XML Bible (2nd Edition)/XML_Bible_Second_Edition_Hungry_Minds_2001.iso/mac/examples/shakespeare/lll.xml

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<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE PLAY SYSTEM "play.dtd">

<PLAY>
<TITLE>Love's Labour's Lost</TITLE>

<FM>
<P>ASCII text placed in the public domain by Moby Lexical Tools, 1992.</P>
<P>SGML markup by Jon Bosak, 1992-1994.</P>
<P>XML version by Jon Bosak, 1996-1999.</P>
<P>The XML markup in this version is Copyright © 1999 Jon Bosak.
This work may freely be distributed on condition that it not be
modified or altered in any way.</P>
</FM>

<PERSONAE>
<TITLE>Dramatis Personae</TITLE>

<PERSONA>FERDINAND, king of Navarre.</PERSONA>

<PGROUP>
<PERSONA>BIRON</PERSONA>
<PERSONA>LONGAVILLE</PERSONA>
<PERSONA>DUMAIN</PERSONA>
<GRPDESCR>lords attending on the King.</GRPDESCR>
</PGROUP>

<PGROUP>
<PERSONA>BOYET</PERSONA>
<PERSONA>MERCADE</PERSONA>
<GRPDESCR>lords attending on the Princess of France.</GRPDESCR>
</PGROUP>

<PERSONA>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO, a fantastical Spaniard.</PERSONA>
<PERSONA>SIR NATHANIEL, a curate.</PERSONA>
<PERSONA>HOLOFERNES, a schoolmaster.</PERSONA>
<PERSONA>DULL, a constable.</PERSONA>
<PERSONA>COSTARD, a clown.</PERSONA>
<PERSONA>MOTH, page to Armado.</PERSONA>
<PERSONA>A Forester.</PERSONA>
<PERSONA>The PRINCESS of France.</PERSONA>

<PGROUP>
<PERSONA>ROSALINE</PERSONA>
<PERSONA>MARIA</PERSONA>
<PERSONA>KATHARINE</PERSONA>
<GRPDESCR>ladies attending on the Princess.</GRPDESCR>
</PGROUP>

<PERSONA>JAQUENETTA, a country wench.</PERSONA>
<PERSONA>Lords, Attendants, &c.</PERSONA>
</PERSONAE>

