BIRON. A dangerous law against gentility".

[Reads.]

Item, If any man be seen to talk with a woman within the term of three years, he shall endure such public shame as the rest of the court shall possibly devise.—

This article, my liege, yourself must break;

For, well you know, here comes in embassy

The French king's daughter, with yourself to speak,

A maid of grace, and complete majesty,

About surrender-up of Aquitain

To her decrepit, sick, and bed-rid father:
Therefore this article is made in vain,

Or vainly comes th' admired princess hither.
KING. What say you, lords? why, this was quite forgot.
BIRON. So study evermore is over-shot;

While it doth study to have what it would,
It doth forget to do the thing it should:
And when it hath the thing it hunteth most,
'Tis won, as towns with fire; so won, so lost.
KING. We must, of force, dispense with this decree ;
She must lieb here on mere necessity.
BIRON. Necessity will make us all forsworn.

Three thousand times within this three years' space :
For every man with his affects is born;

Not by might master'd, but by special grace. If I break faith, this word shall speak for me, I am forsworn on mere necessity.

So to the laws at large I write my name:

And he that breaks them in the least degree
Stands in attainder of eternal shame :

Suggestions are to others, as to me;
But, I believe, although I seem so loth,
I am the last that will last keep his oath.
But is there no quick recreation granted?

KING. Ay, that there is our court, you know, is haunted
With a refined traveller of Spain;

A man in all the world's new fashion planted,

That hath a mint of phrases in his brain :

[Subscribes.

In the early editions this line is given to Longaville. It seems more properly to belong to Biron, and we therefore receive Theobald's correction, especially as Biron is reading the paper, and the early copies do not mark this when they give the line of comment upon the previous item to Longaville.

To lie to reside. We have the sense in Wotton's punning definition of an ambassador-" an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country."

The folio reads break.

d Suggestions-temptations.

One who the music of his own vain tongue

Doth ravish, like enchanting harmony;

A man of complements b, whom right and wrong
Have chose as umpire of their mutiny :
This child of fancy, that Armado hight,

For interim to our studies, shall relate,
In high-born words, the worth of many a knight
From tawny Spain, lost in the world's debate'.
How you delight, my lords, I know not, I;
But, I protest, I love to hear him lie,
And I will use him for my minstrelsy.
BIRON. Armado is a most illustrious wight,

Enter DULL, with a letter, and COSTARD.

DULL. Which is the duke's own person?

BIRON. This, fellow. What wouldst?

DULL. I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his grace's tharborougha: but I would see his own person in flesh and blood.

BIRON. This is he.

DULL. Signior Arme-Arme-commends you. There's villainy abroad; this letter will tell you more.

COST. Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me.

KING. A letter from the magnificent Armado.

BIRON. How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high words.

LONG. A high hope for a low heavene: God grant us patience!

BIRON. To hear? or forbear hearing?

LONG. To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately; or to forbear both.

BIRON. Well, sir, be it as the style shall give us cause to climb in the merriness f.

Who. So the old copies. The more correct whom of the modern editions is a deviation from the idiom of Shakspere's time.

Complements-a man versed in ceremonial distinctions-in punctilios-a man who brings forms to decide the mutiny between right and wrong. Compliment and complement were originally written without distinction; and though the first may be taken to mean ceremonies, and the second accomplishments, both the one and the other have the same origin-they each make that perfect which was wanting. In this passage we have the meaning of ceremonies; but in Act III., where Moth says, "these are complements," we have the meaning of accomplishments.

* Fire-new and bran-new,—that is, brand new,-new off the irons,-have each the same origin. & Tharborough-thirdborough-a peace-officer.

• Heaven. This is the reading of the early copies; but it was changed by Theobald to having. Biron has somewhat profanely said, "I hope in God for high words;" and Longaville reproves him by saying, your hope is expressed in strong terms for a very paltry gratification-" A high hope for a low heaven."

'Climb in the merriness. It has been proposed to read chime. The meaning is surely clear

atter is to me, sir, as concerniug Jaquenetta. The manner of it is, en with the mannera.

at manner?

aner and form following, sir; all those three: I was seen with her nor house, sitting with her upon the form, and taken following her ark; which, put together, is in manner and form following. Now, e manner, it is the manner of a man to speak to a woman: for -in some form.

me following, sir?

all follow in my correction: And God defend the right!

u hear this letter with attention?

would hear an oracle.

the simplicity of man to hearken after the flesh.

uty, the welkin's vicegerent, and sole dominator of Navarre, my soul's body's fostering patron,—

ord of Costard yet.

be so: but if he say it is so, he is, in telling true, but so.

me, and every man that dares not fight!

ls!

er men's secrets, I beseech you.

