father too much wrong,
And wrong the reputation of your name,
In so unseeming to confess receipt

Of that which hath so faithfully been paid.
King. I do protest, I never heard of it;
-And, if you prove it, I'll repay it back,
Or yield up Aquitain.

Prin

We arrest your word:-
Boyet, you can produce acquittances,
For such a sum, from special officers
Of Charles his father.

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come,

Where that and other specialties are bound;
To-morrow you shall have a sight of them.

King. It shall suffice me: at which interview,
All liberal reason I will yield unto.
Mean time, receive such welcome at my hand,
As honour, without breach of honour, may
Make tender of to thy true worthiness:
You may not come, fair princess, in my gates;
But here without you shall be so receiv'd,
As you shall deem yourself lodg'd in my heart,
Though so denied fair harbour in my house.
Your own good thoughts excuse me, and farewell:
To-morrow shall we visit you again.

Prin. Sweet health and fair desires consort your
grace!

King. Thy own wish wish I thee in every place! [Exeunt King and his Train. Biron. Lady, I will commend you to my own heart. Ros. 'Pray you, do my commendations; I would be glad to see it.

Biron. I would, you heard it groan.
Ros. Is the fool sick?

Biron. Sick at heart.

Ros. Alack, let it blood.

Biron. Would that do it good?
Ros. My Physick says, I.

1 To depart and to part were anciently synonymous. 2 This phrase appears to us unseemly to a princess, but it was a common metaphorical expression then much used. Perhaps it was no more considered offensive than it would be now to talk of the castrations of Holinshed. It was not peculiar to Shakspeare.

3 The old spelling of the affirmative particle ay is here retained for the sake of the rhyme.

4 Point, in French, is an adverb of negation, but, if properly spoken, is not sounded like the point of a knife. A quibble was however intended. Perhaps Shakspeare was not well acquainted with the pronunciation of French.

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Boyet. I was as willing to grapple, as he was to

board.

Mar. Two hot sheeps, marry!
Boyet.

And wherefore not ships?

No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips.
Mar. You sheep, and I pasture; Shall that finish

the jest?

Boyet. So you grant pasture for me.

Mar.

[Offering to kiss her. Not so, gentle beast; My lips are no common, though several they be. Boyet. Belonging to whom?

Mar.

To my fortunes and me. Prin. Good wits will be jangling; but, gentles,

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which besides its ordinary signification of separate, dis tinct, signified also an enclosed pasture, as opposed to an open field or common. Bacon and others used it in this sense.

6 So in Daniel's Complaint of Rosamond, 1594: 'Sweet silent rhetoric of persuading eyes. Dumb eloquence.'

7 Although the expression in the text is extremely odd, yet the sense appears to be, that his tongue envied the quickness of his eyes, and strive to be as rapid in its

6 A quibble is here intended upon the word several. utterance, as they in their perception

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