From whence doth spring the true Promethean
Why, universal plodding prisons up
The nimble spirits in the arteries;

[fire.

As motion, and long during action, tires
The sinewy vigour of the traveller.
Now, for not looking on a woman's face,
You have in that forsworn the use of eyes;
And study too, the causer of your vow:
For where is any author in the world,
Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?
Learning is but an adjunct to ourself,
And where we are, our learning likewise is.
Then, when ourselves we see in ladies' eyes,
Do we not likewise see our learning there?
O, we have made a vow to study, fords:
And in that vow we have forsworn 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 beauteous tutors have enrich'd you with?
Other slow arts entirely keep the brain;
And therefore finding barren practisers,
Scarce show 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 swift as thought in every power;
And gives to every power a double power,
Above their functions and their offices.
It adds a precious seeing to the eye:
A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind;
A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound,
When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd;
Love's feeling is more soft, and sensible,
Than are the tender horns of cockled snails;
Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in
For valour, is not love a Hercules, [taste:

Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?
Subtle as sphinx; as sweet, and musical,
As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair;
And, when love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.
Never durst poet touch a pen to write,
Until his ink were temper'd with love's sighs;
O, then his lines would ravish savage ears,
And plant in tyrants mild humility.

From women's eyes this doctrine I derive: They sparkle still the right Promethean fire; They are the books, the arts, the academes, That show, contain, and nourish all the world; Else, none at all in anght proves excellent : Then fools you were these women to forswear; Or, keeping what is sworn, you will prove

fools.

For wisdom's sake, a word that all men love;
Or for love's sake, a word that loves all men;
Or for men's sake, the authors of these women;
Or women's sake, by whom we men are men;
Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves,
Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths:
It is religion to be thus forsworn:
For charity itself fulfils the law;

And who can sever love from charity?

King. Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field! [them, lords; Biron. Advance your standards, and upon Pell-mell, down with them! but be first advis'd, In conflict that you get the sun of them.

Long. Now to plain-dealing; lay these glozes by;

Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France? King. And win them too: therefore let us devise

Some entertainment for them in their tents. Biron. First, from the park let us conduct them thither;

Then, homeward, every man attach the hand Of his fair mistress; in the afternoon

We will with some strange pastime solace them, Such as the shortness of the time can shape; For revels, dances, masks, and merry hours, Forerun fair Love, strewing her way with flowers.

King. Away, away! no time shall be omitted, That will be time, and may by us be fitted. Biron. Allons! Allons!-Sow'd cockle reap'd no corn;

And justice always whirls in equal measure : Light wenches may prove plagues to men for

sworn;

If so, our copper buys no better treasure.

[Exeunt.

ACT V.

SCENE I. Another part of the same.

Enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL. Hol. Satis quod sufficit,

Nath. I praise God for you, sir: your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy. I did converse this quondam day with a companion of the king's, who is intituled, nominated, or called, Don Adriano de Armado.

Hol. Novi hominem tanquam te: His humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical. He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were, too peregrinate, as I may call it.

Nath. A most singular and choice epithet.

[Takes out his Table-book. Hol. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor such fantastical phantasms, such insociable and point-devise companions; such rackers of orthography, as to speak doubt, fine, when he should say, doubt; det, when he should pronounce, debt: d, e, b, t; not d, e, t: he clepeth a calf, cauf; half, hauf; neighbour, vocatur, nebour, neigh, abbreviated, ne: This is abhominable (which he would call abominable), it in sinuateth me of insanie; Ne intelligis, domine? to make frantic, lunatick.

Nath. Laus Deo, bone intelligo.

Hol. Bone?bone, for Bene: Priscian a little scratch'd; 'twill serve,

Enter ARMADO, MOTH, and CoSTARD.

Nath. Videsne quis venit?

Hol. Video, et gaudeo.

Arm. Chirra!

Hol. Quare Chirra, not sirrah?

[To MOTH.

Arm. Men of peace, well encounter'd.

Hol. Most military sir, salutation. Moth. They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps.

[To COSTARD aside. Cost. O, they have lived long in the alms-basket of words! I marvel, thy master hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon.

Moth. Peace; the peal begins.

Arm. Monsieur, [To HOL.] are you not letter'd? Moth. Yes, yes; he teaches boys the hornbook: [his head? What is a, b, spelt backward with a horn on Hol. Ba, pueritia, with a horn added.

Moth. Ba, most silly sheep, with a horn:— You hear his learning.

Hol. Quis, quis, thou consonant?

Moth. The third of the five vowels, if you repeat them; or the fifth, if I.

Hol. I will repeat them, a, e, i.

Moth. The sheep: the other two concludes it; o, u.

Arm. Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum, a sweet touch, a quick venew of wit: snip, snap, quick and home; it rejoiceth my intellect: true wit.

Moth. Offered by a child to an old man; which is wit-old.

Hol. What is the figure? what is the figure? Moth. Horns.

Hol. Thou disputest like an infant: go whip thy gig.

Moth. Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your infamy circum circa; A gig of a cuckold's horn!

Cost. An I had but one penny in the world, thou should'st have it to buy gingerbread: hold, there is the very remuneration I had of thy master, thou half-penny purse of wit, thou pigeonegg of discretion. O, an the heavens were so pleased, that thou wert but my bastard! what a joyful father wouldst thou make me! Go to; thou hast it ad dunghill, at the fingers' ends, as they say. Hol. O, I smell false Latin; dunghill for unguem.

Arm. Arts-man, preambula; we will be singled from the barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the charge-house on the top of the mountain? Hol. Or, mons, the hill.

Arm. At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain.

Hol. I do, sans question.

Arm. Sir, it is the king's most sweet pleasure and affection, to congratulate the princess at her pavilion, in the posteriors of this day; which the rude multitude call, the afternoon.

Hol. The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is liable, congruent, and measurable for the afternoon: the word is well cull'd, chose; sweet and apt, I do assure you, sir, I do assure.

Arm. Sir, the king is a noble gentleman; and my familiar, I do assure you, very good friend: -For what is inward between us, let it pass:I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy-I beseech thee, apparel thy head;-aud among other importunate and most serious designs,and of great import indeed, too; but let that pass: for I must tell thee, it will please his grace (by the world) sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder; and with his royal finger, thus, dally with my excrement, with my mustachio: but, sweet heart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no fable; some certain special honours it pleaseth his greatness to impart to Armado, a soldier, a man of travel, that hath seen the world: but let that pass.-The very all of all is, but sweet heart, I do implore secrecy,-that the king would have me present the princess, sweet chuck, with some delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant, or antick, or firework. Now, understanding that the curate and your sweet self, are good at such eruptions, and sudden breaking out of mirth, as it were, I have acquainted you withal, to the end to crave your assistance.

Hol. Sir, you shall present before her the nine worthies. Sir Nathaniel, as concerning some entertainment of time, some show in the posterior of this day, to be rendered by our assist ance, the king's command, and this most gallant, illustrate, and learned gentleman,-before