Prin. Thou hast mistaken his letter. Come, lords,

away.

Here, sweet, put up this; 'twill be thine another day.
[Exit Princess and Train.
Boyet. Who is the suitor? who is the suitor ?
Ros.
Shall I teach you to know?
Boyet. Ay, my continent of beauty.
Why, she that bears the bow.

Ros.

Finely put off!
Boyet. My lady goes to kill horns; but, if thou
marry,

Hang me by the neck, if horns that year miscarry.
Finely put on!

Ros. Weil then, I am the shooter.
Boyet.

And who is

your deer?

Armatho o' the one side,-O, a most dainty man!
To see him walk before a lady, and to bear her fan!
To see him kiss his hand! and how most sweetly
a' will swear!-

And his page o' t' other side, that handful of wit!
Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical" nit!
Sola, sola! [Shouting within. Exit Cost. running.
SCENE II. The same. Enter HOLOFERNES,
SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL.

the testimony of a good conscience.
Nath. Very reverent sport, truly; and done in

Hol. The deer was, as you know, in sanguis,blood; ripe as a pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of cœlo, the sky, the welkin, the

Ros. If we choose by the horns, yourself: come heaven; and anon falleth like a crab, on the face of

near.

Finely put on, indeed!

Mar. You still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at the brow.

Boyet. But she herself is hit lower: Have I hit her now?

Ros. Shall I come upon thee with an old saying, that was a man when king Pepin of France was a little boy, as touching the hit it?

Boyet. So I may answer thee with one as old, that was a woman when queen Guinever of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit it.

Ros. Thou canst not hit it, hat it, hit it, [Singing
Thou canst not hit it, my good man.
Boyet. An I cannot, cannot, cannot,
An I cannot, another can.

[Exeunt Ros. and KATH. Cost. By my troth, most pleasant! how both did fit it!

Mar. A mark marvellous well shot! for they both

did hit it.

Boyet. A mark! O, mark but that mark; A
mark, says my lady!
Let the mark have a prick in't, to mete at, if it may be.
Mar. Wide o'the bow hand! I'faith your hand

is out.

Cost. Indeed, a' must shoot nearer, or he'll ne'er

hit the clout.

1 An equivoque was here intended; it should appear that the words shooter and suitor were pronounced alike in Shakspeare's time.

terra,-the soil, the land, the earth."

Nath. Truly, master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly varied, like a scholar at the least; But, sir, I assure ye, it was a buck of the first head. Hol. Sir Nathaniel, haud credo.

Dull. "Twas not a haud credo, 'twas a pricket. Hol. Most barbarous intimation! yet a kind of insinuation, as it were, in via, in way, of explication; facere, as it were, replication, or, rather, ostentare, to show, as it were, his inclination,-after his undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, unfirmed fashion,-to insert again my haud credo for a trained, or rather unlettered, or, ratherest, uncon

deer.

Dull. I said, the deer was not a haud credo ; 'twas a pricket.

Hol. Twice sod simplicity, bis coctus!-O thou monster, ignorance, how deformed dost thou look! are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it Nath. Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that were; he hath not drunk ink; his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts;

And such barren plants are set before us, that we

Many can brook the weather that love not the wind.
But, omne bene, say I; being of an old father's mind,

Dull. You two are book-men: Can you tell by
your wit,

What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five weeks old as yet?

Hol. Dictynna, good man Dull; Dictynna,11 good man Dull.

Dull. What is Dictvnna?

Nath. A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon.
Hol. The moon was a month old, when Adam

was no more;

And raught not to five weeks, when he came to fivescore.

2 This is a term in archery still in use, signifying aing account of the different appellations of deer at their good deal to the left of the mark.' Of the other expres. sions, the clout was the white mark at which archers took aim. The pin was the wooden nail in the centre of it.

3 i. e. grossly. This scene, as Dr. Johnson justly remarks, deserves no care.'

4 To rub is a term at bowls.

5 Pathetical sometimes meant passionate, and sometimes passion-moving, in our old writers; but is here used by Costard as an idle expletive, as Rosalind's 'pathetical break-promise,' in As You Like It. 6 Pomewater, a species of apple.

7 Warburton's conjecture that Florio, the author of the Italian Dictionary, was ridiculed under the name of Holofernes would derive some strength from the following definition: 'cielo, heaven, the skie, firmament or welkin. Terra, the element called earth, anie ground, earth, countrie, land, soile. But Florio's Dictionary was not published until 1598; and this play appears to have been written in 1594, though not printed until 1598.

