Enter the King, with a poper. King. Ah me! Biron. [Aside.] Shot, by heaven!-Proceed, sweet Cupid; thou hast thump'd him with thy bird-bolt under the left pap:-I'faith secrets. King. [Reads.] So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not Through the transparent bosom of the deep, And they thy glory through my grief will show: Enter LONGAVILLE, with a paper. What, Longaville! and reading! listen, ear. Biron. [Aside.] Now, in thy likeness, one more fool, appear! Long. Ah me! I am forsworn. Biron. [Aside.] Why, he comes in a like perjure, wearing papers.* King. [Aside.] In love, I hope; Sweet fellowship in shame! Biron. [Aside.] One drunkard loves another of the name. Thou mak'st the triumviry, the corner-cap of society, [5] The punishment of perjury is to wear on the breast a paper expressing the JOHNSON. crime. These numbers will I tear, and write in prose. Biron. [Aside.] O, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid's hose: Disfigure not his slop. Long. This same shall go.— [He reads the sonnet. Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye ('Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,) Vows, for thee broke, deserve not punishment. prove, Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee: Thy grace being gain'd, cures all disgrace in me. Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dust shine, If broken then, it is no fault of mine; Biron. [Aside.] This is the liver vein, which makes flesh a deity; A green goose, a goddess: pure, pure idolatry. God amend us, God amend! we are much out o' th' way. Enter DUMAIN, with a paper. Long. By whom shall I send this ?-Company! stay. [Stepping aside. Biron. [Aside.] All hid, all hid, an old infant play : And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'er-eye. Dum. O most divine Kate ! Biron. O most profane coxcomb! Dum. By heaven, the wonder of a mortal eye! [Aside. Bir. By earth, she is but corporal ; there you lie. [Asi. Dum. Her amber hairs for foul have amber coted.' [6] Slops are large and wide-knee'd breeches, the garb in fashion in our author's days, as we may observe from old family pictures. THEOBALD. [7] The liver was anciently supposed to be the seat of love. [8] All hid, All hid,-The children's cry at hide and seek. JOHNSON. MUSGRAVE. [9] The word corporal in Shakespeare's time, was used for corporeal. MAL. [1] To cote is to outstrip, to overpass.--The beauty of ember consists in its variegated cloudiness, which Dumain calls foulness. The hair of his mistress in varied shadows exceeded those of amber. STEEVENS. Dum. As fair as day. Biron. An amber-colour'd raven was well noted. [Asi. Dum. As upright as the cedar. 1 Biron. Stoop, I say; Her shoulder is with child. [Aside. Biron. Ay, as some days; but then no sun must shine.[Asi. Dum. O that I had my wish! Long. And I had mine! [Aside. King. And I mine too, good Lord! [Aside. Biron. Amen, so I had mine: Is not that a good word? [Aside. Dum. I would forget her; but a fever she Reigns in my blood, and will remember'd be. Biron. A fever in your blood, why, then incision Would let her out in saucers; Sweet misprision! [Aside. Dum. Once more I'll read the ode that I have writ. Biron. Once more I'll mark how love can vary wit. Dum. On a day, (alack the day!) Love, whose month is ever May, Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn : Youth so apt to pluck a sweet. Do not call it sin in me, That I am forsworn for thee: Thou for whom even Jove would swear, And deny himself for Jove, Turning mortal for thy love.— This will I send; and something else more plain, That shall express my true love's fasting pain. [Aside. [2] It was the fashion among the young gallants of that age, to stab themselves in the arms, or elsewhere, in order to drink their mistress's health, or write her name in their blood, as a proof of their passion. M. MASON. [3] Perhaps we may better read,-4h ! would I might, &c. JOHNSON. O, would the King, Biron, and Longaville, Long. Dumain, thy love is far from charity, [Advancing. You may look pale, but I should blush, I know, To be o'erheard, and taken napping so. King. Come, sir, [Advancing.] you blush; as his your case is such ; You chide at him, offending twice as much : [TO LONG. And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath. [TO DUMAIN. What will Birón say, when that he shall hear I would not have him know so much by me. [Descends from the tree. O, what a scene of foolery I have seen, Where lies thy grief, O tell me, good Dumain : King. Too bitter is thy jest. Are we betray'd thus to thy over-view? Biron. Not you by me, but I betray'd to you; King. Soft; Whither away so fast? A true man, or a thief, that gallops so? Biron. I post from love; good lover, let me go. Jaq. God bless the King! King. What present hast thou there? Cost. Some certain treason. King. What makes treason here? King. If it mar nothing neither, The treason, and you, go in peace away together. Our parson misdoubts it; 'twas treason, he said. [4] Mr. Tollet seems to think this contains an allusion to St. Matthew, xxiii. 24, where the metaphorical term of a gnat means a thing of least importance, or what is proverbially small. STEEVENS. Biron is abusing the King for his sonnetting like a minstrel, and compares him to a gual, which always sings as it flies M. MASON. 15) Critic and Critical are used by our author in the same sense as cynic and cynical. 1o, speaking of the fair sex declares he is nothing if not critical. STEEVENS. |