Remote from all the pleasures of the world; Change not your offer made in heat of blood; Come challenge, challenge me by these deserts, For the remembrance of my father's death. 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 purged 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. (1) Clothing. Dum. I'll serve thee true and faithfully till then. 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 Birón, To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain; Biron. To move wild laughter in the throat of It cannot be; it is impossible : Mirth cannot move a soul in agony. Ros. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit, Of him that hears it, never in the tongue groans, (1) Vehement. (2) Immediate. Will hear your idle scorns, continue then, Biron. A twelvemonth? well, befall what will I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital. leave. I take my [To the King. 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. Enter Armado. Arm. Sweet majesty, vouchsafe me,— Dum. The worthy knight of Troy. Arm. I will kiss thy royal finger, and take leave: I am a votary; I have vowed to Jaquenetta to hold the plough for her sweet love three years. 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. Enter Holofernes, Nathaniel, Moth, Costard, and others. This side is Hiems, winter; this Ver, the spring; the one maintain'd by the owl, the other by the cuckoo. Ver, begin. SONG. Spring. When daisies pied, and violets blue, Do paint the meadows with delight, Cuckoo, cuckoo,-O word of fear, When shepherds pipe on oaten straws, 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,-O word of fear, III. Winter. When icicles hang by the wall, And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, And milk comes frozen home in pail, Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note, IV. When all aloud the wind doth blow, And coughing drowns the parson's saw, (1) Cool. And birds sit brooding in the snow, Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. Arm. The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo.-You, that way; we, this way. [Exeunt. (1) Wild apples. In this play, which all the editors have concurred to censure, and some have rejected as unworthy of our poet, it must be confessed that there are many passages mean, childish, and vulgar: and some which ought not to have been exhibited, as we are told they were, to a maiden queen. But there are scattered through the whole many sparks of genius; nor is there any play that has more evident marks of the hand of Shakspeare. JOHNSON. |