Ros. 66 We did not quote them so. King. Now, at the latest minute of the hour, Grant us your loves. Prin. A time, methinks, too short Change not your offer made in heat of blood; But that it bear this trial, and last love; 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 these up of mine with rest, The sudden hand of death close up mine eye! powers 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; VOL. II. 66 Regard. 67 Clothing. N N You are attaint with faults and perjury; 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? Dum. I'll serve thee true and faithfully till then. Mar. Ros. Oft have I heard of you, my lord Birón, 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 And, therewithal, to win me, if you please (Without the which I am not to be won), You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day Visit the speechless sick, and still converse fruitful brain; With groaning wretches; and your task shall be, With all the fierce 68 endeavour of your wit, 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, Of him that hears it, never in the tongue groans, Biron. A twelvemonth? well,befall what will befall, I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital. Prin. Ay, sweet my lord; and so I take my leave. [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 68 Vehement. 69 Dear. See note on Twelfth Night, Act v. Sc. 1, p. 335, 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. Enter HOLOFERNES, NATHANIEL, MOTH, This side is Hiems, winter; this Ver, the spring; the one maintain❜d by the owl, the other by the cuckoo. Ver, begin. SONG. I. Spring. When daisies pied, and violets blue, Cuckoo, cuckoo,-O word of fear, II. When shepherds pipe on oaten straws, And maidens bleach their summer smocks, 70 Gerarde in his Herbal, 1597, says, that the flos cuculi cardamine, &c. are called 'in English cuckoo flowers, in Norfolk Canterbury bells, and at Namptwich, in Cheshire, Ladie-smocks.' In Lyte's Herbal, 1578, it is remarked, that cowslips are, in French, of some called coquu prime vere, and brayes de coquu. Herbe a coqu was one of the old French names for the cowslip, which it seems probable is the flower here meant. See Lear, Act i. Sc. 4. 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, To-whit, to-who, a merry note, IV. When all aloud the wind doth blow, And Marian's nose looks red and raw, To-whit, to-who, a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot72. 71 This wild English apple, roasted before the fire, and put into ale, was a very favourite indulgence in old times. 72 To keel, or kele, is to cool, from Celan, Anglo Saxon. Latterly it seems to have been applied particularly to the cooling of boiling liquor. To keel the pot is to cool it by stirring the pottage with the ladle to prevent the boiling over. Tooke was unaware of the following ancient example, or he would have been less severe upon the commentators: And lered men a ladel bygge, with a long stele That cast for to kele a crokke, and save the fatte above.' P. Plouhman, p. 380. Ed. 1813. |