Dum. You may not deny it: Pompey hath made the challenge. Arm. Sweet bloods, I both may and will.

Biron. What reason had you for 't?

Arm. The naked truth of it is, I have no shirt; I go woolward for penance.

Boyet. True, and it was enjoined him in Rome for want of linen; since when, I'll be sworn, he wore none but a dish-clout of Jaquenetta's, and that he wears next his heart for a favour.

Enter MERCADE.

Mer. God save you, madam!

Prin. Welcome, Mercade;

But that thou interrup'st our merriment.

Mer. I am sorry, madam; for the news I bring
Is heavy in my tongue. The king your father-

Prin. Dead, for my life!

Mer. Even so; my tale is told.

Biron. Worthies, away! The scene begins to cloud.

Arm. For mine own part, I breathe free breath. I have seen the day of wrong through the little hole of discretion, and I will right myself like a soldier.

King. How fares your majesty?

Prin. Boyet, prepare; I will away to-night.

[Exeunt Worthies.

King. Madam, not so; I do beseech you, stay.
Prin. Prepare, I say.—I thank you, gracious lords,
For all your fair endeavours; and entreat,
Out of a new-sad soul, that you vouchsafe
In your rich wisdom to excuse, or hide,
The liberal opposition of our spirits:
If over-boldly we have borne ourselves
In the converse of breath, your gentleness
Was guilty of it.-Farewell, worthy lord!
A heavy heart bears but a humble tongue :
Excuse me so, coming so short of thanks
For my great suit so easily obtain'd.
King. The extreme part of time extremely forms
All causes to the purpose of his speed;
And often, at his very loose, decides

That which long process could not arbitrate:
And though the mourning brow of progeny
Forbid the smiling courtesy of love
The holy suit which fain it would convince;
Yet, since love's argument was first on foot,
Let not the cloud of sorrow justle it

From what it purpos'd; since, to wail friends lost,
Is not by much so wholesome profitable,

As to rejoice at friends but newly found.

Prin. I understand you not: my griefs are dull.

Biren. Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief;And by these badges understand the king.

For your fair sakes have we neglected time,

Play'd foul play with our oaths: your beauty, ladies,

Hath much deform'd us, fashioning our humours

Even to the opposèd end of our intents:
And what in us hath seem'd ridiculous,—
As love is full of unbefitting strains;

All wanton as a child, skipping, and vain;
Form'd by the eye, and therefore, like the eye,
Full of strange shapes, of habits, and of forms,
Varying in subjects, as the eye doth roll
To every varied object in his glance:
Which party-coated presence of loose love
Put on by us, if, in your heavenly eyes,
Have misbecome our oaths and gravities,
Those heavenly eyes, that look into these faults,
Suggested us to make. Therefore, ladies,
Our love being yours, the error that love makes
Is likewise yours: we to ourselves prove false,
By being once false for ever to be true

To those that make us both,-fair ladies, you:
And even that falsehood, in itself a sin,

Thus purifies itself, and turns to grace.

Prin. We have receiv'd your letters full of love;
Your favours, the embassadors of love;
And, in our maiden council, rated them
At courtship, pleasant jest, and courtesy,
As bombast, and as lining to the time:

But more devout than this in our respects

Have we not been; and therefore met your loves

In their own fashion, like a merriment.

Dum. Our letters, madam, show'd much more than jest.
Long. So did our looks.

Res.

King. Now, at the latest minute of the hour,

Grant us your loves.

Prin.

We did not quote them so.

A time, methinks, too short

To make a world-without-end bargain in.
No, no, my lord, your grace is perjur'd much,

Full of dear guiltiness; and therefore this :-
If for my love (as there is no such cause)
You will do aught, this shall you do for me:
Your oath I will not trust; but go with speed
To some forlorn and naked hermitage,
Remote from all the pleasures of the world;
There stay, until the twelve celestial signs
Have brought about their annual reckoning.
If this austere insociable life

Change not your offer made in heat of blood;
If frosts, and fasts, hard lodging, and thin weeds,
Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love,

But that it bear this trial, and last love;

Then, at the expiration of the year,

Come challenge me, challenge me by these deserts,
And, by this virgin palm, now kissing thine,

I will be thine; and, till that instant, shut
My woful self up in a mourning house,
Raining the tears of lamentation

For the remembrance of my father's death.
If this thou do deny, let our hands part;
Neither intitled in the other's heart.

