As, painfully to pore upon a book, [while To seek the light of truth; while truth the 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 was it 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
[fame;
Too much to know, is, to know nought but
And every godfather can give a name.
King. How well he's read, to reason against
reading!

they are.

Dum. Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding!

Long. He weeds the corn, and still lets grow

the weeding.

Biron. The spring is near, when green geese |

are a breeding.

Dum. How follows that?

Biron. Fit in his place and time.

Dum. In reason nothing.

Biron. Something then in rhyme.
Long. Biron is like an envious sneapingt

frost,

That bites the first-born infants of the spring. Biron. Well, say I am; why should proud

summer boast,

Before the birds have any cause to sing?

Why should I joy in an abortive birth?
At Christmas I no more desire a rose [shows;
Than wish a snow in May's new fangled
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.
King. Well, sit you out: go home, Biron;
adieu!

Biron. 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. from shame!

King. How well this yielding rescues thee

Biron. [Reads] Item, That no woman shall come within a mile of my court.And hath this been proclaim'd? Long. Four days ago. Biron. Let's see the penalty. [Reads-On pain of losing her tongue.Who devis'd this?

Long. Marry, that did 1.
Biron. Sweet lord, and why?

Long. To fright them hence with that dread

penalty.

Biron. A dangerous law against gentility. [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.

This article, my liege, yourself must break; For, well you know, here comes in embassy The French king's daughter, with yourself to speak,

A maid of grace, and complete majesty, About surrender-up of Aquitain

To her decrepit, sick, and bed-rid father: Therefore this article is made in vain,

Or vainly comes the admired princess hither. King. What say you, lords? why, this was

quite forgot.

Biron. 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. King. We must, of force, dispense with this decree;

She must lie* here on mere necessity.
Biron. Necessity will make us all forsworn
Three thousand times within this three
years' space:

For every man with his affects is born;

Notbymightmaster'd, but by special grace: If I break faith, this word shall speak for ine, 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:

Suggestionst are to others, 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? King. 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 de-
bate.

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.

Biron. Armado is a most illustrious wight, A man of fire-new words, fashion's own knight. Long. Costard the swain, and he, shall be our sport;

And, so to study, three years is but short.

Enter DOLL, with a letter, and COSTARD.

Dull. Which is the duke's own person? Biron. This, fellow; What would'st? Dull. I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his grace's tharborough :|| but I would see his own person in flesh and blood.

Biron. This is he.

Dull. Signior Arme-Arme-commends you. There's villany abroad; this letter will tell you more.

Cost. Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me.

King. A letter from the magnificent Armado. Biron. How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high words.

Long. A high hope for a low having: God grant us patience!

* Reside. + Temptations. ↑ Lively, sprightly.
$Called

Third-borough, a peace-officer.

Biron. To hear? or forbear hearing?

Long. To hear meekly, Sir, and to laugh moderately; or to forbear both.

Biron. Well, Sir, be it as the style shall give us cause to climb to the merriness.

Cost. The matter is to me, Sir, as concerning Jaquenetta. The manner of it is, I was taken with the manner.*

Biron. In what manner?

Cost. In manner and form following, Sir; all those three: I was seen with her in the manor house, sitting with her upon the form, and taken following her into the park; which, put together, is, in manner and form following. Now, Sir, for the manner,-it is the manner of a man to speak to a woman: for the form, in some form.

Biron. For the following, Sir?

Cost. As it shall follow in my correction; And

God defend the right!

King. Will you hear this letter with attention?

Biron. As we would hear an oracle.

Cost. Such is the simplicity of man to hearken after the flesh.

King. [Reads.] Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent, t, and sole dominator of Navarre, my soul's earth's God, and body's fostering patron, Cost. Not a word of Costard yet.

King. So it is,—

Cost. It may be so: but if he say it is so, he is, in telling true, but so, so.

King. Peace.

Dull. Me, an't shall please you; I am Antony Dull.

King. For Jaquenetta, (so is the weaker vessé called, which I apprehended with the aforesaid swain,) I keep her as a vessel of thy 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,

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.

Biron. This is not so well as I looked for, but the best that ever I heard.

King. Ay, the best for the worst. But, sirrah, what say you to this?

Cost. Sir, I confess the wench.
King. Did you hear the proclamation?
Cost. I do confess much of the hearing it,

but little of the marking of it.

King. It was proclaimed a year's imprisonment, to be taken with a wench.

Cost. I was taken with none, Sir, I was taken with a damosel.

King. Well, it was proclaimed damosel. Cost. This was no damosel neither, Sir; she was a virgin.

King. It is so varied too; for it was proclaimed, virgin.

