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Enter the King, with a Paper.

King. Ah me!

Biron. [Aside.] Shot, by Heaven!-Proceed, sweet Cupid; thou hast thumped him with thy bird-bolt under the left pap.-I'faith, secrets.

King. [Reads.] So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not

To those fresh morning drops upon the rose,
As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote
The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows;
Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright

Through the transparent bosom of the deep,
As doth thy face through tears of mine give light;
Thou shin'st in every tear that I do weep;
No drop but as a coach doth carry thee;
So ridest thou triumphing in my woe;
Do but behold the tears that swell in me,

And they thy glory through thy grief will show.
But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep
My tears for glasses, and still make me weep.
O queen of queens, how far dost thou excel!
No thought can think, no tongue of mortal tell.-
How shall she know my griefs? I'll drop the paper;
Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here?
[Steps aside.

Enter LONGAVILLE, with a Paper.

What, Longaville! and reading! Listen, ear.
Biron. Now, in thy likeness, one more fool, appear!

Long. Ah me! I am forsworn.

[Aside.

Biron. Why, he comes in like a perjure,' wearing

papers.

[Aside.

1 The ancient punishment of a perjured person was to wear on the breast a paper expressing the crime.

King. In love, I hope; sweet fellowship in shame!

[Aside.

Biron. One drunkard loves another of the name.

[Aside.

Long. Am I the first that have been perjured so? Biron. [Aside.] I could put thee in comfort; not by two, that I know.

Thou mak'st the triumviry, the corner-cap of society, The shape of love's Tyburn' that hangs up simplicity. Long. I fear these stubborn lines lack power to

move;

O sweet Maria, empress of my love!

These numbers will I tear, and write in prose.

Biron. [Aside.] O, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid's hose;

Disfigure not his slop.2
Long.

This same shall go.

[He reads the sonnet.

Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye

('Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument) Persuade my heart to this false perjury?

Vows for thee broke, deserve not punishment. A woman I forswore; but I will prove,

Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee. My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;

Thy grace being gained, cures all disgrace in me. Vows are but breath, and breath a vapor is:

Then, thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine, Exhal'st this vapor vow; in thee it is.

If broken then, it is no fault of mine; If by me broke, what fool is not so wise, To lose an oath to win a paradise?

Biron. [Aside.] This is the liver vein,3 which makes flesh a deity;

A green goose, a goddess; pure, pure idolatry.

1 By triumviry and the shape of love's Tyburn, Shakspeare alludes to the gallows of the time, which was occasionally triangular.

2 Slops were wide-kneed breeches, the garb in fashion in Shakspeare's time.

3 It has been already remarked that the liver was anciently supposed to be the seat of love.

God amend us, God amend! we are much out o'

the 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.1 Like a demi-god here sit I in the sky,

And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'er-eye.

More sacks to the mill! O Heavens, I have my wish!
Dumain transformed; four woodcocks 2 in a dish!
Dum. O most divine Kate!

Biron.

O most profane coxcomb!

[Aside. Dum. By Heaven, the wonder of a mortal eye! Biron. By earth, she is but corporal; there you lie.

[Aside. Dum. Her amber hairs for foul have amber coted.3 Biron. An amber-colored raven was well noted.

Dum. As upright as the cedar.
Biron.

Her shoulder is with child.

Dum.

[Aside.

Stoop, I say;

[Aside.

As fair as day.

Biron. Ay, as some days; but then no sun must

shine.

Dum. O that I had my wish!

Long.

[Aside.

And I had mine! [Aside.

[Aside.

[Aside.

King. And I mine too, good Lord!

Biron. Amen, so I had mine, is not that a good

word?

Dum. I would forget her; but a fever she Reigns in my blood, and will remembered be.

1 The allusion is to the play of hide and seek.

2 A woodcock means a foolish fellow; that bird being supposed to have no brains.

3 Coted signifies marked or noted. The word is from coter, to quote. The construction of this passage will therefore be," Her amber hairs have marked or shown that real amber is foul in comparison with themselves." Steevens, however, assigns to cote the meaning of outstrip.

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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. [Aside.

Dum. On a day, (alack the day!)

Love, whose month is ever May,
Spied a blossom, passing fair,
Playing in the wanton air.

Through the velvet leaves the wind,
All unseen, 'gan passage find;
That the lover, sick to death,
Wished himself the heaven's breath.
Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;
Air, would I might triumph so!
But, alack! my hand is sworn
Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn.
Vow, alack! for youth unmeet;
Youth so apt to pluck a sweet.
Do not call it sin in me,

That I am forsworn for thee;-
Thee-for whom Jove would swear,1
Juno but an Ethiop were;

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.
O, would the king, Birón, and Longaville,
Were lovers too! Ill, to example ill,

Would from my forehead wipe a perjured note;

For none offend, where all alike do dote.

Long. Dumain, [advancing.] thy love is far from charity,

That in love's grief desir'st society.

1 The old copy reads—

"Thou for whom Jove would swear."

Pope thought this line defective, and altered it to
"Thou for whom even Jove would swear."

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.
You do not love Maria; Longaville
Did never sonnet for her sake compile ;
Nor never lay his wreathed arms athwart
His loving bosom, to keep down his heart;
I have been closely shrouded in this bush,
And marked you both, and for you both did blush.
I heard your guilty rhymes, observed your fashion;
Saw sighs reek from you, noted well your passion.
Ah me! says one; O Jove! the other cries;
One, her hairs were gold, crystal the other's eyes.
You would for paradise break faith and troth;

[To LONG. And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath. [TO DUMAIN.

What will Birón say, when that he shall hear
Faith infringed, which such zeal did swear?
How will he scorn! How will he spend his wit!
How will he triumph, leap, and laugh at it!
For all the wealth that ever I did see,

I would not have him know so much by me.
Biron. Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy.-
Ah, good my liege, I pray thee pardon me:

[Descends from the tree.
Good heart, what grace hast thou, thus to reprove
These worms for loving, that art most in love?
Your eyes do make no coaches;1 in your tears,
There is no certain princess that appears.
You'll not be perjured; 'tis a hateful thing:
Tush, none but minstrels like of sonneting.
But are you not ashamed? Nay, are you not,
All three of you, to be thus much o'ershot?
You found his mote; the king your mote did see;
But I a beam do find in each of three.

1 Alluding to a passage in the king's sonnet

"No drop but as a coach doth carry thee."

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