BIRON. By yea and nay, sir, then I swore in jest.

What is the end of study? let me know.

KING. Why, that to know, which else we should not know.

BIRON. Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from common sense?
KING. Ay, that is study's godlike recompense.

BIRON. Come on then, I will swear to study so,
To know the thing I am forbid to know:
As thus,-To study where I well may dine,
When I to fast expressly am forbida;
Or, study where to meet some mistress fine,
When mistresses from common sense are hid:
Or, having sworn too hard-a-keeping oath,
Study to break it, and not break my troth.
If study's gain be thus, and this be so,
Study knows that, which yet it doth not know:
Swear me to this, and I will ne'er say, no.
KING. These be the stops that hinder study quite,
And train our intellects to vain delight.

BIRON. Why, all delights are vain; and that most vain,
Which, with pain purchas'd, doth inherit pain:
As, painfully to pore upon a book,

To seek the light of truth; while truth the while
Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look:

Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile :
So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,
Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.
Study me how to please the eye indeed,

By fixing it upon a fairer eye;

Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed,
And give him light that it was blinded by.
Study is like the heaven's glorious sun,

That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks;
Small have continual plodders ever won,
Save base authority from others' books.
These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights,
That give a name to every fixed star,

Have no more profit of their shining nights,

Than those 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.

• Forbid. The old copies read "to fast expressly am forbid." This appears, at first, to be the converse of the oath. But for-bid was a very ancient mode of making bid more emphatical. Biron will study to know what he is forbid to know;-he uses here forbid in its common acceptation. But he is expressly for-bid to fast-expressly bid to fast; and he will receive the word as if he were forbidden-bid from fasting. With this view of Biron's casuistry we restore the old word fast.

KING. How well he 's read, to reason against reading!
DUM. Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding!
LONG. He weeds the corn, and still lets grow the weeding.
BIRON. The spring is near, when green geese are a-breeding.
DUM. How follows that?

BIRON.

DUM. In reason nothing.

BIRON.

Fit in his place and time.

Something then in rhyme.

KING. Biron is like an envious sneaping frost,

That bites the first-born infants of the spring.

BIRON. Well, say I am; why should proud summer boast,
Before the birds have any cause to sing?

Why should I joy in anya abortive birth?
At Christmas I no more desire a rose,
Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled shows;
But like of each thing that in season grows.

So you, to study now it is too late,

Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate".
KING. Well, sit you out; go home, Biron; adieu!
BIRON. No, my good lord; I have sworn to stay with you:
And, though I have for barbarism spoke more,
Than for that angel knowledge you can say;

Yet, confident I'll keep what I have swore,

And bide the penance of each three years' day, Give me the paper,—let me read the same;

And to the strictest decrees I'll write my named. KING. How well this yielding rescues thee from shame! BIRON. [Reads.]

Item, That no woman shall come within a mile of my court

Hath this been proclaim'd?

LONG. Four days ago.

BIRON. Let's see the penalty. [Reads.]

-On pain of losing her tongue.

Who devis'd this penalty?

LONG. Marry, that did I.

BIRON. Sweet lord, and why?

LONG. To fright them hence with that dread penalty.

For any Pope gave us an. Why? The freedom of dramatic rhythm was no part of his system

of versification.

b

So the quarto of 1598. The folio has

"That were to climb o'er the house t' unlock the gate."

Sit you out. The folio has "fit you out.”

It is usual to close the sentence at "three years' day;" but the construction requires the rejection of such a pause.

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 lie here on mere necessity.

b

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.

Suggestions-temptations.

One whoa 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,

A man of fire-new words, fashion's own knight. LONG. Costard the swain, and he, shall be our sport; And, so to study, three years is but short.

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 tharborough: 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.

C

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

COST. The matter is to me, sir, as concerniug Jaquenetta. The manner of it is, I was taken with the manner a.

BIRON. In what manner?

COST. In manner and form following, sir; all those three: I was seen with her in the manor house, sitting with her upon the form, and taken following her into the park; which, put together, is in manner and form following. Now, sir, for the manner,—it is the manner of a man to speak to a woman: for the form,-in some form.

BIRON. For the following, sir?

COST. As it shall follow in my correction: And God defend the right!

KING. Will you hear this letter with attention?

BIRON. As we would hear an oracle.

COST. Such is the simplicity of man to hearken after the flesh.

KING. [Reads.]

"Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent, and sole dominator of Navarre, my soul's earth's God, and body's fostering patron,—

COST. Not a word of Costard yet.

KING.

"So it is,

COST. It may be so: but if he say it is so, he is, in telling true, but so.
KING. Peace!

COST. -be to me, and every man that dares not fight!

KING. No words!

COST. of other men's secrets, I beseech you.

KING.

"So it is, besieged with sable-coloured melancholy, I did commend the blackoppressing humour to the most wholesome physic of thy health-giving air; and, as I am a gentleman, betook myself to walk. The time when? About the sixth hour; when beasts most graze, birds best peck, and men sit down to that nourishment which is called supper. So much for the time when : Now for the ground which; which, I mean, I walked upon: it is yclept thy park. Then for the place where; where, I mean, I did encounter that obscene and most preposterous event, that draweth from my snow-white pen the ebon-coloured ink, which here thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or seest: But to the place where,-It standeth north-north-east and by east from the west corner of thy curious-knotted garden. There did I see that lowspirited swain, that base minnow of thy mirth,

COST. Me?

KING.

-"that unletter'd small-knowing soul,

enough, without seeking for a change. If the style of the letter is sufficiently absurd, we shall laugh immoderately-our merriment will ascend. The style will make us climb-a poetical fancy, or a pun, as the reader accepts it.

⚫ Manner. Costard here talks law-French. A thief was taken with the mainour when he was taken with the thing stolen-hond-habend, having in the hand.