PERSONS REPRESENTED.

Ferdinand, King of Navarre.

Biron

Longaville, Lords, attending on the King.
Dumain,

Mercade, Lords, attending on the Princess of France.
Don Adriano de Armado, a fantastical Spaniard..
Sir Nathaniel, a Curate.

Holofernes, a Schoolmaster.
Dull, a Conflable.

Coftard, a Clown.

Moth, Page to Armado.

A Forefter.

Officers, and others, attendants on the King and Princess.

SCENE, Navarre.

*This enumeration of the perfons was made by Mr. Rowe.

JOHNSON,

ACT I. SCENE I.

Navarre. A Park, with a Palace in it.

Enter the King, BIRON, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN,

King. Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,
Live register'd upon our brazen tombs,
And then grace us in the difgrace of death;
When, fpite of cormorant devouring time,
The endeavour of this prefent breath may buy

That honour, which thall bate his fcythe's keen edge,
And make us heirs of all eternity.

Therefore, brave conquerors!-for fo you are,
That war against your own affections,
And the huge army of the world's defires,-
Our late edict shall strongly stand in force:
Navarre fhall be the wonder of the world:
Our court fhall be a little Academe,
Still and contemplative in living art.
You three, Birón, Dumain, and Longaville,
Have fworn for three years' term to live with mẽ,
My fellow-fcholars, and to keep those statutes
That are recorded in this schedule here:

Your oaths are paft, and now fubfcribe your names;
That his own hand may ftrike his honour down,
That violates the fmalleft branch herein :
If you are arm'd to do, as fworn to do,
Subfcribe to your deep oath, and keep it too.
Long. I am refolv'd: 'tis but a three years' faft;
The mind thall banquet, though the body pine:
Fat paunches have lean pates; and dainty bits
Make rich the ribs, but bank'rout quite the wits.
Dum. My loving lord, Dumain is mortified;
The groffer manner of thefe world's delights

He

He throws upon the grofs world's bafer flaves:
To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die;
With all thefe living in philofophy."

Biron. I can but fay their proteftation over,
So much, dear liege, I have already fworn,
That is, To live and study here three years.
But there are other ftrict obfervances:
As, not to fee 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 befide;
The which, I hope, is not enrolled there:
And then, to fleep but three hours in the night,
And not be feen 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 fee ladies, study, faft, not fleep.3

King. Your oath is pafs'd to pafs away from thefe.
Biron. Let me fay, no, my liege, an if you please
I only fwore, to ftudy with your grace,

And stay here in your court for three years' space.
Long. You fwore to that, Biron, and to the reft.
Biron. By yea and nay, fir, then I fwore in jeft.--
What is the end of ftudy?t me know.

King. Why, that to know, which else we fhould not know.
Biron

2 The style of the rhyming scenes in this play it often entangled and obfcure. I know not certainly to what all thefe is to be referred; I fuppofe he means that he finds love, pomp, and wealth in philofophy.

JOHNSON

By all thefe, Dumain means the King, Biron, &c. to whom he may be fuppofed to point, and with whom he is going to live in philofophical retirement. A. C.

3 Not to fee ladies, study, faft, not seep.] The words as they ftand, will exprefs the meaning intended, if pointed thus:

Not to fee ladies-ftudy-faft--not fleep.

Biron is recapitulating the feveral tafks impofed upon him viz, not to fee ladies, to study, to faft, and not to fleep: but Shakspeare, by a common poetical licenfe, though in this paffage injudiciously exercifed, omits the article to, before the three last verbs, and from hence the obfcurity

arifes. M. MASON.

Biron. Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from common fense?

King. Ay, that is ftudy's god-like recompenfe. Biron. Come on then, I will fwear to ftudy fo, To know the thing I am forbid to know:

As thus, To ftudy where I we'l

may dine,
When I to feat exprefsly am forbid ; +
Or, study where to meet fome mistress fine,
When miftreffes from common fenfe are hid:
Or, having fworn too hard-a-keeping oath,
Study to break it, and not break my troth.
If ftudy's gain be thus, and this he fo,s
Study knows that, which yet it doth not know:
Swear me to this, and I will ne'er fay, no.

King. Thefe be the ftops that hinder ftudy quite,
And train our intellects to vain delight.

}

Biron. Why, all delights are vain; but that mot vain,
Which, with pain purcha 'd, doth inherit pain :
As, painfully to pore upon a book,

To feek the light of truth; while truth the while
Doth falfely blind the eyefight of his look:
Light, feeking light, doth light of light beguile a
So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,
Your light grows dark by lofing of your eyes.
Study me how to please the eye indeed,
By fixing it upon a fairer eye;

Who dazzling fo, that eye fhall be his heed,
And give him light that was it blinded by.7

4 When I to feast expressly am forbid ;] The copies all have :
When I to fat expressly am forbid;

Study

But if Biron ftudied where to get a good dinner, at a time when he was forbid to faft, how was this ftudying to know what he was forbid to know Common fenfe, and the whole tenour of the context require us to read, feaft, or to make a change in the last word of the verfe:"When I to falt exprefsly am fore-bid; "

i. e. when I am enjoined before-hand to faft. THEOBALD.

5 If study's gain be thus, and this be f] Read:

"If study's gain be this-" RITSON.

6 Fafely is here, and in many other places, the fame as difbenefily of treacherously. The whole fenfe of this gingling declamation is only this, that a man by too clefe ftudy may read bimflf blind, which might have been told with lefs obfcurity in fewer words. JOHNSON.

Study is like the heaven's glorious fun,

That will not be deep fearch'd with faucy looks; Small have continual plodders ever won,

Save bafe authority from others' books. Thefe earthly godfathers of heaven's lights, That give a name to every fixed ftar, Have no more profit of their fhining nights,

Than thofe 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 reafon against reading!
Dum Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding! 9
Long. He weeds the corn, and ftill lets grow the weeding.
Biron. The fpring is near, when green geese are a breeding.
Dum. How follows that?

Biron.

Dum. In reafon nothing.

Biron.

Fit in his place and time.

Something then in rhime.

Long. Biron is like an envious fneaping froft,2

That bites the first-born infants of the fpring.

Biron. Well, fay I am; why fhould proud fummer boast, Before the birds have any caufe to fing? Why should I joy in an abortive birth ?

At

7 This is another paffage unneceffarily obfcure: the meaning is, that when he dazzles, that is, has his eye made weak, by fixing his eye upon a fairer eye, that fairer eye shall be his beed, his direction or lode-ftar, (See Midfummer-Night's Dream) and give him light that was blinded by it. JOHNSON.

8 The confequence, fays Biron, of too much knowledge, is not any real folution of doubts, but mere empty reputation. This is, too much knowledge gives only fame, a name which every god-father can give likewise. JOHNSON.

9 To proceed is an academical term, meaning, to take a degree, as he proceeded bachelor in phyfick. The fenfe is, be bas taken his degrees in the art of bindering the degrees of others. JOHNSON.

I don't fufpect that Shakspeare had any academical term in contemplation, when he wrote this line. He has proceeded well, means only, he has gone on well. M. MASON.

2 So fneaping winds in The Winter's Tale: To fneap is to check, to rebuke. Thus alfo, Falstaff, in K. Henry IV. P. II: I will not undergo this feap, without reply." STEEVENS.