Forsooth, took on him as a conjurer:
And gazing in my eyes, feeling my pulse,
And with no face as 't were outfacing me,
Cries out, I was possest.

Old Age.

Not know my voice! O time's extremity, Hast thou so crack dand splitted my poor tongue In seven short years, that here my only son Knows not my feeble key of untun'd cares? Though now this grained face of mine be hid In sap-consuming winter's drizzled snow, And all the conduits of my blood froze up: Yet hath my night of life some memory; My wasting lamp some fading glimmer left; My dull deaf ears a little use to hear: All these old witnesses,-I cannot err,Tell me, thou art my son, Antipholus.

§ 4. LOVE'S LAEOUR'S LOST. SHAKSPEARE. A laudable Ambition for Fame and true Conquest described.

King. 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,
Th' endeavour of this present breath may buy
That honor 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.
Longaville. I am resolv'd; 'tis but a three
years' fast;

The mind shall banquet tho' the body pine-
Fat paunches have lean pates: and dainty bits
Make rich the ribs, but bank'rout the wits.

Dumain. My loving lord, Dumain is mortiThe grosser manner of the world's delights [fied; He throws upon the gross world's baser slavesTo love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die : With all these living in philosophy.

Vanity of Pleasures.

Why, all delights are vain: but that most vain,

Which, with pain purchas'd, doth inherit pain.
On Study.

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 naine.

Again.

So study evermore is overshot;

While it doth study to have what it would,
It doth forget to do the things it should:
And when it hath the thing it hunteth most,
Tis won, as towns with fire; so won, so lost.
Frost.

An envious sneaping frost,
That bites the first-born infants of the spring.
The Folly and Danger of making Vows.
Necessity will make us all forsworn [space:
Three thousand times within these three years'
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.

A conceited Courtier, or Man of Compliments. 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 compliments, 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 word'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 ny minstrelsy.

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

My beauty though but mean, Needs not the painted flourish of your praise: Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye, Not uttered by base sale of chapmen's tongues. A Wit.

In Normandy saw I this Longaville: A man of sovereign parts he is esteem'd; Well fitted in the arts, glorious in arms: Nothing becomes him ill, that he would well: The only foil of his fair virtue's gloss (If virtue's gloss will stain with any foil) Is a sharp wit match'd with too blunt a will; Whose edge hath pow'r to cut, whose will still wills

It should none spare that come within his power.
Pri. Some merry mocking lord, be like: is'tso!
Mar. They say so most, that most his hu-
mors know.
[grow.
Pri. Such short-liv'd wits do wither as they
A Merry Man.

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.

A Comical Description of Cupid or Love.
O! 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 more magnificent!
This whimpled, whining, purblind, wayward
boy,

This Signior Julio's 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;
Sole imperator, and great general
Of trotting paritors: (O my little heart)
And I to be a corporal of his file,

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 right, being a watch,
But being watch'd, that it may still go right?
Ill Deeds often done for the Sake of Fame.
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; [part,
When, for fame's sake, for praise, an outward
We bend to that the working of the heart:
As I, for praise alone, now seek to spill [ill
The poor deer's blood that my heart means no
Sonnet.

Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye
(Gainst whom the world cannot hold argu-
Persuade my heart to this false perjury? [ment.)
Vows, for thee broke, deserve not punish-
A woman I forswore; but I will prove [ment.
(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 vapor is;
Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost
Exhal'st this vapor vow; in thee it is: [shine,
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?
Another.

On a day (alack the day!)

Love, whose month is ever May,
Spy'd 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 unineet,
Youth so apt to pluck a sweet.
Do not call it sin in me,
That I am forsworn for thee:

Thou for whom e'en Jove would swear
Juno but an Ethiope were;
And deny himself for Jove,
Turning mortal for thy love.

Commanding Beauty.

-Who sees the heavenly Rosalind,
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?
The Power of Love.

Why universal plodding prisons up
The nimble spirits in the arteries,
As motion and long-during action tire
The sinewy vigor of the traveller.

When would you, my liege-or you-or you-
In leaden contemplation have found out
Such fiery numbers, as the prompting eyes
Of beauteous tutors have enrich'd
you with?
Other slow arts entirely keep the brain;
And therefore finding barren practisers,
Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil.
But love, first learned in a lady's eyes,
Lives not alone immured in the brain;
But, with the motion of all elements,
Courses as swift as thought in every pow'r;
And gives to every pow'r a double pow'r;
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 ears will hear the lowest sound,
When the suspicious head of theft is stopt.
Love's feeling is more soft and sensible
Than are the tender horns of cockled snails.
Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in
For valor, is not love a Hercules, [taste.
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 tempered with love's sighs:
O then his eyes would ravish savage ears,
And plant in tyrants mild humility.
From women's eyes this doctrine Í derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire:
They are the books, the arts, the academies,
That show, contain, and nourish all the world;
Else, none at all in aught proves excellent.
Wise Men greatest Fools in Love.
Ri. 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.

