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." "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? [better? What vane? what weather-cock? did you ever hear Boyet. I am much deceiv'd, but I remember the style. [while. Prin. Else your memory is bad, going o'er it "ereBoyet. This Armado is a Spaniard, that keeps here Prin. Who in court; b thee this letter? A phantasm, a Monarcho, and one that makes sport Prin. Thou hast mistaken his letter.-Come, lords, away. Here, sweet, put up this: 'twill be thine another day. Finely put off! Ros. Well then, I am the shooter. Boyet. And who is your deer? Ros If we choose by the horns, yourself: come Finely put on, indeed![not near. Mar. You still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at the brow. [her now? Boyet. But she herself is hit lower? Have I hit Ros. Shall I come upon thee with an old saying, that was a man when king Pepin of France was a little boy, as touching the hit it? Boyet. So I may answer thee with one as old, that was a woman when queen Guinever of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit it. Ros. Boyet. Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it, Thou canst not hit it, my good man. An I cannot, cannot, cannot, An I cannot, another can. [Exeunt Ros. and KATH. Cost. By my troth, most pleasant: how both did fit it! [did hit it. Mar. A mark marvellous well shot, for they both Boyet. A mark! O! mark but that mark: a mark, says my lady. [may be. Let the mark have a prick in't, to mete at, if it Mar. Wide o' the bow hand: i'faith, your hand is out. "Erewhile, " i. c., but just now." Monarcho:" the allusion is to a fantastical character of the time, who lived about the court-e" Suitor" and shooter appear to have been pronounced alike in Shakespeare's time." Wide o' the bow hand," a term in archery, signifying, a good deal to the left of the mark. 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. e [pin. Cost. Then will she get the upshot by cleaving the Mar. Come, come, you talk greasily; your lips grow foul. [lenge her to bowl. Cost. She's too hard for you at pricks, sir: chalBoyet. I fear too much rubbing. Good night, my [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! good owl. When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it were, so fit. Armado 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; Looking babies in her eyes, his passion to declare. And his page o' t' other side, that handful of small Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit! Sola, sola! [wit! [Shouting within. [Exit COSTARD. SCENE II.The Same. Enter HOLOFERNES, Sir NATHANIEL, and DULL. Nath. Very reverend sport, truly; and done in the testimony of a good conscience. Hol. The deer was, as you know, sanguis,-in blood; ripe as the pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of calo,-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 haud credo for a deer. Dull. I said, the deer was not a haud credo: 'twas a pricket. Hol. 'Twice sod simplicity, bis coctus! [look! O, thou monster ignorance, how deformed dost thou Nath. Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; [ink: He hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk His intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal 3 not to think, [plants Only sensible in the duller parts; and such barren Are set before us, that we thankful should be Which we, having 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, [a school: So, were there a patch set on learning, to set him in 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? • Grossly. Unlearned - A species of apple.-A "prick et" was a buck in his second year. 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; -Venegia, Venegia, Chi non te vede, non te pregia. Old Mantuan! old Mantuan! Who understandeth thee not, loves thee not.-Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa.Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? or, rather, as Horace says in his-What, my soul, verses? Nath. Ay, sir, and very learned. Hol. Let me hear a staff, a stanza, a verse: lege, [fivescore. And b raught not to five weeks, when he came to The allusion holds in the exchange. Dull. 'Tis true indeed: the collusion holds in the domine. exchange. Hol. God comfort thy capacity! I say, the allusion 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 humor the ignorant, I have call'd the deer the princess kill'd, a pricket. d 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. 2[Reads. The preyful princess pierc'd and prick'd a pretty pleasing pricket; [with shooting. Some say, a sore; but not a sore, till now made sore The dogs did yell; put l to sore, then sorel jumps from thicket; [ing. Or pricket sore, or else sorel; the people fall a hootIf sore be sore, then I to sore makes fifty sores; sore l! [more l. Of one sore I an hundred make, by adding but one Nath. A rare talent! him with a talent. Dull. If a talent be a claw, look how he claws 3[Aside. 