Love’s Labour’s Lost

Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,
Live register’d upon our brazen tombs
And then grace us in the disgrace of death;
When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,
The endeavour of this present breath may buy
That honour which shall bate his scythe’s keen edge
And make us heirs of all eternity.
Therefore, brave conquerors⁠—for so you are,
That war against your own affections
And the huge army of the world’s desires⁠—
Our late edict shall strongly stand in force:
Navarre shall be the wonder of the world;
Our court shall be a little Academe,
Still and contemplative in living art.
You three, Biron, Dumain, and Longaville,
Have sworn for three years’ term to live with me
My fellow-scholars and to keep those statutes
That are recorded in this schedule here:
Your oaths are pass’d; and now subscribe your names,
That his own hand may strike his honour down
That violates the smallest branch herein:
If you are arm’d to do as sworn to do,
Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too.

I am resolved; ’tis but a three years’ fast:
The mind shall banquet, though the body pine:
Fat paunches have lean pates, and dainty bits
Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits.

My loving lord, Dumain is mortified:
The grosser manner of these world’s delights
He throws upon the gross world’s baser slaves:
To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die;
With all these living in philosophy.

I can but say their protestation over;
So much, dear liege, I have already sworn,
That is, to live and study here three years.
But there are other strict observances;
As, not to see a woman in that term,
Which I hope well is not enrolled there;
And one day in a week to touch no food
And but one meal on every day beside,
The which I hope is not enrolled there;
And then, to sleep but three hours in the night,
And not be seen to wink of all the day⁠—
When I was wont to think no harm all night
And make a dark night too of half the day⁠—
Which I hope well is not enrolled there:
O, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep,
Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep!

Your oath is pass’d to pass away from these.

Let me say no, my liege, an if you please:
I only swore to study with your grace
And stay here in your court for three years’ space.

You swore to that, Biron, and to the rest.

By yea and nay, sir, then I swore in jest.
What is the end of study? let me know.

Why, that to know, which else we should not know.

Things hid and barr’d, you mean, from common sense?

Ay, that is study’s god-like recompense.

Come on, then; I will swear to study so,
To know the thing I am forbid to know:
As thus⁠—to study where I well may dine,
When I to feast expressly am forbid;
Or study where to meet some mistress fine,
When mistresses from common sense are hid;
Or, having sworn too hard a keeping oath,
Study to break it and not break my troth.
If study’s gain be thus and this be so,
Study knows that which yet it doth not know:
Swear me to this, and I will ne’er say no.

These be the stops that hinder study quite
And train our intellects to vain delight.

Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain,
Which with pain purchased doth inherit pain:
As, painfully to pore upon a book
To seek the light of truth; while truth the while
Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look:
Light seeking light doth light of light beguile:
So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,
Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.
Study me how to please the eye indeed
By fixing it upon a fairer eye,
Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed
And give him light that it was blinded by.
Study is like the heaven’s glorious sun
That will not be deep-search’d with saucy looks:
Small have continual plodders ever won
Save base authority from others’ books.
These earthly godfathers of heaven’s lights
That give a name to every fixed star
Have no more profit of their shining nights
Than those that walk and wot not what they are.
Too much to know is to know nought but fame;
And every godfather can give a name.

How well he’s read, to reason against reading!

Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding!

He weeds the corn and still lets grow the weeding.

The spring is near when green geese are a-breeding.

How follows that?

Fit in his place and time.

In reason nothing.

Something then in rhyme.

Biron is like an envious sneaping frost
That bites the first-born infants of the spring.

Well, say I am; why should proud summer boast
Before the birds have any cause to sing?
Why should I joy in any abortive birth?
At Christmas I no more desire a rose
Than wish a snow in May’s new-fangled mirth;
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.

Well, sit you out: go home, Biron: adieu.

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.

How well this yielding rescues thee from shame!

Marry, that did I.

Sweet lord, and why?

To fright them hence with that dread penalty.

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.”

What say you, lords? why, this was quite forgot.

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.

We must of force dispense with this decree;
She must lie here on mere necessity.

Necessity will make us all forsworn
Three thousand times within this three years’ space;
For every man with his affects is born,
Not by might master’d but by special grace:
If I break faith, this word shall speak for me;
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 other 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?

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.

Armado is a most illustrious wight,
A man of fire-new words, fashion’s own knight.

Costard the swain and he shall be our sport;
And so to study, three years is but short.

Reads. “Great deputy, the welkin’s vicegerent and sole dominator of Navarre, my soul’s earth’s god, and body’s fostering patron.”

Reads. “So it is,”⁠—

Reads. “So it is, besieged with sable-coloured melancholy, I did commend the black-oppressing humour to the most wholesome physic 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 ycleped thy park. Then for the place where; where, I mean, I did encounter that obscene and 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,”⁠—

Reads. “that unlettered small-knowing soul,”⁠—

Reads. “that shallow vassal,”⁠—

Reads. “which, as I remember, hight Costard,”⁠—

Reads. “sorted and consorted, contrary to thy established proclaimed edict and continent canon, which with⁠—O, with⁠—but with this I passion to say wherewith⁠—

Reads. “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 punishment, by thy sweet grace’s officer, Anthony Dull; a man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation.”

Reads. “For Jaquenetta⁠—so is the weaker vessel called which I apprehended with the aforesaid swain⁠—I keep her as a vessel of the 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.

And Don Armado shall be your keeper.
My Lord Biron, see him deliver’d o’er:
And go we, lords, to put in practise that
Which each to other hath so strongly sworn. Exeunt King, Longaville, and Dumain.

I’ll lay my head to any good man’s hat,
These oaths and laws will prove an idle scorn.
Sirrah, come on.

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

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 Aquitaine, 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.

Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean,
Needs not the painted flourish of your praise:
Beauty is bought by judgement 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 outwear three years,
No woman may approach his silent court:
Therefore to’s 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 dispatch,
Importunes personal conference with his grace:
Haste, signify so much; while we attend,
Like humble-visaged suitors, his high will.

Proud of employment, willingly I go.

All pride is willing pride, and yours is so. Exit Boyet.
Who are the votaries, my loving lords,
That are vow-fellows with this virtuous duke?

Lord Longaville is one.

Know you the man?

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 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.

Some merry mocking lord, belike; is’t so?

They say so most that most his humours know.

Such short-lived wits do wither as they grow.
Who are the rest?

The young Dumain, a well-accomplished youth,
Of all that virtue love for virtue loved:
Most power to do most harm, least knowing ill;
For he hath wit to make an ill shape good,
And shape to win grace though he had no wit.
I saw him at the Duke Alençon’s once;
And much too little of that good I saw
Is my report to his great worthiness.

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.

God bless my ladies! are they all in love,
That every one her own hath garnished
With such bedecking ornaments of praise?

Here comes Boyet.

Now, what admittance, lord?

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 I have 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.

Fair princess, welcome to the court of Navarre.

You shall be welcome, madam, to my court.

I will be welcome, then: conduct me thither.

Hear me, dear lady; I have sworn an oath.

Our Lady help my lord! he’ll be forsworn.

Not for the world, fair madam, by my will.

