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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 magnanimons 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 anatomize in the vulgar, (0 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 enrich'd; 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, DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.

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Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar 'Gainst thee, thou lamb, that standest as his prey; Submissive fall his princely feet before,

And he from forage will incline to play: But if thou strive, poor soul, what art thou then? Food for his rage, repasture for his den.

Prin. What plume of feathers is he, that indited this letter?

What vane? what weather-cock? did you ever hear better?

Boyet. I am much deceived, but I remember the style.

Prin. Else your memory is bad, going o'er it

erewhile.

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Let the mark have a prick in't, to mete at, if it may be. Mar. Wide o' the bow hand! I'faith your hand is out.

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

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

Cost.

Mar.

Then will she get the upshot by cleaving the pin.

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

Cost. She's too hard for you at pricks, sir; challenge her to bowl.

Boyet. I fear too much rubbing; Good night my good owl. [Exeunt BOYET and MARIA. Cost. 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.

Armatho o' the 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!

[Shouting within. [Exit COSTARD, running.

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Enter HOLOFERNES, Sir NATHANIEL, and DULL. Nath. Very reverent sport, truly; and done in the testimony of a good conscience.

Hol. The deer was, as you know, in sanguis, blood; ripe as a pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of cœlo, the sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crab, on the face of terra, the soil, the land, the earth.

Nath. Truly, master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly varied, like a scholar at the least: But, sir, I assure ye, it was a buck of the first head. Hol. Sir Nathaniel, haud credo.

Dull. 'Twas not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket. Hol. Most barbarous intimation! yet a kind of

insinuation, as it were, in via, in way, of explication; facere, as it were, replication, or, rather, ostentare, to show, as it were, his inclination, after his undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather unlettered, or, ratherest, unconfirmed fashion, — to insert again my hand credo for a deer.

Hol. This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; a foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions: these are begot in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater; and deliver'd upon the mellowing of occasion: But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am

Dull. I said, the deer was not a haud credo ; 'twas thankful for it. a pricket.

Hol. Twice sod simplicity, bis coctus! O thou monster ignorance, how deformed dost thou look! Nath. Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; 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;

And such barren plants are set before us, that we thankful should be

(Which we of taste and feeling are) for those parts that do fructify in us more than he.

For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a fool,

So, were there a patch set on learning, to see him in
a school:

But, omne bene, say I; being of an old father's mind,
Many can brook the weather, that love not the wind.

Dull. You two are book-men: Can you tell by

your wit,

What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five weeks old as yet?

Hol. Dictynna, good man Dull; Dictynna, good Dan Dull.

Dull. What is Dictynna?

Nath. A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon. Hol. The moon was a month old, when Adam was no more;

And raught not to five weeks, when he came to fivescore.

The allusion holds in the exchange.

Dull. 'Tis true indeed; the collusion holds in the exchange.

Nath. Sir, I praise the Lord for you; and so may my parishioners; for their sons are well tutor❜d by you, and their daughters profit very greatly under you: you are a good member of the commonwealth.

Hol. Mehercle, if their sons be ingenious, they shall want no instruction: if their daughters be capable, I will put it to them: But, vir sapit, qui pauca loquitur: a soul feminine saluteth us.

Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTArd.

Jaq. God give you good morrow, master person. Hol. Master person, — quasi pers-on. And if one should be pierced, which is the one?

Cost. Marry, master schoolmaster, he that is likest to a hogshead.

Hol. Of piercing a hogshead! a good lustre of conceit in a turf of earth; fire enough for a flint, pearl enough for a swine: 'tis pretty; it is well. this letter; it was given me by Costard, and sent me Jaq. Good master parson, be so good as read me from Don Armatho: I beseech you, read it. Hol. Fauste, precor gelidâ quando pecus omne sub umbrâ

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Hol. God comfort thy capacity! I say, the allu- domine. sion holds in the exchange.

Dull. And I say the pollusion holds in the exchange; for the moon is never but a month old : and I say beside, that 'twas a pricket that the princess kill'd.

Hol. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on the death of the deer? and, to humour the ignorant, I have call'd the deer the princess kill'd, a pricket.

Nath. Perge, good master Holofernes, perge; so it shall please you to abrogate scurrility.

Hol. I will something affect the letter; for it argues facility.

The praiseful princess pierc'd and prick'd a pretty pleasing pricket ;

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

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

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

If sore be sore, then L to sore makes fifty sores; 0 sore L!

Of one sore I an hundred make, by adding but onc more L.

Nath. A rare talent!

Dull. If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a talent.

Nath. If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?

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

Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithful

prove;

Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like

osiers bowed.

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

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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 musick, and sweet

fire.

Celestial, as thou art, oh pardon, love, this wrong,

That sings heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue!

my sonnets already; the clown bore it, the fool sent it, and the lady hath it: sweet clown, sweeter fool, sweetest lady! By the world, I would not care a pin if the other three were in: Here comes one with a paper; God give him grace to groan. [Gets up into a tree

Hol. You find not the apostrophes, and so miss | rhyme, and here my melancholy. Well, she hath the accent let me supervise the canzonet. Here one o' are only numbers ratified; but, for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy, caret. Ovidius Naso was the man and why, indeed, Naso; but for smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention? Imitari, is nothing: so doth the hound his master, the ape his keeper, the tired horse his rider. But damosella virgin, was this directed to you?

Jag. Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Biron, one of the strange queen's lords.