›esieged with sable-coloured melancholy, I did commend the blackour to the most wholesome physic of thy health-giving air; and, as I 1, betook myself to walk. The time when? About the sixth hour; it graze, birds best peck, and men sit down to that nourishment which So much for the time when : Now for the ground which; which, I upon it is yclept thy park. Then for the place where; where, I counter that obscene and most preposterous event, that draweth from pen the ebon-coloured ink, which here thou viewest, beholdest, surBut to the place where,-It standeth north-north-east and by east corner of thy curious-knotted garden. There did I see that lownat base minnow of thy mirth,

tter'd small-knowing soul,

eking for a change. If the style of the letter is sufficiently absurd, we shall —our merriment will ascend. The style will make us climb-a poetical fancy, der accepts it.

ard here talks law-French. A thief was taken with the mainour when he was g stolen-hond-habend, having in the hand.

COST. Me?

KING.

"that shallow vassal,

COST. Still me?

KING.

-"which, as I remember, hight Costard,

COST. O me!

KING.

-"sorted, and consorted, contrary to thy established proclaimed edict and continent canon, with-with3,-O with—but with this I passion to say wherewith, COST. With a wench.

KING.

—“ with a child of our grandmother Eve, a female; or, for thy more sweet understanding, a woman. Him I (as my ever-esteemed duty pricks me on) have sent to thee, to receive the meed of punishment, by thy sweet grace's officer, Antony Dull; a man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation.

DULL. Me, an 't shall please you; I am Antony Dull.

KING.

"For Jaquenetta, (so is the weaker vessel called, which I apprehended with the aforesaid swain,) I keep her as a vessel of thy law's fury; and shall, at the least of thy sweet notice, bring her to trial. Thine in all compliments of devoted and heartburning heat of duty,

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO."

BIRON. This is not so well as I looked for, but the best that ever I heard.
KING. Ay, the best for the worst. But, sirrah, what say you to this?
COST. Sir, I confess the wench.

KING. Did you hear the proclamation?

COST. I do confess much of the hearing it, but little of the marking of it.
KING. It was proclaimed a year's imprisonment, to be taken with a wench.
COST. I was taken with none, sir; I was taken with a damosel.

KING. Well, it was proclaimed damosel.

COST. This was no damosel, neither, sir; she was a virgin.

KING. It is so varied too; for it was proclaimed virgin.

COST. If it were, I deny her virginity; I was taken with a maid.

KING. This maid will not serve your turn, sir.

COST. This maid will serve my turn, sir.

KING. Sir, I will pronounce your sentence: You shall fast a week with bran and

water.

COST. I had rather pray a month with mutton and porridge.

KING. And Don Armado shall be your keeper.

My lord Biron, see him deliver'd o'er.—

The early copies read "which with."

e, lords, to put in practice that

each to other hath so strongly sworn.—

[Exeunt KING, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN.

-y my head to any good man's hat,

aths and laws will prove an idle scorn.—

me on.

for the truth, sir: for true it is, I was taken with Jaquenetta, and is a true girl; and therefore, Welcome the sour cup of prosperity! nay one day smile again, and until then, Sit thee down, sorrow a!

ENE II.-Another part of the same.-Armado's House.

Enter ARMADO and MOTH.

[Exeunt.

at sign is it, when a man of great spirit grows melancholy? t sign, sir, that he will look sad.

adness is one and the self-same thing, dear imp.

; O lord, sir, no.

st thou part sadness and melancholy, my tender juvenal? amiliar demonstration of the working, my tough senior. ugh senior? why tough senior?

ender juvenal? why tender juvenal?

it, tender juvenal, as a congruent epitheton, appertaining to thy , which we may nominate tender.

tough senior, as an appertinent title to your old time, which we tough.

nd apt.

ean you, sir; I pretty, and my saying apt? or I apt, and my say

tty, because little.

retty, because little: Wherefore apt?

efore apt, because quick.

ou this in my praise, master?

ndign praise.

raise an eel with the same praise.

hat an eel is ingenious d?

eel is quick.

thou art quick in answers: Thou heat'st my blood.

swered, sir.

t to be crossed.

rrow. A proverbial expression, which Biron repeats in the fourth Act, with o, they say, the fool said."

623, Armado is called Braggart through the scene, after his first words. language, is a graft, a shoot;-and thence applied to a child.

ngenuous. The words were often confounded.