Why, will shall break it; will and nothing else.

Your ladyship is ignorant what it is.

Were my lord so, his ignorance were wise,
Where now his knowledge must prove ignorance.
I hear your grace hath sworn out house-keeping:
’Tis deadly sin to keep that oath, my lord,
And sin to break it.
But pardon me, I am too sudden-bold:
To teach a teacher ill beseemeth me.
Vouchsafe to read the purpose of my coming,
And suddenly resolve me in my suit.

Madam, I will, if suddenly I may.

You will the sooner, that I were away;
For you’ll prove perjured if you make me stay.

Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?

Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?

I know you did.

How needless was it then to ask the question!

You must not be so quick.

’Tis ’long of you that spur me with such questions.

Your wit’s too hot, it speeds too fast, ’twill tire.

Not till it leave the rider in the mire.

What time o’ day?

The hour that fools should ask.

Now fair befall your mask!

Fair fall the face it covers!

And send you many lovers!

Amen, so you be none.

Nay, then will I be gone.

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,
Received that sum, yet there remains unpaid
A hundred thousand more; in surety of the which,
One part of Aquitaine 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 in Aquitaine,
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 Aquitaine;
Which we much rather had depart withal
And have the money by our father lent
Than Aquitaine so gelded 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.

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.

I do protest I never heard of it;
And if you prove it, I’ll repay it back
Or yield up Aquitaine.

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

Satisfy me so.

So please your grace, the packet is not come
Where that and other specialties are bound:
To-morrow you shall have a sight of them.

It shall suffice me: at which interview
All liberal reason I will yield unto.
Meantime 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 received
As you shall deem yourself lodged 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.

Sweet health and fair desires consort your grace!

Thy own wish wish I thee in every place! Exit.

Lady, I will commend you to mine own heart.

Pray you, do my commendations; I would be glad to see it.

Alack, let it blood.

Would that do it good?

My physic says “ay.”

Will you prick’t with your eye?

No point, with my knife.

Now, God save thy life!

And yours from long living!

I cannot stay thanksgiving. Retiring.

Sir, I pray you, a word: what lady is that same?

The heir of Alençon, Katharine her name.

A gallant lady. Monsieur, fare you well. Exit.

I beseech you a word: what is she in the white?

A woman sometimes, an you saw her in the light.

Perchance light in the light. I desire her name.

She hath but one for herself; to desire that were a shame.

Pray you, sir, whose daughter?

Her mother’s, I have heard.

God’s blessing on your beard!

Good sir, be not offended.
She is an heir of Falconbridge.

Nay, my choler is ended.
She is a most sweet lady.

Not unlike, sir, that may be. Exit Longaville.

What’s her name in the cap?

Rosaline, by good hap.

Is she wedded or no?

To her will, sir, or so.

You are welcome, sir: adieu.

Farewell to me, sir, and welcome to you. Exit Biron.

That last is Biron, the merry madcap lord:
Not a word with him but a jest.

And every jest but a word.

It was well done of you to take him at his word.

I was as willing to grapple as he was to board.

And wherefore not ships?
No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips.

You sheep, and I pasture: shall that finish the jest?

Not so, gentle beast:
My lips are no common, though several they be.

To my fortunes and me.

Good wits will be jangling; but, gentles, agree:
This civil war of wits were much better used
On Navarre and his book-men; for here ’tis abused.

If my observation, which very seldom lies,
By the heart’s still rhetoric disclosed with eyes,
Deceive me not now, Navarre is infected.

With that which we lovers entitle affected.

Why, all his behaviours did make their retire
To the court of his eye, peeping thorough desire:
His heart, like an agate, with your print impress’d,
Proud with his form, in his eye pride express’d:
His tongue, all impatient to speak and not see,
Did stumble with haste in his eyesight to be;
All senses to that sense did make their repair,
To feel only looking on fairest of fair:
Methought all his senses were lock’d in his eye,
As jewels in crystal for some prince to buy;
Who, tendering their own worth from where they were glass’d,
Did point you to buy them, along as you pass’d:
His face’s own margent did quote such amazes
That all eyes saw his eyes enchanted with gazes.
I’ll give you Aquitaine and all that is his,
An you give him for my sake but one loving kiss.

Come to our pavilion: Boyet is disposed.

But to speak that in words which his eye hath disclosed.
I only have made a mouth of his eye,
By adding a tongue which I know will not lie.

Thou art an old love-monger and speakest skilfully.

He is Cupid’s grandfather and learns news of him.

Then was Venus like her mother, for her father is but grim.

Do you hear, my mad wenches?

No.

What then, do you see?

Ay, our way to be gone.

You are too hard for me. Exeunt.

Minimè, honest master; or rather, master, no.

You are too swift, sir, to say so:
Is that lead slow which is fired from a gun?

Sweet smoke of rhetoric!
He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that’s he:
I shoot thee at the swain.

Thump then and I flee. Exit.

A most acute juvenal; voluble and free of grace!
By thy favour, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face:
Most rude melancholy, valour gives thee place.
My herald is return’d.

A wonder, master! here’s a costard broken in a shin.

Some enigma, some riddle: come, thy l’envoy; begin.

Do the wise think them other? is not l’envoy a salve?

No, page: it is an epilogue or discourse, to make plain
Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain.
I will example it:
The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,
Were still at odds, being but three.
There’s the moral. Now the l’envoy.

The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,
Were still at odds, being but three.

Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow with my l’envoy.

Until the goose came out of door,
Staying the odds by adding four.

The boy hath sold him a bargain, a goose, that’s flat.
Sir, your pennyworth is good, an your goose be fat.
To sell a bargain well is as cunning as fast and loose:
Let me see; a fat l’envoy; ay, that’s a fat goose.

Come hither, come hither. How did this argument begin?

By saying that a costard was broken in a shin.
Then call’d you for the l’envoy.

True, and I for a plantain: thus came your argument in;
Then the boy’s fat l’envoy, the goose that you bought;
And he ended the market.

Thou hast no feeling of it, Moth: I will speak that l’envoy:

Like the sequel, I. Signior Costard, adieu.

Now will I look to his remuneration. Remuneration! O, that’s the Latin word for three farthings: three farthings⁠—remuneration.⁠—“What’s the price of this inkle?”⁠—“One penny.”⁠—“No, I’ll give you a remuneration:” why, it carries it. Remuneration! why, it is a fairer name than French crown. I will never buy and sell out of this word.

Stay, slave; I must employ thee:
As thou wilt win my favour, good my knave,
Do one thing for me that I shall entreat.

It must be done this afternoon.
Hark, slave, it is but this:
The princess comes to hunt here in the park,
And in her train there is a gentle lady;
When tongues speak sweetly, then they name her name,
And Rosaline they call her: ask for her;
And to her white hand see thou do commend
This seal’d-up counsel. There’s thy guerdon; go. Giving him a shilling.

