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 parfon misdoubts it: it was treason, he said. KING. Biron, read it over.

Where hadft thou it?

JAQ. Of Costard.

KING. Where hadft thou it?

[He reads the letter.

COST. Of Dun Adramadio, of Dun Adramadio.

KING. How now, what is in you? why doft thou tear it? BIRON. A toy, my liege, a toy: your grace needs not

fear it.

LONG. It did move him to paffion, and therefore let's hear it.
DUM. It is Biron's writing, and here is his name.
BIRON. Ah, you whorefon loggerhead, you were born to
do me fhame.

Guilty, my liege, guilty; I confefs, I confefs.

KING. What?

[To Coftard.

BIRON. That you three fools lack'd me fool to make up

the mess.

He, he, and you; and you, my liege, and I

Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die.
O, difmifs this audience, and I shall tell you more.
DUM. Now the number is even.

BIRON. True, true; we are four.

Will these turtles be gone?

KING. Hence, firs, away.

COST. Walk afide the true folk, and let the traytors stay.

[Exeunt Coftard and Jaquenetta,

BIRON. Sweet lords, fweet lovers, O, let us embrace:

As true we are, as flesh and blood can be.

The fea will ebb and flow, heaven will fhew his face:

Young blood doth not obey an old decree.

We cannot cross the cause why we were born;

Therefore of all hands muft we be forfworn.

KING. What, did these rent lines fhew fome love of thine?

BIRON. Did they, quoth you? Who fees the heavenly Rofaline,

That (like a rude and favage man of Inde,

At the first opening of the gorgeous east) Bows not his vaffal head, and, ftrucken blind, Kiffes the base ground with obedient breast? What peremptory eagle-fighted eye

Dares look upon the heaven of her brow, That is not blinded by her majesty?

KING. What zeal, what fury, hath inspir'd thee now? My love (her mistress) is a gracious moon;

She (an attending itar) fcarce feen a light.

BIRON. My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Biron.

O, but for my love, day would turn to night,
Of all complexions the cull'd fovereignty
Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek;
Where feveral worthies make one dignity;
Where nothing wants, that want itself doth feek.
Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues;
Fy, painted rhetorick! O, fhe needs it not :
To things of fale a feller's praife belongs :

She paffes praife, then praise too short, doth blot.
A wither'd hermit, fivefcore winters worn,
Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye:
Beauty doth varnish age, as if new-born,
And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy;

O, 'tis the fun that maketh all things fhine.
KING. By heav'n, thy love is black as ebony.
BIRON. Is ebony like her? O wood divine!
A wife of fuch wood were felicity.

O, who can give an oath? where is a book,
That I may fwear, beauty doth beauty lack,
If that he learn not of her eye to look?

No face is fair, that is not full fo black?
KING. O paradox, black is the badge of hell.
The hue of dungeons, and the fcowl of night;
And beauty's creft becomes the heavens well.

BIRON. Devils fooneft tempt, refembling fpirits of light: O, if in black my lady's brow he deckt,

It mourns, that painting and ufurping hair

Should ravish doters with a falfe aspect:

And therefore is the born to make black fair.

Her favour turns the fashion of the days,

For native blood is counted painting now; And therefore red that would avoid difpraise, Paints itself black to imitate her brow.

DUM. To look like her, are chimney-fweepers black. LONG. And fince her time, are colliers counted bright. KING. And Ethiops of their fweet co:nplexion crack. DUM. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light. BIRON. Your miftreffes dare never come in rain,

For fear their colours fhould be wash'd away. KING. 'Twere good, yours did: for, Sir, to tell you plain, I'll find a fairer face not wafh'd to-day:

BIRON. I'll prove her fair, or talk till dooms-day here. KING. No devil will fright thee then fo much as fhe.

DUM. I never knew man hold vile ftuff fo dear.

LONG. Look, here's thy love; my foot and her face fee. [fhowing his fhoe. BIRON. O, if the streets were paved with thine eyes,

Her feet were much too dainty for such tread. DUM. O vile! then as fhe goes, what upward lies The street should fee as she walkt over head. KING. But what of this, are we not all in love? BIRON. Nothing so sure, and thereby all forsworn. KING. Then leave this chat; and, good Biron, now

prove

Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn.

DUM. Ay, marry, there,-some flattery for this evil.

LONG. O fome authority how to proceed;

Some tricks, fome quillets, how to cheat the devil.
DUM. Some falve for perjury.

BIRON. O, 'tis more than need.
Have at you then, affection's men at arms;
Confider, what you first did fwear unto :
To faft, to study, and to fee no woman;
Flat treafon 'gainst the kingly state of youth.
Say, can you faft? your stomachs are too young:
And abstinence ingenders maladies.

And where that you have vow'd to study, (lords)
In that each of you hath forfworn his book.

Can you ftill dream, and pore, and thereon look?
For when would you, my lord, or you, or you,
Have found the ground of study's excellence,
Without the beauty of a woman's face?

From women's eyes this doctrine I derive;

They are the ground, the book, the academies,

From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire:
Why, univerfal plodding prisons up

The nimble fpirits in the arteries;

As motion and long-during action tires
The finewy vigour of the traveller.
Now, for not looking on a woman's face,
You have in that forfworn the use of eyes;
And study too, the caufer of your vow.
For where is any author in the world,
Teaches fuch beauty as a woman's eye;
Learning is but an adjunct to ourself,
And where we are, our learning likewife is.
Then, when ourselves we fee in ladies' eyes,
Do we not likewise see our learning there?
O, we have made a vow to study, lords;
And in that vow we have forfworn our books,
For when would you, my liege, or you, or you,
In leaden contemplation have found out
Such fiery numbers, as the prompting eyes
Of beauty's tutors have enrich'd you with?
Other flow arts entirely keep the brain;
And therefore finding barren practisers,
Scarce fhew a harvest of their heavy toil,
But love, first learned in a lady's eyes,
Lives not alone immured in the brain:
But with the motion of all elements,
Courses as fwift as thought in every power;
And gives to every power a double power,
Above their functions and their offices.

It adds a precious feeing to the eye:
A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind!
A lover's ear will hear the lowest found,
When the fufpicious head of theft is stopt.
Love's feeling is more foft and fenfible,