But are you not asham'd? nay, are you not,
All three of you, to be thus much o'ershot?
You found his mote; the king your mote did see;
But I a beam do find in each of three.

O, what a scene of foolery have I seen,
Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow, and of teen!

me,

with what strict patience have I sat,
To see a king transformed to a gnat!
To see great Hercules whipping a gig,
And profound Solomon tuning a jig,
And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys,
And critic Timon laugh at idle toys!

Where lies thy grief, Ō tell me, good Dumain?
And, gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain?
And where my liege's? all about the breast :-
A caudle, ho!

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:
I, that am honest; I that hold it sin

To break the vow I am engaged in ;
I am betray'd, by keeping company

With men like men,a of strange inconstancy.
When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme?
Or
groan for Joan? or spend a minute's time
In pruning b me? When shall you hear that I
Will praise a hand, a foot, a face, an eye,
A gait, a state, a brow, a breast, a waist,
A leg, a limb ?—

King.
A true man, or a thief, that gallops so?

Soft; Whither away so fast?

Biron. I post from love; good lover, let me go.

Men like men. Biron appears to us to say-I keep company with men alike in inconstancy-men like men-men having the general inconstancy of humanity.

b Pruning-preening; trimming himself up as a bird trims

his feathers.

Enter JAQUENETTA and Costard.

Jaq. God bless the king!
King.

What present hast thou there?

Cost. Some certain treason.
King.

What makes treason here?

Cost. Nay, it makes nothing, sir. 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 parson misdoubts it; it was treason, he said. King. Biron, read it over.

Where hadst thou it?

Jaq. Of Costard.

King. Where hadst thou it?

[Giving him the letter.

Cost. Of dun Adramadio, dun Adramadio.

King. How now! what is in you? why dost thou tear it?

Biron. A toy, my liege, a toy; your grace needs not

fear it.

Long. It did move him to passion, and therefore let 's

hear it.

Dum. It is Biron's writing, and here is his name. [Picks up the pieces. Biron. Ah, you whoreson loggerhead, [to COSTARD] you were born to do me shame.Guilty, my lord, guilty; I confess, I confess.

King. What?

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, dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you more.
Dum. Now the number

Biron.

Will these turtles be gone?

even.

True, true; we are four :

King.

Hence, sirs; away.

Cost. Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay. [Exeunt CosT. and JAQ. Biron. Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O let us embrace! As true we are, as flesh and blood can be: The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face; Young blood doth not obey an old decree : We cannot cross the cause why we are born; Therefore, of all hands must we be forsworn.

King. What, did these rent lines show some love of thine?

Biron. Did they, quoth you? Who sees the heavenly Rosaline,

That, like a rude and savage man of Inde,

At the first opening of the gorgeous east, Bows not his vassal head; and, strucken blind, Kisses the base ground with obedient breast?

What peremptory eagle-sighted 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 star, scarce seen 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 sovereignty
Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek;
Where several worthies make one dignity;

Where nothing wants, that want itself doth seek. Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues,

Fie, painted rhetoric! O, she needs it not :

To things of sale a seller's praise belongs;

She passes praise: then praise too short doth blot.

A wither'd hermit, five-score 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 sun that maketh all things shine!
King. By Heaven, thy love is black as ebony.
Biron. Is ebony like her? O wood divine!
A wife of such wood were felicity.

O, who can give an oath? where is a book?

That I may swear, beauty doth beauty lack, If that she learn not of her eye to look :

No face is fair, that is not full so black. King. O paradox! Black is the badge of hell, The hue of dungeons, and the scowl of night; And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well. Biron. Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light. O, if in black my lady's brows be deck'd,

It mourns, that painting, and usurping hair, Should ravish doters with a false aspect;

And therefore is she 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 dispraise,

Paints itself black to imitate her brow.

Dum. To look like her, are chimney-sweepers black. Long. And, since her time, are colliers counted bright. King. And Ethiops of their sweet complexion crack. Dum. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light. Biron. Your mistresses dare never come in rain,

For fear their colours should be wash'd away. King. T were good, yours did; for, sir, to tell you plain,

I'll find a fairer face not wash'd to-day.

Biron. I'll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here. King. No devil will fright thee then so much as she. Dum. I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear. Long. Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face see. [Showing his shoe.

Biron. O, if the streets were paved with thine eyes,
Her feet were much too dainty for such tread!
Dum. O vile! then as she goes, what upward lies
The street should see as she walk'd over head.
King. But what of this?
Biron. O, nothing so sure;

Are we not all in love? 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, some authority how to proceed;

Some tricks, some quillets,a how to cheat the devil.
Dum. Some salve for perjury.

Biron.
O, 't is more than need!-
Have at you then, affection's men at arms:
Consider, what you first did swear unto ;—
To fast,-to study, and to see no woman;—
Flat treason against the kingly state of youth.
Say, can you fast? your stomachs are too young;
And abstinence engenders maladies.

And where that you have vow'd to study, lords,
In that each of you hath forsworn his book:
Can you still 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 books, the academes,
From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire.
Why, universal plodding prisons up

The nimble spirits in the arteries;

As motion, and long-during action, tires
The sinewy vigour of the traveller.
Now, for not looking on a woman's face,

a Quillet and quodlibet each signify a fallacious subtilty-what you please an argument without foundation.