Cost. If it were, I deny her virginity; I was taken with a maid.

King. This maid will not serve your turn, Sir. Cost. This maid will serve my turn, Sir. King. Sir, I will pronounce your sentence; You shall fast a week with bran and water.

Cost. I had rather pray a month with mutton

not fight!

King. No words.

Cost. of other men's secrets, I beseech you. King. 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 most 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,

Cost. Me.

King. And Don Armado shall be your keeper. -My lord Biron see him deliver'd o'er.And go we, lords, to put in practice that

Which each to other hath so strongly

MADO'S House.

Enter ARMADO and Motн.

Arm. Boy, what sign is it, when a man of

great spirit grows melancholy?

Moth. A great sign, Sir, that he will look sad. Arm. Why, sadness is one and the self-same

thing, dear imp.

Moth. No, no; O lord, Sir, no.

Arm. How canst thou part sadness and me

lancholy, my tender juvenal?*

Moth. By a familiar demonstration of the working, my tough senior.

Arm. Why tough senior? why tough senior? Moth. Why tender juvenal? why tender juvenal?

Arm. I spoke it, tender juvenal, as a congruent epitheton, appertaining to thy your days, which we may nominate tender.

Moth. And I, tough senior, as an appert nent title to your old time, which we may name tough.

Arm. Pretty, and apt.

* Young roa

L

saying apt? or I apt, and my saying pretty?

Arm. Thou pretty, because little.

Moth. Little pretty, because little: Where

fore apt?

Arm. And therefore apt, because quick. Moth. Speak you this in my praise, master? Arm. In thy condign praise.

Moth. I will praise an eel with the same

praise.

Arm. What? that an eel is ingenious?
Moth. That an eel is quick.

Arm. I do say, thou art quick in answers:

Thou heatest my blood.

Moth. I am answered, Sir.

Arm. I love not to be crossed.

Moth. He speaks the mere contrary, crosses* love not him.

[Aside.

Arm. I have promised to study three years with the duke.

Moth. You may do it in an hour, Sir.

Arm. Impossible.

Moth. How many is one thrice told?
Arm. I am ill at reckoning, it fitteth the spirit

of a tapster.

Moth. You are a gentleman, and a gamester,

Sir.

Arm. I confess both; they are both the varnish of a complete man.

Moth. Then, I am sure, you know how much the gross sum of deuce-ace amounts to.

Arm. It doth amount to one more than two. Moth. Which the base vulgar do call, three. Arm. True.

Moth. Why, Sir, is this such a piece of study? Now here is three studied, ere you'll thrice wink: and how easy it is to put years to the word three, and study three years in two words, the dancing horse will tell you.

Arm. A most fine figure!

Moth. To prove you a cypher.

[Aside.

Arm. I will hereupon confess, I am in love: and, as it is base for a soldier to love, so am I in love with a base wench. If drawing my sword against the humour of affection would deliver me from the reprobate thought of it, I would take desire prisoner, and ransom him to any French courtier for a new devised courtesy. I think scorn to sigh; methinks, I should out-swear Cupid. Comfort me, boy: What great men have been in love?

Moth. Hercules, master.

Arm. Most sweet Hercules! - More authori

ty, dear boy, name more; and, sweet my child, let them be men of good repute and carriage.

Moth. Samson, master: he was a man of good carriage, great carriage; for he carried the town-gates on his back, like a porter: and he was in love.

Arm. O well-knit Samson! strong-jointed Samson! I do excel thee in my rapier, as much as thou didst me in carrying gates. I am in love too, Who was Samson's love, my dear Moth?

Moth. A woman, master.
Arm. Of what complexion?

Moth. Of all the four, or the three, or the two; or one of the four.

Arm. Tell me precisely of what complexion? Moth. Of the sea-water green, Sir.

Arm. Is that one of the four complexions? Moth. As I have read, Sir; and the best of them too.

Arm. Green, indeed, is the colour of lovers: but to have a love of that colour, methinks,

The name of a coin once current.

affected her for her wit.

Moth. Most maculate thoughts, master, are masked under such colours.

Arm. Define, define, well-educated infant. Moth. My father's wit, and my mother's tongue, assist me!

Arm. Sweet invocation of a child; most pretty and pathetical!

Moth. If she be made of white and red,
Her faults will ne'er be known;
For blushing cheeks by faults are bred,
And fears by pale-white shown:
Then, if she fear, or be to blame,
By this you shall not know;

For still her cheeks possess the same,
Which native she doth owe.*

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

Arm. Is there not a ballad, boy, of the King and the Beggar?

Moth. The world was very guilty of such a ballad some three ages since: but, I think, now 'tis not to be found; or, if it were, it would neither serve for the writing, nor the tune.