<SCNDESCR>SCENE  Navarre.</SCNDESCR>

<PLAYSUBT>LOVE'S LABOURS LOST</PLAYSUBT>

<ACT><TITLE>ACT I</TITLE>

<SCENE><TITLE>SCENE I.  The king of Navarre's park.</TITLE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter FERDINAND king of Navarre, BIRON, LONGAVILLE
and DUMAIN</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,</LINE>
<LINE>Live register'd upon our brazen tombs</LINE>
<LINE>And then grace us in the disgrace of death;</LINE>
<LINE>When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,</LINE>
<LINE>The endeavor of this present breath may buy</LINE>
<LINE>That honour which shall bate his scythe's keen edge</LINE>
<LINE>And make us heirs of all eternity.</LINE>
<LINE>Therefore, brave conquerors,--for so you are,</LINE>
<LINE>That war against your own affections</LINE>
<LINE>And the huge army of the world's desires,--</LINE>
<LINE>Our late edict shall strongly stand in force:</LINE>
<LINE>Navarre shall be the wonder of the world;</LINE>
<LINE>Our court shall be a little Academe,</LINE>
<LINE>Still and contemplative in living art.</LINE>
<LINE>You three, Biron, Dumain, and Longaville,</LINE>
<LINE>Have sworn for three years' term to live with me</LINE>
<LINE>My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes</LINE>
<LINE>That are recorded in this schedule here:</LINE>
<LINE>Your oaths are pass'd; and now subscribe your names,</LINE>
<LINE>That his own hand may strike his honour down</LINE>
<LINE>That violates the smallest branch herein:</LINE>
<LINE>If you are arm'd to do as sworn to do,</LINE>
<LINE>Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I am resolved; 'tis but a three years' fast:</LINE>
<LINE>The mind shall banquet, though the body pine:</LINE>
<LINE>Fat paunches have lean pates, and dainty bits</LINE>
<LINE>Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>My loving lord, Dumain is mortified:</LINE>
<LINE>The grosser manner of these world's delights</LINE>
<LINE>He throws upon the gross world's baser slaves:</LINE>
<LINE>To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die;</LINE>
<LINE>With all these living in philosophy.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I can but say their protestation over;</LINE>
<LINE>So much, dear liege, I have already sworn,</LINE>
<LINE>That is, to live and study here three years.</LINE>
<LINE>But there are other strict observances;</LINE>
<LINE>As, not to see a woman in that term,</LINE>
<LINE>Which I hope well is not enrolled there;</LINE>
<LINE>And one day in a week to touch no food</LINE>
<LINE>And but one meal on every day beside,</LINE>
<LINE>The which I hope is not enrolled there;</LINE>
<LINE>And then, to sleep but three hours in the night,</LINE>
<LINE>And not be seen to wink of all the day--</LINE>
<LINE>When I was wont to think no harm all night</LINE>
<LINE>And make a dark night too of half the day--</LINE>
<LINE>Which I hope well is not enrolled there:</LINE>
<LINE>O, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep,</LINE>
<LINE>Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Your oath is pass'd to pass away from these.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Let me say no, my liege, an if you please:</LINE>
<LINE>I only swore to study with your grace</LINE>
<LINE>And stay here in your court for three years' space.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You swore to that, Biron, and to the rest.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>By yea and nay, sir, then I swore in jest.</LINE>
<LINE>What is the end of study? let me know.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, that to know, which else we should not know.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from common sense?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, that is study's godlike recompense.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Come on, then; I will swear to study so,</LINE>
<LINE>To know the thing I am forbid to know:</LINE>
<LINE>As thus,--to study where I well may dine,</LINE>
<LINE>When I to feast expressly am forbid;</LINE>
<LINE>Or study where to meet some mistress fine,</LINE>
<LINE>When mistresses from common sense are hid;</LINE>
<LINE>Or, having sworn too hard a keeping oath,</LINE>
<LINE>Study to break it and not break my troth.</LINE>
<LINE>If study's gain be thus and this be so,</LINE>
<LINE>Study knows that which yet it doth not know:</LINE>
<LINE>Swear me to this, and I will ne'er say no.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>These be the stops that hinder study quite</LINE>
<LINE>And train our intellects to vain delight.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain,</LINE>
<LINE>Which with pain purchased doth inherit pain:</LINE>
<LINE>As, painfully to pore upon a book</LINE>
<LINE>To seek the light of truth; while truth the while</LINE>
<LINE>Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look:</LINE>
<LINE>Light seeking light doth light of light beguile:</LINE>
<LINE>So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,</LINE>
<LINE>Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.</LINE>
<LINE>Study me how to please the eye indeed</LINE>
<LINE>By fixing it upon a fairer eye,</LINE>
<LINE>Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed</LINE>
<LINE>And give him light that it was blinded by.</LINE>
<LINE>Study is like the heaven's glorious sun</LINE>
<LINE>That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks:</LINE>
<LINE>Small have continual plodders ever won</LINE>
<LINE>Save base authority from others' books</LINE>
<LINE>These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights</LINE>
<LINE>That give a name to every fixed star</LINE>
<LINE>Have no more profit of their shining nights</LINE>
<LINE>Than those that walk and wot not what they are.</LINE>
<LINE>Too much to know is to know nought but fame;</LINE>
<LINE>And every godfather can give a name.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How well he's read, to reason against reading!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>He weeds the corn and still lets grow the weeding.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The spring is near when green geese are a-breeding.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How follows that?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Fit in his place and time.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>In reason nothing.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Something then in rhyme.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Biron is like an envious sneaping frost,</LINE>
<LINE>That bites the first-born infants of the spring.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Well, say I am; why should proud summer boast</LINE>
<LINE>Before the birds have any cause to sing?</LINE>
<LINE>Why should I joy in any abortive birth?</LINE>
<LINE>At Christmas I no more desire a rose</LINE>
<LINE>Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled mirth;</LINE>
<LINE>But like of each thing that in season grows.</LINE>
