Arm. Boy, what sign is it, when a man of great spirit grows melancholy? LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. ACT I. SCENE I.-Navarre. A Park, with a Palace in it. Enter the King, BIRON, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN. And then grace us in the disgrace of death; Therefore, brave conquerors !-for so you are, H 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, That are recorded in this schedule here: Your oaths are pass'd, and now subscribe your names; If you are arm'd to do as sworn to do, Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too. Long. I am resolv'd; 'tis but a three years' fast; Dum. My loving lord, Dumain is mortified; Biron. I can but say their protestation over; King. Your oath is pass'd to pass away from these. Biron. 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. Long. You swore to that, Biron, and to the rest. What is the end of study? let me know. King. Why, that to know, which else we should not know. Biron. Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from common sense? King. Ay, that is study's god-like recompense. 3 To know the thing I am forbid to know: Study knows that which yet it doth not know: Swear me to this, and I will ne'er say no. King. These be the stops that hinder study quite, And train our intellects to vain delight. Biron. Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain, Which, with pain purchas'd, 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. King. How well he's read, to reason against reading! Biron. Dum. In reason nothing. Biron. Fit in his place and time. Something, then, in rhyme. King. Biron is like an envious sneaping frost,* That bites the first-born infants of the spring. Why should I joy in an abortive birth? Than wish a snow on May's newfangled earth; So you, to study now it is too late, Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate. 6 King. Well, sit you out :7 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, King. How well this yielding rescues thee from shame! Biron. [Reads.] 'Item, That no woman shall come within a mile of my court.' 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 penalty? Long. Marry, that did I. 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- About surrender-up of Aquitain To her decrepit, sick, and bedrid 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.8 Biron. 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: |