Varying in fubjects as the eye doth rowl,
To every varied object in his glance;
Which party-coated prefence of loose love
Put on by us, if, in your heav'nly eyes,
Have mifbecom❜d our oaths and gravities;
Those heav'nly eyes, that look into thefe faults,
Suggested us to make them: therefore, Ladies,
Our love being yours, the error that love makes
Is likewife yours. We to ourfelves prove false,
By being once falfe, for ever to be true
To thofe that make us both; fair Ladies, you:
And even that falfehood, in itself a fin,
Thus purifies itself, and turns to grace.
Prin. We have receiv'd your letters, full of love;
Your favours, the embaffadors of love :
And in our maiden council rated them
At courtship, pleafant jeft, and courtesy;
As bumbaft, and as lining to the time :
But more devout than this, (fave our respects),
Have we not been; and therefore met your loves
In their own fashion, like a merriment.
Dum. Our letters, Madam, fhew'd much more than jeft.
Long. So did our looks.
Rof. We did not quote them fo.
King. Now at the latest minute of the hour,
Grant us your loves.
Prin. 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 guiltinefs; and therefore, this-
If for my love (as there is no fuch caufe)
You will do aught, this fhall you do for me;
Your oath I will not truft; but go with speed
To fome forlorn and naked hermitage,
Remote from all the pleafures of the world;
There ftay, until the twelve celeftial figns
Have brought about their annual reckoning.
If this auftere infociable life
Change not your offer made in heat of blood;
If frofts, and fafts, hard lodging, and thin weeds
Nip got the gaudy bloffoms 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 thefe deferts;
And by this virgin palm, now kifling thine,
I will be thine; and till that inftant shut
My woful felf up in a mourning 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 fetter up thefe powers of mine with reft;
The fudden hand of death close up mine eye!
Hence, ever then, my heart is in thy breast.
[* Biron. And what to me, my love? and what to me?
Rof. You must be purged too, your fins are rank,
You are attaint with fault and perjury;
Therefore if you my favour mean to get,
A twelvemonth fhall you spend, and never reft,
But feek the weary beds of people fick.]
Dum. But what to me, my love? but what to me? Cath. A wife!-a beard, fair health, and honesty; With three-fold love I wish you all these three.
Dum. O, fhall I fay, 1 thank you, gentle wife? Cath. Not fo, my Lord, a twelvemonth and a day, I'll mark no words that fmooth-fac'd wooers fay. Come, when the King doth to my Lady come; Then if I have much love, I'll give you fome. Dum. I'll ferve thee true and faithfully till then. Cath. Yet fwear not, left ye be forfworn again. Long. What fays Maria?
Mar. At the twelvemonth's end,
I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend.
Long. I'll ftay with patience; but the time is long.
Mar. The liker you; few taller are fo young.
Biron. Studies my Lady? Miftrefs, look on me,
Behold the window of my heart, mine eye,
What humble fuit attends thy anfwer there;
Impofe fome fervice on me for my love.
*These fix lines are misplaced, and ought to be expunged, as being the author's fift draught only, of what he afterwards improved and made more perfect. Mr Warburton.
Rof. Oft have I heard of you, my Lord Biron,
Before I faw 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 eftates 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 fhall this twelve-month term from day to day
Vifit the fpeechlefs fick, and ftill converfe
With groning wretches; and your task shall be,
With all the fierce endeavour of your wit,
T'enforce the pained impotent to fmile.
Biron. To move wild laughter in the throat of death? It cannot be, it is impoffible:
Mirth cannot move a foul in agony.
Rof. Why, that's the way to choak a gibing spirit,
Whofe influence is begot of that loofe grace,
Which fhallow laughing hearers give to fools :
A jeft's profperity lies in the ear
Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it: then, if fickly ears,
Deaft with the clamours of their own dear groans,
Will hear your idle fcorns; continue then,
And I will have you, and that fault withal :
But if they will not, throw away that spirit;
And I fhall find you empty of that fault,
Right joyful of your reformation.
Biron. A twelvemonth? well; befal, what will befal,
I'll jeft a twelvemonth in an hofpital.
Prin. Ay, fweet my Lord, and so I take my leave. [To the King.
King. No, Madam; we will bring you on your
Biron. Our wooing doth not end like an old play;
Jack hath not Jill; thefe ladies' courtesy
Might well have made our sport a comedy.
King. Come, Sir, it wants a twelvemonth and a day,
And then 'twill end.
Biron. That's too long for a play.
Arm. Sweet Majefty, vouchfafe me
Prin. Was not that Hector?
Dum. That worthy knight of Troy.
Arm. I will kifs thy royal finger, and take leave. I am a votary: I have vow'd to Jaquenetta to hold the plough for her fweet love three years.
But, moftefteem'd Greatness, will you hear the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled, in praise of the owl and the cuckow? it should have follow'd in the end of our fhow.
King. Call them forth quickly, we will do fo..
Arm. Holla! approach.
Enter all, for the fong
This fide is Hiems, winter.
This Ver, the spring: The one maintain'd by the owl,
When daizies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-fmocks all filver-white,
And cuckow-buds of yellow hue,
Do paint the meadows much-bedight;
The cuckow then on every tree.
Mocks married men; for thus fings he,
Cuckow!
Cuckow! cuckow! O word of fear,
Unpleafing to a married ear!
When Shepherds pipe on oaten ftraws,
And merry larks are ploughmens' clocks:
When turtles tread, and rooks and daws;
And maidens bleach their fummer-fmocks;
The cuckow then on every tree
Mocks married men; for thus fings he,
Cuckow!
·Cuckow! cuckow! O word of fear,
Unpleafing to a married ear!
WINTER.
When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the fhepherd blows his nail;
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail;
When blood is nipt, and ways be foul,
Then nightly fings the staring owl,
Tu-whit! to-whoo!
While greafy Fone doth keel the pot.
When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parfon's farw ;
And birds fit brooding in the fnow,
And Marian's nofe looks red and raw;
When roafted crabs hifs in the bowl,
Then nightly fings the staring owl,
Tu-whit! to-whoo!
While greafy Fone doth keel the pot.
Arm. The words of Mercury
Are harsh after the fongs of Apollo:
You, that way; we, this way.
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