Biron. An amber-colour'd raven was well noted. [Asi. Dum. As upright as the cedar.

Biron. Stoop, I say;

[Aside.

Her shoulder is with child.

Dum. As fair as day.

Bir. Ay,as some days; but then no sun must shine.[Asi.

Dum. O that I had my wish!

Long. And I had mine!

King. And I mine too, good Lord!

[Aside. [Aside.

[Aside

Biron. Amen, so I had mine: Is not that a good

word?

Dum. I would forget her; but a fever she

Reigns in my blood, and will remember'd be.

Biron. A fever in your blood, why, then incision 2 Would let her out in saucers; Sweet misprision! [Aside, Dum. Once more I'll read the ode that I have writ. Biron. Once more I'll mark how love can vary wit.

Dum. 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,
Ail 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 !3.
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 even Fove would swear,

Funo but an Ethiop were;

And deny himself for Jove,

Turning mortal for thy love.

[Aside

This will I send; and something else more plain,
That shall express my true love's fasting pain.

[2] It was the fashion among the young gallants of that age, to stab themselves in the arms, or elsewhere, in order to drink their mistress's health, or write her name in their blood, as a proof of their passion. [3] Perhaps we may better read,-Ah! would I might, &ci

M. MASON.

JOHNS.

O, would the King, Biron, 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.

Long. Dumain, thy love is far from charity,
That in love's grief desir'st society :

[Advancing. You may look pale, but I should blush, I know,

To be o'erheard, and taken knapping so.

King. Come, sir, [Advancing.] 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 rhymes, observ'd your fashion;
Saw sighs reek from you, noted well your passion:
Ah me! says one; O Jove! the other cries;
One, her hairs were gold, crystal the other's eyes:
You would for paradise break faith and troth;

[To LONG.

And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath.

[TO DUMAIN.

What will Birón say, when that he shall hear
A faith infring'd, which such a 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,

1 would not have him know so much by me.
Biron. Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy.-
Ah, good my liege, I pray thee, pardon me:

[Descends from the tree. 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 sonnetting. 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 I have 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!4
To see great Hercules whipping a gigg,
And profound Solomon to tune a jigg,
And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys,
And critic Timon laugh at idle toys!5-
Where lies thy grief, O tell me, good Dumain :-
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 betray'd thus to thy over-view?

Biron. Not you by me, but I betray'd to you;
I, that am honest; I, that hold it sin
To break the vow, I am engaged in ;

I am betray'd, by keeping company
With moon-like men, of strange inconstancy.
When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme?
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?

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

Enter JAQUENETTA and CoSTARD.

Jaq. God bless the King!

King. What present hast thou there?

Cost. Some certain treason.

King. What makes treason here?
Cost. Nay, it makes nothing, sir.

King. If it mar nothing neither,

The treason, and you, go in peace away together. Jaq. I beseech your grace, let this letter be read; Our parson misdoubts it; 'twas treason, he said.

[4] Mr. Tollet seems to think this contains an allusion to St. Matthew, xxiii. 24, where the metaphorical term of a gnat means a thing of least importance, or what is proverbially small. STEEV.

Biron is abusing the King for his sonnetting like a minstrel, and compares him to a gnat, which always sings as it flies. M. MASON.

[5] Critic and Critical are used by our author in the same sense as cynic and cynical. Iago,speaking of the fair sex declares he is nothing if not critical.

King. Biron, read it over.

[Giving him the letter.

Jaq. Of Costard.

Where hadst thou it?

King. Where hadst thou it?

Cost. Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio.

King. How now! what is in you? why dost thou tear it? Biron. A toy, my liege, a toy; your grace needs not

fear it.

Long. It did move him to passion, and therefore let's

hear it.

Dum. It is Biron's writing, and here is his name. [Picks up the pieces. Biron. Ah, you whoreson loggerhead, you were born [To COSTARD.

to do me shame.

Guilty, my lord, guilty; I confess, I confess.

King. What?

Biron. That you three fools lack'd me fool to make up the mess :

He, he, and you, my liege, and I,

Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die.
O, dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you more.
Dum. Now the number is even.

Biron. True, true; we are four :

Will these turtles be gone?

King. Hence, sirs; away.

Cost. Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay.

[Exeunt CoSTARD and JAQ.

Biron. Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O let us embrace!
As true we are, as flesh and blood can be:

The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face;
Young blood will not obey an old decree :

We cannot cross the cause why we were born ;
Therefore, of all hands, must we be fors worn.

King. What, did these rent lines show some love of thine ?

Biron. Did they, quoth you? Who sees the heavenly Rosaline,

That, like a rude and savage man of Inde,

At the first opening 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. Biron. My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Birón: 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.
Biron. 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 scowl of night;
And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well.7
Biron. Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light.
O, if in black my lady's brows be deckt,

It mourns, that painting, and usurping hair,

Should ravish doters with a false aspéct ;

8

And therefore is she born to make black fair.

Her favour turns the fashion of the days;

For native blood is counted painting now;

[6] Something like this is a stanza of sir Henry Wotton, of which the poetical reader will forgive the insertion:

"You meaner beauties of the night,
"That poorly satisfy our eyes

"More by your number than your light,
"You common p ople of the skies,
"What are you when the sun shall rise?"

JOHNSON.

[7] In heraldry, a crest is a device placed above a coat of arms. Shakspeare therefore assumes the liberty to use it in a sense equivalent to top or utmost height, as he has used spire in Coriolanus. TOLLET.

[8] Usurping hair alludes to the fashion, which prevailed among ladies in our author's time, of wearing false hair or periwigs, as they were then called, before that kind of covering for the head was worn by men. MAL