Cost. I'll do it in my shirt. 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. Arm. 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 enjoined him in Rome for want of linen: since when, I'll be sworn, he wore none, but a dishclout of Jaquenetta'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? For all your fair endeavours; and entreat, King. The extreme parts of time extremely form All causes to the purpose of his speed; Yet, since love's argument was first on foot, Biron. Honest plain words best pierce the ear And by these badges understand the king. Hath much deformed us, fashioning our humours Prin. We have received your letters, full of love; In their own fashion, like a merriment. Dum. Our letters, madan, shewed much more than jest. Long. So did our looks. 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: No, no, my lord, your grace is perjured 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. 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, To flatter up these powers of mine with rest, The sudden 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? Ros. You must be purgéd too, your sins are You are attaint with faults and perjury: Dum. But what to me, my love? but what to me? Kath. A wife!-A beard, fair health, and honesty ; With threefold love I wish you all these three. Dum. O, shall I say, I thank you, gentle wife? Kath. Not so, my lord:-a twelvemonth and a day I'll mark no words that smooth-faced 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, least you be forsworn again. Long. What says Maria? Mar. At the twelvemonth's end, I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend. Long. I'll stay with patience; but the time is 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: Impose some service on me for thy love. 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 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 choke a gibing spirit, Whose influence is begot of that loose grace Of him that hears it, never in the tongue Biron. A twelvemonth? Well, befal what will befal, I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital. Prin. Ay, sweet my lord; and so I take my [To the KING. leave. King. No, madam; we will bring you on your Arm. Sweet majesty, vouchsafe me,— 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 maintained by the owl, the other by the cuckoo. Ver, begin. SONG. SPRING. When daisies pied, and violets blue, Do paint the meadows with delight; Cuckoo, cuckoo ;-O word of fear, When shepherds pipe on oaten straws, And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks, Cuckoo, cuckoo ;-O word of fear, 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 nipped, and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl, To-who; Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note, And Marian's nose looks red and raw; 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. |