Love's Labour's Lost/Source

DRAMATIS PERSONAE (Persons Represented):


 * FERDINAND, King of Navarre
 * BEROWNE, Lord attending on the King
 * LONGAVILLE, Lord attending on the King
 * DUMAINE,   Lord attending on the King
 * BOYET,  Lord attending on the Princess of France
 * MARCADE, Lord attending on the Princess of France
 * DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO, a fantastical Spaniard
 * SIR NATHANIEL, a Curate
 * HOLOFERNES, a Schoolmaster
 * DULL, a Constable
 * COSTARD, a Clown
 * MOTH, Page to Armado
 * A FORESTER


 * THE PRINCESS OF FRANCE
 * ROSALINE, Lady attending on the Princess
 * MARIA,   Lady attending on the Princess
 * KATHARINE, Lady attending on the Princess
 * JAQUENETTA, a country wench


 * Officers and Others, Attendants on the King and Princess.

SCENE: Navarre

SCENE I. The King of Navarre's park
[Enter the King, BEROWNE, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN.]

KING.
 * Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,
 * Live regist'red upon our brazen tombs,
 * And then grace us in the disgrace of death;
 * When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,
 * The endeavour of this present breath may buy
 * That honour 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.
 * You three, Berowne, Dumain, and Longaville,
 * Have sworn for three years' term to live with me,
 * My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes
 * That are recorded in this schedule here:
 * Your oaths are pass'd; and now subscribe your names,
 * That his own hand may strike his honour down
 * That violates the smallest branch herein.
 * If you are arm'd to do as sworn to do,
 * Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too.

LONGAVILLE.
 * I am resolv'd; 'tis but a three years' fast:
 * The mind shall banquet, though the body pine:
 * Fat paunches have lean pates; and dainty bits
 * Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits.

DUMAINE.
 * My loving lord, Dumain is mortified:
 * The grosser manner of these world's delights
 * He throws upon the gross world's baser slaves;
 * To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die,
 * With all these living in philosophy.

BEROWNE.
 * I can but say their protestation over;
 * So much, dear liege, I have already sworn,
 * That is, to live and study here three years.
 * But there are other strict observances:
 * As, not to see a woman in that term,
 * Which I hope well is not enrolled there:
 * And one day in a week to touch no food,
 * And but one meal on every day beside;
 * The which I hope is not enrolled there:
 * And then to sleep but three hours in the night
 * And not be seen to wink of all the day,—
 * When I was wont to think no harm all night,
 * And make a dark night too of half the day,—
 * Which I hope well is not enrolled there.
 * O! these are barren tasks, too hard to keep,
 * Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep.

KING.
 * Your oath is pass'd to pass away from these.

BEROWNE.
 * 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.

LONGAVILLE.
 * You swore to that, Berowne, and to the rest.

BEROWNE.
 * By yea and nay, sir, then I swore in jest.
 * What is the end of study? let me know.

KING.
 * Why, that to know which else we should not know.

BEROWNE.
 * Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from common sense?

KING. Ay, that is study's god-like recompense.

BEROWNE.
 * Come on, then; I will swear to study so,
 * To know the thing I am forbid to know,
 * As thus: to study where I well may dine,
 * When I to feast expressly am forbid;
 * Or study where to meet some mistress fine,
 * When mistresses from common sense are hid;
 * Or, having sworn too hard-a-keeping oath,
 * Study to break it, and not break my troth.
 * If study's gain be thus, and this be so,
 * 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.

BEROWNE.
 * 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!

DUMAINE.
 * Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding!

LONGAVILLE.
 * He weeds the corn, and still lets grow the weeding.

BEROWNE.
 * The spring is near, when green geese are a-breeding.

DUMAINE.
 * How follows that?

BEROWNE.
 * Fit in his place and time.

DUMAINE.
 * In reason nothing.

BEROWNE.
 * Something then in rime.

LONGAVILLE.
 * Berowne is like an envious sneaping frost
 * That bites the first-born infants of the spring.

BEROWNE.
 * Well, say I am: why should proud summer boast
 * Before the birds have any cause to sing?
 * Why should I joy in any abortive birth?
 * At Christmas I no more desire a rose
 * Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled shows;
 * 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 out; go home, Berowne; adieu.

BEROWNE.
 * 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.

KING.
 * How well this yielding rescues thee from shame!

BEROWNE.
 * 'Item. That no woman shall come within a mile of
 * my court.'Hath this been proclaimed?

LONGAVILLE.
 * Four days ago.

BEROWNE.
 * Let's see the penalty. 'On pain of losing her
 * tongue.' Who devised this penalty?

LONGAVILLE.
 * Marry, that did I.

BEROWNE.
 * Sweet lord, and why?

LONGAVILLE.
 * To fright them hence with that dread penalty.

BEROWNE.
 * A dangerous law against gentility!
 * '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 mild of grace and complete majesty—
 * About surrender up of Aquitaine
 * To her decrepit, sick, and bedrid father:
 * Therefore this article is made in vain,
 * Or vainly comes th' admired princess hither.

KING.
 * What say you, lords? why, this was quite forgot.

BEROWNE.
 * So study evermore is over-shot:
 * 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.

BEROWNE.
 * 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.
 * If I break faith, this word shall speak for me:
 * 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.
 * Suggestions are to other 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 who 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 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 my minstrelsy.

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

LONGAVILLE.
 * Costard the swain and he shall be our sport;
 * And so to study three years is but short.

[Enter DULL, with a letter, and COSTARD.]

DULL.
 * Which is the duke's own person?

BEROWNE.
 * This, fellow. What wouldst?

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.

BEROWNE.
 * This is he.

DULL.
 * Signior Arm—Arm—commends you. There's villainy abroad:
 * this letter will tell you more.

COSTARD.
 * Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me.

KING.
 * A letter from the magnificent Armado.

BEROWNE.
 * How long soever the matter, I hope in God for high words.

LONGAVILLE.
 * A high hope for a low heaven: God grant us patience!

BEROWNE.
 * To hear, or forbear laughing?

LONGAVILLE.
 * To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately; or, to
 * forbear both.

BEROWNE.
 * Well, sir, be it as the style shall give us cause to climb
 * in the merriness.

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

BEROWNE.
 * In what manner?

COSTARD.
 * 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.

BEROWNE.
 * For the following, sir?

COSTARD.
 * As it shall follow in my correction; and God defend the right!

KING.
 * Will you hear this letter with attention?

BEROWNE.
 * As we would hear an oracle.

COSTARD.
 * Such is the simplicity of man to hearken after the flesh.

KING.
 * 'Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent and sole dominator of
 * Navarre, my soul's earth's god and body's fostering patron,'

COSTARD.
 * Not a word of Costard yet.

KING.
 * 'So it is,'—

COSTARD.
 * It may be so; but if he say it is so, he is, in telling
 * true, but so.—

KING.
 * Peace!

COSTARD.
 * Be to me, and every man that dares not fight!

KING.
 * No words!

COSTARD.
 * 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 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,'—

COSTARD.
 * Me.

KING.
 * 'that unlettered small-knowing soul,'—

COSTARD.
 * Me.

KING.
 * 'that shallow vassal,'—

COSTARD.
 * Still me.—

KING.
 * 'which, as I remember, hight Costard,'—

COSTARD.
 * O me.

KING.
 * 'sorted and consorted, contrary to thy established proclaimed
 * edict and continent canon, with—with,—O! with but with this I
 * passion to say wherewith,'—

COSTARD.
 * With a wench.

KING.
 * 'with a child of our grandmother Eve, a female; or, for thy
 * more sweet understanding, a woman. Him, I,—as my ever-esteemed
 * duty pricks me on,—have sent to thee, to receive the meed of
 * punishment, by thy sweet Grace's officer, Antony Dull, a man of
 * good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation.'

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

KING.
 * 'For Jaquenetta,—so is the weaker vessel 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.'

BEROWNE.
 * 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?

COSTARD.
 * Sir, I confess the wench.

KING.
 * Did you hear the proclamation?

COSTARD.
 * 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.

COSTARD.
 * I was taken with none, sir: I was taken with a damosel.

KING.
 * Well, it was proclaimed 'damosel'.

COSTARD.
 * This was no damosel neither, sir; she was a 'virgin'.

KING.
 * It is so varied too; for it was proclaimed 'virgin'.

COSTARD.
 * If it were, I deny her virginity: I was taken with a maid.

KING.
 * This maid not serve your turn, sir.

COSTARD.
 * This maid will serve my turn, sir.

KING.
 * Sir, I will pronounce your sentence: you shall fast a week
 * with bran and water.

COSTARD.
 * I had rather pray a month with mutton and porridge.

KING.
 * And Don Armado shall be your keeper.
 * My Lord Berowne, see him delivered o'er:
 * And go we, lords, to put in practice that
 * Which each to other hath so strongly sworn.

[Exeunt KING, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN.]

BEROWNE.
 * I'll lay my head to any good man's hat
 * These oaths and laws will prove an idle scorn.
 * Sirrah, come on.

COSTARD.
 * I suffer for the truth, sir: for true it is I was taken
 * with Jaquenetta, and Jaquenetta is a true girl; and therefore
 * welcome the sour cup of prosperity! Affliction may one day smile
 * again; and till then, sit thee down, sorrow!

[Exeunt.]

SCENE II. The park.
[Enter ARMADO and MOTH.]

ARMADO.
 * Boy, what sign is it when a man of great spirit grows
 * melancholy?

MOTH.
 * A great sign, sir, that he will look sad.

ARMADO.
 * Why, sadness is one and the self-same thing, dear imp.

MOTH.
 * No, no; O Lord, sir, no.

ARMADO.
 * How canst thou part sadness and melancholy, my tender
 * juvenal?

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

ARMADO.
 * Why tough senior? Why tough senior?

MOTH.
 * Why tender juvenal? Why tender juvenal?

ARMADO.
 * I spoke it, tender juvenal, as a congruent epitheton
 * appertaining to thy young days, which we may nominate tender.

MOTH.
 * And I, tough senior, as an appertinent title to your old
 * time, which we may name tough.

ARMADO.
 * Pretty and apt.

MOTH.
 * How mean you, sir? I pretty, and my saying apt? or I apt, and
 * my saying pretty?

ARMADO.
 * Thou pretty, because little.

MOTH.
 * Little pretty, because little. Wherefore apt?

ARMADO.
 * And therefore apt, because quick.

MOTH.
 * Speak you this in my praise, master?

ARMADO.
 * In thy condign praise.

MOTH.
 * I will praise an eel with the same praise.

ARMADO.
 * What! That an eel is ingenious?

MOTH.
 * That an eel is quick.

ARMADO.
 * I do say thou art quick in answers: thou heat'st my blood.

MOTH.
 * I am answered, sir.

ARMADO.
 * I love not to be crossed.

MOTH.
 * [Aside] He speaks the mere contrary: crosses love not him.

ARMADO.
 * I have promised to study three years with the duke.

MOTH.
 * You may do it in an hour, sir.

ARMADO.
 * Impossible.

MOTH.
 * How many is one thrice told?

ARMADO.
 * I am ill at reck'ning; it fitteth the spirit of a tapster.

MOTH.
 * You are a gentleman and a gamester, sir.

ARMADO.
 * 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.

ARMADO.
 * It doth amount to one more than two.

MOTH.
 * Which the base vulgar do call three.

ARMADO.
 * True.

MOTH.
 * Why, sir, is this such a piece of study? Now here's three
 * studied ere ye'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.

ARMADO.
 * A most fine figure!

MOTH.
 * [Aside] To prove you a cipher.

ARMADO.
 * 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 curtsy. I
 * think scorn to sigh: methinks I should out-swear Cupid. Comfort
 * me, boy: what great men have been in love?

MOTH.
 * Hercules, master.

ARMADO.
 * Most sweet Hercules! More authority, 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.

ARMADO.
 * 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.

ARMADO.
 * Of what complexion?

MOTH.
 * Of all the four, or the three, or the two, or one of the
 * four.

ARMADO.
 * Tell me precisely of what complexion.

MOTH.
 * Of the sea-water green, sir.

ARMADO.
 * Is that one of the four complexions?

MOTH.
 * As I have read, sir; and the best of them too.

ARMADO.
 * Green, indeed, is the colour of lovers; but to have a love
 * of that colour, methinks Samson had small reason for it. He
 * surely affected her for her wit.

MOTH.
 * It was so, sir, for she had a green wit.

ARMADO.
 * My love is most immaculate white and red.

MOTH.
 * Most maculate thoughts, master, are masked under such
 * colours.

ARMADO.
 * Define, define, well-educated infant.

MOTH.
 * My father's wit my mother's tongue assist me!

ARMADO.
 * 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.

ARMADO.
 * 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.

ARMADO.
 * I will have that subject newly writ o'er, that I may
 * example my digression 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.
 * [Aside] To be whipped; and yet a better love than my master.

ARMADO.
 * Sing, boy: my spirit grows heavy in love.

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

ARMADO.
 * I say, sing.

MOTH.
 * Forbear till this company be past.

[Enter DULL, COSTARD, and JAQUENETTA.]

DULL.
 * Sir, the Duke's pleasure is, that you keep Costard safe: and
 * you must suffer him to take no delight nor no penance; but a'
 * must fast three days a week. For this damsel, I must keep her at
 * the park; she is allowed for the day-woman. Fare you well.

ARMADO.
 * I do betray myself with blushing. Maid!

JAQUENETTA.
 * Man?

ARMADO.
 * I will visit thee at the lodge.

JAQUENETTA.
 * That's hereby.

ARMADO.
 * I know where it is situate.

JAQUENETTA.
 * Lord, how wise you are!

ARMADO.
 * I will tell thee wonders.