Arm. I will have the subject newly writ o'er, that I may example my digressiont by some mighty precedent. Boy, I do love that country girl, that I took in the park with the rational hind Costard; she deserves well.

Moth. To be whipped; and yet a better love than my master. [Aside.

Arm. Sing, boy; my spirit grows heavy in love.

Moth. And that's great marvel, loving a light wench.

Jag. Man.

Arm. I will visit thee at the lodge.
Jaq. That's hereby.

Arm. I know where it is situate.
Jaq. Lord, how wise you are!
Arm. I will tell thee wonders.
Jaq. With that face?
Arm. I love thee.

Jaq. So I heard you say.
Arm. And so farewell.
Jaq. Fair weather after you!
Dull. Come, Jaquenetta, away.

[Exeunt DULL and JAQUENETTA.

Arm. Villain, thou shalt fast for thy offences, do it,

ere thou be pardoned.
Cost. Well, Sir, 1
do it on a full stomach.

hope, when I

I shall

Arm. Thou shalt be heavily punished. Cost. I am more bound to you, than your fellows, for they are but lightly rewarded. Arm. Take away this villain; shut him up. Moth. Come, you transgressing slave; away. Cost. Let me not be pent up, Sir; I will fast, being loose.

Of which she is naturally possessed. + Transgression.

+ Dairy-woman.

nothing else.

King. Your ladyship is ignorant what it is. Prin. Were my lord so, his ignorance were wise, [rance.

Where* now his knowledge must prove ignoI hear, your grace hath sworn out house-keep

ing:
'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.

[Gives a paper.

King. Madam, I will, if suddenly I may. Prin. You will the sooner, that I were away; For you'll prove perjur'd, if you make me stay. Biron. Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?

Ros. Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?

Biron. I know, you did.

Ros. How needless was it then

To ask the question!

Biron. You must not be so quick.

Ros. 'Tis 'long of you that spur me with such

questions.

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

Ros. Not till it leave the rider in the mire.
Biron. What time o' day?

Ros. The hour that fools should ask.
Biron. Now fair befall your mask!
Ros. Fair fall the face it covers!
Biron. And send you many lovers!
Ros. Amen, so you be none.

Biron. Nay, then will I be gone.

King. 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,) Receiv'd that sum; yet there remains unpaid A hundred thousand more; in surety of the One part of Aquitain is bound to us, [which, 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 Aquitain, And hold fair friendship with his majesty. But that, it seems, he little purposeth, For here he doth demand to have repaid An hundred thousand crowns; and not de

mands,

On payment of a hundred thousand crowns,
To have his title live in Aquitain;
Which we much rather had depart withal,
And have the money by our father lent,
Than Aquitain so gelded as it is.
Dear princess, were not his requests so far

A yielding, 'gainst some reason, in my breast, And go well satisfied to France again.

Prin. 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.
King. I do protest, I never heard of it,
And, if you prove it, I'll repay it back,
Or yield up Aquitain.

Prin. We arrest your word :-
Boyet, you can produce acquittances,
For such a sum, from special officers
Of Charles his father.
King. Satisfy me so.

Boyet. 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.

King. It shall suffice me: at which interAll liberal reason I will yield unto. [view, Mean time, 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 receiv'd, As you shall deem yourself lodg'd 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. Prin. Sweet health and fair desires consort your grace!

King. Thy own wish wish I thee in every place! [Exeunt KING and his Train. Biron. Lady, I will commend you to my own heart.

Ros. 'Pray you, do my commendations; I would be glad to see it. Biron. I would, you heard it

Ros. Is the fool sick?
Biron. Sick at heart.

Ros. Alack, let it blood.

groan.

Biron. Would that do it good?

Ros. My physic says, I.*

Biron. Will you prick't with your eye?

Ros. No poynt, with my knife.

Biron. Now, God save thy life!

Ros. And yours from long living!

Biron. I cannot stay thanksgiving. [Retiring.

Dum. Sir, I pray you, a word: What lady

is that same?

name.

Boyet. The heir of Alençon, Rosaline her Dum. A gallant lady! Monsieur, fare you well. [Exit. Long. I beseech you a word; What is she in. the white?

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

Long. Perchance, light in the light: I desire her name.

Boyet. She hath but one for herself; to de-
sire that, were a shame.
Long. Pray you, Sir, whose daughter?
Boyet. Her mother's, I have heard.
Long. God's blessing on your beard!
Boyet. Good Sir, be not offended:

She is an heir of Falconbridge.

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

Boyet. Not unlike, Sir; that may be. [Exit LONGAVILLE,