8 In The Return from Parnassus, 1606, is the follow. different ages. Amoretto. I caused the keeper to sever the rascal deer from the bucks of the first head. Now, sir, a buck is the first year, a fawn; the second year, a pricket; the third year, a sorrel; the fourth year, a soare; the fifth, a buck of the first head; the sixth year, a complete buck. Likewise your hart, is the first year, a calfe; the second year, a brocket; the third year, a spade; the fourth year, a stag; the sixth year, a hart. A roe-buck is the first year, a kid; the second year, a gird: the third year, a hemuse; and these are your special beasts for chase.'

9 The length of these lines was no novelty on the English stage. The Moralities afford whole scenes of the like measure.

10 The meaning is, to be in a school would as ill become a patch, or low fellow, as folly would become me. 11 Shakspeare might have found this uncommon title for Diana in the second book of Golding's translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses.

12 Reached.

2 i. e. I will use or practise alliteration. To affect is thus used by Ben Jonson in his Discoveries: Spen-in King Lear, Act i. Sc. 2. ser, in affecting the ancients, writ no language; yet I would have him read for his matter, but as Virgil read Ennius.'

3 For the explanation of the terms pricket, sore or soar, and sorel in this quibbling rhyme, the reader is prepared, by the extract from The Return from Parnassus, in a note at the beginning of the scene.

4 Talon was often written talent in Shakspeare's time. Honest Dull quibbles. One of the senses of to claw is to flatter.

5 The Eclogues of Mantuanus were translated be-been sent to her from Don Armatho, and given to her fore the time of Shakspeare, and the Latin printed on by Costard.'

lourable colours. But to return to the verses;
Did they please you, sir Nathaniel?
Nath. Marvellous well for the
pen.
Hol. I do dine to-day at the father's of a certain
pupil of mine; where if, before repast, it shall
please you to gratify the table with a grace, I will,
on my privilege I have with the parents of the
foresaid child or pupil, undertake your ben venuto ;
where I will prove those verses to be very unlearned,
neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention: I
beseech your society.

Nath. And thank you too: for society, (saith the text,) is the happiness of life.

Hol. And, certes, the text most infallibly concludes it.-Sir, [To DULL.] I do invite you too; you shall not say me, nay: pauca verba. Away; the gentles are at their game, and we will to our recreation. [Exeunt. SCENE III. Another part of the same. Enter BIRON, with a Paper.

This same shall
go.-
[He reads the Sonnet.

Did not the heavenly rhetorick of thine eye
('Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,)
Persuade my heart to this false perjury?

A

Biron. The king he is hunting the deer: I am
coursing myself: they have pitch'd a toil; I am
toiling in a pitch; pitch that defiles; defile! a foul
word. Well, set thee down, sorrow! for So, they
say, the fool said, and so say I, and I the fool.
Well proved, wit! by the lord, this love is as mad
as Ajax: it kills sheep; kills me, I a sheep:
Well proved again on my side! I will not love: if
I do, hang me; i'faith, I will not. O, but her eye,-
by this light, but for her eve, I would not love her:
yes, for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing in the
world but lie, and lie in my throat. By heaven, I
If broken then, it is no fault of mine;
do love and it hath taught me to rhyme, and to be If by me broke. What fool is not so wise,
melancholy; and here is part of my rhyme, and To lose an oath to win a paradise?
here my melancholy. Well, she hath one o'my
sonnets already; the clown bore it, the fool sent
it, and the lady hath it: sweet clown, sweeter fool,
sweetest lady! By the world, I would not care a
pin if the other three were in: Here comes one
with a paper; God give him grace to groan!
[Gets up into a tree.
Enter the King, with a Paper.

Vows for thee broke, deserve not punishment.
woman I foreswore; but, I will prove,
Thou being a goddess, I foreswore not thee,
My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;
Thy grace being gain'd, cures all disgrace in me.
Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is:
Then, thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine,
Exhal'st this vapour vow; in thee it is:

Biron. [Aside.] This is the liver vein, whicn
makes flesh a deity;
A green goose, a goddess: pure, pure idolatry.
God amend us, God amend! we are much out o'
the way.

Enter DUMAIN, with a Paper.
Long. By whom shall I send this?-Company
[Stepping aside.
Like a demi-god here sit I in the sky,
Biron. [Aside.] All hid, all hid, an old infant play

stay.