JAQUENETTA.
 * With that face?

ARMADO.
 * I love thee.

JAQUENETTA.
 * So I heard you say.

ARMADO.
 * And so, farewell.

JAQUENETTA.
 * Fair weather after you!

DULL.
 * Come, Jaquenetta, away!

[Exit with JAQUENETTA.]

ARMADO.
 * Villain, thou shalt fast for thy offences ere thou be
 * pardoned.

COSTARD.
 * Well, sir, I hope when I do it I shall do it on a full
 * stomach.

ARMADO.
 * Thou shalt be heavily punished.

COSTARD.
 * I am more bound to you than your fellows, for they are but
 * lightly rewarded.

ARMADO.
 * Take away this villain: shut him up.

MOTH.
 * Come, you transgressing slave: away!

COSTARD.
 * Let me not be pent up, sir: I will fast, being loose.

MOTH.
 * No, sir; that were fast and loose: thou shalt to prison.

COSTARD.
 * Well, if ever I do see the merry days of desolation that I
 * have seen, some shall see—

MOTH.
 * What shall some see?

COSTARD.
 * Nay, nothing, Master Moth, but what they look upon. It is
 * not for prisoners to be too silent in their words, and therefore
 * I will say nothing. I thank God I have as little patience as
 * another man, and therefore I can be quiet.

[Exeunt MOTH and COSTARD.]

ARMADO.
 * I do affect the very ground, which is base, where her shoe,
 * which is baser, guided by her foot, which is basest, doth tread.
 * I shall be forsworn,—which is a great argument of falsehood,—if
 * I love. And how can that be true love which is falsely attempted?
 * Love is a familiar; Love is a devil; there is no evil angel but
 * Love. Yet was Samson so tempted, and he had an excellent
 * strength; yet was Solomon so seduced, and he had a very good wit.
 * Cupid's butt-shaft is too hard for Hercules' club, and therefore
 * too much odds for a Spaniard's rapier. The first and second cause
 * will not serve my turn; the passado he respects not, the duello
 * he regards not; his disgrace is to be called boy, but his glory
 * is to subdue men. Adieu, valour! rust, rapier! be still, drum!
 * for your manager is in love; yea, he loveth. Assist me, some
 * extemporal god of rime, for I am sure I shall turn sonneter.
 * Devise, wit; write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio.

[Exit.]

SCENE I. The King of Navarre's park. A pavilion and tents at a distance.
[Enter the PRINCESS OF FRANCE, ROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, BOYET, LORDS, and other Attendants.]

BOYET.
 * Now, madam, summon up your dearest spirits:
 * Consider who the king your father sends,
 * To whom he sends, and what's his embassy:
 * Yourself, held precious in the world's esteem,
 * To parley with the sole inheritor
 * Of all perfections that a man may owe,
 * Matchless Navarre; the plea of no less weight
 * Than Aquitaine, a dowry for a queen.
 * Be now as prodigal of all dear grace
 * As Nature was in making graces dear
 * When she did starve the general world beside,
 * And prodigally gave them all to you.

PRINCESS.
 * Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean,
 * Needs not the painted flourish of your praise:
 * Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye,
 * Not utt'red by base sale of chapmen's tongues.
 * I am less proud to hear you tell my worth
 * Than you much willing to be counted wise
 * In spending your wit in the praise of mine.
 * But now to task the tasker: good Boyet,
 * You are not ignorant, all-telling fame
 * Doth noise abroad, Navarre hath made a vow,
 * Till painful study shall outwear three years,
 * No woman may approach his silent court:
 * Therefore to's seemeth it a needful course,
 * Before we enter his forbidden gates,
 * To know his pleasure; and in that behalf,
 * Bold of your worthiness, we single you
 * As our best-moving fair solicitor.
 * Tell him the daughter of the King of France,
 * On serious business, craving quick dispatch,
 * Importunes personal conference with his Grace.
 * Haste, signify so much; while we attend,
 * Like humble-visag'd suitors, his high will.

BOYET.
 * Proud of employment, willingly I go.

PRINCESS.
 * All pride is willing pride, and yours is so.

[Exit BOYET.]


 * Who are the votaries, my loving lords,
 * That are vow-fellows with this virtuous duke?

FIRST LORD.
 * Lord Longaville is one.

PRINCESS.
 * Know you the man?

MARIA.
 * I know him, madam: at a marriage feast,
 * Between Lord Perigort and the beauteous heir
 * Of Jaques Falconbridge, solemnized
 * In Normandy, saw I this Longaville.
 * A man of sovereign parts, he is esteem'd,
 * Well fitted in arts, glorious in arms:
 * Nothing becomes him ill that he would well.
 * The only soil of his fair virtue's gloss,—
 * If virtue's gloss will stain with any soil,—
 * Is a sharp wit match'd with too blunt a will;
 * Whose edge hath power to cut, whose will still wills
 * It should none spare that come within his power.

PRINCESS.
 * Some merry mocking lord, belike; is't so?

MARIA.
 * They say so most that most his humours know.

PRINCESS.
 * Such short-liv'd wits do wither as they grow.
 * Who are the rest?

KATHARINE.
 * The young Dumain, a well-accomplish'd youth,
 * Of all that virtue love for virtue lov'd;
 * Most power to do most harm, least knowing ill,
 * For he hath wit to make an ill shape good,
 * And shape to win grace though he had no wit.
 * I saw him at the Duke Alencon's once;
 * And much too little of that good I saw
 * Is my report to his great worthiness.

ROSALINE.
 * Another of these students at that time
 * Was there with him, if I have heard a truth:
 * Berowne they call him; but 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.

PRINCESS.
 * God bless my ladies! Are they all in love,
 * That every one her own hath garnished
 * With such bedecking ornaments of praise?

FIRST LORD.
 * Here comes Boyet.

[Re-enter BOYET.]

PRINCESS.
 * Now, what admittance, lord?

BOYET.
 * Navarre had notice of your fair approach,
 * And he and his competitors in oath
 * Were all address'd to meet you, gentle lady,
 * Before I came. Marry, thus much I have learnt;
 * He rather means to lodge you in the field,
 * Like one that comes here to besiege his court,
 * Than seek a dispensation for his oath,
 * To let you enter his unpeeled house.
 * Here comes Navarre.

[The LADIES mask.]

[Enter KING, LONGAVILLE, DUMAINE, BEROWNE, and ATTENDANTS.]

KING.
 * Fair Princess, welcome to the court of Navarre.

PRINCESS.
 * 'Fair' I give you back again; and 'welcome' I have not yet: the
 * roof of this court is too high to be yours, and welcome to the
 * wide fields too base to be mine.

KING.
 * You shall be welcome, madam, to my court.

PRINCESS.
 * I will be welcome then: conduct me thither.

KING.
 * Hear me, dear lady; I have sworn an oath.

PRINCESS.
 * Our Lady help my lord! he'll be forsworn.

KING.
 * Not for the world, fair madam, by my will.

PRINCESS.
 * Why, will shall break it; will, and nothing else.

KING.
 * Your ladyship is ignorant what it is.

PRINCESS.
 * Were my lord so, his ignorance were wise,
 * Where now his knowledge must prove ignorance.
 * I hear your Grace hath sworn out house-keeping:
 * '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.

PRINCESS.
 * You will the sooner that I were away,
 * For you'll prove perjur'd if you make me stay.

BEROWNE.
 * Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?

ROSALINE.
 * Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?

BEROWNE.
 * I know you did.

ROSALINE.
 * How needless was it then
 * To ask the question!

BEROWNE.
 * You must not be so quick.

ROSALINE.
 * 'Tis long of you, that spur me with such questions.

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

ROSALINE.
 * Not till it leave the rider in the mire.

BEROWNE.
 * What time o' day?

ROSALINE.
 * The hour that fools should ask.

BEROWNE.
 * Now fair befall your mask!

ROSALINE.
 * Fair fall the face it covers!

BEROWNE.
 * And send you many lovers!

ROSALINE.
 * Amen, so you be none.

BEROWNE.
 * 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 which,
 * One part of Aquitaine is bound to us,
 * 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 Aquitaine,
 * And hold fair friendship with his majesty.
 * But that, it seems, he little purposeth,
 * For here he doth demand to have repaid
 * A hundred thousand crowns; and not demands,
 * On payment of a hundred thousand crowns,
 * To have his title live in Aquitaine;
 * Which we much rather had depart withal,
 * And have the money by our father lent,
 * Than Aquitaine so gelded as it is.
 * Dear Princess, were not his requests so far
 * From reason's yielding, your fair self should make
 * A yielding 'gainst some reason in my breast,
 * And go well satisfied to France again.

PRINCESS.
 * 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 Aquitaine.

PRINCESS.
 * 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 interview
 * All liberal reason I will yield unto.
 * Meantime 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.

PRINCESS.
 * Sweet health and fair desires consort your Grace!

KING.
 * Thy own wish wish I thee in every place.

[Exeunt KING and his Train.]

BEROWNE.
 * Lady, I will commend you to mine own heart.

ROSALINE.
 * Pray you, do my commendations; I would be glad to see it.

BEROWNE.
 * I would you heard it groan.

ROSALINE.
 * Is the fool sick?

BEROWNE.
 * Sick at the heart.

ROSALINE.
 * Alack! let it blood.

BEROWNE.
 * Would that do it good?

ROSALINE.
 * My physic says 'ay.'

BEROWNE.
 * Will you prick't with your eye?

ROSALINE.
 * No point, with my knife.

BEROWNE.
 * Now, God save thy life!

ROSALINE.
 * And yours from long living!

BEROWNE.
 * I cannot stay thanksgiving.

[Retiring.]

DUMAINE.
 * Sir, I pray you, a word: what lady is that same?

BOYET.
 * The heir of Alencon, Katharine her name.

DUMAINE.
 * A gallant lady! Monsieur, fare you well.

[Exit.]

LONGAVILLE.
 * I beseech you a word: what is she in the white?

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

LONGAVILLE.
 * Perchance light in the light. I desire her name.

BOYET.
 * She hath but one for herself; to desire that were a shame.

LONGAVILLE.
 * Pray you, sir, whose daughter?

BOYET.
 * Her mother's, I have heard.

LONGAVILLE.
 * God's blessing on your beard!

BOYET.
 * Good sir, be not offended.
 * She is an heir of Falconbridge.

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

BOYET.
 * Not unlike, sir; that may be.

[Exit LONGAVILLE.]

BEROWNE.
 * What's her name in the cap?

BOYET.
 * Rosaline, by good hap.

BEROWNE.
 * Is she wedded or no?

BOYET.
 * To her will, sir, or so.

BEROWNE.
 * You are welcome, sir. Adieu!

BOYET.
 * Farewell to me, sir, and welcome to you.

[Exit BEROWNE.—LADIES unmask.]

MARIA.
 * That last is Berowne, the merry mad-cap lord;
 * Not a word with him but a jest.

BOYET.
 * And every jest but a word.

PRINCESS.
 * It was well done of you to take him at his word.

BOYET.
 * I was as willing to grapple as he was to board.

MARIA.
 * Two hot sheeps, marry!

BOYET.
 * And wherefore not ships?
 * No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips.

MARIA.
 * You sheep and I pasture: shall that finish the jest?

BOYET.
 * So you grant pasture for me.

[Offering to kiss her.]

MARIA.
 * Not so, gentle beast.
 * My lips are no common, though several they be.

BOYET.
 * Belonging to whom?

MARIA.
 * To my fortunes and me.

PRINCESS.
 * Good wits will be jangling; but, gentles, agree;
 * This civil war of wits were much better us'd
 * On Navarre and his book-men, for here 'tis abus'd.

BOYET.
 * If my observation,—which very seldom lies,
 * By the heart's still rhetoric disclosed with eyes,
 * Deceive me not now, Navarre is infected.

PRINCESS.
 * With what?

BOYET.
 * With that which we lovers entitle affected.

PRINCESS.
 * Your reason.

BOYET.
 * Why, all his behaviours did make their retire
 * To the court of his eye, peeping thorough desire;
 * His heart, like an agate, with your print impress'd,
 * Proud with his form, in his eye pride express'd;
 * His tongue, all impatient to speak and not see,
 * Did stumble with haste in his eyesight to be;
 * All senses to that sense did make their repair,
 * To feel only looking on fairest of fair.
 * Methought all his senses were lock'd in his eye,
 * As jewels in crystal for some prince to buy;
 * Who, tend'ring their own worth from where they were glass'd,
 * Did point you to buy them, along as you pass'd.
 * His face's own margent did quote such amazes
 * That all eyes saw his eyes enchanted with gazes.
 * I'll give you Aquitaine, and all that is his,
 * An you give him for my sake but one loving kiss.

PRINCESS.
 * Come, to our pavilion: Boyet is dispos'd.

BOYET.
 * But to speak that in words which his eye hath disclos'd.
 * I only have made a mouth of his eye,
 * By adding a tongue which I know will not lie.

ROSALINE.
 * Thou art an old love-monger, and speak'st skilfully.

MARIA.
 * He is Cupid's grandfather, and learns news of him.

ROSALINE.
 * Then was Venus like her mother; for her father is but grim.

BOYET.
 * Do you hear, my mad wenches?

MARIA.
 * No.

BOYET.
 * What, then, do you see?

ROSALINE.
 * Ay, our way to be gone.

BOYET.
 * You are too hard for me.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE I. The King of Navarre's park.
[Enter ARMADO and MOTH.]

ARMADO.
 * Warble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing.

MOTH [Singing.]
 * Concolinel,—

ARMADO.
 * Sweet air! Go, tenderness of years; take this key, give
 * enlargement to the swain, bring him festinately hither; I must
 * employ him in a letter to my love.

