Dum. Ay, marry, there ;-soine flattery for this

evil.

Long. O, some authority how to proceed;

Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil. Dum. Some salve for perjury.

Biron.
Ö, 'tis more than need!-
Have at you then, affection's men at arms :
Consider, what you first did swear unto ;-
To fast, to study,-and to see no woman;-
Flat treason 'gainst the kingly state of youth.
Say, can you fast? your stomachs are too young;
And abstinence engenders maladies.

And where that you have vow'd to study, lords,
In that each of you hath forsworn his book:
Can you still dream, and pore, and thereon look?
For when would you, my lord, or you, or you,
Have found the ground of study's excellence,
Without the beauty of a woman's face?
From women's eyes this doctrine I derive;
They are the ground, the books, the académes,
From whence doth spring the true Promethean ure.
Why, universal plodding prisons up

The nimble spirits in the arteries;
As motion, and long-during action, tires
The sinewy vigour of the traveller.
Now, for not looking on a woman's face,
You have in that forsworn the use of eyes;
And study too, the causer of your vow:
For where is any author in the world,
Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye
Learning is but an adjunct to ourself,
And where we are, our learning likewise is.
Then, when ourselves we see in ladies' eyes,
Do we not likewise see our learning there?
O, we have made a vow to study, lords;
And in that vow we have forsworn our books;
For when would you, my liege, or you, or you,
In leaden contemplation, have found out

(1) Law-chicane.

Such fiery numbers, as the prompting eyes
Of beauteous tutors have enrich'd you with?
Other slow arts entirely keep the brain;
And therefore finding barren practisers,
Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil :
But love, first learned in a lady's eyes,
Lives not alone immured in the brain;
But with the motion of all elements,
Courses as swift as thought in every power;
And gives to every power a double power,
Above their functions and their offices.
It adds a precious seeing to the eye;
A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind;
A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound,
When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd;
Love's feeling is more soft, and sensible,
Than are the tender horns of cockled snails;
Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste :
For valour, is not love a Hercules,

Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?
Subtle as sphinx; as sweet, and musical,
As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair;
And, when love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.
Never durst poet touch a pen to write,
Until his ink were temper'd with love's sighs;
O, then his lines would ravish savage ears,
And plant in tyrants mild humility.
From women's eyes this doctrine I derive :
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the académes,
That show, contain, and nourish all the world;
Else, none at all in aught proves excellent:
Then fools you were these women to forswear;
Or, keeping what is sworn, you will prove fools.
For wisdom's sake, a word that all men love;
Or for love's sake, a word that loves all men;
Or for men's sake, the authors of these women;
Or women's sake, by whom we men are men;
Let us once lose our oaths, to find ourselves,

Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths:
It is religion to be thus forsworn:

For charity itself fulfils the law;

And who can sever love from charity?

King. Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field!

Biron. Advance your standards, and upon them, lords;

Pell-mell, down with them! but be first advis'd, In conflict that you get the sun of them.

Long. Now to plain-dealing; lay these glozes by: Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France? King. And win them too: therefore let us devise Some entertainment for them in their tents.

Biron. First, from the park let us conduct them thither;

Then, homeward, every man attach the hand
Of his fair mistress in the afternoon

We will with some strange pastime solace them,
Such as the shortness of the time can shape;
For revels, dances, masks, and merry hours,
Fore-run fair love, strewing her way with flowers.
King Away, away! no time shall be omitted,
That will be time, and may by us be fitted.
Biron. Allons! Allons!-Sow'd cockle reap'd

no corn;

And justice always whirls in equal measure : Light wenches may prove plagues to men forsworn; so, our copper buys no better treasure.

If

ACT V.

[Exeunt.

SCENE I-Another part of the same.

Holofernes, Sir Nathaniel, and Dull.

Hol. Satis quod sufficit.

Enter

Nuth. I praise God for you, sir: your reasons! (1) Discourses.

at dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection,1 audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy. I did converse this quondam day with a companion of the king's, who is intituled, nominated, or called, Don Adriano de Armado.

Hol. Novi hominem tanquam te: His humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical.2 He is too picked,3 too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were, too perigrinate, as I may call it.

Nath. A most singular and choice epithet.

[Takes out his table-book.

Hol. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical phantasms, such insociable and point-devise4 companions; such rackers of orthography, as to speak, dout, fine, when he should say doubt; det, when he should pronounce debt; d, e, b, t; not d, e, t: he clepeth a calf, cauf; half, hauf; neighbour, vocatur, nebour; neigh, abbreviated, ne: This is abhominable (which he would call abominable,) it insinuateth me of insanie; Ne intelligis domine? to make frantic, lunatic.

Nath. Laus deo, bone intelligo.

Hol. Bone?bone, for benè: Priscian a little scratch'd; 'twill serve.

Enter Armado, Moth, and Costard.

Nath. Videsne quis venit?

Hol. Video, et gaudeo.

Arm. Chirra!

Hol. Quare Chirra, not sirrah?

[To Moth.

Arm. Men of peace, well encounter'd.

Hol. Most military sir, salutation.

(1) Affectation. (2) Boastful. (3) Over-dressed.

Finical exactness.

Moth. They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps. [To Costard aside. Cost. O, they have lived long in the alms-basket of words! I marvel, thy master hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon.!

Moth. Peace; the peal begins.

Arm. Monsieur, [To Hol.] are you not letter'd? Moth. Yes, yes; he teaches boys the hornbook What is a, b, spelt backward, with a horn on his head?

Hol. Ba, pueritia, with a horn added.

Moth. Ba, most silly sheep, with a horn :-You hear his learning.

Hol. Quis, quis, thou consonant?

Moth. The third of the five vowels, if

peat them; or the fifth, if I.

Hol. I will repeat them, a, e, i.—

you re

Moth. The sheep: the other two concludes it;

o, u.

Arm. Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum, a sweet touch,2 a quick venew of wit: snip, snap, quick and home; it rejoiceth my intellect:

true wit.

Moth. Offer'd by a child to an old man ; which is wit-old.

Hol. What is the figure? what is the figure? Moth. Horns.

Hol. Thou disputest like an infant: go, whip thy gig.

Moth. Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your infamy circùm circà; A gig of a cuckold's horn!

Cost. An I had but one penny in the world, thou should'st have it to buy gingerbread: hold,

(1) A small inflammable substance, swallowed in a glass of wine.

(2) A hit.