And I, forsooth, in love! I, that have been love’s whip;
A very beadle to a humorous sigh;
A critic, nay, a night-watch constable;
A domineering pedant o’er the boy;
Than whom no mortal so magnificent!
This whimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy;
This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid;
Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms,
The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans,
Liege of all loiterers and malcontents,
Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces,
Sole imperator and great general
Of trotting ’paritors:⁠—O my little heart!⁠—
And I to be a corporal of his field,
And wear his colours like a tumbler’s hoop!
What, I! I love! I sue! I seek a wife!
A woman, that is like a German clock,
Still a-repairing, ever out of frame,
And never going aright, being a watch,
But being watch’d that it may still go right!
Nay, to be perjured, which is worst of all;
And, among three, to love the worst of all;
A wightly wanton with a velvet brow,
With two pitch-balls stuck in her face for eyes;
Ay, and by heaven, one that will do the deed
Though Argus were her eunuch and her guard:
And I to sigh for her! to watch for her!
To pray for her! Go to; it is a plague
That Cupid will impose for my neglect
Of his almighty dreadful little might.
Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue and groan:
Some men must love my lady and some Joan. Exit.

Was that the king, that spurred his horse so hard
Against the steep uprising of the hill?

I know not; but I think it was not he.

Whoe’er a’ was, a’ show’d a mounting mind.
Well, lords, to-day we shall have our dispatch:
On Saturday we will return to France.
Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush
That we must stand and play the murderer in?

Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice;
A stand where you may make the fairest shoot.

I thank my beauty, I am fair that shoot,
And thereupon thou speak’st the fairest shoot.

Pardon me, madam, for I meant not so.

What, what? first praise me and again say no?
O short-lived pride! Not fair? alack for woe!

Yes, madam, fair.

Nay, never paint me now:
Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow.
Here, good my glass, take this for telling true:
Fair payment for foul words is more than due.

Nothing but fair is that which you inherit.

See see, my beauty will be saved by merit!
O heresy in fair, fit for these days!
A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise.
But come, the bow: now mercy goes to kill,
And shooting well is then accounted ill.
Thus will I save my credit in the shoot:
Not wounding, pity would not let me do’t;
If wounding, then it was to show my skill,
That more for praise than purpose meant to kill.
And out of question so it is sometimes,
Glory grows guilty of detested crimes,
When, for fame’s sake, for praise, an outward part,
We bend to that the working of the heart;
As I for praise alone now seek to spill
The poor deer’s blood, that my heart means no ill.

Do not curst wives hold that self-sovereignty
Only for praise sake, when they strive to be
Lords o’er their lords?

Only for praise: and praise we may afford
To any lady that subdues a lord.

Here comes a member of the commonwealth.

The thickest and the tallest! it is so; truth is truth.
An your waist, mistress, were as slender as my wit,
One o’ these maids’ girdles for your waist should be fit.
Are not you the chief woman? you are the thickest here.

What’s your will, sir? what’s your will?

I have a letter from Monsieur Biron to one Lady Rosaline.

O, thy letter, thy letter! he’s a good friend of mine:
Stand aside, good bearer. Boyet, you can carve;
Break up this capon.

I am bound to serve.
This letter is mistook, it importeth none here;
It is writ to Jaquenetta.

We will read it, I swear.
Break the neck of the wax, and every one give ear.

Reads. “By heaven, that thou art fair, is most infallible; true, 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 annothanize 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 beggar. The conclusion is victory: on whose side? the king’s. The captive is enriched: on whose side? the beggar’s. The catastrophe is a nuptial: on whose side? the king’s: no, on both in one, or one in both. I am the king; for so stands the comparison: thou the beggar; for so witnesseth thy lowliness. Shall I command thy love? I may: shall I enforce thy love? I could: shall I entreat thy love? I will. What shalt thou exchange for rags? robes; for tittles? titles; for thyself? me. Thus, expecting thy reply, I profane my lips on thy foot, my eyes on thy picture, and my heart on thy every part. Thine, in the dearest design of industry,

What plume of feathers is he that indited this letter?
What vane? what weathercock? did you ever hear better?

I am much deceived but I remember the style.

Else your memory is bad, going o’er it erewhile.

This Armado is a Spaniard, that keeps here in court;
A phantasime, a Monarcho, and one that makes sport
To the prince and his bookmates.

Thou fellow, a word:
Who gave thee this letter?

From my lord Biron, a good master of mine,
To a lady of France that he call’d Rosaline.

Thou hast mistaken his letter. Come, lords, away.
To Rosaline. Here, sweet, put up this: ’twill be thine another day. Exeunt Princess and train.

Who is the suitor? who is the suitor?

Shall I teach you to know?

Ay, my continent of beauty.

Why, she that bears the bow.
Finely put off!

My lady goes to kill horns; but, if thou marry,
Hang me by the neck, if horns that year miscarry.
Finely put on!

Well, then, I am the shooter.

And who is your deer?

If we choose by the horns, yourself come not near.
Finely put on, indeed!

You still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at the brow.

But she herself is hit lower: have I hit her now?

Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it,
Thou canst not hit it, my good man.

An I cannot, cannot, cannot,
An I cannot, another can. Exeunt Rosaline and Katharine.

By my troth, most pleasant: how both did fit it!

A mark marvellous well shot, for they both did hit it.

A mark! O, mark but that mark! A mark, says my lady!
Let the mark have a prick in’t, to mete at, if it may be.

Wide o’ the bow hand! i’ faith, your hand is out.

Indeed, a’ must shoot nearer, or he’ll ne’er hit the clout.

An if my hand be out, then belike your hand is in.

Then will she get the upshoot by cleaving the pin.

Come, come, you talk greasily; your lips grow foul.

She’s too hard for you at pricks, sir: challenge her to bowl.

I fear too much rubbing. Good night, my good owl. Exeunt Boyet and Maria.

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.
Armado o’ th’ one side⁠—O, a most dainty man!
To see him walk before a lady and to bear her fan!
To see him kiss his hand! and how most sweetly a’ will swear!
And his page o’ t’ other side, that handful of wit!
Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!
Sola, sola! Shout within. Exit Costard, running.

Twice-sod simplicity, bis coctus!
O thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!

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:

You two are book-men: can you tell me by your wit
What was a month old at Cain’s birth, that’s not five weeks old as yet?

Dictynna, goodman Dull; Dictynna, goodman Dull.

What is Dictynna?

A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon.

The moon was a month old when Adam was no more,
And raught not to five weeks when he came to five-score.
The allusion holds in the exchange.

’Tis true indeed; the collusion holds in the exchange.

I will something affect the letter, for it argues facility.

Fauste, precor gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra Ruminat⁠—and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice;

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?

Reads.

If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?
Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vow’d!
Though to myself forsworn, to thee I’ll faithful prove;
Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers bow’d.
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 commend,
All 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, O, pardon, love, this wrong,
That sings heaven’s praise with such an earthly tongue.

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 shinest 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 my grief will show:
But do not love thyself; then thou wilt 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.

Now, in thy likeness, one more fool appear!

In love, I hope: sweet fellowship in shame!

One drunkard loves another of the name.

Am I the first that have been perjured so?

I could put thee in comfort. Not by two that I know:
Thou makest the triumviry, the corner-cap of society,
The shape of Love’s Tyburn that hangs up simplicity.

I fear these stubborn lines lack power to move.
O sweet Maria, empress of my love!
These numbers will I tear, and write in prose.

O, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid’s hose:
Disfigure not his slop.

This same shall go. Reads.

Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,
’Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,
Persuade my heart to this false perjury?
Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.
A 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 gain’d cures all disgrace in me.
Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is:
Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine,
Exhalest this vapour-vow; in thee it is:
If broken then, it is no fault of mine:
If by me broke, what fool is not so wise
To lose an oath to win a paradise?

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.

By whom shall I send this?⁠—Company! stay. Steps aside.

All hid, all hid; an old infant play.
Like a demigod 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!

By heaven, the wonder in a mortal eye!

By earth, she is not, corporal, there you lie.

Her amber hair for foul hath amber quoted.

An amber-colour’d raven was well noted.

As upright as the cedar.

Stoop, I say;
Her shoulder is with child.

As fair as day.

Ay, as some days; but then no sun must shine.

O that I had my wish!

And I had mine!

And I mine too, good Lord!

Amen, so I had mine: is not that a good word?

I would forget her; but a fever she
Reigns in my blood and will remember’d be.

A fever in your blood! why, then incision
Would let her out in saucers: sweet misprision!

Once more I’ll read the ode that I have writ.

Once more I’ll mark how love can vary wit.

Reads.

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, can passage find;
That the lover, sick to death,
Wish 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 Jove would swear
Juno but an Ethiope were;
And deny himself for Jove,
Turning mortal for thy love.

Advancing. Dumain, thy love is far from charity,
That in love’s grief desirest society:
You may look pale, but I should blush, I know,
To be o’erheard and taken napping so.

Advancing. Come, sir, 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:
Ay me! says one; O Jove! the other cries;
One, her hairs were gold, crystal the other’s eyes:
To Longaville. You would for paradise break faith and troth;
To Dumain. And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath.
What will Biron say when that he shall hear
Faith so infringed, which such 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.

Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy. Advancing.
Ah, good my liege, I pray thee, pardon me!
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’ershot?
You found his mote; the king your mote did see;
But I a beam do find in each of three.
O, what a scene of foolery have I seen,
Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow and of teen!
O me, with what strict patience have I 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, good Dumain?
And gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain?
And where my liege’s? all about the breast:
A caudle, ho!

Too bitter is thy jest.
Are we betray’d thus to thy over-view?

Not you to me, but I betray’d by you:
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 men like men of inconstancy.
When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme?
Or groan for love? 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?

Soft! whither away so fast?
A true man or a thief that gallops so?

I post from love: good lover, let me go.

God bless the king!

What present hast thou there?

Some certain treason.

What makes treason here?

Nay, it makes nothing, sir.

If it mar nothing neither,
The treason and you go in peace away together.

I beseech your grace, let this letter be read:
Our parson misdoubts it; ’twas treason, he said.

Biron, read it over. Giving him the paper.
Where hadst thou it?

Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio. Biron tears the letter.

How now! what is in you? why dost thou tear it?

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

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

It is Biron’s writing, and here is his name. Gathering up the pieces.

To Costard. Ah, you whoreson loggerhead! you were born to do me shame.
Guilty, my lord, guilty! I confess, I confess.

That you three fools lack’d me fool to make up the mess:
He, he, and you, 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.

Now the number is even.

True, true; we are four.
Will these turtles be gone?

Hence, sirs; away!

Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay. Exeunt Costard and Jaquenetta.

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 show his face;
Young blood doth not obey an old decree:
We cannot cross the cause why we were born;
Therefore of all hands must we be forsworn.

What, did these rent lines show some love of thine?

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?

What zeal, what fury hath inspired thee now?
My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon;
She an attending star, scarce seen a light.

My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Biron:
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.

By heaven, thy love is black as ebony.

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.

O paradox! Black is the badge of hell,
The hue of dungeons and the suit of night;
And beauty’s crest becomes the heavens well.

Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light.
O, if in black my lady’s brows be deck’d,
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.

To look like her are chimney-sweepers black.

And since her time are colliers counted bright.

And Ethiopes of their sweet complexion crack.

Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light.

Your mistresses dare never come in rain,
For fear their colours should be wash’d away.

’Twere good, yours did; for, sir, to tell you plain,
I’ll find a fairer face not wash’d to-day.

I’ll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here.

No devil will fright thee then so much as she.

I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear.

Look, here’s thy love: my foot and her face see.

O, if the streets were paved with thine eyes,
Her feet were much too dainty for such tread!

O, vile! then, as she goes, what upward lies
The street should see as she walk’d overhead.

But what of this? are we not all in love?

Nothing so sure; and thereby all forsworn.

Then leave this chat; and, good Biron, now prove
Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn.

Ay, marry, there; some flattery for this evil.

O, some authority how to proceed;
Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil.

Some salve for perjury.

’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 have 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 academes
From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire.
Why, universal plodding poisons 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 beauty’s 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,
And gives to every power a double power,
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 cockl’d 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
Until his ink were temper’d with Love’s sighs;
O, then his lines would ravish savage ears
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 academes,
That show, contain and nourish all the world:
Else none at all in ought 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,
Or for love’s sake, a word that loves all men,
Or for men’s sake, the authors 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?

Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field!

Advance your standards, and upon them, lords;
Pell-mell, down with them! but be first advised,
In conflict that you get the sun of them.

Now to plain-dealing; lay these glozes by:
Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France?

And win them too: therefore let us devise
Some entertainment for them in their tents.

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
Forerun fair Love, strewing her way with flowers.

Away, away! no time shall be omitted
That will betime, and may by us be fitted.

Allons! allons! Sow’d cockle reap’d no corn;
And justice always whirls in equal measure:
Light wenches may prove plagues to men forsworn;
If so, our copper buys no better treasure. Exeunt.

I’ll make one in a dance, or so; or I will play
On the tabour to the Worthies, and let them dance the hay.

Most dull, honest Dull! To our sport, away! Exeunt.

Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart,
If fairings come thus plentifully in:
A lady wall’d about with diamonds!
Look you what I have from the loving king.

Madame, came nothing else along with that?

Nothing but this! yes, as much love in rhyme
As would be cramm’d up in a sheet of paper,
Writ o’ both sides the leaf, margent and all,
That he was fain to seal on Cupid’s name.

That was the way to make his godhead wax,
For he hath been five thousand years a boy.

Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too.

You’ll ne’er be friends with him; a’ kill’d your sister.

He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy;
And so she died: had she been light, like you,
Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit,
She might ha’ been a grandam ere she died:
And so may you; for a light heart lives long.

What’s your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word?

A light condition in a beauty dark.

We need more light to find your meaning out.

You’ll mar the light by taking it in snuff;
Therefore I’ll darkly end the argument.

Look, what you do, you do it still i’ the dark.

So do not you, for you are a light wench.

Indeed I weigh not you, and therefore light.

You weigh me not? O, that’s you care not for me.

Great reason; for “past cure is still past care.”

Well bandied both; a set of wit well play’d.
But Rosaline, you have a favour too:
Who sent it? and what is it?

I would you knew:
An if my face were but as fair as yours,
My favour were as great; be witness this.
Nay, I have verses too, I thank Biron:
The numbers true; and, were the numbering too,
I were the fairest goddess on the ground:
I am compared to twenty thousand fairs.
O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter!