MOTH.
 * Master, will you win your love with a French brawl?

ARMADO.
 * How meanest thou? brawling in French?

MOTH.
 * No, my complete master; but to jig off a tune at the tongue's
 * end, canary to it with your feet, humour it with turning up your
 * eyelids, sigh a note and sing a note, sometime through the
 * throat, as if you swallowed love with singing love, sometime
 * through the nose, as if you snuffed up love by smelling love;
 * with your hat penthouse-like o'er the shop of your eyes, with
 * your arms crossed on your thin-belly doublet, like a rabbit on a
 * spit; or your hands in your pocket, like a man after the old
 * painting; and keep not too long in one tune, but a snip and away.
 * These are complements, these are humours; these betray nice
 * wenches, that would be betrayed without these; and make them men
 * of note,—do you note me?—that most are affected to these.

ARMADO.
 * How hast thou purchased this experience?

MOTH.
 * By my penny of observation.

ARMADO.
 * But O—but O,—

MOTH.
 * 'The hobby-horse is forgot.'

ARMADO.
 * Call'st thou my love 'hobby-horse'?

MOTH.
 * No, master; the hobby-horse is but a colt, and your love
 * perhaps, a hackney. But have you forgot your love?

ARMADO.
 * Almost I had.

MOTH.
 * Negligent student! learn her by heart.

ARMADO.
 * By heart and in heart, boy.

MOTH.
 * And out of heart, master: all those three I will prove.

ARMADO.
 * What wilt thou prove?

MOTH.
 * A man, if I live; and this, by, in, and without, upon the
 * instant: by heart you love her, because your heart cannot come by
 * her; in heart you love her, because your heart is in love with
 * her; and out of heart you love her, being out of heart that you
 * cannot enjoy her.

ARMADO.
 * I am all these three.

MOTH.
 * And three times as much more, and yet nothing at all.

ARMADO.
 * Fetch hither the swain: he must carry me a letter.

MOTH.
 * A message well sympathized; a horse to be ambassador for an
 * ass.

ARMADO.
 * Ha, ha! what sayest thou?

MOTH.
 * Marry, sir, you must send the ass upon the horse, for he is
 * very slow-gaited. But I go.

ARMADO.
 * The way is but short: away!

MOTH.
 * As swift as lead, sir.

ARMADO.
 * The meaning, pretty ingenious?
 * Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow?

MOTH.
 * Minime, honest master; or rather, master, no.

ARMADO.
 * I say lead is slow.

MOTH.
 * You are too swift, sir, to say so:
 * Is that lead slow which is fir'd from a gun?

ARMADO.
 * Sweet smoke of rhetoric!
 * He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that's he;
 * I shoot thee at the swain.

MOTH.
 * Thump then, and I flee.

[Exit.]

ARMADO.
 * A most acute juvenal; volable and free of grace!
 * By thy favour, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face:
 * Most rude melancholy, valour gives thee place.
 * My herald is return'd.

[Re-enter MOTH with COSTARD.]

MOTH.
 * A wonder, master! here's a costard broken in a shin.

ARMADO.
 * Some enigma, some riddle: come, thy l'envoy; begin.

COSTARD.
 * No egma, no riddle, no l'envoy; no salve in the mail, sir.
 * O! sir, plantain, a plain plantain; no l'envoy, no l'envoy; no
 * salve, sir, but a plantain.

ARMADO.
 * By virtue thou enforcest laughter; thy silly thought, my
 * spleen; the heaving of my lungs provokes me to ridiculous
 * smiling: O! pardon me, my stars. Doth the inconsiderate take
 * salve for l'envoy, and the word l'envoy for a salve?

MOTH.
 * Do the wise think them other? Is not l'envoy a salve?

ARMADO.
 * No, page: it is an epilogue or discourse to make plain
 * Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain.
 * I will example it:
 * The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,
 * Were still at odds, being but three.
 * There's the moral. Now the l'envoy.

MOTH.
 * I will add the l'envoy. Say the moral again.

ARMADO.
 * The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,
 * Were still at odds, being but three.

MOTH.
 * Until the goose came out of door,
 * And stay'd the odds by adding four.
 * Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow with my l'envoy.
 * The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,
 * Were still at odds, being but three.

ARMADO.
 * Until the goose came out of door,
 * Staying the odds by adding four.

MOTH.
 * A good l'envoy, ending in the goose; would you desire more?

COSTARD.
 * The boy hath sold him a bargain, a goose, that's flat.
 * Sir, your pennyworth is good an your goose be fat.
 * To sell a bargain well is as cunning as fast and loose:
 * Let me see: a fat l'envoy; ay, that's a fat goose.

ARMADO.
 * Come hither, come hither. How did this argument begin?

MOTH.
 * By saying that a costard was broken in a shin.
 * Then call'd you for the l'envoy.

COSTARD.
 * True, and I for a plantain: thus came your argument in;
 * Then the boy's fat l'envoy, the goose that you bought;
 * And he ended the market.

ARMADO.
 * But tell me; how was there a costard broken in a shin?

MOTH.
 * I will tell you sensibly.

COSTARD.
 * Thou hast no feeling of it, Moth: I will speak that
 * l'envoy:
 * I, Costard, running out, that was safely within,
 * Fell over the threshold and broke my shin.

ARMADO.
 * We will talk no more of this matter.

COSTARD.
 * Till there be more matter in the shin.

ARMADO.
 * Sirrah Costard. I will enfranchise thee.

COSTARD.
 * O! marry me to one Frances: I smell some l'envoy, some
 * goose, in this.

ARMADO.
 * By my sweet soul, I mean setting thee at liberty,
 * enfreedoming thy person: thou wert immured, restrained,
 * captivated, bound.

COSTARD.
 * True, true; and now you will be my purgation, and let me
 * loose.

ARMADO.
 * I give thee thy liberty, set thee from durance; and, in
 * lieu thereof, impose on thee nothing but this:—[Giving a
 * letter.] Bear this significant to the country maid Jaquenetta.
 * [Giving money.] there is remuneration; for the best ward of mine
 * honour is rewarding my dependents. Moth, follow.

[Exit.]

MOTH.
 * Like the sequel, I. Signior Costard, adieu.

COSTARD.
 * My sweet ounce of man's flesh! my incony Jew!

[Exit MOTH.]


 * Now will I look to his remuneration. Remuneration! O! that's the
 * Latin word for three farthings: three farthings, remuneration.
 * 'What's the price of this inkle?' 'One penny.' 'No, I'll give
 * you a remuneration.' Why, it carries it. Remuneration! Why, it is
 * a fairer name than French crown. I will never buy and sell out of
 * this word.

[Enter BEROWNE.]

BEROWNE.
 * O! My good knave Costard, exceedingly well met.

COSTARD.
 * Pray you, sir, how much carnation riband may a man buy for
 * a remuneration?

BEROWNE.
 * What is a remuneration?

COSTARD.
 * Marry, sir, halfpenny farthing.

BEROWNE.
 * Why, then, three-farthing worth of silk.

COSTARD.
 * I thank your worship. God be wi' you!

BEROWNE.
 * Stay, slave; I must employ thee:
 * As thou wilt win my favour, good my knave,
 * Do one thing for me that I shall entreat.

COSTARD.
 * When would you have it done, sir?

BEROWNE.
 * O, this afternoon.

COSTARD.
 * Well, I will do it, sir! fare you well.

BEROWNE.
 * O, thou knowest not what it is.

COSTARD.
 * I shall know, sir, when I have done it.

BEROWNE.
 * Why, villain, thou must know first.

COSTARD.
 * I will come to your worship to-morrow morning.

BEROWNE.
 * It must be done this afternoon. Hark, slave, it is but this:
 * The princess comes to hunt here in the park,
 * And in her train there is a gentle lady;
 * When tongues speak sweetly, then they name her name,
 * And Rosaline they call her: ask for her
 * And to her white hand see thou do commend
 * This seal'd-up counsel.

[Gives him a shilling.]


 * There's thy guerdon: go.

COSTARD.
 * Gardon, O sweet gardon! better than remuneration; a
 * 'leven-pence farthing better; most sweet gardon! I will do it,
 * sir, in print. Gardon- remuneration!

[Exit.]

BEROWNE.
 * 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 so magnificent!
 * This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy,
 * This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid;
 * Regent of love-rimes, lord of folded arms,
 * The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans,
 * Liege of all loiterers and malcontents,
 * Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces,
 * Sole imperator, and great general
 * Of trotting 'paritors: O my little heart!
 * And I to be a corporal of his field,
 * And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop!
 * What! 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 aright, being a watch,
 * But being watch'd that it may still go right!
 * Nay, to be perjur'd, which is worst of all;
 * And, among three, to love the worst of all,
 * A wightly wanton with a velvet brow,
 * With two pitch balls stuck in her face for eyes;
 * Ay, and, by heaven, one that will do the deed,
 * Though Argus were her eunuch and her guard:
 * And I to sigh for her! to watch for her!
 * To pray for her! Go to; it is a plague
 * That Cupid will impose for my neglect
 * Of his almighty dreadful little might.
 * Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue, and groan:
 * Some men must love my lady, and some Joan.

[Exit.]

SCENE I. The King of Navarre's park.
[Enter the PRINCESS, ROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, BOYET, LORDS, ATTENDANTS, and a FORESTER.

PRINCESS.
 * Was that the King that spurr'd his horse so hard
 * Against the steep uprising of the hill?

BOYET.
 * I know not; but I think it was not he.

PRINCESS.
 * Whoe'er a' was, a' show'd a mounting mind.
 * Well, lords, to-day we shall have our dispatch;
 * On Saturday we will return to France.
 * Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush
 * That we must stand and play the murderer in?

FORESTER.
 * Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice;
 * A stand where you may make the fairest shoot.

PRINCESS.
 * I thank my beauty, I am fair that shoot,
 * And thereupon thou speak'st the fairest shoot.

FORESTER.
 * Pardon me, madam, for I meant not so.

PRINCESS.
 * What, what? First praise me, and again say no?
 * O short-liv'd pride! Not fair? Alack for woe!

FORESTER.
 * Yes, madam, fair.

PRINCESS.
 * Nay, never paint me now;
 * Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow.
 * Here, good my glass [Gives money]:—take this for telling true:

Fair payment for foul words is more than due.

FORESTER.
 * Nothing but fair is that which you inherit.

PRINCESS.
 * See, see! my beauty will be sav'd by merit.
 * O heresy in fair, fit for these days!
 * 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,
 * When, for fame's sake, for praise, an outward part,
 * We bend to that the working of the heart;
 * As I for praise alone now seek to spill
 * The poor deer's blood, that my heart means no ill.

BOYET.
 * Do not curst wives hold that self-sovereignty
 * Only for praise' sake, when they strive to be
 * Lords o'er their lords?

PRINCESS.
 * Only for praise; and praise we may afford
 * To any lady that subdues a lord.

[Enter COSTARD.]

BOYET.
 * Here comes a member of the commonwealth.

COSTARD.
 * God dig-you-den all! Pray you, which is the head lady?

PRINCESS.
 * Thou shalt know her, fellow, by the rest that have no heads.

COSTARD.
 * Which is the greatest lady, the highest?

PRINCESS.
 * The thickest and the tallest.

COSTARD.
 * The thickest and the tallest! It is so; truth is truth.
 * An your waist, mistress, were as slender as my wit,
 * One o' these maids' girdles for your waist should be fit.
 * Are not you the chief woman? You are the thickest here.

PRINCESS.
 * What's your will, sir? What's your will?

COSTARD.
 * I have a letter from Monsieur Berowne to one Lady Rosaline.

PRINCESS.
 * O! thy letter, thy letter; he's a good friend of mine.
 * Stand aside, good bearer. Boyet, you can carve;
 * Break up this capon.

BOYET.
 * I am bound to serve.
 * This letter is mistook; it importeth none here.
 * It is writ to Jaquenetta.

PRINCESS.
 * We will read it, I swear.
 * Break the neck of the wax, and every one give ear.

BOYET.
 * 'By heaven, that thou art fair is most infallible;
 * true, that thou art beauteous; truth itself, that thou art
 * lovely. More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous, truer
 * than truth itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal! The
 * magnanimous and most illustrate king Cophetua set eye upon the
 * pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon, and he it was that
 * might rightly say, Veni, vidi, vici; which to anatomize in
 * the vulgar— O base and obscure vulgar!—videlicet, he came, saw,
 * and overcame: he came, one; saw, two; overcame, three. Who came?
 * the king: Why did he come? to see: Why did he see? to overcome:
 * To whom came he? to the beggar: What saw he? the beggar. Who
 * overcame he? the beggar. The conclusion is victory; on whose
 * side? the king's; the captive is enriched: on whose side? the
 * beggar's. The catastrophe is a nuptial: on whose side? the
 * king's, no, on both in one, or one in both. I am the king, for so
 * stands the comparison; thou the beggar, for so witnesseth thy
 * lowliness. Shall I command thy love? I may: Shall I enforce thy
 * love? I could: Shall I entreat thy love? I will. What shalt thou
 * exchange for rags? robes; for tittles? 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 are thou then?
 * Food for his rage, repasture for his den.'

PRINCESS.
 * What plume of feathers is he that indited this letter?
 * What vane? What weathercock? Did you ever hear better?

BOYET.
 * I am much deceiv'd but I remember the style.

PRINCESS.
 * Else your memory is bad, going o'er it erewhile.

BOYET.
 * This Armado is a Spaniard, that keeps here in court;
 * A phantasime, a Monarcho, and one that makes sport
 * To the Prince and his book-mates.

PRINCESS.
 * Thou fellow, a word.
 * Who gave thee this letter?