Ros. The blood of youth burns not with such excess

As gravity's revolt to wantonness.

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

The

Keenness of Women's Tongues. 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 conceit hath wings

Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter things.

Ladies mask'd and unmask'd. Fair ladies mask'd are roses in the bud; Dismask'd, their damask sweet commixture shown,

Are angels vailing clouds, or roses blown.

A Lord Chamberlain or Gentleman Usher. This fellow pecks up wit, as pigeons pease; And utters it again when God doth please: He is wit's pedlar; and retails his wares At wakes, and wassels, 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. He 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 honorable 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 his bone: And consciences that will not die in debt, Pay him the due of honey-tongu'd Boyet. See where it comes! Behaviour, what wert thou Till this man show'd thee? and what art thou

now?

Elegant Compliment to a Lady. Fair, gentle, sweet, [greet Your wit makes wise things foolish: when we With eyes best seeing Heaven's fiery eye, By light we lose light: your capacity Is of that nature, as to your huge store [poor. Wise things seem foolish, and rich things but Humble Zeal to please. [how; That sport best pleases that doth least know

When zeal strives to content, and the contents Die in the zeal of that which it presents, Their form confounded makes most form in mirth, [birth. When great things laboring perish in their The Effects of Love.

For your fair sakes have we neglected time, Play'd foul play with our oaths; your beauty, ladies, [mors Hath much deform'd us, fashioning our huEven to the opposed end of our intents; And what in us hath seem'd ridiculousAs 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

Ros. 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: [brain To weed this wormwood from your fruitful And therewithal to win me, if you please, (Without the which I am not to be won) [day, You shall this twelvemonth term, from day to Visit the speechless sick, and still converse With groaning wretches: and your task shall With all the fierce endeavour of your wit, [be, T'enforce the pained impotent to smile.

Bir. To move wild laughter in the throat of death?

It cannot be, it is impossible:
Mirth cannot move a soul in agony. [spirit,

Ros. Why, that's the way to choak a gibing 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,
Deaft with the clamors of their own dear groans,
Will bear your idle scorns, continue then,
And I will have you, and that fault withal;
And I shall find you empty of that fault,
But if they will not, throw away that spirit,
Right joyful of your reformation.

When daisies pied, and violets blue,
Spring. A Song.
And lady-smocks all silver white,
And cuckow buds of yellow hue,

Do paint the meadows with delight:
The cuckow, then, on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus sings he,
Cuckow!

Cuckow! Cuckow! O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!
When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are plowmen's clocks;
When turtles tread, and rooks and daws;
And maidens bleach their summer smocks:
The cuckow then, on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus sings he,
Cuckow!

Cuckow! Cuckow! O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!

Winter. A Song.

When icicles hang by the wall,

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail; And Tom bears logs into the hall,

And milk comes frozen home in pail; When blood is nipt, and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl To-whoo!

Tu-whit, to-whoo, a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. When all aloud the wind doth blow,

And coughing drowns the parson's saw ; And birds sit brooding in the snow,

And Marian's nose looks red and raw: When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl To-whoo!

Tu-whit, to-whoo, a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

§ 5. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. SHAKSPEARE.

Virtue given to be exerted.

THERE is a kind of character in thy life, That, to the observer, doth thy history Fully unfold: thyself and thy belongings Are not thine own so proper, as to waste Thyself upon thy virtues, them on thee. Heav'n doth with us as we with torches do, Not light them for themselves: for if our virtues Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike [touch'd As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely But to fine issues: nor nature never lends The smallest scruple of her excellence, But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines Herself the glory of a creditor,

Both thanks and use.

Dislike of Popularity.
I love the people,

But do not like to stage me to their eyes:
Though it do well, I do not relish well
Their loud applause and aves vehement :
Nor do I think the man of safe discretion
That does affect it.

Authority.

Thus can the demi-god authority
Make us pay down for our offence by weight.
The words of Heav'n: On whom it will, it will;
On whom it will not, so; yet still 'tis just.

The Consequence of Liberty indulged. Lucio. Why how now, Claudio? whence comes this restraint?