King. If this, or more than this, I would deny,
To flatter up these powers of mine with rest,
The sudden hand of death close up mine eye!
Hence ever, then, my heart is in thy breast.
Biron. And what to me, my love? and what to me?
Ros. You must be purgèd too, your sins are rank:
You are attaint with faults and perjury;

Therefore, if you my favour mean to get,

A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest,

But seek the weary beds of people sick.

Dum. But what to me, my love? but what to me? Kath. A wife!-A beard, fair health, and honesty; With three-fold love I wish you all these three.

Dum. O, shall I say, I thank you, gentle wife?
Kath. Not so, my lord; a twelvemonth and a day
I'll mark no words that smooth-fac'd wooers say:
Come when the king doth to my lady come;
Then, if I have much love, I'll give you some.

Dum. I'll serve thee true and faithfully till then.
Kath. Yet swear not, lest you be forsworn again.
Long. What says Maria?

Mar.

At the twelvemonth's end,

I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend.

Long. I'll stay with patience; but the time is long.
Mar. The liker you; few taller are so young.
Biron. Studies my lady? mistress, look on me;
Behold the window of my heart, mine eye,
What humble suit attends thy answer there:
Impose some service on me for thy love.

Ros. Oft have I heard of you, my lord Biron,
Before I saw you; and the world's large tongue
Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks,
Full of comparisons and wounding flouts,
Which you on all estates will execute
That lie within the mercy of your wit.

To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain,
And therewithal to win me, if you please,—
Without the which I am not be won,-

You shall this twelvemonth term, from day to day,
Visit the speechless sick, and still converse

With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,
With all the fierce endeavour of your wit

To enforce the painèd impotent to smile.

Biron. To move wild laughter in the throat of death!

It cannot be; it is impossible:

Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.

Ros. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit,
Whose influence is begot of that loose grace

Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools:
A jest's prosperity lies in the ear

Of him that hears it, never in the tongue

Of him that makes it: then, if sickly ears,

Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear groans,

Will hear your idle scorns, continue them,

And I will have you and that fault withal;

But if they will not, throw away that spirit,

And I shall find you empty of that fault,
Right joyful of your reformation.

Biron. A twelvemonth! well, befall what will befall,

I'll jest a twelvemonth in a hospital.

Prin. [To the King.] Ay, sweet my lord; and so I take my

leave.

King. No, madam; we will bring you on your way.

Biron. Our wooing doth not end like an old play ;

Jack hath not Jill: these ladies' courtesy

Might well have made our sport a comedy.

King. Come, Sir, it wants a twelvemonth and a day,
And then 'twill end.

Biron.

That's too long for a play.

Re-enter ARMADO.

Arm. Sweet majesty, vouchsafe me,—

Prin. Was not that Hector?

Dum. The worthy knight of Troy.

Arm. I will kiss thy royal finger, and take leave.

three years.

I am a votary;

I have vowed to Jaquenetta to hold the plough for her sweet love But, most esteemed greatness, will you hear the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled in praise of the owl and the cuckoo it should have followed in the end of our show.

King. Call them forth quickly; we will do so.

Arm. Holla! approach.

Re-enter HOLOFERNES, NATHANIEL, MOTH, COSTARD, and others. This side is Hiems, winter; this Ver, the spring; the one maintained by the owl, the other by the cuckoo. Ver, begin.

SONG.

Spring. When daisies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white,

And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,

Do paint the meadows with delight,

The cuckoo then, on every tree,

Mocks married men; for thus sings he,

Cuckoo ;

Cuckoo, cuckoo,-O word of fear!
Unpleasing to a married ear.

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,

And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,

And maidens bleach their summer smocks,

The cuckoo then, on every tree,

Mocks married men, for thus sings he,

Cuckoo ;

Cuckoo, cuckoo,-O word of fear!
Unpleasing to a married ear.

Winter. When icicles hang by the wall,

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,

And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl.

To-who;

To-whit, to-who, a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.