COSTARD.
 * I told you; my lord.

PRINCESS.
 * To whom shouldst thou give it?

COSTARD.
 * From my lord to my lady.

PRINCESS.
 * From which lord to which lady?

COSTARD.
 * From my Lord Berowne, a good master of mine,
 * To a lady of France that he call'd Rosaline.

PRINCESS.
 * Thou hast mistaken his letter. Come, lords, away.
 * Here, sweet, put up this: 'twill be thine another day.

[Exeunt PRINCESS and TRAIN.]

BOYET.
 * Who is the suitor? who is the suitor?

ROSALINE.
 * Shall I teach you to know?

BOYET.
 * Ay, my continent of beauty.

ROSALINE.
 * Why, she that bears the bow.
 * Finely put off!

BOYET.
 * My lady goes to kill horns; but, if thou marry,
 * Hang me by the neck, if horns that year miscarry.
 * Finely put on!

ROSALINE.
 * Well then, I am the shooter.

BOYET.
 * And who is your deer?

ROSALINE.
 * If we choose by the horns, yourself: come not near.
 * Finely put on indeed!

MARIA.
 * You still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at the
 * brow.

BOYET.
 * But she herself is hit lower: have I hit her now?

ROSALINE.
 * 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.

ROSALINE.
 * Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it,
 * Thou canst not hit it, my good man.

BOYET.
 * An I cannot, cannot, cannot,
 * An I cannot, another can.

[Exeunt ROSALINE and KATHARINE.]

COSTARD.
 * By my troth, most pleasant: how both did fit it!

MARIA.
 * A mark marvellous well shot; for they both did hit it.

BOYET.
 * A mark! O! mark but that mark; A mark, says my lady!
 * Let the mark have a prick in't, to mete at, if it may be.

MARIA.
 * Wide o' the bow-hand! I' faith, your hand is out.

COSTARD.
 * 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.

COSTARD.
 * Then will she get the upshoot by cleaving the pin.

MARIA.
 * Come, come, you talk greasily; your lips grow foul.

COSTARD.
 * She's too hard for you at pricks, sir; challenge her to bowl.

BOYET.
 * I fear too much rubbing. Good-night, my good owl.

[Exeunt BOYET and MARIA.]

COSTARD.
 * 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!
 * 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!
 * And his page o' t'other side, that handful of wit!
 * Ah! heavens, it is a most pathetical nit.
 * [Shouting within.] Sola, sola!

[Exit running.]

SCENE II. The same.
Enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL.

NATHANIEL.
 * Very reverent sport, truly; and done in the testimony of
 * a good conscience.

HOLOFERNES.
 * The deer was, as you know, sanguis, in blood; ripe as
 * the pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of caelo,
 * the sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crab on
 * the face of terra, the soil, the land, the earth.

NATHANIEL.
 * 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.

HOLOFERNES.
 * Sir Nathaniel, haud credo.

DULL.
 * Twas not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket.

HOLOFERNES.
 * 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 sthe deer was not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket.

HOLOFERNES.
 * Twice sod simplicity, bis coctus!
 * O! thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!

NATHANIEL.
 * Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred of a book;
 * he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink: his
 * intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible
 * in the duller parts:
 * And such barren plants are set before us that we thankful should
 * be,
 * Which we of 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,
 * So, were there a patch set on learning, to see him in a school.
 * 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 me by your wit,
 * What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five weeks old
 * as yet?

HOLOFERNES.
 * Dictynna, goodman Dull; Dictynna, goodman Dull.

DULL.
 * What is Dictynna?

NATHANIEL.
 * A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon.

HOLOFERNES.
 * The moon was a month old when Adam was no more,
 * And raught not to five weeks when he came to five-score.
 * The allusion holds in the exchange.

DULL.
 * 'Tis true, indeed; the collusion holds in the exchange.

HOLOFERNES.
 * 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 killed.

HOLOFERNES.
 * Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on the death
 * of the deer? And, to humour the ignorant, I have call'd the deer
 * the Princess killed, a pricket.

NATHANIEL.
 * Perge, good Master Holofernes, perge; so it shall please
 * you to abrogate scurrility.

HOLOFERNES.
 * I will something affect the letter; for it argues facility.
 * The preyful Princess pierc'd and prick'd a pretty pleasing
 * pricket;
 * Some say a sore; but not a sore till now made sore with
 * shooting.
 * The dogs did yell; put L to sore, then sorel jumps from thicket-
 * Or pricket sore, or else sorel; the people fall a-hooting.
 * If sore be sore, then L to sore makes fifty sores one sorel!
 * Of one sore I an hundred make, by adding but one more L.

NATHANIEL.
 * A rare talent!

DULL.
 * [Aside] If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a
 * talent.

HOLOFERNES.
 * 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.

NATHANIEL.
 * 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.

HOLOFERNES.
 * 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 pauca loquitur. A soul feminine saluteth
 * us.

[Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD.]

JAQUENETTA.
 * God give you good morrow, Master parson.

HOLOFERNES.
 * Master parson, quasi pers-on. And if one should be
 * pierced, which is the one?

COSTARD.
 * Marry, Master schoolmaster, he that is likest to a hogshead.

HOLOFERNES.
 * Piercing a hogshead! A good lustre or conceit in a turf
 * of earth; fire enough for a flint, pearl enough for a swine; 'tis
 * pretty; it is well.

JAQUENETTA.
 * Good Master parson [Giving a letter to NATHANIEL.], 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.

HOLOFERNES.
 * 'Fauste, precor gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra Ruminat,'
 * and so forth. Ah! good old Mantuan. I may speak of thee as
 * the traveller doth of Venice:
 * —Venetia, Venetia,
 * Chi non ti vede, non ti pretia.
 * 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?

NATHANIEL.
 * Ay, sir, and very learned.

HOLOFERNES.
 * Let me hear a staff, a stanze, a verse; lege, domine.

NATHANIEL.
 * If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?
 * Ah! never faith could hold, if not to beauty vow'd;
 * 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 comprehend:
 * 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.

HOLOFERNES.
 * You find not the apostrophas, 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, the jerks of
 * invention? Imitari is nothing: so doth the hound his master, the
 * ape his keeper, the 'tired horse his rider. But, damosella
 * virgin, was this directed to you?

JAQUENETTA.
 * Ay, sir; from one Monsieur Berowne, one of the strange
 * queen's lords.

HOLOFERNES.
 * I will overglance the superscript: 'To the snow-white
 * hand of the most beauteous Lady Rosaline.' I will look again on
 * the intellect of the letter, for the nomination of the party
 * writing to the person written unto: 'Your Ladyship's in all
 * desired employment, Berowne.'—Sir Nathaniel, this Berowne 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.

JAQUENETTA.
 * Good Costard, go with me. Sir, God save your life!

COSTARD.
 * Have with thee, my girl.

[Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA.]

NATHANIEL.
 * Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very religiously;
 * and, as a certain Father saith—

HOLOFERNES.
 * Sir, tell not me of the Father; I do fear colourable colours. But
 * to return to the verses: did they please you, Sir Nathaniel?

NATHANIEL.
 * Marvellous well for the pen.

HOLOFERNES.
 * 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 savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention. I beseech your
 * society.

NATHANIEL.
 * And thank you too; for society,—saith the text,—is the
 * happiness of life.

HOLOFERNES.
 * And certes, the text most infallibly concludes it.
 * [To DULL] Sir, 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. The same.
[Enter BEROWNE, with a paper.]

BEROWNE.
 * The king he is hunting the deer: I am coursing myself: they have
 * pitched a toil: I am tolling in a pitch,—pitch that defiles:
 * defile! a foul word! Well, sit thee down, sorrow! for
 * so they say the fool said, and so say I, and I am 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
 * rime, 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!

BEROWNE. [Aside.]
 * Shot, by heaven! Proceed, sweet Cupid; thou hast thumped
 * him with thy bird-bolt under the left pap. In faith, secrets!

KING.
 * So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not
 * To those fresh morning drops upon the rose,
 * As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote
 * The night of dew 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 dost thou 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?
 * [Steps aside.]
 * What, Longaville! and reading! Listen, ear.
 * [Enter LONGAVILLE, with a paper.]

BEROWNE.
 * Now, in thy likeness, one more fool appear!

LONGAVILLE.
 * Ay me! I am forsworn.

BEROWNE.
 * Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers.

KING.
 * In love, I hope: sweet fellowship in shame!

BEROWNE.
 * One drunkard loves another of the name.

LONGAVILLE.
 * Am I the first that have been perjur'd so?

BEROWNE.
 * I could put thee in comfort: not by two that I know;
 * Thou makest the triumviry, the corner-cap of society,
 * The shape of love's Tyburn that hangs up simplicity.

LONGAVILLE.
 * I fear these stubborn lines lack power to move.
 * O sweet Maria, empress of my love!
 * These numbers will I tear, and write in prose.

BEROWNE.
 * O! rimes are guards on wanton Cupid's hose:
 * Disfigure not his slop.

LONGAVILLE.
 * This same shall go.

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 vapour is:
 * Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine,
 * Exhal'st this vapour-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!

BEROWNE.
 * This is the liver-vein, which makes flesh a deity;
 * A green goose a goddess; pure, pure idolatry.
 * God amend us, God amend! We are much out o' the way.

LONGAVILLE.
 * By whom shall I send this?—Company! Stay.

[Steps aside.]

BEROWNE.
 * All hid, all hid; an old infant play.
 * Like a demigod here sit I in the sky,
 * And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'er-eye.
 * More sacks to the mill! O heavens, I have my wish.

[Enter DUMAINE, with a paper.]
 * Dumain transformed: four woodcocks in a dish!

DUMAINE.
 * O most divine Kate!

BEROWNE.
 * O most profane coxcomb!

DUMAINE.
 * By heaven, the wonder in a mortal eye!

BEROWNE.
 * By earth, she is but corporal; there you lie.

DUMAINE.
 * Her amber hairs for foul hath amber quoted.

BEROWNE.
 * An amber-colour'd raven was well noted.

DUMAINE.
 * As upright as the cedar.

BEROWNE.
 * Stoop, I say;
 * Her shoulder is with child.

DUMAINE.
 * As fair as day.

BEROWNE.
 * Ay, as some days; but then no sun must shine.

DUMAINE.
 * O! that I had my wish.

LONGAVILLE.
 * And I had mine!

KING.
 * And I mine too, good Lord!

BEROWNE.
 * Amen, so I had mine. Is not that a good word?

DUMAINE.
 * I would forget her; but a fever she
 * Reigns in my blood, and will remember'd be.

BEROWNE.
 * A fever in your blood! Why, then incision
 * Would let her out in saucers: sweet misprision!

DUMAINE.
 * Once more I'll read the ode that I have writ.

BEROWNE.
 * Once more I'll mark how love can vary wit.

DUMAINE.
 * On a day, alack the day!
 * 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;
 * Thou for whom e'en Jove would swear
 * Juno but an Ethiope were;
 * And deny himself for Jove,
 * Turning mortal for thy love.


 * This will I send, and something else more plain,
 * That shall express my true love's fasting pain.
 * O! would the King, Berowne 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.

LONGAVILLE.
 * [Advancing.] Dumain, 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.
 * [Advancing.] Come, sir, you blush; as his, your case is such.
 * 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 rimes, 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:
 * [To LONGAVILLE] You would for paradise break faith and troth;
 * [To DUMAIN] And Jove, for your love would infringe an oath.
 * What will Berowne 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.

BEROWNE.
 * Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy.
 * [Descends 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;
 * 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 Dumaine?
 * And, gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain?
 * And where my liege's? all about the breast:
 * A caudle, ho!

KING.
 * Too bitter is thy jest.
 * Are we betrayed thus to thy over-view?

BEROWNE.
 * Not you by me, but I betray'd by you.
 * I that am honest; I that hold it sin
 * To break the vow I am engaged in;
 * I am betrayed by keeping company
 * With men like men, men of inconstancy.
 * When shall you see me write a thing in rime?
 * 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 gait, 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?

BEROWNE.
 * I post from love; good lover, let me go.

[Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD.]

JAQUENETTA.
 * God bless the king!

KING.
 * What present hast thou there?

COSTARD.
 * Some certain treason.

KING.
 * What makes treason here?

COSTARD.
 * Nay, it makes nothing, sir.

KING.
 * If it mar nothing neither,
 * The treason and you go in peace away together.

JAQUENETTA.
 * I beseech your Grace, let this letter be read;
 * Our parson misdoubts it; 'twas treason, he said.

KING.
 * Berowne, read it over.

[Giving the letter to him.]


 * Where hadst thou it?

JAQUENETTA.
 * Of Costard.

KING.
 * Where hadst thou it?

COSTARD.
 * Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio.

[BEROWNE tears the letter.]

KING.
 * How now! What is in you? Why dost thou tear it?

BEROWNE.
 * A toy, my liege, a toy: your Grace needs not fear it.

LONGAVILLE.
 * It did move him to passion, and therefore let's hear it.

DUMAINE.
 * [Picking up the pieces.]
 * It is Berowne's writing, and here is his name.

BEROWNE.
 * [To COSTARD.] Ah, you whoreson loggerhead, you were born
 * to do me shame.
 * Guilty, my lord, guilty; I confess, I confess.

KING.
 * What?

BEROWNE.
 * That you three fools lack'd me fool to make up the mess;
 * He, he, and you, 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.

DUMAINE.
 * Now the number is even.

BEROWNE.
 * True, true, we are four.
 * Will these turtles be gone?

KING.
 * Hence, sirs; away!

COSTARD.
 * Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay.

[Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA.]

BEROWNE.
 * 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 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?