Much in the letters; nothing in the praise.

Beauteous as ink; a good conclusion.

Fair as a text B in a copy-book.

’Ware pencils, ho! let me not die your debtor,
My red dominical, my golden letter:
O, that your face were not so full of O’s!

A pox of that jest! and I beshrew all shrows.

But, Katharine, what was sent to you from fair Dumain?

Madam, this glove.

Did he not send you twain?

Yes, madam, and moreover
Some thousand verses of a faithful lover,
A huge translation of hypocrisy,
Vilely compiled, profound simplicity.

This and these pearls to me sent Longaville:
The letter is too long by half a mile.

I think no less. Dost thou not wish in heart
The chain were longer and the letter short?

Ay, or I would these hands might never part.

We are wise girls to mock our lovers so.

They are worse fools to purchase mocking so.
That same Biron I’ll torture ere I go:
O that I knew he were but in by the week!
How I would make him fawn and beg and seek
And wait the season and observe the times
And spend his prodigal wits in bootless rhymes
And shape his service wholly to my hests
And make him proud to make me proud that jests!
So perttaunt-like would I o’ersway his state
That he should be my fool and I his fate.

None are so surely caught, when they are catch’d,
As wit turn’d fool: folly, in wisdom hatch’d,
Hath wisdom’s warrant and the help of school
And wit’s own grace to grace a learned fool.

The blood of youth burns not with such excess
As gravity’s revolt to wantonness.

Folly in fools bears not so strong a note
As foolery in the wise, when wit doth dote;
Since all the power thereof it doth apply
To prove, by wit, worth in simplicity.

Here comes Boyet, and mirth is in his face.

O, I am stabb’d with laughter! Where’s her grace?

Thy news, Boyet?

Prepare, madam, prepare!
Arm, wenches, arm! encounters mounted are
Against your peace: Love doth approach disguised,
Armed in arguments; you’ll be surprised:
Muster your wits; stand in your own defence;
Or hide your heads like cowards, and fly hence.

Saint Denis to Saint Cupid! What are they
That charge their breath against us? say, scout, say.

Under the cool shade of a sycamore
I thought to close mine eyes some half an hour;
When, lo! to interrupt my purposed rest,
Toward that shade I might behold addrest
The king and his companions: warily
I stole into a neighbour thicket by,
And overheard what you shall overhear,
That, by and by, disguised they will be here.
Their herald is a pretty knavish page,
That well by heart hath conn’d his embassage:
Action and accent did they teach him there;
“Thus must thou speak,” and “thus thy body bear:”
And ever and anon they made a doubt
Presence majestical would put him out;
“For,” quoth the king, “an angel shalt thou see;
Yet fear not thou, but speak audaciously.”
The boy replied, “An angel is not evil;
I should have fear’d her had she been a devil.”
With that, all laugh’d and clapp’d him on the shoulder,
Making the bold wag by their praises bolder:
One rubb’d his elbow thus, and fleer’d and swore
A better speech was never spoke before;
Another, with his finger and his thumb,
Cried, “Via! we will do’t, come what will come;”
The third he caper’d, and cried, “All goes well;”
The fourth turn’d on the toe, and down he fell.
With that, they all did tumble on the ground,
With such a zealous laughter, so profound,
That in this spleen ridiculous appears,
To cheque their folly, passion’s solemn tears.

But what, but what, come they to visit us?

They do, they do; and are apparell’d thus,
Like Muscovites or Russians, as I guess.
Their purpose is to parle, to court and dance;
And every one his love-feat will advance
Unto his several mistress, which they’ll know
By favours several which they did bestow.

And will they so? the gallants shall be task’d;
For, ladies, we shall every one be mask’d;
And not a man of them shall have the grace,
Despite of suit, to see a lady’s face.
Hold, Rosaline, this favour thou shalt wear,
And then the king will court thee for his dear;
Hold, take thou this, my sweet, and give me thine,
So shall Biron take me for Rosaline.
And change your favours too; so shall your loves
Woo contrary, deceived by these removes.

Come on, then; wear the favours most in sight.

But in this changing what is your intent?

The effect of my intent is to cross theirs:
They do it but in mocking merriment;
And mock for mock is only my intent.
Their several counsels they unbosom shall
To loves mistook, and so be mock’d withal
Upon the next occasion that we meet,
With visages display’d, to talk and greet.

But shall we dance, if they desire to’t?

No, to the death, we will not move a foot;
Nor to their penn’d speech render we no grace,
But while ’tis spoke each turn away her face.

Why, that contempt will kill the speaker’s heart,
And quite divorce his memory from his part.

Therefore I do it; and I make no doubt
The rest will ne’er come in, if he be out.
There’s no such sport as sport by sport o’erthrown,
To make theirs ours and ours none but our own:
So shall we stay, mocking intended game,
And they, well mock’d, depart away with shame. Trumpets sound within.

The trumpet sounds: be mask’d; the maskers come. The Ladies mask.

All hail, the richest beauties on the earth!⁠—

Beauties no richer than rich taffeta.

A holy parcel of the fairest dames, The Ladies turn their backs to him.
That ever turn’d their⁠—backs⁠—to mortal views!

Aside to Moth. Their eyes, villain, their eyes.

That ever turn’d their eyes to mortal views!⁠—
Out⁠—

Out of your favours, heavenly spirits, vouchsafe
Not to behold⁠—

Aside to Moth. Once to behold, rogue.

Once to behold with your sun-beamed eyes,
—with your sun-beamed eyes⁠—

They will not answer to that epithet;
You were best call it “daughter-beamed eyes.”

They do not mark me, and that brings me out.

Is this your perfectness? be gone, you rogue! Exit Moth.

What would these strangers? know their minds, Boyet:
If they do speak our language, ’tis our will
That some plain man recount their purposes:
Know what they would.

What would you with the princess?

Nothing but peace and gentle visitation.

What would they, say they?

Nothing but peace and gentle visitation.

Why, that they have; and bid them so be gone.

She says, you have it, and you may be gone.

Say to her, we have measured many miles
To tread a measure with her on this grass.

They say, that they have measured many a mile
To tread a measure with you on this grass.

It is not so. Ask them how many inches
Is in one mile: if they have measured many,
The measure then of one is easily told.

If to come hither you have measured miles,
And many miles, the princess bids you tell
How many inches doth fill up one mile.

Tell her, we measure them by weary steps.

She hears herself.

How many weary steps,
Of many weary miles you have o’ergone,
Are number’d in the travel of one mile?

We number nothing that we spend for you:
Our duty is so rich, so infinite,
That we may do it still without accompt.
Vouchsafe to show the sunshine of your face,
That we, like savages, may worship it.

My face is but a moon, and clouded too.

Blessed are clouds, to do as such clouds do!
Vouchsafe, bright moon, and these thy stars, to shine,
Those clouds removed, upon our watery eyne.

O vain petitioner! beg a greater matter;
Thou now request’st but moonshine in the water.

Then, in our measure do but vouchsafe one change.
Thou bid’st me beg: this begging is not strange.

