Enter the King, with a paper.

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
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 my grief will show:
But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep
My tears for glasses, and still make me weep.
queen of queens, how far dost thou excel!

0

No thought can think, nor tongue of mortal tell.

How shall she know my griefs? I'll drop the paper,
Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here?

What, Longaville! and reading! listen, ear.

[Steps aside.

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.
Long. Am I the first that have been perjur'd 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!

[5] The punishment of perjury is to wear on the breast a paper expressing the crime. JOHNSON.

These numbers will I tear, and write in prose.

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

Disfigure not his slop.

6

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 gain'd, cures all disgrace in me.
Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is:
Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine,
Exhal'st this vapour 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," 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 :
Like a demi-god here sit I in the sky,

And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'er-eye.
More sacks to th' mill! O heavens, I have my wish;
Dumain transform'd: four woodcocks in a dish!

Dum. O most divine Kate !

Biron. O most profane coxcomb!

[Aside

Dum. By heaven, the wonder of a mortal eye!
Bir. By earth, she is but corporal; there you lie. [Ası.
Dum. Her amber hairs for foul have amber coted."

THEOBALD.

JOHNSON. MUSGRAVE.

[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. [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. [9] The word corporal in Shakespeare's time, was used for corporeal. MAL. [1] To cote is to outstrip, to overpass.The beauty of amber consists in its va riegated cloudiness, which Dumain calls foulness. The hair of his mistress in va ried shadows exceeded those of amber. STEEVENS.

Biron. An amber-colour'd raven was well noted. [Asi.
Dum. As upright as the cedar.

I

Biron. Stoop, I say ;

Her shoulder is with child.

Dum. As fair as day.

[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,
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,
Wish'd himself the heaven's breath.
Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may
Air, would I might triumph so!3
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:

blow;

Thou for whom even Jove would swear,
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.

[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,
Were lovers too! Ill, to example ill,
Would from my forehead wipe a perjur'd note;
For none offend, where all alike do dote.

Long. Dumain, thy love is far from charity,
That in love's grief desir'st society:

[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 :
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 mark'd you both, and for you both did blush.
I heard your guilty rhymes, observ'd 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
A faith infring'd, which such a 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; in your tears,
There is no certain princess that appears :
You'll not be perjur'd, 'tis a hateful thing;
Tush, none but minstrels like of sonnetting.
But are you not asham'd? 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.

O, what a scene of foolery I have seen,
Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow, and of teen!
O me, with what strict patience have I sat,
To see a king transformed to a gnat!*
To see great Hercules whipping a gigg,
And profound Solomon to tune a jigg,
And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys,
And critic Timon laugh at idle toys !5-

Where lies thy grief, O tell me, good Dumain :
And, gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain?--
And where my liege's? all about the breast:-
A caudle, ho!

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;
I, that am honest; I, that hold it sin
To break the vow, I am engaged in ;
I am betray'd, by keeping company
With moon-like men, of strange inconstancy.
When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme?
Or groan for Joan? or spend a minute's time
In pruning me? When shall you hear that I
Will praise a hand, a foot, a face, an eye,
A gait, a state, a brow, a breast, a waist,
A leg, a limb ?-

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.
Enter JAQUENETTA and CoSTARD.

Jaq. God bless the King!

King. What present hast thou there?
Cost. Some certain treason.

King. What makes treason here?
Cost. Nay, it makes nothing, sir.
King. If it mar nothing neither,

The treason, and you, go in peace away together.
Jaq. I beseech your grace, let this letter be read;
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 gnat, which always sings as it flies. M. MASON.

[5] Critic and Critical are used by our author in the same sense as cynic and cyni cal. Iago, speaking of the fair sex declares he is nothing if not critical. STEEVENS