Biron. Once more I'll mark how love can vary

wit.

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.
Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;
Air, would I might triumph so!
But alack, my hand is sworn,
Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn:
Vow, alack, for youth unmeet:
Youth so apt to pluck a sweet.
Do not call it sin in me,
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.

[Aside.

This will I send; and something else more plain,
That shall express my true love's fasting pain.
O, would the king, Biron, and Longaville,
Were lovers too! Ill, to example ill,
Would from my forehead wipe a perjured note;
For none offend, where all alike do dote.

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.

King. Come, Sir, [Advancing.] you blush: as his

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.
I have been closely shrouded in this bush,
And mark'd you both, and for you both did blush.
I heard your guilty rhymes, observed your fashion;
Saw sighs reek from you, noted well your passion:
Ah me! says one; O Jove! the other cries,
One, her hairs were gold, crystal the other's

eyes:

You would for paradise break faith and troth;

[To Long.

And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath.

[To Dumain.

What will Biron say, when that he shall hear
A faith infringed, which such a zeal did swear!!
How will he scorn? How will he spend his wit?
How will he triumph, leap, and laugh at it?
For all the wealth that ever I did see,
I would not have him know so much by me.
Biron. Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy.-
Ah, good, my liege, I pray thee, pardon me:

[Descends from the Tree.
Good heart, what grace hast thou, thus to reprove
These worms for loving, that art most in love?
Your eyes do make no coaches; in your tears,
There is no certain princess that appears :
You'll not be perjured, 'tis a hateful thing;
Tush, none but minstrels like of sonneting.
But are you not ashamed? Nay, are you not,
All three of you, to be thus much o'er-shot?
You found his mote; the king your mote did see;
But I a beam do find in each of three.
0, what a scene of foolery I have seen,
Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow, and of teen!
O me, with what strict patience have 1 sat,
To see a king transformed to a gnat!
To see great Hercules whipping a gig,
And profound Solomon to tune a jig,
And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys,
And critic + Timon laugh at idle toys!
Where lies thy grief, O tell me, Lood Dumain?
Aud, gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain?
And where my liege's? All about the breast:
A caudle, ho!

King. Too bitter is thy jest.

Are we betray'd thus to thy over-view?

Biron. Not you by me, but I betray'd to you; I, that am honest; 1, that hold it sin To break the vow I am engaged in; I am betray'd, by keeping company With moou-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?

1

• Grief.

↑ Cynic.

$ In trimming myself.

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!

King. What present hast thou there?
Cost. Some certain treason.

King. What makes treason here?
Cost. Nay, it makes nothing, Sir.

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?

Jaq. Of Costard.

King. Where hadst thou it?

Cost. Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio.

King. How now! What is in you? Why dost thou tear it?

Biron., A toy, my liege, a toy; your grace needs not fear it.

Long. It did move him to passion, and therefore let's hear it.

Dum. It is Biron's writing, and here is his name. [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?

Biron. That you three fools lack'd me fool to make up the mess.

He, he, and you, my liege, and I,

Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die.
O, dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you

more.

Dum. Now the number is even.

Biron. True, true; we are four :

Will these turtles be gone?

King. Hence, Sirs; away.

Cost. Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay. [Exeunt Costard and Jaquenetta. Biron. Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O let us embrace!

As true we are, as flesh and blood can be: The sea will ebb and flow, heaven shew his face; Young blood will not obey an old decree : We cannot cross the cause why we were born; Therefore, of all hands must we be forsworn.

King. What, did these rent lines shew some love of thine?

Biron. Did they, quoth you? Who sees 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 inspired thee now?

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: 0, 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;

blot.

She passes praise; then praise too short doth
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 air, Should ravish doters with a false aspéct;

And therefore is she born to make black fair.

Herfavour turns the fashion of the days;
For native blood is counted painting now;
VOL. II.

G

And therefore red, that would avoid dispraise, Paints itself black, to imitate her brow. Dum. To look like her, are chimney-sweepers black. [bright. Long. And since her time, are colliers counted 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, your's 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.

face see.

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 [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 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. 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?

Law-chicane.