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 0 No thought can think, nor tongue of mortal tell. How shall she know my griefs? I'll drop the paper, 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. 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 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,) Vows, for thee broke, deserve not punishment. Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee: Thy grace being gain'd, cures all disgrace in me. 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. Long. By whom shall I send this ?-Company! stay. And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'er-eye. Dum. O most divine Kate ! Biron. O most profane coxcomb! [Aside Dum. By heaven, the wonder of a mortal eye! 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. 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, Youth so apt to pluck a sweet. That I am forsworn for thee: blow; 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, 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. 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? King. What makes treason here? The treason, and you, go in peace away together. [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 |