BEROWNE.
 * 'Did they?' quoth you? Who sees the heavenly Rosaline
 * That, like a rude and savage man of Inde
 * At the first op'ning 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.

BEROWNE.
 * My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Berowne.
 * 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:
 * 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.

BEROWNE.
 * 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 school of night;
 * And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well.

BEROWNE.
 * Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light.
 * O! if in black my lady's brows be deck'd,
 * 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;
 * And therefore red, that would avoid dispraise,
 * Paints itself black, to imitate her brow.

DUMAINE.
 * To look like her are chimney-sweepers black.

LONGAVILLE.
 * And since her time are colliers counted bright.

KING.
 * And Ethiopes of their sweet complexion crack.

DUMAINE.
 * Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light.

BEROWNE.
 * 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.

BEROWNE.
 * I'll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here.

KING.
 * No devil will fright thee then so much as she.

DUMAINE.
 * I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear.

LONGAVILLE.
 * Look, here's thy love:

[Showing his shoe.]


 * my foot and her face see.

BEROWNE.
 * O! if the streets were paved with thine eyes,
 * Her feet were much too dainty for such tread.

DUMAINE.
 * O vile! Then, as she goes, what upward lies
 * The street should see as she walk'd over head.

KING.
 * But what of this? Are we not all in love?

BEROWNE.
 * Nothing so sure; and thereby all forsworn.

KING.
 * Then leave this chat; and, good Berowne, now prove
 * Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn.

DUMAINE.
 * Ay, marry, there; some flattery for this evil.

LONGAVILLE.
 * O! some authority how to proceed;
 * Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil.

DUMAINE.
 * Some salve for perjury.

BEROWNE.
 * 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 you have vow'd to study, lords,
 * In that each of you have 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 poisons up
 * 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 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 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 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, the voice of all the gods
 * Make 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 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.
 * 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!

BEROWNE.
 * Advance your standards, and upon them, lords;
 * Pell-mell, down with them! be first advis'd,
 * In conflict that you get the sun of them.

LONGAVILLE.
 * Now to plain-dealing; lay these glozes by:
 * Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France?

KING.
 * And win them too; therefore let us devise
 * Some entertainment for them in their tents.

BEROWNE.
 * 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,
 * Forerun fair Love, strewing her way with flowers.

KING.
 * Away, away! No time shall be omitted,
 * That will betime, and may by us be fitted.

BEROWNE.
 * Allons! allons! Sow'd cockle reap'd no corn;
 * And justice always whirls in equal measure:
 * Light wenches may prove plagues to men forsworn;
 * If so, our copper buys no better treasure.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE I. The King of Navarre's park.
[Enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL.]

HOLOFERNES.
 * Satis quod sufficit.

NATHANIEL.
 * 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.

HOLOFERNES.
 * 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 affected, too odd,
 * as it were, too peregrinate, as I may call it.

NATHANIEL.
 * A most singular and choice epithet.

[Draws out his table-book.]

HOLOFERNES.
 * He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than
 * the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical phantasimes,
 * 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 nebour, neigh
 * abbreviated ne. This is abhominable, which he
 * would call abominable,—it insinuateth me of insanie: anne
 * intelligis, domine? to make frantic, lunatic.

NATHANIEL.
 * Laus Deo, bone intelligo.

HOLOFERNES.
 * Bone? bone for bene: Priscian a little scratch'd; 'twill serve.

[Enter ARMADO, MOTH, and COSTARD.]

NATHANIEL.
 * Videsne quis venit?

HOLOFERNES.
 * Video, et gaudeo.

ARMADO.
 * [To MOTH] Chirrah!

HOLOFERNES.
 * Quare chirrah, not sirrah?

ARMADO.
 * Men of peace, well encountered.

HOLOFERNES.
 * Most military sir, salutation.

MOTH.
 * [Aside to COSTARD.] They have been at a great feast of
 * languages and stolen the scraps.

COSTARD.
 * O! they have lived long on the alms-basket of words. I
 * marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word, for thou are
 * not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus; thou art
 * easier swallowed than a flap-dragon.

MOTH.
 * Peace! the peal begins.

ARMADO.
 * [To HOLOFERNES.] Monsieur, are you not lettered?

MOTH.
 * Yes, yes; he teaches boys the hornbook. What is a, b, spelt
 * backward with the horn on his head?

HOLOFERNES.
 * Ba, pueritia, with a horn added.

MOTH.
 * Ba! most silly sheep with a horn. You hear his learning.

HOLOFERNES.
 * Quis, quis, thou consonant?

MOTH.
 * The third of the five vowels, if you repeat them; or the
 * fifth, if I.

HOLOFERNES.
 * I will repeat them,—a, e, i,—

MOTH.
 * The sheep; the other two concludes it,—o, u.

ARMADO.
 * Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum, a sweet touch,
 * a quick venue of wit! snip, snap, quick and home! It rejoiceth my
 * intellect: true wit!

MOTH.
 * Offered by a child to an old man; which is wit-old.

HOLOFERNES.
 * What is the figure? What is the figure?

MOTH.
 * Horns.

HOLOFERNES.
 * Thou disputes like an infant; go, whip thy gig.

MOTH.
 * Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your
 * infamy circum circa. A gig of a cuckold's horn.

COSTARD.
 * An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it
 * to buy gingerbread. Hold, there is the very remuneration I had
 * of thy master, thou half-penny purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of
 * discretion. O! an the heavens were so pleased that thou wert but
 * my bastard, what a joyful father wouldst thou make me. Go to;
 * thou hast it ad dunghill, at the fingers' ends, as they say.

HOLOFERNES.
 * O, I smell false Latin! 'dunghill' for unguem.

ARMADO.
 * Arts-man, praeambula; we will be singled from the barbarous. Do
 * you not educate youth at the charge-house on the top of the
 * mountain?

HOLOFERNES.
 * Or mons, the hill.

ARMADO.
 * At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain.

HOLOFERNES.
 * I do, sans question.

ARMADO.
 * Sir, it is the King's most sweet pleasure and affection to
 * congratulate the princess at her pavilion, in the posteriors of
 * this day, which the rude multitude call the afternoon.

HOLOFERNES.
 * The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is liable,
 * congruent, and measurable, for the afternoon. The word is well
 * culled, chose, sweet, and apt, I do assure you, sir; I do assure.

ARMADO.
 * Sir, the King is a noble gentleman, and my familiar, I do
 * assure ye, very good friend. For what is inward between us, let
 * it pass: I do beseech thee, remember thy courtsy; 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 I 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,
 * sweet heart, 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, sweet heart, 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, or 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.

HOLOFERNES.
 * 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 King's command, and this most gallant,
 * illustrate, and learned gentleman, before the princess, I say
 * none so fit as to present the Nine Worthies.

NATHANIEL.
 * Where will you find men worthy enough to present them?

HOLOFERNES.
 * Joshua, yourself; myself, Alexander; this gallant
 * gentleman, Judas Maccabaeus; this swain, because of his great
 * limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the Great; the page, Hercules,—

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

HOLOFERNES.
 * 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.

MOTH.
 * An excellent device! So, if any of the audience hiss, you may
 * cry 'Well done, Hercules; now thou crushest the snake!' That is
 * the way to make an offence gracious, though few have the grace to
 * do it.

ARMADO.
 * For the rest of the Worthies?—

HOLOFERNES.
 * I will play three myself.

MOTH.
 * Thrice-worthy gentleman!

ARMADO.
 * Shall I tell you a thing?

HOLOFERNES.
 * We attend.

ARMADO.
 * We will have, if this fadge not, an antic. I beseech you,
 * follow.

HOLOFERNES.
 * Via, goodman Dull! Thou has spoken no word all this while.

DULL.
 * Nor understood none neither, sir.

HOLOFERNES.
 * 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.

HOLOFERNES.
 * Most dull, honest Dull! To our sport, away.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE II. The same. Before the Princess's pavilion.
[Enter the PRINCESS, KATHARINE, ROSALINE and MARIA.]

PRINCESS.
 * Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart,
 * If fairings come thus plentifully in.
 * A lady wall'd about with diamonds!
 * Look you what I have from the loving king.

ROSALINE.
 * Madam, came nothing else along with that?

PRINCESS.
 * Nothing but this! Yes, as much love in rime
 * As would be cramm'd up in a sheet of paper
 * Writ o' both sides the leaf, margent and all,
 * That he was fain to seal on Cupid's name.

ROSALINE.
 * That was the way to make his godhead wax;
 * For he hath been five thousand years a boy.

KATHARINE.
 * Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too.

ROSALINE.
 * You'll ne'er be friends with him: a' kill'd your sister.

KATHARINE.
 * He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy;
 * And so she died: had she been light, like you,
 * Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit,
 * She might ha' been a grandam ere she died;
 * And so may you, for a light heart lives long.

ROSALINE.
 * What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word?

KATHARINE.
 * A light condition in a beauty dark.

ROSALINE.
 * We need more light to find your meaning out.

KATHARINE.
 * You'll mar the light by taking it in snuff;
 * Therefore I'll darkly end the argument.

ROSALINE.
 * Look what you do, you do it still i' the dark.

KATHARINE.
 * So do not you; for you are a light wench.

ROSALINE.
 * Indeed, I weigh not you; and therefore light.

KATHARINE.
 * You weigh me not? O! that's you care not for me.

ROSALINE.
 * Great reason; for 'past cure is still past care.'

PRINCESS.
 * Well bandied both; a set of wit well play'd.
 * But, Rosaline, you have a favour too:
 * Who sent it? and what is it?

ROSALINE.
 * I would you knew.
 * An if my face were but as fair as yours,
 * My favour were as great: be witness this.
 * Nay, I have verses too, I thank Berowne;
 * The numbers true, and, were the numbering too,
 * I were the fairest goddess on the ground:
 * I am compar'd to twenty thousand fairs.
 * O! he hath drawn my picture in his letter.

PRINCESS.
 * Anything like?

ROSALINE.
 * Much in the letters; nothing in the praise.

PRINCESS.
 * Beauteous as ink; a good conclusion.

KATHARINE.
 * Fair as a text B in a copy-book.

ROSALINE.
 * 'Ware pencils! how! let me not die your debtor,
 * My red dominical, my golden letter:
 * O, that your face were not so full of O's!

KATHARINE.
 * A pox of that jest! and beshrew all shrows!

PRINCESS.
 * But, Katharine, what was sent to you from fair Dumaine?

KATHARINE.
 * Madam, this glove.

PRINCESS.
 * Did he not send you twain?

KATHARINE.
 * Yes, madam; and, moreover,
 * Some thousand verses of a faithful lover;
 * A huge translation of hypocrisy,
 * Vilely compil'd, profound simplicity.

MARIA.
 * This, and these pearl, to me sent Longaville;
 * The letter is too long by half a mile.

PRINCESS.
 * I think no less. Dost thou not wish in heart
 * The chain were longer and the letter short?

MARIA.
 * Ay, or I would these hands might never part.

PRINCESS.
 * We are wise girls to mock our lovers so.

ROSALINE.
 * They are worse fools to purchase mocking so.
 * That same Berowne I'll torture ere I go.
 * O that I knew he were but in by th' week!
 * How I would make him fawn, and beg, and seek,
 * And wait the season, and observe the times,
 * And spend his prodigal wits in bootless rimes,
 * And shape his service wholly to my hests,
 * And make him proud to make me proud that jests!
 * So perttaunt-like would I o'ersway his state
 * That he should be my fool, and I his fate.

PRINCESS.
 * 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.

ROSALINE.
 * The blood of youth burns not with such excess
 * As gravity's revolt to wantonness.

MARIA.
 * Folly in fools bears not so strong a note
 * As fool'ry in the wise when wit doth dote;
 * Since all the power thereof it doth apply
 * To prove, by wit, worth in simplicity.

[Enter BOYET.]

PRINCESS.
 * Here comes Boyet, and mirth is in his face.

BOYET.
 * O! I am stabb'd with laughter! Where's her Grace?

PRINCESS.
 * Thy news, Boyet?

BOYET.
 * Prepare, madam, prepare!—
 * Arm, wenches, arm! encounters mounted are
 * Against your peace: Love doth approach disguis'd,
 * Armed in arguments; you'll be surpris'd:
 * Muster your wits; stand in your own defence;
 * Or hide your heads like cowards, and fly hence.

PRINCESS.
 * Saint Denis to Saint Cupid! What are they
 * That charge their breath against us? Say, scout, say.

BOYET.
 * Under the cool shade of a sycamore
 * I thought to close mine eyes some half an hour;
 * When, lo, to interrupt my purpos'd rest,
 * Toward that shade I might behold addrest
 * The king and his companions: warily
 * I stole into a neighbour thicket by,
 * And overheard what you shall overhear;
 * That, by and by, disguis'd they will be here.
 * Their herald is a pretty knavish page,
 * That well by heart hath conn'd his embassage:
 * Action and accent did they teach him there;
 * 'Thus must thou speak' and 'thus thy body bear,'
 * And ever and anon they made a doubt
 * Presence majestical would put him out;
 * 'For' quoth the King 'an angel shalt thou see;
 * Yet fear not thou, but speak audaciously.'
 * The boy replied 'An angel is not evil;
 * I should have fear'd her had she been a devil.'
 * With that all laugh'd, and clapp'd him on the shoulder,
 * Making the bold wag by their praises bolder.
 * One rubb'd his elbow, thus, and fleer'd, and swore
 * A better speech was never spoke before.
 * Another with his finger and his thumb
 * Cried 'Via! we will do't, come what will come.'
 * The third he caper'd, and cried 'All goes well.'
 * The fourth turn'd on the toe, and down he fell.
 * With that they all did tumble on the ground,
 * With such a zealous laughter, so profound,
 * That in this spleen ridiculous appears,
 * To check their folly, passion's solemn tears.