<LINE>So you, to study now it is too late,</LINE>
<LINE>Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Well, sit you out: go home, Biron: adieu.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No, my good lord; I have sworn to stay with you:</LINE>
<LINE>And though I have for barbarism spoke more</LINE>
<LINE>Than for that angel knowledge you can say,</LINE>
<LINE>Yet confident I'll keep what I have swore</LINE>
<LINE>And bide the penance of each three years' day.</LINE>
<LINE>Give me the paper; let me read the same;</LINE>
<LINE>And to the strict'st decrees I'll write my name.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How well this yielding rescues thee from shame!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Reads</STAGEDIR>  'Item, That no woman shall come within a</LINE>
<LINE>mile of my court:' Hath this been proclaimed?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Four days ago.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Let's see the penalty.</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>Reads</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>'On pain of losing her tongue.' Who devised this penalty?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Marry, that did I.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sweet lord, and why?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>To fright them hence with that dread penalty.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A dangerous law against gentility!</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>Reads</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>'Item, If any man be seen to talk with a woman</LINE>
<LINE>within the term of three years, he shall endure such</LINE>
<LINE>public shame as the rest of the court can possibly devise.'</LINE>
<LINE>This article, my liege, yourself must break;</LINE>
<LINE>For well you know here comes in embassy</LINE>
<LINE>The French king's daughter with yourself to speak--</LINE>
<LINE>A maid of grace and complete majesty--</LINE>
<LINE>About surrender up of Aquitaine</LINE>
<LINE>To her decrepit, sick and bedrid father:</LINE>
<LINE>Therefore this article is made in vain,</LINE>
<LINE>Or vainly comes the admired princess hither.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What say you, lords? Why, this was quite forgot.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>So study evermore is overshot:</LINE>
<LINE>While it doth study to have what it would</LINE>
<LINE>It doth forget to do the thing it should,</LINE>
<LINE>And when it hath the thing it hunteth most,</LINE>
<LINE>'Tis won as towns with fire, so won, so lost.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>We must of force dispense with this decree;</LINE>
<LINE>She must lie here on mere necessity.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Necessity will make us all forsworn</LINE>
<LINE>Three thousand times within this three years' space;</LINE>
<LINE>For every man with his affects is born,</LINE>
<LINE>Not by might master'd but by special grace:</LINE>
<LINE>If I break faith, this word shall speak for me;</LINE>
<LINE>I am forsworn on 'mere necessity.'</LINE>
<LINE>So to the laws at large I write my name:</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>Subscribes</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>And he that breaks them in the least degree</LINE>
<LINE>Stands in attainder of eternal shame:</LINE>
<LINE>Suggestions are to other as to me;</LINE>
<LINE>But I believe, although I seem so loath,</LINE>
<LINE>I am the last that will last keep his oath.</LINE>
<LINE>But is there no quick recreation granted?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted</LINE>
<LINE>With a refined traveller of Spain;</LINE>
<LINE>A man in all the world's new fashion planted,</LINE>
<LINE>That hath a mint of phrases in his brain;</LINE>
<LINE>One whom the music of his own vain tongue</LINE>
<LINE>Doth ravish like enchanting harmony;</LINE>
<LINE>A man of complements, whom right and wrong</LINE>
<LINE>Have chose as umpire of their mutiny:</LINE>
<LINE>This child of fancy, that Armado hight,</LINE>
<LINE>For interim to our studies shall relate</LINE>
<LINE>In high-born words the worth of many a knight</LINE>
<LINE>From tawny Spain lost in the world's debate.</LINE>
<LINE>How you delight, my lords, I know not, I;</LINE>
<LINE>But, I protest, I love to hear him lie</LINE>
<LINE>And I will use him for my minstrelsy.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Armado is a most illustrious wight,</LINE>
<LINE>A man of fire-new words, fashion's own knight.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Costard the swain and he shall be our sport;</LINE>
<LINE>And so to study, three years is but short.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Enter DULL with a letter, and COSTARD</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DULL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Which is the duke's own person?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>This, fellow: what wouldst?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DULL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his</LINE>
<LINE>grace's tharborough: but I would see his own person</LINE>
<LINE>in flesh and blood.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>This is he.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DULL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Signior Arme--Arme--commends you. There's villany</LINE>
<LINE>abroad: this letter will tell you more.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A letter from the magnificent Armado.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high words.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A high hope for a low heaven: God grant us patience!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>To hear? or forbear laughing?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately; or to</LINE>
<LINE>forbear both.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Well, sir, be it as the style shall give us cause to</LINE>
<LINE>climb in the merriness.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta.</LINE>
<LINE>The manner of it is, I was taken with the manner.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>In what manner?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>In manner and form following, sir; all those three:</LINE>
<LINE>I was seen with her in the manor-house, sitting with</LINE>
<LINE>her upon the form, and taken following her into the</LINE>
<LINE>park; which, put together, is in manner and form</LINE>
<LINE>following. Now, sir, for the manner,--it is the</LINE>
<LINE>manner of a man to speak to a woman: for the form,--</LINE>
<LINE>in some form.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>For the following, sir?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>As it shall follow in my correction: and God defend</LINE>