Play, music, then! Nay, you must do it soon. Music plays.
Not yet! no dance! Thus change I like the moon.

Will you not dance? How come you thus estranged?

You took the moon at full, but now she’s changed.

Yet still she is the moon, and I the man.
The music plays; vouchsafe some motion to it.

Our ears vouchsafe it.

But your legs should do it.

Since you are strangers and come here by chance,
We’ll not be nice: take hands. We will not dance.

Why take we hands, then?

Only to part friends:
Curtsy, sweet hearts; and so the measure ends.

More measure of this measure; be not nice.

We can afford no more at such a price.

Prize you yourselves: what buys your company?

Your absence only.

That can never be.

Then cannot we be bought: and so, adieu;
Twice to your visor, and half once to you.

If you deny to dance, let’s hold more chat.

In private, then.

I am best pleased with that. They converse apart.

White-handed mistress, one sweet word with thee.

Honey, and milk, and sugar; there is three.

Nay then, two treys, and if you grow so nice,
Metheglin, wort, and malmsey: well run, dice!
There’s half-a-dozen sweets.

Seventh sweet, adieu:
Since you can cog, I’ll play no more with you.

One word in secret.

Let it not be sweet.

Thou grievest my gall.

Gall! bitter.

Therefore meet. They converse apart.

Will you vouchsafe with me to change a word?

Name it.

Fair lady⁠—

Say you so? Fair lord⁠—
Take that for your fair lady.

Please it you,
As much in private, and I’ll bid adieu. They converse apart.

What, was your vizard made without a tongue?

I know the reason, lady, why you ask.

O for your reason! quickly, sir; I long.

You have a double tongue within your mask,
And would afford my speechless vizard half.

Veal, quoth the Dutchman. Is not “veal” a calf?

A calf, fair lady!

No, a fair lord calf.

Let’s part the word.

No, I’ll not be your half:
Take all, and wean it; it may prove an ox.

Look, how you butt yourself in these sharp mocks!
Will you give horns, chaste lady? do not so.

Then die a calf, before your horns do grow.

One word in private with you, ere I die.

Bleat softly then; the butcher hears you cry. They converse apart.

The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen
As is the razor’s edge invisible,
Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen,
Above the sense of sense; so sensible
Seemeth their conference; their conceits have wings
Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter things.

Not one word more, my maids; break off, break off.

By heaven, all dry-beaten with pure scoff!

Farewell, mad wenches; you have simple wits.

Twenty adieus, my frozen Muscovits. Exeunt King, Lords, and Blackamoors.
Are these the breed of wits so wonder’d at?

Tapers they are, with your sweet breaths puff’d out.

Well-liking wits they have; gross, gross; fat, fat.

O poverty in wit, kingly-poor flout!
Will they not, think you, hang themselves to-night?
Or ever, but in vizards, show their faces?
This pert Biron was out of countenance quite.

O, they were all in lamentable cases!
The king was weeping-ripe for a good word.

Biron did swear himself out of all suit.

Dumain was at my service, and his sword:
No point, quoth I; my servant straight was mute.

Lord Longaville said, I came o’er his heart;
And trow you what he call’d me?

Qualm, perhaps.

Yes, in good faith.

Go, sickness as thou art!

Well, better wits have worn plain statute-caps.
But will you hear? the king is my love sworn.

And quick Biron hath plighted faith to me.

And Longaville was for my service born.

Dumain is mine, as sure as bark on tree.

Madam, and pretty mistresses, give ear:
Immediately they will again be here
In their own shapes; for it can never be
They will digest this harsh indignity.

They will, they will, God knows,
And leap for joy, though they are lame with blows:
Therefore change favours; and, when they repair,
Blow like sweet roses in this summer air.

How blow? how blow? speak to be understood.

Fair ladies mask’d are roses in their bud;
Dismask’d, their damask sweet commixture shown,
Are angels vailing clouds, or roses blown.

Avaunt, perplexity! What shall we do,
If they return in their own shapes to woo?

Good madam, if by me you’ll be advised,
Let’s mock them still, as well known as disguised:
Let us complain to them what fools were here,
Disguised like Muscovites, in shapeless gear;
And wonder what they were and to what end
Their shallow shows and prologue vilely penn’d
And their rough carriage so ridiculous,
Should be presented at our tent to us.

Ladies, withdraw: the gallants are at hand.

Whip to our tents, as roes run o’er land. Exeunt Princess, Rosaline, Katharine, and Maria.

Fair sir, God save you! Where’s the princess?

Gone to her tent. Please it your majesty
Command me any service to her thither?

That she vouchsafe me audience for one word.

I will; and so will she, I know, my lord. Exit.

This fellow pecks up wit as pigeons pease,
And utters it again when God doth please:
He is wit’s peddler, and retails his wares
At wakes and wassails, meetings, markets, fairs;
And we that sell by gross, the Lord doth know,
Have not the grace to grace it with such show.
This gallant pins the wenches on his sleeve;
Had he been Adam, he had tempted Eve;
A’ can carve too, and lisp: why, this is he
That kiss’d his hand away in courtesy;
This is the ape of form, monsieur the nice,
That, when he plays at tables, chides the dice
In honourable terms: nay, he can sing
A mean most meanly; and in ushering
Mend him who can: the ladies call him sweet;
The stairs, as he treads on them, kiss his feet:
This is the flower that smiles on every one,
To show his teeth as white as whale’s bone;
And consciences, that will not die in debt,
Pay him the due of honey-tongued Boyet.

A blister on his sweet tongue, with my heart,
That put Armado’s page out of his part!

See where it comes! Behaviour, what wert thou
Till this madman show’d thee? and what art thou now?

All hail, sweet madam, and fair time of day!

“Fair” in “all hail” is foul, as I conceive.

Construe my speeches better, if you may.

Then wish me better; I will give you leave.

We came to visit you, and purpose now
To lead you to our court; vouchsafe it then.

This field shall hold me; and so hold your vow:
Nor God, nor I, delights in perjured men.

Rebuke me not for that which you provoke:
The virtue of your eye must break my oath.

You nickname virtue; vice you should have spoke;
For virtue’s office never breaks men’s troth.
Now by my maiden honour, yet as pure
As the unsullied lily, I protest,
A world of torments though I should endure,
I would not yield to be your house’s guest;
So much I hate a breaking cause to be
Of heavenly oaths, vow’d with integrity.

O, you have lived in desolation here,
Unseen, unvisited, much to our shame.

Not so, my lord; it is not so, I swear;
We have had pastimes here and pleasant game:
A mess of Russians left us but of late.

Ay, in truth, my lord;
Trim gallants, full of courtship and of state.

Madam, speak true. It is not so, my lord:
My lady, to the manner of the days,
In courtesy gives undeserving praise.
We four indeed confronted were with four
In Russian habit: here they stay’d an hour,
And talk’d apace; and in that hour, my lord,
They did not bless us with one happy word.
I dare not call them fools; but this I think,
When they are thirsty, fools would fain have drink.