King. Ah me! Biron. [Aside. Shot, by heaven!-Proceed, sweet Cupid; thou hast thump'd him with thy bird-And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'er-eye. bolt under the left pap:-I'faith, secrets.―

King. [Reads.] So sweet a kiss the golden sun
gires not

To those fresh morning drops upon the rose,
As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote
The night of dew that on my checks down flows:
Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright
Through the transparent bosom of the deep,
As doth thy face through tears of mine give light;
Thou shin'st in every tear that I do weep:
No drop but as a coach doth carry thee,

So ridest thou triumphing in my woe;
Do but behold the tears that swell in me,

More sacks to the mill! O heavens, I have my

wish;

Dumain transform'd: four woodcocks in a dish!
Dum. O most divine Kate!
Biron.

O most profane coxcomb!
[Aside.
Dum. By heaven, the wonder of a mortal eye!
Biron. By earth she is but corporal; there you
lie.
[Aside.
Dum. Her amber hairs for foul have amber
coted. T

Biron. An amber-colour'd raven was well noted.

And they thy glory through thy grief will show:
But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep,
My tears for glasses, and still make me weep.
O queen of queens, how far dost thou excel!
No thought can think, no tongue of mortal tell.-
How shall she know my griefs? I'll drop the
paper;
Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here?
Long.
[Steps aside.

1 That is, specious or fair seeming appearances. 2 Certainly, in truth.

3 Alluding to Rosaline's complexion, who is represented as a black beauty.

Biron. Ay, as some days; but then no sun must shine.

[Aside. Stoop, I say; [Aside,

As fair as day.

[Aside.

Dum. O that I had my wish!
And I had mine!

[Aside.

King. And I mine too, good Lord!

Aside,

Biron, Amen, so I had mine: Is not that a good

word?

[Aside.

Dum. I would forget her; but a fever she Reigns in my blood, and will remember'd be.

7 Slops were wide kneed breeches, the garb in fashion in Shakspeare's time.

8 It has been already remarked that the liver was anciently supposed to be the seat of love.

9 A woodcock means a foolish fellow; that bird being

4 This is given as a proverb in Fuller's Gnomologia.supposed to have no brains. 5 The ancient punishment of a perjured person was to wear on the breast a paper expressing the crime.

6 By triumviry and the shape of love's Tyburn, Shakspeare alludes to the gallows of the time, which was occasionally triangular.

10 Coted signifies marked or noted. The word is from the coter to quote. The construction of this pas sage will therefore be, her amber hairs have marked or shown that real amber is fout in comparison with themselves.'

1

Biron. Once more I'll mark how love can vary
wit.
[Aside.

Dum On a day, (alack the day !)

Biron. A fever in your blood, why, then incision | But are you not asham'd? nay, are you not,
Would let her out in saucers; Sweet misprision! All three of you, to be thus much o'ershot?
[Aside. You found his mote; the king your mote did sec;
Dum. Once more I'll read the ode that I have But I a beam do find in each of three.
writ.
O, what a scene of foolery I have seen,
Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow, and of teen!
O me, with what strict patience have I sat,
To see a king transformed to a gnat!"
To see great Hercules whipping a gigg,
And profound Solomon to tune a jigg,
And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys,
And critick Timon laugh at idle toys?
Where lies thy grief, O tell me, good Dumain?
And gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain?
And where my liege's? all about the breast :-
A caudle, ho!

Love, whose month is ever May,
Spied a blossom, passing fair,
Playing in the wanton air:
Through the velvet leaves the wind,
All unseen, 'gan passage find;
That the lover, sick to death,
Wish'd himself the heaven's breath,
Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;
Air, would I might triumph so!
But alack, my hand is sworn,
Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn
Vow, alack, for youth unmeet;
Youth so apt to pluck a sweet.
Do not call it sin in me,
That I am forsworn for thee;-
Thee-for whom Jove would swear,1
Juno but an Ethiop were;
And deny himself for Jove,
Turning mortal for thy love.-

This will I send: and something else more plain,
That shall express my true love's fasting pain.
O, would the King, Biron, and Longaville,
Were lovers too! Ill, to example ill,
Would from my forehead wipe a perjur'd note;
For none offend, where all alike do dote.

Long. Dumain, [advancing.] thy love is far from
charity,

That in love's grief desir'st society:

You may look pale, but I should blush, I know,
To be o'erheard, and taken napping so.