PRINCESS.
 * But what, but what, come they to visit us?

BOYET.
 * They do, they do, and are apparell'd thus,
 * Like Muscovites or Russians, as I guess.
 * Their purpose is to parley, court, and dance;
 * And every one his love-feat will advance
 * Unto his several mistress; which they'll know
 * By favours several which they did bestow.

PRINCESS.
 * And will they so? The gallants shall be task'd:
 * For, ladies, we will every one be mask'd;
 * And not a man of them shall have the grace,
 * Despite of suit, to see a lady's face.
 * Hold, Rosaline, this favour thou shalt wear,
 * And then the king will court thee for his dear;
 * Hold, take thou this, my sweet, and give me thine,
 * So shall Berowne take me for Rosaline.
 * And change you favours too; so shall your loves
 * Woo contrary, deceiv'd by these removes.

ROSALINE.
 * Come on, then, wear the favours most in sight.

KATHARINE.
 * But, in this changing, what is your intent?

PRINCESS.
 * The effect of my intent is to cross theirs;
 * They do it but in mocking merriment;
 * And mock for mock is only my intent.
 * Their several counsels they unbosom shall
 * To loves mistook, and so be mock'd withal
 * Upon the next occasion that we meet
 * With visages display'd to talk and greet.

ROSALINE.
 * But shall we dance, if they desire us to't?

PRINCESS.
 * No, to the death, we will not move a foot,
 * Nor to their penn'd speech render we no grace;
 * But while 'tis spoke each turn away her face.

BOYET.
 * Why, that contempt will kill the speaker's heart,
 * And quite divorce his memory from his part.

PRINCESS.
 * Therefore I do it; and I make no doubt
 * The rest will ne'er come in, if he be out.
 * There's no such sport as sport by sport o'erthrown,
 * To make theirs ours, and ours none but our own:
 * So shall we stay, mocking intended game,
 * And they well mock'd, depart away with shame.

[Trumpet sounds within.]

BOYET.
 * The trumpet sounds: be mask'd; the maskers come.

[The LADIES mask.]

[Enter BLACKAMOORS with music; MOTH, the KING, BEROWNE, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAINE in Russian habits, and masked.]

MOTH.
 * 'All hail, the richest heauties on the earth!'

BOYET.
 * Beauties no richer than rich taffeta.

MOTH.
 * 'A holy parcel of the fairest dames

[The LADIES turn their backs to him.]


 * That ever turn'd their—backs—to mortal views!

BEROWNE.
 * 'Their eyes,' villain, 'their eyes.'

MOTH.
 * 'That ever turn'd their eyes to mortal views!
 * Out'—

BOYET.
 * True; 'out,' indeed.

MOTH.
 * 'Out of your favours, heavenly spirits, vouchsafe
 * Not to behold'—

BEROWNE.
 * 'Once to behold,' rogue.

MOTH.
 * 'Once to behold with your sun-beamed eyes—with your
 * sun-beamed eyes'—

BOYET.
 * They will not answer to that epithet;
 * You were best call it 'daughter-beamed eyes.'

MOTH.
 * They do not mark me, and that brings me out.

BEROWNE.
 * Is this your perfectness? be gone, you rogue.

[Exit MOTH.]

ROSALINE.
 * What would these strangers? Know their minds, Boyet.
 * If they do speak our language, 'tis our will
 * That some plain man recount their purposes:
 * Know what they would.

BOYET.
 * What would you with the princess?

BEROWNE.
 * Nothing but peace and gentle visitation.

ROSALINE.
 * What would they, say they?

BOYET.
 * Nothing but peace and gentle visitation.

ROSALINE.
 * Why, that they have; and bid them so be gone.

BOYET.
 * She says you have it, and you may be gone.

KING.
 * Say to her we have measur'd many miles
 * To tread a measure with her on this grass.

BOYET.
 * They say that they have measur'd many a mile
 * To tread a measure with you on this grass.

ROSALINE.
 * It is not so. Ask them how many inches
 * Is in one mile? If they have measured many,
 * The measure then of one is easily told.

BOYET.
 * If to come hither you have measur'd miles,
 * And many miles, the Princess bids you tell
 * How many inches doth fill up one mile.

BEROWNE.
 * Tell her we measure them by weary steps.

BOYET.
 * She hears herself.

ROSALINE.
 * How many weary steps
 * Of many weary miles you have o'ergone
 * Are number'd in the travel of one mile?

BEROWNE.
 * We number nothing that we spend for you;
 * Our duty is so rich, so infinite,
 * That we may do it still without accompt.
 * Vouchsafe to show the sunshine of your face,
 * That we, like savages, may worship it.

ROSALINE.
 * My face is but a moon, and clouded too.

KING.
 * Blessed are clouds, to do as such clouds do!
 * Vouchsafe, bright moon, and these thy stars, to shine,
 * Those clouds remov'd, upon our watery eyne.

ROSALINE.
 * O vain petitioner! beg a greater matter;
 * Thou now requests'st but moonshine in the water.

KING.
 * Then in our measure do but vouchsafe one change.
 * Thou bid'st me beg; this begging is not strange.

ROSALINE.
 * Play, music, then! Nay, you must do it soon.

[Music plays.]


 * Not yet! No dance! thus change I like the moon.

KING.
 * Will you not dance? How come you thus estranged?

ROSALINE.
 * You took the moon at full; but now she's chang'd.

KING.
 * Yet still she is the moon, and I the man.
 * The music plays; vouchsafe some motion to it.

ROSALINE.
 * Our ears vouchsafe it.

KING.
 * But your legs should do it.

ROSALINE.
 * Since you are strangers, and come here by chance,
 * We'll not be nice: take hands; we will not dance.

KING.
 * Why take we hands then?

ROSALINE.
 * Only to part friends.
 * Curtsy, sweet hearts; and so the measure ends.

KING.
 * More measure of this measure: be not nice.

ROSALINE.
 * We can afford no more at such a price.

KING.
 * Price you yourselves? what buys your company?

ROSALINE.
 * Your absence only.

KING.
 * That can never be.

ROSALINE.
 * Then cannot we be bought: and so adieu;
 * Twice to your visor, and half once to you!

KING.
 * If you deny to dance, let's hold more chat.

ROSALINE.
 * In private then.

KING.
 * I am best pleas'd with that.

[They converse apart.]

BEROWNE.
 * White-handed mistress, one sweet word with thee.

PRINCESS.
 * Honey, and milk, and sugar; there is three.

BEROWNE.
 * Nay, then, two treys, an if you grow so nice,
 * Metheglin, wort, and malmsey: well run, dice!
 * There's half a dozen sweets.

PRINCESS.
 * Seventh sweet, adieu:
 * Since you can cog, I'll play no more with you.

BEROWNE.
 * One word in secret.

PRINCESS.
 * Let it not be sweet.

BEROWNE.
 * Thou griev'st my gall.

PRINCESS.
 * Gall! bitter.

BEROWNE.
 * Therefore meet.

[They converse apart.]

DUMAINE.
 * Will you vouchsafe with me to change a word?

MARIA.
 * Name it.

DUMAINE.
 * Fair lady,—

MARIA.
 * Say you so? Fair lord,
 * Take that for your fair lady.

DUMAINE.
 * Please it you,
 * As much in private, and I'll bid adieu.

[They converse apart.]

KATHARINE.
 * What, was your visord made without a tongue?

LONGAVILLE.
 * I know the reason, lady, why you ask.

KATHARINE.
 * O! for your reason! quickly, sir; I long.

LONGAVILLE.
 * You have a double tongue within your mask,
 * And would afford my speechless visor half.

KATHARINE.
 * 'Veal' quoth the Dutchman. Is not 'veal' a calf?

LONGAVILLE.
 * A calf, fair lady!

KATHARINE.
 * No, a fair lord calf.

LONGAVILLE.
 * Let's part the word.

KATHARINE.
 * No, I'll not be your half.
 * Take all and wean it; it may prove an ox.

LONGAVILLE.
 * Look how you butt yourself in these sharp mocks!
 * Will you give horns, chaste lady? do not so.

KATHARINE.
 * Then die a calf, before your horns do grow.

LONGAVILLE.
 * One word in private with you ere I die.

KATHARINE.
 * Bleat softly, then; the butcher hears you cry.

[They converse apart.]

BOYET.
 * The 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 conceits have wings,
 * Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter things.

ROSALINE.
 * Not one word more, my maids; break off, break off.

BEROWNE.
 * By heaven, all dry-beaten with pure scoff!

KING.
 * Farewell, mad wenches; you have simple wits.

PRINCESS.
 * Twenty adieus, my frozen Muscovits.

[Exeunt KING, LORDS, Music, and Attendants.]


 * Are these the breed of wits so wondered at?

BOYET.
 * Tapers they are, with your sweet breaths puff'd out.

ROSALINE.
 * Well-liking wits they have; gross, gross; fat, fat.

PRINCESS.
 * O poverty in wit, kingly-poor flout!
 * Will they not, think you, hang themselves to-night?
 * Or ever, but in vizors, show their faces?
 * This pert Berowne was out of countenance quite.

ROSALINE.
 * O! They were all in lamentable cases!
 * The King was weeping-ripe for a good word.

PRINCESS.
 * Berowne did swear himself out of all suit.

MARIA.
 * Dumaine was at my service, and his sword:
 * 'No point' quoth I; my servant straight was mute.

KATHARINE.
 * Lord Longaville said, I came o'er his heart;
 * And trow you what he call'd me?

PRINCESS.
 * Qualm, perhaps.

KATHARINE.
 * Yes, in good faith.

PRINCESS.
 * Go, sickness as thou art!

ROSALINE.
 * Well, better wits have worn plain statute-caps.
 * But will you hear? The king is my love sworn.

PRINCESS.
 * And quick Berowne hath plighted faith to me.

KATHARINE.
 * And Longaville was for my service born.

MARIA.
 * Dumaine is mine, as sure as bark on tree.

BOYET.
 * Madam, and pretty mistresses, give ear:
 * Immediately they will again be here
 * In their own shapes; for it can never be
 * They will digest this harsh indignity.

PRINCESS.
 * Will they return?

BOYET.
 * They will, they will, God knows,
 * And leap for joy, though they are lame with blows;
 * Therefore, change favours; and, when they repair,
 * Blow like sweet roses in this summer air.

PRINCESS.
 * How blow? how blow? Speak to be understood.

BOYET.
 * Fair ladies mask'd are roses in their bud:
 * Dismask'd, their damask sweet commixture shown,
 * Are angels vailing clouds, or roses blown.

PRINCESS.
 * Avaunt, perplexity! What shall we do
 * If they return in their own shapes to woo?

ROSALINE.
 * Good madam, if by me you'll be advis'd,
 * Let's mock them still, as well known as disguis'd.
 * Let us complain to them what fools were here,
 * Disguis'd like Muscovites, in shapeless gear;
 * And wonder what they were, and to what end
 * Their shallow shows and prologue vilely penn'd,
 * And their rough carriage so ridiculous,
 * Should be presented at our tent to us.

BOYET.
 * Ladies, withdraw: the gallants are at hand.

PRINCESS.
 * Whip to our tents, as roes run over land.

[Exeunt PRINCESS, ROSALINE, KATHARINE, and MARIA.]

[Re-enter the KING, BEROWNE, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAINE in their proper habits.]

KING.
 * Fair sir, God save you! Where's the princess?

BOYET.
 * Gone to her tent. Please it your Majesty
 * Command me any service to her thither?

KING.
 * That she vouchsafe me audience for one word.

BOYET.
 * I will; and so will she, I know, my lord.

[Exit.]

BEROWNE.
 * 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 wassails, 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 honourable 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 whales-bone;
 * And consciences that will not die in debt
 * Pay him the due of honey-tongued Boyet.

KING.
 * A blister on his sweet tongue, with my heart,
 * That put Armado's page out of his part!

[Re-enter the PRINCESS, ushered by BOYET; ROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, and Attendants.]

BEROWNE.
 * See where it comes! Behaviour, what wert thou,
 * Till this man show'd thee? and what art thou now?

KING.
 * All hail, sweet madam, and fair time of day!

PRINCESS.
 * 'Fair' in 'all hail' is foul, as I conceive.

KING.
 * Construe my speeches better, if you may.

PRINCESS.
 * Then wish me better: I will give you leave.

KING.
 * We came to visit you, and purpose now
 * To lead you to our court; vouchsafe it then.

PRINCESS.
 * This field shall hold me, and so hold your vow:
 * Nor God, nor I, delights in perjur'd men.

KING.
 * Rebuke me not for that which you provoke:
 * The virtue of your eye must break my oath.

PRINCESS.
 * You nickname virtue: vice you should have spoke;
 * For virtue's office never breaks men's troth.
 * Now by my maiden honour, yet as pure
 * As the unsullied lily, I protest,
 * A world of torments though I should endure,
 * I would not yield to be your house's guest;
 * So much I hate a breaking cause to be
 * Of heavenly oaths, vowed with integrity.

KING.
 * O! you have liv'd in desolation here,
 * Unseen, unvisited, much to our shame.

PRINCESS.
 * Not so, my lord; it is not so, I swear;
 * We have had pastimes here, and pleasant game.
 * A mess of Russians left us but of late.

KING.
 * How, madam! Russians?

PRINCESS.
 * Ay, in truth, my lord;
 * Trim gallants, full of courtship and of state.

ROSALINE.
 * Madam, speak true. It is not so, my lord:
 * My lady, to the manner of the days,
 * In courtesy gives undeserving praise.
 * We four indeed confronted were with four
 * In Russian habit: here they stay'd an hour,
 * And talk'd apace; and in that hour, my lord,
 * They did not bless us with one happy word.
 * I dare not call them fools; but this I think,
 * When they are thirsty, fools would fain have drink.