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 delivered upon the mellowing of occasion. But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it. Nath. Sir, I praise the Lord for you, and so may my parishioners; for their sons are well tutored 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 panca 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. Jaq. Good master parson, be so good as read me this letter: it was given me by Costard, and sent me from Don Armado: I beseech you, read it. [umbrâ. Hol. Fauste, precor gelidâ quando pecus omne sub Ruminat, and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice: I Diana - Reached i, e., the exchange of Cain's name for that of Adam Affect the letter," i. e., practise alliteration. A "sorel" is a buck of the third year. Talon was often written "talent" in Shakespeare's time.-"Person" is the word from which parson is derived. The "good old Mantuan" was Joh. Baptista Mantuanus, from whose "Eclogues" the Latin words in Holofernes' speech are quoted. 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 com prehend: If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice. 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 music, and sweet fire. Celestial, as thou art, O! pardon, love, this wrong. That sings heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue! Hol. You find not the apostrophes, and so miss the accent: let me supervise the canzonet. Here 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, doth the hound his master, the ape his keeper, the the jerks of invention? Imitating is nothing: so 5 trained horse his rider. But damosella, virgin, was this directed to you? the strange queen's lords. Jaq. Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Biron, one of snow-white hand of the most beauteous Lady RosaHol. I will overglance the superscript. “To the for the nomination of the party writing to the person line." I will look again on the intellect of the letter, 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. [Exeunt CoST. and JAQ. Nath. Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very religiously; and, as a certain father saith Hol. Sir, tell not me of the father; I do fear colorable colors. 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 1 Jaquenetta has just before said that the letter was sent to her from Don Armado.- "Colorable colors," i. e., specious appearances, savoring of poetry, wit, nor invention. I beseech your society. Biron. [Aside.] I could put thee in comfort: not by two that I know. Nath. And thank you too; for society (saith the Thou mak'st the triumviry, the corner-cap of society, text) is the happiness of life. The shape of love's d Tyburn, that hangs up simplicity. Long. I fear these stubborn lines lack power to O sweet Maria, empress of my love! [move. These numbers will I tear, and write in prose. Biron. [Aside.] O! rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid's hose: Disfigure not his 'slop. Hol. And, certes, the next 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. SCENE III-Another part of the Same. b Enter BIRON, with a paper. Biron. The king he is hunting the deer; I am 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 o' 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 of my rhyme, and here my melancholy. Well, she hath one o' 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. Enter the KING, with a paper. King. Ay me! Biron. [Aside.] Shot, by heaven!-Proceed, sweet Cupid: thou hast thump'd him with thy bird-bolt under the left pap. In faith, secrets! King. [Reads.] So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives To those fresh morning drops upon the rose, [not As thine eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote The dew of night 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 thou dost 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?? Enter LONGAVILLE, with a paper. What, Longaville! and reading? listen, ear. [Steps aside. Biron. [Aside in the tree.] Now, in thy likeness, one more fool appear! с Long. Ay me! I am forsworn. [wearing papers. Biron. [Aside.] Why, he comes in like a perjure, King. [Aside.] In love, I hope. Sweet fellowship in shame! [the name. Biron. [Aside.] One drunkard loves another of Long. Am I the first that have been perjur'd so? Certainly; in truth.-b"Toiling in a pitch," alluding to the dark complexion of Rosaline. Part of the punishment of a perjurer was to wear on his breast a paper expressing his crime. e Long. This same shall go.— [He reads the sonnet. Did not the heavenly rhetoric 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 forswore; but I will prove, 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 shine, Exhal'st this vapor-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 sliver vein, which makes flesh a deity; A green goose, a goddess: pure, pure idolatry. God amend us! God amend us! we are much out o' the way. stay. Enter DUMAINE, with a paper. Biron. [Aside.] O most profane coxcomb! 5 Dum. Her amber hairs for foul have amber quoted. Biron. [Aside.] An amber-color'd raven was well Dum. As upright as the cedar. [noted. Biron. [Aside.] Stoops, I say: Her shoulder is with child. Dum. 6 As fair as day. Biron. [Aside.] Ay, as some days; but then no sun must shine. "Triumviry," and "the shape of love's Tyburn," allude to the gallows of the time, which was occasionally triangu lar.