Claud. From too much liberty, my Lucio, As surfeit is the father of much fast, [liberty: So every scope, by the immoderate use, Turns to restraint. Our natures do pursue, Like rats that raven down their proper bane, A thirsty evil; and when we drink we die. Neglected Laws.

This new governor Awakes me all th' enrolled penalties, Which have, like unscour'd armour, hung by

the wall

So long, that nineteen zodiacs have gone round,

My holy Sir, none better knows than you How I have ever lov'd the life remov'd:" And held in idle price to haunt assemblies Where youth, and cost, and witless bravery keeps.

Licentiousness the Consequence of unexecuted Laws.

We have strict statutes, and most biting laws,

[steeds), (The needful bits and curbs to headstrong Which for these nineteen years we have let sleep; Even like an o'ergrown lion in a cave, That goes not out to prey: now as fond fathers Having bound up the threat'ning twigs of birch, Only to stick it in their children's sight For terror, not for use; in time the rod Becomes more mock'd than fear'd; so our decrees,

Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead;
And liberty plucks justice by the nose:
The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart

Goes all decorum.

Pardon the Sanction of Wickedness. For we bid this be done, When evil deeds have their permissive pass, And not the punishment.

A severe saint-like Governor.

Lord Angelo is precise: Stands at a guard with envy: scarce confesses That his blood flows, or that his appetite Is more to bread than stone: heuce shall we see, If pow'r change purpose, what our seemers be. A Virgin addressed.

Hail, virgin, if you be; as those cheek-roses Proclaim you are no less!

The Prayers of Maidens effectual. Go to lord Angelo,

And let him learn to know, when maidens sue, Men give like gods; but when they weep and kneel,

All their petitions are as freely theirs
As they themselves would owe them.

All Men frail.

And you as he, you would have slipt like him, But he, like you, would not have been so stern. The Duty of mutual Forgiveness.

-Alas! alas!

Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once, And he that might the vantage best have took, Found out the remedy. How would you be, If he, which is the top of judgement, should

the law,

Whom I would save, had a most noble father. Let but your honor know,

(Whom I believe to be most strait in virtue) That in the working of your own affections, Had time coher'd with place, or place with wishing,

Or that the resolute acting of your blood Could have attain'd th' effect of your own purpose,

Whether you had not some time in your life Err'd in this point, which now you censure him, And pull'd the law upon you.

the laws

Angelo. 'Tis one thing to be tempted, EsAnother thing to fall. I not deny, [calus, The jury, passing on the pris'ner's life, May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two Guiltier than him they try; what's open made To justice, that justice seizes. What know [pregnant, That thieves do pass on thieves? Tis very The jewel that we find, we stoop and take it, Because we see it; but what we do not We tread upon, and never think of it. You may not so extenuate his offence, For I have had such faults: but rather tell me, When I that censure him do so offend, Let mine own judgement pattern out my death, And nothing come in partial.

Mercy frequently mistaken.. Mercy is not itself, that oft looks so; Pardon is still the nurse of second woe.

Not to be too hasty in Actions irremediable. Under your good correction I have seen When, after execution, judgement hath Repented o'er his doom.

Bad Actions already condemned, the Actors to be punished

Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it? Why, every fault's condemn'd, ere it be done: Mine were the very cipher of a function, To fine the faults whose fine stands in record, And let go by the actor.

Mercy in Governors recommended. No ceremony that to great ones 'longs, Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword, The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe, Become them with one half so good a grace As mercy does. If he had been as you,

And mercy then will breathe within your lips, Like man new made.

Unprepared Death.

Isab. To-morrow! O, that's sudden! spare him, spare him:

[kitchens We kill the fowl of season; shall we serve HeaHe's not prepar'd for death! Even for our With less respect than we do minister [ven To our gross selves? Good, good my lord, bethink you;

-There's

Who is it that hath dy'd for this offence?
many have committed it.
Ang. The law hath not been dead, though
it hath slept;

Those many had not dar'd to do that evil,
If the first man that did th' edict infringe
Had answer'd for his deed: now, 'tis awake;
Takes note of what is done; and, like a prophet,
Looks in a glass, that shows what future evils
(Or new, or by remissness new conceiv'd,
And so in progress to be hatch'd and born)
Are now to have no successive degrees,
But, ere they live, to end.

Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt
Split'st the unwedgable and gnarled oak,
Than the soft myrtle. O, but man! proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd,
His glassy essence-like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high Heav'n
As makes the angels weep; who, with our
Would all themselves laugh mortal. [spleens,

The Privilege of Authority.

We cannot weigh our brother with ourself. Great men may jest with saints; 'tis wit in thein; But, in the less, foul profanation. That in the captain's but a choleric word, Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.