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dark, he may stumble.

Prin. Alas, poor Machabæus, how hath he been baited!

Enter Armado arm'd, for Hector.

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

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

King. Hector was but a Trojan in respect of this. Boyet. But is this Hector ?

Dum. I think, Hector was not so clean-timber'd. Long. His leg is too big for Hector.

Dum. More calf, certain.

Boyet. No; he is best indued in the small.
Biron. This cannot be Hector.

Dum. He's a god or a painter; for he makes faces.
Arm. The armipotent Mars, of lances

mighty,

Gare Hector a gift

Dum. A gilt nutmeg

Biron. A lemon.

Long. Stuck with cloves.

Dum. No, cloven.

Arm. Peace.

the al

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Pompey! Pompey the huge!

Dum. Hector trembles.

Biron. Pompey is mov'd:-More Ates, more

Ates; stir them on! stir them on!
Dum. Hector will challenge hon.

Biron. Ay, if he have no more man's blood in's belly than will sup a flea.

Arm. By the north pole, I do challenge thee. Cost. I will not fight with a pole, like a northern man; I'll slash; I'll do it by the sword:-I pray you, let me borrow my arms again.

Dum. Room for the incensed worthies.
Cost. I'll do it in my shirt.

Dum. Most resolute Pompey!

Moth. Master, let me take you a button-hole lower. Do you not see, Pompey is uncasing for the combat? What mean you? you will lose your reputation.

Arım. Gentlemen, and soldiers, pardon me: I will not combat in my shirt.

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

Arm. Sweet bloods, I both may and will.
Biron. What reason have you for't?

Arm. The naked truth of it is, I have no shirt; I go woolward for penance.

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

Enter Mercade.

Mer. God save you, madam!

Prin. Welcome, Mercade;

But that thou interrupt'st our merriment.

Mer. I am sorry, madam; for the news I bring, Is heavy in my tongue. The king your fatherPrin. Dead, for my life.

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. [Exeunt Worthies.

King. How fares your majesty ?
Prin. Boyet, prepare; I will away to-night.
King. Madam, not so; I do beseech you, stay.
Prin. Prepare, I say. I thank you, gracious

lords,

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Arm. This Hector far surmounted Hannibal,

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 liberals 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!

Cost. The party is gone, fellow Hector, she is A heavy heart bears not an humble tongue:

gone; she is two months on her way.

Arm. What meanest thou ?

Excuse me so, coming so short of thanks For my great suit so easily obtain'd.

Cost. Faith, unless you play the honest Trojan,

King. The extreme parts of time extremely form

the poor wench is cast away: she's quick; the All causes to the purpose of his speed;
child brags in her belly already; 'tis yours.
And often, at his very loose, decides

tates? thou shalt die.

Arm. Dost thou infamonize me among poten- That which long process could not arbitrate: And though the mourning brow of progeny

Cost. Then shall Hector be whipp'd, for Jacque-Forbid the smiling courtesy of love, netta that is quick by him; and hang'd, for Pom- The holy suit which fain it would convince; pey that is dead by him.

Dum. Most rare Pompey!

Boyet. Renowned Pompey!

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From what it purposed; since, to wail friends lost,

(3) A clown. (4) Clothed in wool, without linen. (5) Free to excees,

Biron. Greater than great, great, great, great, Is not by much so wholesome, profitable,

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As to rejoice at friends but newly found.

Prin. I understand you not: my griefs are double.

Biron, 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 aur 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 party-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.

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long.

Mar. The liker you; few taller are so young.
Biron. Studies my lady? mistress, look on me,
Behold the window of my heart, mine eye,
What humble suit attends thy answer there;

Prin. We have receiv'd your letters full of love; Impose some service on me for thy love.

Your favours the embassadors 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.

Dum. Our letters, madam, show'd much more

than jest.

Long. So did our looks. Ros.

Ros. Oft have I heard of you, my lord Birón,
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

We did not quote them so. Visit the speechless sick, and still converse
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 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 their 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,

ear

Come challenge, challenge me by these deserts,
And, by this virgin palm now kissing thine,
I will be thine; and till that instant, shut
My wosul self 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 flatter up these powers of mine with rest,
The sudden hand of death close up mine eye!
Hence even then my heart is in thy breast,

With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,
With all the fierce endeavour of your wit,
To enforce the pained impotent to smile.

Biron. To move wild laughter in the throat of

death?

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(5) Immediate.

Cuckoo, cuckoo,-0 word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear!

And then 'twill end.

Biron.

That's too long for a play.

Enter Armado.

Arm. Sweet majesty, vouchsafe me,-
Prin. Was not that Hector ?

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.

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III.

Winter. 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,

To-who;

Tu-whit, to-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 savo,
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,
To-who;

Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

Arm. The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo.-You, that way; we, this way.

[Exeunt.

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ACT I.

Salerio, a messenger from Venice.

Leonardo, servant to Bassanio.

Balthazar,
Stephano,

{

servants to Portia.

Portia, a rich heiress.
Nerissa, her waiting-maid.
Jessica, daughter to Shylock.

Magnificoes of Venice, officers of the court of Jus-
tice, jailer, servants, and other attendants.

Scene, partly at Venice, and partly at Belmont, the seat of Portia, on the continent.

That such a thing, bechanc'd, would make me sad?
But, tell not me; I know, Antonio

SCENE I.-Venice. A street. Enter Antonio, Is sad to think upon his merchandise.

Salarino, and Salanio.

Antonio.

IN sooth, I know not why I am so sad;
It wearies me; you say, it wearies you;
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn;

And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,
That I have much ado to know myself.

Salar. Your mind is tossing on the ocean;
There, where your argosiest with portly sail,-
Like signiors and rich burghers of the flood,
Or, as it were the pageants of the sea, -
Do overpeer the petty traffickers,

That curt'sy to them, do them reverence,

As they fly by them with their woven wings.

Ant. Believe me, no: I thank my fortune for it,
My ventures are not in one bottom trusted,
Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate
Upon the fortune of this present year:
Therefore, my merchandise makes me not sad.

Salan. Why then you are in love.
Ant.

Fie, fie!
Salan. Not in love neither? Then let's say, you

are sad,

Because you are not merry: and 'twere as easy
For you to laugh, and leap, and say, you are merry,
Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed

Janus,

Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time:
Some that will evermore peep through their eyes,
And laugh, like parrots, at a bag-piper;
And other of such vinegar aspéct,

Salan. Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth, That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile,

The better part of my affections would

Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still
Plucking the grass, to know where sits the wind;
Peering in maps, for ports, and piers, and roads;
And every object, that might make me fear
Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt,
Would make me sad.

Salar.

My wind, cooling my broth,

Would blow me to an ague, when I thought
What harm a wind too great might do at sea.
I should not see the sandy hour-glass run,
But I should think of shallows and of flats;
And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand,
Vailing her high-top lower than her ribs,
To kiss her burial. Should I go to church,
And see the holy edifice of stone,

And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks?
Which touching but my gentle vessel's side,
Would scatter all her spices on the stream;
Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks;
And, in a word, but even now worth this,
And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought
To think on this; and shall I lack the thought,

(1) Ships of large burthen.

(2) Lowering.

Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.

Enter Bassanio, Lorenzo, and Gratiano.

Salan. Here comes Bassanio, your most noble
kinsman,

Gratiano, and Lorenzo: Fare you well;
We leave you now with better company.
Salar. I would have staid till I had made you

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