BEROWNE.
 * This jest is dry to me. Fair gentle sweet,
 * Your wit makes wise things foolish:when we greet,
 * With eyes best seeing, heaven's fiery eye,
 * By light we lose light: your capacity
 * Is of that nature that to your huge store
 * Wise things seem foolish and rich things but poor.

ROSALINE.
 * This proves you wise and rich, for in my eye-

BEROWNE.
 * I am a fool, and full of poverty.

ROSALINE.
 * But that you take what doth to you belong,
 * It were a fault to snatch words from my tongue.

BEROWNE.
 * O! am yours, and all that I possess.

ROSALINE.
 * All the fool mine?

BEROWNE.
 * I cannot give you less.

ROSALINE.
 * Which of the visors was it that you wore?

BEROWNE.
 * Where? when? what visor? why demand you this?

ROSALINE.
 * There, then, that visor; that superfluous case
 * That hid the worse,and show'd the better face.

KING.
 * We are descried: they'll mock us now downright.

DUMAINE.
 * Let us confess, and turn it to a jest.

PRINCESS.
 * Amaz'd, my lord? Why looks your Highness sad?

ROSALINE.
 * Help! hold his brows! he'll swound. Why look you pale?
 * Sea-sick, I think, coming from Muscovy.

BEROWNE.
 * Thus pour the stars down plagues for perjury.
 * Can any face of brass hold longer out?—
 * Here stand I, lady; dart thy skill at me;
 * Bruise me with scorn, confound me with a flout;
 * Thrust thy sharp wit quite through my ignorance;
 * Cut me to pieces with thy keen conceit;
 * And I will wish thee never more to dance,
 * Nor never more in Russian habit wait.
 * O! never will I trust to speeches penn'd,
 * Nor to the motion of a school-boy's tongue,
 * Nor never come in visor to my friend,
 * Nor woo in rime, like a blind harper's song.
 * Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise,
 * Three-pil'd hyperboles, spruce affectation,
 * Figures pedantical; these summer-flies
 * Have blown me full of maggot ostentation:
 * I do forswear them; and I here protest,
 * By this white glove,—how white the hand, God knows!—
 * Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express'd
 * In russet yeas, and honest kersey noes;
 * And, to begin, wench,—so God help me, la!—
 * My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw.

ROSALINE.
 * Sans 'sans,' I pray you.

BEROWNE.
 * Yet I have a trick
 * Of the old rage: bear with me, I am sick;
 * I'll leave it by degrees. Soft! let us see:
 * Write 'Lord have mercy on us' on those three;
 * They are infected; in their hearts it lies;
 * They have the plague, and caught it of your eyes:
 * These lords are visited; you are not free,
 * For the Lord's tokens on you do I see.

PRINCESS.
 * No, they are free that gave these tokens to us.

BEROWNE.
 * Our states are forfeit; seek not to undo us.

ROSALINE.
 * It is not so. For how can this be true,
 * That you stand forfeit, being those that sue?

BEROWNE.
 * Peace! for I will not have to do with you.

ROSALINE.
 * Nor shall not, if I do as I intend.

BEROWNE.
 * Speak for yourselves: my wit is at an end.

KING.
 * Teach us, sweet madam, for our rude transgression
 * Some fair excuse.

PRINCESS.
 * The fairest is confession.
 * Were not you here but even now, disguis'd?

KING.
 * Madam, I was.

PRINCESS.
 * And were you well advis'd?

KING.
 * I was, fair madam.

PRINCESS.
 * When you then were here,
 * What did you whisper in your lady's ear?

KING.
 * That more than all the world I did respect her.

PRINCESS.
 * When she shall challenge this, you will reject her.

KING.
 * Upon mine honour, no.

PRINCESS.
 * Peace! peace! forbear;
 * Your oath once broke, you force not to forswear.

KING.
 * Despise me when I break this oath of mine.

PRINCESS.
 * I will; and therefore keep it. Rosaline,
 * What did the Russian whisper in your ear?

ROSALINE.
 * Madam, he swore that he did hold me dear
 * As precious eyesight, and did value me
 * Above this world; adding thereto, moreover,
 * That he would wed me, or else die my lover.

PRINCESS.
 * God give thee joy of him! The noble lord
 * Most honourably doth uphold his word.

KING.
 * What mean you, madam? by my life, my troth,
 * I never swore this lady such an oath.

ROSALINE.
 * By heaven, you did; and, to confirm it plain,
 * You gave me this: but take it, sir, again.

KING.
 * My faith and this the princess I did give;
 * I knew her by this jewel on her sleeve.

PRINCESS.
 * Pardon me, sir, this jewel did she wear;
 * And Lord Berowne, I thank him, is my dear.
 * What, will you have me, or your pearl again?

BEROWNE.
 * Neither of either; I remit both twain.
 * I see the trick on't: here was a consent,
 * Knowing aforehand of our merriment,
 * To dash it like a Christmas comedy.
 * Some carry-tale, some please-man, some slight zany,
 * Some mumble-news, some trencher-knight, some Dick,
 * That smiles his cheek in years, and knows the trick
 * To make my lady laugh when she's dispos'd,
 * Told our intents before; which once disclos'd,
 * The ladies did change favours, and then we,
 * Following the signs, woo'd but the sign of she.
 * Now, to our perjury to add more terror,
 * We are again forsworn, in will and error.
 * Much upon this it is: [To BOYET.] and might not you
 * Forestall our sport, to make us thus untrue?
 * Do not you know my lady's foot by the squire,
 * And laugh upon the apple of her eye?
 * And stand between her back, sir, and the fire,
 * Holding a trencher, jesting merrily?
 * You put our page out: go, you are allow'd;
 * Die when you will, a smock shall be your shroud.
 * You leer upon me, do you? There's an eye
 * Wounds like a leaden sword.

BOYET.
 * Full merrily
 * Hath this brave manage, this career, been run.

BEROWNE.
 * Lo! he is tilting straight! Peace! I have done.

[Enter COSTARD


 * Welcome, pure wit! thou part'st a fair fray.

COSTARD.
 * O Lord, sir, they would know
 * Whether the three Worthies shall come in or no?

BEROWNE. What, are there but three?

COSTARD.
 * No, sir; but it is vara fine,
 * For every one pursents three.

BEROWNE.
 * And three times thrice is nine.

COSTARD.
 * Not so, sir; under correction, sir,
 * I hope it is not so.
 * You cannot beg us, sir, I can assure you, sir; we know what we
 * know:
 * I hope, sir, three times thrice, sir,—

BEROWNE.
 * Is not nine.

COSTARD.
 * Under correction, sir, we know whereuntil it doth amount.

BEROWNE.
 * By Jove, I always took three threes for nine.

COSTARD.
 * O Lord, sir! it were pity you should get your living by
 * reckoning, sir.

BEROWNE.
 * How much is it?

COSTARD.
 * O Lord, sir, the parties themselves, the actors, sir, will
 * show whereuntil it doth amount: for mine own part, I am, as they
 * say, but to parfect one man in one poor man, Pompion the Great,
 * sir.

BEROWNE.
 * Art thou one of the Worthies?

COSTARD.
 * It pleased them to think me worthy of Pompion the Great;
 * for mine own part, I know not the degree of the Worthy; but I am
 * to stand for him.

BEROWNE.
 * Go, bid them prepare.

COSTARD.
 * We will turn it finely off, sir; we will take some care.

[Exit COSTARD.]

KING.
 * Berowne, they will shame us; let them not approach.

BEROWNE.
 * We are shame-proof, my lord, and 'tis some policy
 * To have one show worse than the king's and his company.

KING.
 * I say they shall not come.

PRINCESS.
 * Nay, my good lord, let me o'errule you now.
 * That sport best pleases that doth least know how;
 * Where zeal strives to content, and the contents
 * Die in the zeal of those which it presents;
 * Their form confounded makes most form in mirth,
 * When great things labouring perish in their birth.

BEROWNE.
 * A right description of our sport, my lord.

[Enter ARMADO.]

ARMADO.
 * Anointed, I implore so much expense of thy royal sweet
 * breath as will utter a brace of words.

[Converses apart with the KING, and delivers a paper to him.]

PRINCESS.
 * Doth this man serve God?

BEROWNE.
 * Why ask you?

PRINCESS.
 * He speaks not like a man of God his making.

ARMADO.
 * That is all one, my fair, sweet, honey monarch; for, I
 * protest, the schoolmaster is exceeding fantastical; too-too vain,
 * too-too vain: but we will put it, as they say, to fortuna de la
 * guerra. I wish you the peace of mind, most royal couplement!

[Exit.]

KING.
 * Here is like to be a good presence of Worthies. He presents
 * Hector of Troy; the swain, Pompey the Great; the parish curate,
 * Alexander; Armado's page, Hercules; the pedant, Judas
 * Maccabaeus:
 * And if these four Worthies in their first show thrive,
 * These four will change habits and present the other five.

BEROWNE.
 * There is five in the first show.

KING.
 * You are deceived, 'tis not so.

BEROWNE.
 * The pedant, the braggart, the hedge-priest, the fool, and
 * the boy:—
 * Abate throw at novum, and the whole world again
 * Cannot pick out five such, take each one in his vein.

KING.
 * The ship is under sail, and here she comes amain.

[Enter COSTARD, armed for POMPEY.]

COSTARD.
 * 'I Pompey am'—

BEROWNE.
 * You lie, you are not he.

COSTARD.
 * 'I Pompey am'—

BOYET.
 * With libbard's head on knee.

BEROWNE.
 * Well said, old mocker: I must needs be friends with thee.

COSTARD.
 * 'I Pompey am, Pompey surnam'd the Big'—

DUMAINE.
 * 'The Great.'

COSTARD.
 * It is 'Great,' sir; 'Pompey surnam'd the Great,
 * That oft in field, with targe and shield, did make my foe to
 * sweat:
 * And travelling along this coast, I here am come by chance,
 * And lay my arms before the legs of this sweet lass of France.
 * If your ladyship would say 'Thanks, Pompey,' I had done.

PRINCESS.
 * Great thanks, great Pompey.

COSTARD.
 * 'Tis not so much worth; but I hope I was perfect.
 * I made a little fault in 'Great.'

BEROWNE.
 * My hat to a halfpenny, Pompey proves the best Worthy.

[Enter SIR NATHANIEL armed, for ALEXANDER.]

NATHANIEL.
 * 'When in the world I liv'd, I was the world's commander;
 * By east, west, north, and south, I spread my conquering might:
 * My scutcheon plain declares that I am Alisander'—

BOYET.
 * Your nose says, no, you are not; for it stands to right.

BEROWNE.
 * Your nose smells 'no' in this, most tender-smelling knight.

PRINCESS.
 * The conqueror is dismay'd. Proceed, good Alexander.

NATHANIEL.
 * 'When in the world I liv'd, I was the world's commander;'—

BOYET.
 * Most true; 'tis right, you were so, Alisander.

BEROWNE.
 * Pompey the Great,—

COSTARD.
 * Your servant, and Costard.

BEROWNE.
 * Take away the conqueror, take away Alisander.

COSTARD.
 * [To Sir Nathaniel.] O! sir, you have overthrown Alisander
 * the conqueror! You will be scraped out of the painted cloth for
 * this; your lion, that holds his poll-axe sitting on a
 * close-stool, will be given to Ajax: he will be the ninth Worthy.
 * A conqueror, and afeard to speak! Run away for shame, Alisander.
 * [Nathaniel retires.] There, an't shall please you: a foolish mild
 * man; an honest man, look you, and soon dashed! He is a marvellous
 * good neighbour, faith, and a very good bowler; but for
 * Alisander,—alas! you see how 'tis—a little o'erparted. But
 * there are Worthies a-coming will speak their mind in some other
 * sort.

PRINCESS.
 * Stand aside, good Pompey.

[Enter HOLOFERNES armed, for JUDAS; and MOTH armed, for HERCULES.]

HOLOFERNES.
 * 'Great Hercules is presented by this imp,
 * Whose club kill'd Cerberus, that three-headed canis;
 * And when he was a babe, a child, a shrimp,
 * Thus did he strangle serpents in his manus.
 * Quoniam he seemeth in minority,
 * Ergo I come with this apology.'
 * Keep some state in thy exit, and vanish.—[MOTH retires.]
 * 'Judas I am.'—

DUMAINE.
 * A Judas!

HOLOFERNES.
 * Not Iscariot, sir.
 * 'Judas I am, ycliped Maccabaeus.'

DUMAINE.
 * Judas Maccabaeus clipt is plain Judas.

BEROWNE.
 * A kissing traitor. How art thou prov'd Judas?

HOLOFERNES.
 * 'Judas I am.'—

DUMAINE.
 * The more shame for you, Judas.

HOLOFERNES.
 * What mean you, sir?

BOYET.
 * To make Judas hang himself.

HOLOFERNES.
 * Begin, sir; you are my elder.

BEROWNE.
 * Well follow'd: Judas was hanged on an elder.

HOLOFERNES.
 * I will not be put out of countenance.

BEROWNE.
 * Because thou hast no face.

HOLOFERNES.
 * What is this?

BOYET.
 * A cittern-head.

DUMAINE.
 * The head of a bodkin.

BEROWNE.
 * A death's face in a ring.

@@@
 * LONGAVILLE.
 * The face of an old Roman coin, scarce seen.

BOYET.
 * The pommel of Caesar's falchion.

DUMAINE.
 * The carved-bone face on a flask.

BEROWNE.
 * Saint George's half-cheek in a brooch.