King. Come, sir, [advancing.] you blush; as his
your case is such;

You chide at him, offending twice as much:
You do not love Maria; Longaville
Did never sonnet for her sake compile ;
Nor never lay his wreathed arms athwart
His loving bosom, to keep down his heart;
I have been closely shrouded in this bush,"
And mark'd you both, and for you both did blush.
heard your guilty rhymes, observ'd your fashion
Saw sighs reek from you, noted well your passion:
Ah me! says one; Ŏ Jove! the other cries;
One, her hairs were gold, crystal the other's eyes:
You would for paradise break faith and troth;
[To LONG.
And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath.
To DUMAIN.
What will Biron say, when that he shall hear
Faith infringed, which such zeal did swear?
How will he scorn? how will he spend his wit?
How will he triumph, leap, and laugh at it?
For all the wealth that ever I did see,
I would not have him know so much by me.
Biron. Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy-
Ah, good my liege, I pray thee pardon me:
[Descends from the Tree.
Good heart, whet grace hast thou, thus to reprove
These worms for loving, that art most in love?
Your eyes do make no coaches ;3 in your tears,
There is no certain princess that appears:
You'll not be perjur'd, 'tis a hateful thing;
Tush, none but minstrels like of sonneting.

1 Thee-for whom Jove would swear,
Juno but an Ethiop were.'

The old copy reads

Thou for whom Jove would swear.'

Pope thought this line defective, and altered it to-
Thou for whom even Jove would swear.'

2 Fasting is longing, hungry, wanting.

3 Alluding to a passage in the King's Sonnet:
No drop but as a coach doth carry thee.'
4 Grief.

5 Gnat is the reading of the old copy, and there seems no necessity for changing it to knot or any other word, as some of the editors have been desirous of doing.

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 in sin
To break the vow I am engaged in ;
I am betray'd, by keeping company
With moon-like men, 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 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.

Soft Whither away so fast?
A true man, or a thief, that gallops so?
Biron. I post from love: good lover, let me go.

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; 'twas treason, he said.
Biron. Biron, read it over. [Giving him the letter.
Where hadst thou it?

Jaq. Of Costard.

King. Where hadst then it?

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 Cos-
TARD.] 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, 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 is even.
Biron.

True, true; we are four :-
Will these turtles be gone?

King.

Hence, sirs; away. Cost. Walk aside the true folk, and let the trai[Exeunt COST. and JAQ.

tors stay.

Biron. Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O let us em-
brace!

As true we are as flesh and blood can be:
The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face;
Young blood will not obey an old decree :
We cannot cross the cause why we were 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 hea-
venly Rosaline,

That like a rude and savage man of Inde,

At the first opening of the gorgeous east,2 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 :3 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,

Fye, painted rhetorick! 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 deckt,

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.

1 i. e. at any rate, at all events.

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, how to cheat the devil.
Dum. Some salve for perjury.

Biron.
O, 'tis 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 'gainst 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 woman's eyes this doctrine I derive:
They are the ground, the books, the academica,
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,
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,
With ourselves,"

Do we not likewise see our learning there?
O, we have made a vow to study, lords:
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 in mured in the brain;

.

5 This alludes to the fashion prevalent among la dies in Shakspeare's time, of wearing false hair, or

2 Milton has transplanted this into the third line of periigs as they were then called, before that covering the second book of Paradise Lost:

'Or where the gorgeous east.'

3 Here, and indeed throughout the play, the name of Biron is accented on the second syllable. In the first folio and quarto copies it is spelled Beroune. From the line before us it appears that it was pronounced Bi

roon.

for the head had been adopted by men.

6 A quillet is a sly trick or turn in argument, or excuse. N. Bailey derives it, with much probability, from quibblet, as a diminutive of quibble.

7 This hemistich is omitted in all the modern editions except that by Mr. Boswell. It is found in the first quarto and first folio.

8 i. e. our true books, from which we derive most in. formation; the eyes of woman.

9 So in Milton's II Penseroso:

4 Crest is here properly opposed to badge. Black, says the King, is the badge of hell, but that which graces heaven is the crest of beauty. Black darkens hell, and is therefore hateful: white adorns heaven, and is therefore lovely. Crest, is the very top, the height of | And in Gray's Hymn to Adversity: beauty or utmost degree of fairness.

With a sad leaden, downward cast.'

With leaden eye that loves the ground.