Raining the tears of lamentation, 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 purged too, your sins are rank; You are attaint with faults and perjury; Therefore, if you my favour mean to get, A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest, But seek the weary beds of people sick. Dum. But what to me, my love? but what to me? Kath. A wife!-A beard, fair health, and ho nesty; With three-fold love I wish you all these three. I'll mark no words that smooth-fac'd wooers say: Mar. lord Birón, Before I saw you: and the world's large tongue 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," Of him that hears it, never in the tongue groans, Biron. A twelvemonth? well, befal what will befal, I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital. leave. Prin. Ay, sweet my lord; and so I take my [To the King. King. No, madam: we will bring you on your way. Biron. Our wooing doth not end like an old play; Jack hath not Jill: these ladies' courtesy King. Come, sir, it wants a twelvemonth and a day, And then 'twill end. Biron. That's too long for a play. Enter ARMADO. Arm. Sweet majesty, vouchsafe me,— 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. 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. SONG. Spring. When daisies pied, and violets blue, 2 And lady-smocks all silver-white, And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue, Do paint the meadows with delight, cuckoo-buds] Cuckoo-buds must be wrong. I be lieve cowslip-buds, the true reading. FARMER. The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men, for thus sings he, Cuckoo, cuckoo,-O word of fear, II. When shepherds pipe on oaten straws, Cuckoo, cuckoo,-O word of fear, III. Winter. When icicles hang by the wall, And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, And milk comes frozen home in pail, Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note, IV. When all aloud the wind doth blow, And birds sit brooding in the snow, doth keel the pot.] 3 4 VOL. II. i. e. cool the pot. 4 Saw seems anciently to have meant, PP When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note, Arm. The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo. You, that way; we, this way. [Exeunt. not as at present, a proverb, a sentence, but the whole tenor of any instructive discourse. When roasted crabs, &c.] i. e. the wild apples so called. The bowl must be supposed to be filled with ale; a toast and some spice and sugar being added, what is called lamb's wool is produced. In this play, which all the editors have concurred to censure, and some have rejected as unworthy of our poet, it must be confessed that there are many passages mean, childish, and vulgar; and some which ought not to have been exhibited, as we are told they were, to a maiden Queen. But there are scatter'd through the whole many sparks of genius; nor is there any play that has` more evident marks of the hand of Shakspeare. JOHNSON. END OF VOLUME SECOND. C. and R. Baldwin, Printers, 11 |