Is heavy in my tongue. The king your father- Mer. Even so; my tale is told. Biron. Worthies, away; the scene begins to cloud. Arm. 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. King. How fares your majesty? [Exeunt Worthies. Prin. Boyet, prepare; I will away to-night. Out of a new-sad soul, that you vouchsafe King. The extreme parts of time extremely form That which long process could not arbitrate: The holy suit which fain it would convince; From what it purpos'd; since, to wail friends lost, As to rejoice at friends but newly found. Prin. I understand you not; my griefs are double. For your fair sakes have we neglected time, And what in us hath seem'd ridiculous, As love is full of unbefitting strains ; All wanton as a child, skipping, and vain ; To those that make us both :—fair ladies, you: Prin. We have receiv'd your letters, full of love ; Have we not been; and therefore met your loves Dum. Our letters, madam,show'd much more than jest. Ros. We did not quote them so. 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 : JOHNSON. [9] That is, tempted us. [i] This line is obscure. Bombast was a kind of loose texture not unlike what is now called wadding. used to give the dresses of that time bulk and protuberance, without much increase of weight; whence the same name is given to a tumour of words unsupported by solid sentiment. The princess, therefore, says, that they considered this courtship as but bombast, as something to fill out life, which not being closely united with it, might be thrown away at pleasure. JOHNSON, Remote from all the pleasures of the world; Change not your offer made in heat of blood; Come challenge, challenge me by these deserts; For the remembrance of my father's death. King. If this, or more than this, I would deny, Hence ever then, my heart is in thy breast. A twelve month shall you spend, and never rest, Dum. But what to me, my love? but what to me? Kath. A wife !-a beard, fair health, and honesty ; With three-fold love I wish you all these three. Dum, O, shall I say, I thank you, gentle wife? Kath. Not so, my lord;—a twelve-month 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. Dum. I'll serve thee true and faithfully till then. Kath. Yet swear not, lest you be forsworn again. Long. What says Maria? Mar. At the twelvemonth's end, I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend. [2] These six verses both Dr. Thirlby and Mr. Warburton concur to think should be expunged; and therefore I have put them between crotchets: not that they were an interpolation, but as the author's draught, which he afterwards rejected, and executed the same thought a little lower with much more spirit and elegance. THEOBALD. Long. I'll stay with patience; but the time is long. Ros. Oft have I heard of you, my lord Birón, To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain; You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day With groaning wretches; and your task shall be, To enforce the pained impotent to smile. Biron. To move wild laughter in the throat of death? It cannot be; it is impossible : Mirth cannot move a soul in agony. Ros. Why, that's the way to choak 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, s 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, Biron. A twelvemonth? well, befa what will befal, I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital. 4 [3] Dear should here, as in many other places, be dere, sad, odious. JOH. [4] The characters of Biron and Rosaline suffer much by comparison with those of Benedick and Beatrice We know that Love's Labour's Lost was the elder performance; and as our author grew more experienced in dramatic writing, he might have seen how much he could improve on his own orig. inals. To this circumstance, perhaps, we are indebted for the more perfect comedy of Much Ado about Nothing. STEEVENS. Prin. Ay, sweet my lord; and so I take my leave. [To the King. King. No, madam: we will bring you on your way. Biron. 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. Biron. That's too long for a play. Enter ARMADO. Arm. Sweet majesty, vouchsafe me,- Dum. The worthy knight of Troy. Arm. 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 years. 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. Arm. Holla! approach. Enter HOLOFERNES, NATHANIEL, MOTH, COSTARD, and others. This side is Hiems, winter; this Ver, the spring; the one maintain'd by the owl, the other by the cuckoo Ver, begin. SONG. Spring. When daisies pied, and violets blue, And lady-smocks all silver-white, And cuckoo-buds5 of yellow hue, Do paint the meadows with delight, The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men,, Cuckoo ; [5] Gerard, in his Herbal. 1597, says, that the flos cuculi cardamine, &c. are called "in English cuckoo-flowers, in Norfolk Canterbury-bells, and at Namptwich in Cheshire ladie-smocks." Shaksp are, however, might not have been sufficiently skilled in botany to be aware of this particular Mr To let has observed, that Lyte in his Herbal, 1578 and 1579, remarks, that cowslips are in French, of sore called coquu, prime vere, and brayes de coquu. This, he thinks, will sufficiently account for our author's cukoo Buds, by which he supposes cowslip-buds to be meant. STEEY. |