DUMAINE.
 * Ay, and in a brooch of lead.

BEROWNE.
 * Ay, and worn in the cap of a tooth-drawer.
 * And now, forward; for we have put thee in countenance.

HOLOFERNES.
 * You have put me out of countenance.

BEROWNE.
 * False: we have given thee faces.

HOLOFERNES.
 * But you have outfaced them all.

BEROWNE.
 * An thou wert a lion we would do so.

BOYET.
 * Therefore, as he is an ass, let him go.
 * And so adieu, sweet Jude! nay, why dost thou stay?

DUMAINE.
 * For the latter end of his name.

BEROWNE.
 * For the ass to the Jude? give it him:—Jud-as, away!

HOLOFERNES.
 * This is not generous, not gentle, not humble.

BOYET.
 * A light for Monsieur Judas! It grows dark, he may stumble.

PRINCESS.
 * Alas! poor Maccabaeus, how hath he been baited.

[Enter ARMADO armed, for HECTOR.]

BEROWNE.
 * Hide thy head, Achilles: here comes Hector in arms.

DUMAINE.
 * Though my mocks come home by me, I will now be merry.

KING.
 * Hector was but a Troyan in respect of this.

BOYET.
 * But is this Hector?

DUMAINE.
 * I think Hector was not so clean-timber'd.

LONGAVILLE.
 * His leg is too big for Hector's.

DUMAINE.
 * More calf, certain.

BOYET.
 * No; he is best indued in the small.

BEROWNE.
 * This cannot be Hector.

DUMAINE.
 * He's a god or a painter; for he makes faces.

ARMADO.
 * 'The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty,
 * Gave Hector a gift,'—

DUMAINE.
 * A gilt nutmeg.

BEROWNE.
 * A lemon.

LONGAVILLE.
 * Stuck with cloves.

DUMAINE.
 * No, cloven.

ARMADO.
 * Peace!
 * 'The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty,
 * Gave Hector a gift, the heir of Ilion;
 * A man so breath'd that certain he would fight ye,
 * From morn till night, out of his pavilion.
 * I am that flower,'—

DUMAINE.
 * That mint.

LONGAVILLE.
 * That columbine.

ARMADO.
 * Sweet Lord Longaville, rein thy tongue.

LONGAVILLE.
 * I must rather give it the rein, for it runs against Hector.

DUMAINE.
 * Ay, and Hector's a greyhound.

ARMADO.
 * The sweet war-man is dead and rotten; sweet chucks, beat
 * not the bones of the buried; when he breathed, he was a man. But
 * I will forward with my device. [To the PRINCESS.] Sweet royalty,
 * bestow on me the sense of hearing.

PRINCESS.
 * Speak, brave Hector; we are much delighted.

ARMADO.
 * I do adore thy sweet Grace's slipper.

BOYET.
 * [Aside to DUMAIN.] Loves her by the foot.

DUMAINE.
 * [Aside to BOYET.] He may not by the yard.

ARMADO.
 * 'This Hector far surmounted Hannibal,'—

COSTARD.
 * The party is gone; fellow Hector, she is gone; she is two
 * months on her way.

ARMADO.
 * What meanest thou?

COSTARD.
 * Faith, unless you play the honest Troyan, the poor wench
 * is cast away: she's quick; the child brags in her belly already;
 * 'tis yours.

ARMADO.
 * Dost thou infamonize me among potentates? Thou shalt die.

COSTARD.
 * Then shall Hector be whipped for Jaquenetta that is quick by
 * him, and hanged for Pompey that is dead by him.

DUMAINE.
 * Most rare Pompey!

BOYET.
 * Renowned Pompey!

BEROWNE.
 * Greater than great, great, great, great Pompey! Pompey the
 * Huge!

DUMAINE.
 * Hector trembles.

BEROWNE.
 * Pompey is moved. More Ates, more Ates! Stir them on! stir
 * them on!

DUMAINE.
 * Hector will challenge him.

BEROWNE.
 * Ay, if a' have no more man's blood in his belly than will
 * sup a flea.

ARMADO.
 * By the north pole, I do challenge thee.

COSTARD.
 * I will not fight with a pole, like a northern man: I'll
 * slash; I'll do it by the sword. I bepray you, let me borrow my
 * arms again.

DUMAINE.
 * Room for the incensed Worthies!

COSTARD.
 * I'll do it in my shirt.

DUMAINE.
 * Most resolute Pompey!

MOTH.
 * Master, let me take you a buttonhole lower. Do you not see
 * Pompey is uncasing for the combat? What mean you? You will lose
 * your reputation.

ARMADO.
 * Gentlemen and soldiers, pardon me; I will not combat in my shirt.

DUMAINE.
 * You may not deny it: Pompey hath made the challenge.

ARMADO.
 * Sweet bloods, I both may and will.

BEROWNE.
 * What reason have you for 't?

ARMADO.
 * The naked truth of it is: I have no shirt; I go woolward
 * for penance.

BOYET.
 * True, and it was enjoined him in Rome for want of linen;
 * since when, I'll be sworn, he wore none but a dish-clout of
 * Jaquenetta's, and that a' wears next his heart for a favour.

[Enter MONSIEUR MARCADE, a messenger.]

MARCADE.
 * God save you, madam!

PRINCESS.
 * Welcome, Marcade;
 * But that thou interrupt'st our merriment.

MARCADE.
 * I am sorry, madam; for the news I bring
 * Is heavy in my tongue. The king your father—

PRINCESS.
 * Dead, for my life!

MARCADE.
 * Even so: my tale is told.

BEROWNE.
 * Worthies away! the scene begins to cloud.

ARMADO.
 * For mine own part, I breathe free breath. I have seen the
 * day of wrong through the little hole of discretion, and I will
 * right myself like a soldier.

[Exeunt WORTHIES.]

KING.
 * How fares your Majesty?

PRINCESS.
 * Boyet, prepare: I will away to-night.

KING.
 * Madam, not so: I do beseech you stay.

PRINCESS.
 * Prepare, I say. I thank you, gracious lords,
 * For all your fair endeavours; and entreat,
 * Out of a new-sad soul, that you vouchsafe
 * In your rich wisdom to excuse or hide
 * The liberal opposition of our spirits,
 * If over-boldly we have borne ourselves
 * In the converse of breath; your gentleness
 * Was guilty of it. Farewell, worthy lord!
 * A heavy heart bears not a nimble tongue.
 * Excuse me so, coming so short of thanks
 * For my great suit so easily obtain'd.

KING.
 * The extreme parts of time extremely forms
 * All causes to the purpose of his speed,
 * And often at his very loose decides
 * That which long process could not arbitrate:
 * And though the mourning brow of progeny
 * Forbid the smiling courtesy of love
 * The holy suit which fain it would convince;
 * Yet, since love's argument was first on foot,
 * Let not the cloud of sorrow justle it
 * From what it purpos'd; since, to wail friends lost
 * Is not by much so wholesome-profitable
 * As to rejoice at friends but newly found.

PRINCESS.
 * I understand you not: my griefs are double.

BEROWNE.
 * Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief;
 * And by these badges understand the king.
 * For your fair sakes have we neglected time,
 * Play'd foul play with our oaths. Your beauty, ladies,
 * Hath much deform'd us, fashioning our humours
 * Even to the opposed end of our intents;
 * And what in us hath seem'd ridiculous,—
 * As 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
 * To every varied object in his glance:
 * Which parti-coated presence of loose love
 * Put on by us, if, in your heavenly eyes,
 * Have misbecom'd our oaths and gravities,
 * Those heavenly eyes that look into these faults
 * Suggested us to make. Therefore, ladies,
 * Our love being yours, the error that love makes
 * Is likewise yours: we to ourselves prove false,
 * By being once false for ever to be true
 * To those that make us both,—fair ladies, you:
 * And even that falsehood, in itself a sin,
 * Thus purifies itself and turns to grace.

PRINCESS.
 * We have receiv'd your letters, full of love;
 * Your favours, the ambassadors of love;
 * And, in our maiden council, rated them
 * At courtship, pleasant jest, and courtesy,
 * As bombast and as lining to the time;
 * But more devout than this in our respects
 * Have we not been; and therefore met your loves
 * In their own fashion, like a merriment.

DUMAINE.
 * Our letters, madam, show'd much more than jest.

LONGAVILLE.
 * So did our looks.

ROSALINE.
 * We did not quote them so.

KING.
 * Now, at the latest minute of the hour,
 * Grant us your loves.

PRINCESS.
 * A time, methinks, too short
 * To make a world-without-end bargain in.
 * No, no, my lord, your Grace is perjur'd much,
 * Full of dear guiltiness; and therefore this:
 * If for my love,—as there is no such cause,—
 * You will do aught, this shall you do for me:
 * Your oath I will not trust; but go with speed
 * To some forlorn and naked hermitage,
 * Remote from all the pleasures of the world;
 * There stay until the twelve celestial signs
 * Have brought about the annual reckoning.
 * If this austere insociable life
 * Change not your offer made in heat of blood,
 * If frosts and fasts, hard lodging and thin weeds,
 * Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love,
 * But that it bear this trial, and last love,
 * Then, at the expiration of the year,
 * Come, challenge me, challenge me by these deserts;
 * And, by this virgin palm now kissing thine,
 * I will be thine; and, till that instant, shut
 * My woeful self up in a mournful house,
 * Raining the tears of lamentation
 * For the remembrance of my father's death.
 * If this thou do deny, let our hands part,
 * Neither intitled in the other's heart.

KING.
 * If this, or more than this, I would deny,
 * To flatter up these powers of mine with rest,
 * The sudden hand of death close up mine eye!
 * Hence ever then my heart is in thy breast.

BEROWNE.
 * And what to me, my love? and what to me?

ROSALINE.
 * You must he purged too, your sins are rack'd;
 * You are attaint with faults and perjury;
 * Therefore, if you my favour mean to get,
 * A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest,
 * But seek the weary beds of people sick.

DUMAINE.
 * But what to me, my love? but what to me?

KATHARINE.
 * A wife! A beard, fair health, and honesty;
 * With three-fold love I wish you all these three.

DUMAINE.
 * O! shall I say I thank you, gentle wife?

KATHARINE.
 * No so, my lord; a twelvemonth and a day
 * I'll mark no words that smooth-fac'd wooers say.
 * Come when the King doth to my lady come;
 * Then, if I have much love, I'll give you some.

DUMAINE.
 * I'll serve thee true and faithfully till then.

KATHARINE.
 * Yet swear not, lest ye be forsworn again.

LONGAVILLE.
 * What says Maria?

MARIA.
 * At the twelvemonth's end
 * I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend.

LONGAVILLE.
 * I'll stay with patience; but the time is long.

MARIA.
 * The liker you; few taller are so young.

BEROWNE.
 * Studies my lady? mistress, look on me;
 * Behold the window of my heart, mine eye,
 * What humble suit attends thy answer there.
 * Impose some service on me for thy love.

ROSALINE.
 * Oft have I heard of you, my Lord Berowne,
 * 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:
 * To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain,
 * And therewithal to win me, if you please,—
 * Without the which I am not to be won,—
 * You shall this twelvemonth term, from day to day,
 * Visit the speechless sick, and still converse
 * With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,
 * With all the fierce endeavour of your wit
 * To enforce the pained impotent to smile.

BEROWNE.
 * To move wild laughter in the throat of death?
 * It cannot be; it is impossible:
 * Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.

ROSALINE.
 * Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit,
 * 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,
 * Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear groans,
 * Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,
 * And I will have you and that fault withal;
 * But if they will not, throw away that spirit,
 * And I shall find you empty of that fault,
 * Right joyful of your reformation.

BEROWNE.
 * A twelvemonth! well, befall what will befall,
 * I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital.

PRINCESS.
 * [To the King.] Ay, sweet my lord; and so I take my leave.

KING.
 * No, madam; we will bring you on your way.

BEROWNE.
 * Our wooing doth not end like an old play:
 * Jack hath not Jill; these ladies' courtesy
 * Might well have made our sport a comedy.

KING.
 * Come, sir, it wants a twelvemonth and a day,
 * And then 'twill end.

BEROWNE.
 * That's too long for a play.

[Enter ARMADO.]

ARMADO.
 * Sweet Majesty, vouchsafe me,—

PRINCESS.
 * Was not that not Hector?

DUMAINE.
 * The worthy knight of Troy.

ARMADO.
 * I will kiss thy royal finger, and take leave. I am a
 * votary: I have vowed to Jaquenetta to hold the plough for her
 * sweet love three yeasr. But, most esteemed greatness, will you
 * hear the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled in
 * praise of the owl and the cuckoo? It should have followed in the
 * end of our show.

KING.
 * Call them forth quickly; we will do so.

ARMADO.
 * Holla! approach.

[Enter HOLOFERNES, NATHANIEL, MOTH, COSTARD, and others.]


 * This side is Hiems, Winter; this Ver, the Spring; the one
 * maintained by the owl, the other by the cuckoo. Ver, begin.


 * SPRING
 * I.
 * When daisies pied and violets blue
 * And lady-smocks all silver-white
 * And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
 * Do paint the meadows with delight,
 * The cuckoo then on every tree
 * Mocks married men, for thus sings he,
 * Cuckoo;
 * Cuckoo, cuckoo: O, word of fear,
 * Unpleasing to a married ear!


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


 * WINTER
 * III.
 * 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 nipp'd, and ways be foul,
 * Then nightly sings the staring owl:
 * Tu-who;
 * Tu-whit, tu-who—a merry note,
 * While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.


 * IV.
 * 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:
 * Tu-who;
 * Tu-whit, to-who—a merry note,
 * While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

ARMADO.
 * The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo.
 * You that way: we this way.

[Exeunt.]