This jest is dry to me. Fair gentle sweet,
Your wit makes wise things foolish: when we greet,
With eyes best seeing, heaven’s fiery eye,
By light we lose light: your capacity
Is of that nature that to your huge store
Wise things seem foolish and rich things but poor.

This proves you wise and rich, for in my eye⁠—

I am a fool, and full of poverty.

But that you take what doth to you belong,
It were a fault to snatch words from my tongue.

O, I am yours, and all that I possess!

All the fool mine?

I cannot give you less.

Which of the vizards was it that you wore?

Where? when? what vizard? why demand you this?

There, then, that vizard; that superfluous case
That hid the worse and show’d the better face.

We are descried; they’ll mock us now downright.

Let us confess and turn it to a jest.

Amazed, my lord? why looks your highness sad?

Help, hold his brows! he’ll swoon! Why look you pale?
Sea-sick, I think, coming from Muscovy.

Thus pour the stars down plagues for perjury.
Can any face of brass hold longer out?
Here stand I: lady, dart thy skill at me;
Bruise me with scorn, confound me with a flout;
Thrust thy sharp wit quite through my ignorance;
Cut me to pieces with thy keen conceit;
And I will wish thee never more to dance,
Nor never more in Russian habit wait.
O, never will I trust to speeches penn’d,
Nor to the motion of a schoolboy’s tongue,
Nor never come in vizard to my friend,
Nor woo in rhyme, like a blind harper’s song!
Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise,
Three-piled hyperboles, spruce affectation,
Figures pedantical; these summer-flies
Have blown me full of maggot ostentation:
I do forswear them; and I here protest,
By this white glove⁠—how white the hand, God knows!⁠—
Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express’d
In russet yeas and honest kersey noes:
And, to begin, wench⁠—so God help me, la!⁠—
My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw.

Sans sans, I pray you.

Yet I have a trick
Of the old rage: bear with me, I am sick;
I’ll leave it by degrees. Soft, let us see:
Write, “Lord have mercy on us” on those three;
They are infected; in their hearts it lies;
They have the plague, and caught it of your eyes;
These lords are visited; you are not free,
For the Lord’s tokens on you do I see.

No, they are free that gave these tokens to us.

Our states are forfeit: seek not to undo us.

It is not so; for how can this be true,
That you stand forfeit, being those that sue?

Peace! for I will not have to do with you.

Nor shall not, if I do as I intend.

Speak for yourselves; my wit is at an end.

Teach us, sweet madam, for our rude transgression
Some fair excuse.

The fairest is confession.
Were not you here but even now disguised?

Madam, I was.

And were you well advised?

I was, fair madam.

When you then were here,
What did you whisper in your lady’s ear?

That more than all the world I did respect her.

When she shall challenge this, you will reject her.

Upon mine honour, no.

Peace, peace! forbear:
Your oath once broke, you force not to forswear.

Despise me, when I break this oath of mine.

I will: and therefore keep it. Rosaline,
What did the Russian whisper in your ear?

Madam, he swore that he did hold me dear
As precious eyesight, and did value me
Above this world; adding thereto moreover
That he would wed me, or else die my lover.

God give thee joy of him! the noble lord
Most honourably doth unhold his word.

What mean you, madam? by my life, my troth,
I never swore this lady such an oath.

By heaven, you did; and to confirm it plain,
You gave me this: but take it, sir, again.

My faith and this the princess I did give:
I knew her by this jewel on her sleeve.

Pardon me, sir, this jewel did she wear;
And Lord Biron, I thank him, is my dear.
What, will you have me, or your pearl again?

Neither of either; I remit both twain.
I see the trick on’t: here was a consent,
Knowing aforehand of our merriment,
To dash it like a Christmas comedy:
Some carry-tale, some please-man, some slight zany,
Some mumble-news, some trencher-knight, some Dick,
That smiles his cheek in years and knows the trick
To make my lady laugh when she’s disposed,
Told our intents before; which once disclosed,
The ladies did change favours: and then we,
Following the signs, woo’d but the sign of she.
Now, to our perjury to add more terror,
We are again forsworn, in will and error.
Much upon this it is: and might not you To Boyet.
Forestall our sport, to make us thus untrue?
Do not you know my lady’s foot by the squier,
And laugh upon the apple of her eye?
And stand between her back, sir, and the fire,
Holding a trencher, jesting merrily?
You put our page out: go, you are allow’d;
Die when you will, a smock shall be your shroud.
You leer upon me, do you? there’s an eye
Wounds like a leaden sword.

Full merrily
Hath this brave manage, this career, been run.

Lo, he is tilting straight! Peace! I have done.

Welcome, pure wit! thou partest a fair fray.

O Lord, sir, they would know
Whether the three Worthies shall come in or no.

What, are there but three?

No, sir; but it is vara fine,
For every one pursents three.

And three times thrice is nine.

Not so, sir; under correction, sir; I hope it is not so.
You cannot beg us, sir, I can assure you, sir; we know what we know:
I hope, sir, three times thrice, sir⁠—

We will turn it finely off, sir; we will take some care. Exit.

Biron, they will shame us: let them not approach.

We are shame-proof, my lord: and ’tis some policy
To have one show worse than the king’s and his company.

Nay, my good lord, let me o’errule you now:
That sport best pleases that doth least know how:
Where zeal strives to content, and the contents
Dies in the zeal of that which it presents:
Their form confounded makes most form in mirth,
When great things labouring perish in their birth.

A right description of our sport, my lord.

Here is like to be a good presence of Worthies. He presents Hector of Troy; the swain, Pompey the Great; the parish curate, Alexander; Armado’s page, Hercules; the pedant, Judas Maccabaeus:

There is five in the first show.

You are deceived; ’tis not so.

The pedant, the braggart, the hedge-priest, the fool and the boy:⁠—

The ship is under sail, and here she comes amain.

I Pompey am⁠—

You lie, you are not he.

I Pompey am⁠—

With libbard’s head on knee.

Well said, old mocker: I must needs be friends with thee.

I Pompey am, Pompey surnamed the Big⁠—

It is, “Great,” sir:⁠—
Pompey surnamed the Great;
That oft in field, with targe and shield, did make my foe to sweat:
And travelling along this coast, I here am come by chance,
And lay my arms before the legs of this sweet lass of France,
If your ladyship would say, “Thanks, Pompey,” I had done.

When in the world I lived, I was the world’s commander;
By east, west, north, and south, I spread my conquering might:
My scutcheon plain declares that I am Alisander⁠—

Your nose says, no, you are not; for it stands too right.

Your nose smells “no” in this, most tender-smelling knight.

The conqueror is dismay’d. Proceed, good Alexander.

When in the world I lived, I was the world’s commander⁠—

Most true, ’tis right; you were so, Alisander.

Great Hercules is presented by this imp,
Whose club kill’d Cerberus, that three-headed canis;
And when he was a babe, a child, a shrimp,
Thus did he strangle serpents in his manus.
Quoniam he seemeth in minority,
Ergo I come with this apology.
Keep some state in thy exit, and vanish. Moth retires.

Judas I am⁠—

Not Iscariot, sir.
Judas I am, ycliped Maccabaeus.

Judas Maccabaeus clipt is plain Judas.

A kissing traitor. How art thou proved Judas?

