Dum. But what to me, my love? but what to me?

A wife?

Kath. 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-faced 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 ye 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 to be won,

840

850

You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day 860

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 pained 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 then,

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 an 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.

867. agony (used specifically), the death-throes.

874. dear, bitter.

870

880

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. 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.

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.

THE 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!

905. lady-smocks. 'The Car- hung out to dry.' (Cf. 916.)

damine pratensis, so called

from the resemblance of its white flowers to little smocks

906. cuckoo-buds, cowslip-buds.

890

900

910

probably

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,
Tu-whit;

Tu-who, a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow

And coughing drowns the parson's saw And birds sit brooding in the snow

And Marian's nose looks red and raw, When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl,

Tu-whit;

Tu-who, a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

920

930

C. H. HERFORD, LITT.D.

PROFESSOR of ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE IN THE
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF WALES, ABERYSTWYTH

Re-issue of the Plays in Separate Volumes, bound in Cloth.
Price Is. each.

MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON.