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:

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 Longaville.
And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath.
[to Dumain.

What will Biron 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, v
I would not have him know so much by me.
Bir. 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 perjur'd, '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 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!

Juno but an Ethiop were;

And deny himself for Jove,
Turning mortal for thy loye.”

This will I send; and something else more plain,
That shall express my true love's fasting pain.
O, would the king, Biron, and Longaville,
Were lovers too! ill,, to example ill,
Would from my forehead wipe a 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:

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 rhyme?
Or groan for Joan; or spend a minute's time
In pruning me? When shall you hear, that I
Will praise a hand, a foot, a face, an eye,
A gate, 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?
Bir. I post from love; good lover, let me go
Enter Jaquenetta and Costard.

Jaq. God bless the king!
King. What present hast thou there?
Cost. Some certain treason.
King. What makes treason here"

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. Bir. Is ebony like her? O wood divine! A wife of such wood were felicity. O, who can give an oath? where is a book? That I may swear, beauty doth beauty lack, If that she learn not of her eye to look:

No face is fair, that is not full so black. King. O, paradox! Black is the badge of hell,

The hue of dungeons, and the scowl of night; And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well. Bir. Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of O, if in black my lady's brows be deck't, [light. 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;

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.

Bir. 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 Jaq. Bir. 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 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? [venly Rosaline, Bir. Did they, quoth you? Who sees the heaThat, 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.
Bir. 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.

Leud me the flourish of all gentle tongues,— Fie, painted rhetoric! O, she needs it not: To things of sale'a seller's praise belongs;

black.

Paints itself black, to imitate her brow. Dum. To look like her, are chimney-sweepers [bright. Long. And, since her time, are colliers counted King. And Ethiops of their sweet complexion crack. [light. Dum. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is Bir. 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.

Bir. I'll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here. [she. King. No devil will fright thee then so much as Dum. I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear Long. Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face see. [showing his shoe.

Bir. O, if the streets were paved with thine

blot.

A wither' hermit, ave-score winters worn,

In that each of you hath forsworn his book: Can you still dream, and pore, and thereon loos

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
Why, universal plodding prisons up [fire.
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 Madies' 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 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 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 cockled 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, tl.e voice of all the gods

SCENE I.

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 yes 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 aught 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?

King. Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field! [lords; Bir. Advance your standards, and upon them, Pell-mell, down with them! but be first advis'd, In conflict that you get the sun of them.

[by.

Long. Now to plain dealing; lay these glozes Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France? King. And win them too: therefore let us de Some entertainment for them in their tents. [vise Bir. 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,
Fore-run fair love, strewing her way with flowers.
King. Away, away! no time shall be omitted,
That will be time, and may by us be fitted.
Bir. Allons! Allons!-Sow'd cockle reap'd no

corn;

And justice always whirls in equal measure: Light wenches may prove plagues to men for

ANOTHER PART OF THE SAME. Enter Holofernes, Sir Nathaniel, and Dull. Hol. Satis quod sufficit.

Nath. I praise God for you, sir; your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy. I did converse this quondam day with a companion of the king's, who is intituled, nominated, or called, Don Adriano de Armado.

Hol. Novi hominem tanquam te: his humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical. He is too picked, too spruce, too af

fected, too odd, as it were, too peregrinate, as i may call it.

Nath. A must singular and choice epithet. [takes out his table-book. Hol. He draweth out the thread of his verbosi ty finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical phantasms, such insociable and point-devise companions; such rackers of orthography, as to speak, dout, fine, when he should say, doubt; det, when he should pronounce debt; d, e, b, t; not d, e, t: he clepeth a calf, cauf; half, hauf; neighbour, vocatur, uebur; neigh, abbreviated, ne: this is abhominable, (which he would call abominable), it insinuateth me of insanie; ne intelligis domine? to make frantic, lunatic. Nath. Laus deo, bone intelligo.

S

Arm. Chirra!

Enter Armado, Moth, and Costard.

[to Moth.

Hol. Quare Chirra, not sirrah? Ar. Men of peace, well encountered. Hol. Most military sir, salutation. Moth. They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps. [to Costard, aside. Cost. O, they have lived long in the alms-basket of words! I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon.

Moth. Peace; the peal begins.

Ar. Monsieur, [to Hol.] are you not letter'd? Moth. Yes, yes; he teaches boys the hornbook: -What is a, b, spelt backward, with a horn on his head?

Hol. Ba, pueritia, with a horn added.

Moth. Ba, most silly sheep, with a horn:You hear his learning.

Hol. Quis, quis, thou consonant?

seech thee, remember thy courtesy ;-I beseech thee, apparel thy head; and among other importunate and most serious designs,—and of great import, indeed, too;-but let that pass:-for 1 must tell thee, it will please his grace (by the world) sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder; and with his royal finger, thus, dally with my excrement, with my mustachio: but, sweetheart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no fable; some certain special honours it pleaseth his greatness to impart to Armado, a soldier, a man of travel, that hath seen the world: but let that pass. -The very all of all is,-but, sweetheart, I do implore secrecy,-that the king would have me present the princess, sweet chuck, with some delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant, or antic, of firework. Now, understanding that the curate and your sweet self, are good at such eruptions, and sudden breaking out of mirth, as it were, I have acquainted you withal, to the end to crave your assistance.

Hol. Sir, you shall present before her the nine worthies. Sir Nathaniel, as concerning some entertainment of time, some show in the posterior of this day, to be rendered by our assistance,-the

Hol. I will repeat them, a, e, i.— [o, u. Moth. The sheep the other two concludes it; Ar. Now by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum, a sweet touch, a quick venew of wit: snip, snap, quick and home; it rejoiceth my intellect: true wit. [is wit-old. Moth. Offer'd by a child to an old man; which Hol. What is the figure? what is the figure? Moth. Horns. [thy gig. Hol. Thou disputest like an infant: go, whip Moth. Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your infamy circum circa; a gig of a cuckold's horn!

and learned gentleman,-before the princess; I say, none so fit as to present the nine worthies. Nath. Where will you find men worthy enough to present them?

Hol. Joshua, yourself; myself, or this gallant gentleman, Judas Maccabæus; this swain, because of his great limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the great; the page, Hercules.

Ar. Pardon, sir, error: he is not quantity enough for that worthy's thumb: he is not so big as the end of his club.

Hol. Shall I have audience? he shall present Hercules in minority; his enter and exit shall be strangling a snake; and I will have an apology for that purpose.

Hol. O, I smell false Latin; dunghill for unguem. Ar. Arts-man, præambula; we will be singled from the barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the charge-house on the top of the mountain? Hol. Or, mons, hill.

Ar. For the rest of the worthies?
Hol. I will play three myself.
Moth. Thrice-worthy gentleman!
Ar. Shall I tell you a thing?
Hol. We attend.

[beseech you follow. Ar. We will have, if this fadge not, an antic. I Hol. Via, goodman Dull! thou hast spoken no

Dull. Nor understood none neither, sir. Hol. Allons! we will employ thee. Dull. I'll make one in a dance, or so; or I will play on the tabor to the worthies, and let them dance the hay.

Hol. Most dull, honest Dull, to our sport away. [exeunt.

SCENE II.

ANOTHER PART OF THE SAME. BEFORE THE PRINCESS'S PAVILION. Enter the Princess, Katharine, Rosaline, & Maria. Prin. Sweethearts, we shall be rich ere we do If fairings come thus plentifully in; part,