-Guards" were the hems or borders of a garment. -"Slops" were wide-kneed breeches, in fashion in Shakespeare's time. In reference to the supposition that the liver was the seat of love. A woodcock means a foolish fel. low, that bird being supposed to have no brains.—1i.e., “Her amber hairs have shown real amber to be foul in comparison with them." Dum. On a day, alack the day! Love, whose month is ever May, That I am forsworn for thee; Thou for whom great Jove would swear This will I send, and something else more plain, You may look pale, but I should blush, I know, King. [Advancing.] Come, sir, blush you: as his 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: Ay 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 DUMAINE. What will Biron say, when that he shall hear Faith infringed, which such 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. [Coming down from the tree. Ah, good my liege, I pray thee pardon me. 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 have I 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! ■ Alluding to a passage in the king's, sonnet.— Grief. To see great Hercules whipping a gig, Where lies thy grief? O! tell me, good Dumaine: King. Too bitter is thy jest. 3[Going. Jaq. God bless the king! King. What, peasant, hast thou there? Cost. Some certain treason. What makes treason here? Jaq. Of Costard. King. Where had'st thou it? Cost. Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio. tear it? 5 Biron. A toy, my liege, a toy: your grace needs not fear it. [Tearing 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. [Picking up the pieces. Biron. Ah, you whoreson loggerhead! [To CosYou were born to do me shame.[TARD. 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, and you my liege, and I, 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 COSTARD and JAQUENETTA. Biron. 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 doth yet obey an old decrec: We cannot cross the cause why we were born; Therefore, of all hands must we be forsworn, Cynic. A bird is said to be pruning himself when ho picks and sleeks his feathers." What makes," i. c., what docs treason here ?-f"Of all hands," i. e., at any rate; at all events. King. What, did these rent lines show some love of thine? [enly Rosaline, Biron. Did they? quoth you. Who sees the heavThat, like a rude and savage man of Inde, At the first opening of the gorgeous east, Bows not his vassal head; and, stricken 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 a 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. Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues, Fie, painted rhetoric! O! she needs it not: To things of sale a seller's praise belongs; She passes praise; then praise too short doth blot. A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn, Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye: And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy. No face is fair, that is not full so black. [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 favor turns the fashion of 3 these 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. [crack. King. And Ethiops of their sweet complexion Dum. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light. Biron. Your mistresses dare never come in rain, For fear their colors should be wash'd away. King. Twere good, yours did; for, sir, to tell you I'll find a fairer face not wash'd to-day. [plain, Biron. I'll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here. King. No devil will fright thee then so much as she. Dum. I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear. Long. Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face Dum. Ay, marry, there; some flattery for this evil. Long. O! some authority how to proceed; Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil. Dum. Some salve for perjury. Biron. O! 'tis more than need.Have at you, then, affection's men at arms. Consider, what you first did swear unto;To fast, to study, and to see no woman: Flat treason 'gainst the kingly state of youth. Say, can you fast? your stomachs are too young, And abstinence engenders maladies. And where that you have vow'd to study, lords, In that each of you hath forsworn his book, Can you still dream, and pore, and thereon look? 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 fire. Why, universal plodding prisons up The nimble spirits in the arteries, As motion, and long-during action, tires The sinewy vigor 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 learning 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 ladies' 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 beauty's 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 valor 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, the voice of all the gods 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 humanity. From women's eyes 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. Quibbles; sophistries.- "Our books," i. e., our true books, the eyes of women, from which we derive most infor mation. |