Hol. I will overglance the superscript. To the snow-white hand of the most beauteous Lady Rosaline. I will look again on the intellect of the letter, for the nomination of the party writing to the person written unto :

Your Ladyship's in all desired employment, BIRON. Sir Nathaniel, this Biron is one of the votaries with the king; and here he hath framed a letter to a sequent of the stranger queen's, which, accidentally, or by the way of progression, hath miscarried. — Trip and go, my sweet; deliver this paper into the royal hand of the king; it may concern much: Stay not thy compliment; I forgive thy duty; adieu.

Jaq. Good Costard, go with me. - Sir, God save your life!

Cost. Have with thee, my girl.

Nath. Sir, you have God, very religiously; saith

[Exeunt Cost. and Jaq. done this in the fear of and, as a certain father

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

Nath. Marvellous well for the pen.

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

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

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

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I am

Enter BIRON, with a paper. Biron. The king he is hunting the deer; coursing myself: they have pitch'd a toil; I am toiling in a pitch; pitch that defiles; defile! a foul word. Well, Set thee down, sorrow! for so they say, the fool said, and so say I, and I the fool. Well proved, wit! By the Lord, this love is as mad as Ajax it kills sheep; it kills me, I a sheep: Well proved again on my side! I will not love: if I do, hang me; i'faith, I will not. O, but her eye, by this light, but for her eye, I would not love her; yes, for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing in the world but lie, and lie in my throat. By heaven. I do love and it hath taught me to rhyme, and to be melancholy; and here is part ct my

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Enter the KING, with a paper.

King. Ah me!

Biron. [Aside.] Shot by heaven! Proceed, sweet Cupid; thou hast thump'd him with thy birdbolt under the left pap: — I'faith secrets. —

King. [Reads.] So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not

To those fresh morning drops upon the rose,
As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote
The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows:
Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright

Through the transparent bosom of the deep,
As doth thy face through tears of mine give light
Thou shin'st in every tear that I do weep;
No drop but as a coach doth carry thee,

So ridest thou triumphing in my 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.
How shall she know my griefs? I'll drop the paper ;
Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here?
[Steps aside.

Enter LONGAVILLE, with a paper.

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O sweet Maria, empress of my love!

These numbers will I tear and write in prose.
Biron. [Aside.] O, rhymes are guards on wanton
Cupid's hose:
Disfigure not his slop.
Long.

This same shall go.
[He reads the sonnet.

Did not the heavenly rhetorick 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 foreswore; but, I will prove,
Thou being a goddess, I foreswore not thee:
My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;
Thy grace being gain'd, cures all disgrace in me

Vous are but breath, and breath a vapour is:
Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine,
Exhal'st 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?

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

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

Enter DUMAIN, with a paper.

stay.

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

Like a demi-god here sit I in the sky,

And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'er-eye.
More sacks to the mill! O heavens, I have my wish;
Dumain transform'd: four wood-cocks in a dish!
Dum. O most divine Kate!
Biron.

O most prophane coxcomb! [Aside. Dum. By heaven, the wonder of a mortal eye! Biron. By earth she is but corporal: there you [Aside. Dum. Her amber hairs for foul have amber coted.

lie.

Biron. An amber-colour'd raven was well noted.
[Aside.
Stoop, I say;
[Aside.
Dum.
As fair as day.
Biron. Ay, as some days; but then no sun must
shine.
[Amme.

Dum. As upright as the cedar.
Biron.

Her shoulder is with child.

Dum. O that I had my wish!
Long.

And I had mine! [Aside. King. And I mine too, good lord! [Aside. Biron. Amen, so I had mine: Is not that a good word? [Aside. Dum. I would forget her; but a fever she Reigns in my blood, and will remember'd be. Biron. A fever in your blood, why, then incision Would let her out in saucers; Sweet misprision!

[Aside.

Dum. Once more I'll read the ode that I have writ.

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

Dum. On a day, (alack the day !)

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

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And deny himself for Jove, Turning mortal for thy love.. This will I send; and something else more plain, That shall express my true love's fasting pain. O, would the King, Birón, and Longaville, Were lovers too! Ill, to example ill, Would from my forehead wipe a perjur'd 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, observ'd 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 Birón say, when that he shall hear
A faith infring'd, 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 asham'd? 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 I have 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 gigg.
And profound Solomon to tune a jigg,
And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys,
And critick 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!
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; I, that hold it sin

To break the vow I am engaged in ;

I am betray'd, by keeping company
With moon-like men, of strange inconstancy.
When shall you see me write a thing in rhymne?
Or groan for Joan? or spend a minute's time,

M &

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?

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.

Cost. Some certain treason.
King.

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,

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Fye, painted rhetorick! O, she needs it not: To things of sale a seller's praise belongs;

She passes praise: then praise too short doti
blot.

A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn,
What present hast thou there? 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?

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 Cos-
TARD.] 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 CoST. and Jaquenet.
Biron. Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O let us em-
brace!

As true we are, as flesh and blood can be:
The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show 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 show 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 inspir'd 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:
O, but for my love, day would turn to night!

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 spir ́ts
of light.

O, if in black my lady's brows be deckt,

It mourns, that painting, and usurping hair, Should ravish doters with a false aspect;

And therefore is she born to make black fair.
Her favour turns the fashion of the days;

For native blood is counted painting now;
And therefore red, that would avoid dispraise,
Paints itself black, to imitate her brow.
Dum. To look like her, are chimney-sweepers
black.

Long. And, since her time, are colliers counted
bright.

King. And Ethiops of their sweet complexion crack.

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, yours did; for, sir, to tell
you plain,

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

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