Judas I am⁠—

The more shame for you, Judas.

What mean you, sir?

To make Judas hang himself.

Begin, sir; you are my elder.

Well followed: Judas was hanged on an elder.

I will not be put out of countenance.

Because thou hast no face.

What is this?

A cittern-head.

The head of a bodkin.

A Death’s face in a ring.

The face of an old Roman coin, scarce seen.

The pommel of Caesar’s falchion.

The carved-bone face on a flask.

Saint George’s half-cheek in a brooch.

Ay, and in a brooch of lead.

Ay, and worn in the cap of a tooth-drawer.
And now forward; for we have put thee in countenance.

You have put me out of countenance.

False; we have given thee faces.

But you have out-faced them all.

An thou wert a lion, we would do so.

Therefore, as he is an ass, let him go.
And so adieu, sweet Jude! nay, why dost thou stay?

For the latter end of his name.

For the ass to the Jude; give it him:⁠—Jud-as, away!

This is not generous, not gentle, not humble.

A light for Monsieur Judas! it grows dark, he may stumble. Holofernes retires.

Alas, poor Maccabaeus, how hath he been baited!

The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty,
Gave Hector a gift⁠—

Peace!⁠—
The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty,
Gave Hector a gift, the heir of Ilion;
A man so breathed, that certain he would fight; yea
From morn till night, out of his pavilion.
I am that flower⁠—

That mint.

That columbine.

Speak, brave Hector: we are much delighted.

Welcome, Mercade;
But that thou interrupt’st our merriment.

I am sorry, madam; for the news I bring
Is heavy in my tongue. The king your father⁠—

Prepare, I say. I thank you, gracious lords,
For all your fair endeavours; and entreat,
Out of a new-sad soul, that you vouchsafe
In your rich wisdom to excuse or hide
The liberal opposition of our spirits,
If over-boldly we have borne ourselves
In the converse of breath: your gentleness
Was guilty of it. Farewell, worthy lord!
A heavy heart bears not a nimble tongue:
Excuse me so, coming too short of thanks
For my great suit so easily obtain’d.

The extreme parts of time extremely forms
All causes to the purpose of his speed,
And often at his very loose decides
That which long process could not arbitrate:
And though the mourning brow of progeny
Forbid the smiling courtesy of love
The holy suit which fain it would convince,
Yet, since love’s argument was first on foot,
Let not the cloud of sorrow justle it
From what it purposed; since, to wail friends lost
Is not by much so wholesome-profitable
As to rejoice at friends but newly found.

I understand you not: my griefs are double.

Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief;
And by these badges understand the king.
For your fair sakes have we neglected time,
Play’d foul play with our oaths: your beauty, ladies,
Hath much deform’d us, fashioning our humours
Even to the opposed end of our intents:
And what in us hath seem’d ridiculous⁠—
As love is full of unbefitting strains,
All wanton as a child, skipping and vain,
Form’d by the eye and therefore, like the eye,
Full of strange shapes, of habits and of forms,
Varying in subjects as the eye doth roll
To every varied object in his glance:
Which parti-coated presence of loose love
Put on by us, if, in your heavenly eyes,
Have misbecomed our oaths and gravities,
Those heavenly eyes, that look into these faults,
Suggested us to make. Therefore, ladies,
Our love being yours, the error that love makes
Is likewise yours: we to ourselves prove false,
By being once false for ever to be true
To those that make us both⁠—fair ladies, you:
And even that falsehood, in itself a sin,
Thus purifies itself and turns to grace.

We have received your letters full of love;
Your favours, the ambassadors of love;
And, in our maiden council, rated them
At courtship, pleasant jest and courtesy,
As bombast and as lining to the time:
But more devout than this in our respects
Have we not been; and therefore met your loves
In their own fashion, like a merriment.

Our letters, madam, show’d much more than jest.

So did our looks.

We did not quote them so.

Now, at the latest minute of the hour,
Grant us your loves.

A time, methinks, too short
To make a world-without-end bargain in.
No, no, my lord, your grace is perjured much,
Full of dear guiltiness; and therefore this:
If for my love, as there is no such cause,
You will do aught, this shall you do for me:
Your oath I will not trust; but go with speed
To some forlorn and naked hermitage,
Remote from all the pleasures of the world;
There stay until the twelve celestial signs
Have brought about the annual reckoning.
If this austere insociable life
Change not your offer made in heat of blood;
If frosts and fasts, hard lodging and thin weeds
Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love,
But that it bear this trial and last love;
Then, at the expiration of the year,
Come challenge me, challenge me by these deserts,
And, by this virgin palm now kissing thine,
I will be thine; and till that instant shut
My woeful self up in a mourning house,
Raining the tears of lamentation
For the remembrance of my father’s death.
If this thou do deny, let our hands part,
Neither intitled in the other’s heart.

If this, or more than this, I would deny,
To flatter up these powers of mine with rest,
The sudden hand of death close up mine eye!
Hence ever then my heart is in thy breast.

You must be purged too, your sins are rack’d,
You are attaint with faults and perjury:
Therefore if you my favour mean to get,
A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest,
But seek the weary beds of people sick.

But what to me, my love? but what to me?
A wife?

A beard, fair health, and honesty;
With three-fold love I wish you all these three.

O, shall I say, I thank you, gentle wife?

Not so, my lord; a twelvemonth and a day
I’ll mark no words that smooth-faced wooers say:
Come when the king doth to my lady come;
Then, if I have much love, I’ll give you some.

I’ll serve thee true and faithfully till then.

Yet swear not, lest ye be forsworn again.

What says Maria?

At the twelvemonth’s end
I’ll change my black gown for a faithful friend.

I’ll stay with patience; but the time is long.

The liker you; few taller are so young.

Studies my lady? mistress, look on me;
Behold the window of my heart, mine eye,
What humble suit attends thy answer there:
Impose some service on me for thy love.

Oft have I heard of you, my Lord Biron,
Before I saw you; and the world’s large tongue
Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks,
Full of comparisons and wounding flouts,
Which you on all estates will execute
That lie within the mercy of your wit.
To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain,
And therewithal to win me, if you please,
Without the which I am not to be won,
You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day
Visit the speechless sick and still converse
With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,
With all the fierce endeavour of your wit
To enforce the pained impotent to smile.

To move wild laughter in the throat of death?
It cannot be; it is impossible:
Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.

Why, that’s the way to choke a gibing spirit,
Whose influence is begot of that loose grace
Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools:
A jest’s prosperity lies in the ear
Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it: then, if sickly ears,
Deaf’d with the clamours of their own dear groans,
Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,
And I will have you and that fault withal;
But if they will not, throw away that spirit,
And I shall find you empty of that fault,
Right joyful of your reformation.

A twelvemonth! well; befall what will befall,
I’ll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital.

To the King. Ay, sweet my lord; and so I take my leave.

No, madam; we will bring you on your way.

Our wooing doth not end like an old play;
Jack hath not Jill: these ladies’ courtesy
Might well have made our sport a comedy.

Come, sir, it wants a twelvemonth and a day,
And then ’twill end.

That’s too long for a play.

Spring.

Winter.