<LINE>the right!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Will you hear this letter with attention?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>As we would hear an oracle.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Such is the simplicity of man to hearken after the flesh.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Reads</STAGEDIR>  'Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent and</LINE>
<LINE>sole dominator of Navarre, my soul's earth's god,</LINE>
<LINE>and body's fostering patron.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Not a word of Costard yet.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Reads</STAGEDIR>  'So it is,'--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>It may be so: but if he say it is so, he is, in</LINE>
<LINE>telling true, but so.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Peace!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Be to me and every man that dares not fight!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No words!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Of other men's secrets, I beseech you.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Reads</STAGEDIR>  'So it is, besieged with sable-coloured</LINE>
<LINE>melancholy, I did commend the black-oppressing humour</LINE>
<LINE>to the most wholesome physic of thy health-giving</LINE>
<LINE>air; and, as I am a gentleman, betook myself to</LINE>
<LINE>walk. The time when. About the sixth hour; when</LINE>
<LINE>beasts most graze, birds best peck, and men sit down</LINE>
<LINE>to that nourishment which is called supper: so much</LINE>
<LINE>for the time when. Now for the ground which; which,</LINE>
<LINE>I mean, I walked upon: it is y-cleped thy park. Then</LINE>
<LINE>for the place where; where, I mean, I did encounter</LINE>
<LINE>that obscene and preposterous event, that draweth</LINE>
<LINE>from my snow-white pen the ebon-coloured ink, which</LINE>
<LINE>here thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or seest;</LINE>
<LINE>but to the place where; it standeth north-north-east</LINE>
<LINE>and by east from the west corner of thy curious-</LINE>
<LINE>knotted garden: there did I see that low-spirited</LINE>
<LINE>swain, that base minnow of thy mirth,'--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Me?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Reads</STAGEDIR>  'that unlettered small-knowing soul,'--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Me?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Reads</STAGEDIR>  'that shallow vassal,'--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Still me?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Reads</STAGEDIR>  'which, as I remember, hight Costard,'--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O, me!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Reads</STAGEDIR>  'sorted and consorted, contrary to thy</LINE>
<LINE>established proclaimed edict and continent canon,</LINE>
<LINE>which with,--O, with--but with this I passion to say</LINE>
<LINE>wherewith,--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>With a wench.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Reads</STAGEDIR>  'with a child of our grandmother Eve, a</LINE>
<LINE>female; or, for thy more sweet understanding, a</LINE>
<LINE>woman. Him I, as my ever-esteemed duty pricks me on,</LINE>
<LINE>have sent to thee, to receive the meed of</LINE>
<LINE>punishment, by thy sweet grace's officer, Anthony</LINE>
<LINE>Dull; a man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and</LINE>
<LINE>estimation.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DULL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Me, an't shall please you; I am Anthony Dull.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Reads</STAGEDIR>  'For Jaquenetta,--so is the weaker vessel</LINE>
<LINE>called which I apprehended with the aforesaid</LINE>
<LINE>swain,--I keep her as a vessel of the law's fury;</LINE>
<LINE>and shall, at the least of thy sweet notice, bring</LINE>
<LINE>her to trial. Thine, in all compliments of devoted</LINE>
<LINE>and heart-burning heat of duty.</LINE>
<LINE>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>This is not so well as I looked for, but the best</LINE>
<LINE>that ever I heard.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, the best for the worst. But, sirrah, what say</LINE>
<LINE>you to this?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir, I confess the wench.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Did you hear the proclamation?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I do confess much of the hearing it but little of</LINE>
<LINE>the marking of it.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>It was proclaimed a year's imprisonment, to be taken</LINE>
<LINE>with a wench.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I was taken with none, sir: I was taken with a damsel.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Well, it was proclaimed 'damsel.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>This was no damsel, neither, sir; she was a virgin.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>It is so varied, too; for it was proclaimed 'virgin.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>If it were, I deny her virginity: I was taken with a maid.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>This maid will not serve your turn, sir.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>This maid will serve my turn, sir.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir, I will pronounce your sentence: you shall fast</LINE>
<LINE>a week with bran and water.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I had rather pray a month with mutton and porridge.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And Don Armado shall be your keeper.</LINE>
<LINE>My Lord Biron, see him deliver'd o'er:</LINE>
<LINE>And go we, lords, to put in practise that</LINE>
<LINE>Which each to other hath so strongly sworn.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exeunt FERDINAND, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I'll lay my head to any good man's hat,</LINE>
<LINE>These oaths and laws will prove an idle scorn.</LINE>
<LINE>Sirrah, come on.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I suffer for the truth, sir; for true it is, I was</LINE>
<LINE>taken with Jaquenetta, and Jaquenetta is a true</LINE>
<LINE>girl; and therefore welcome the sour cup of</LINE>
<LINE>prosperity! Affliction may one day smile again; and</LINE>
<LINE>till then, sit thee down, sorrow!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exeunt</STAGEDIR>
</SCENE>

<SCENE><TITLE>SCENE II.  The same.</TITLE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO and MOTH</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Boy, what sign is it when a man of great spirit</LINE>
<LINE>grows melancholy?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A great sign, sir, that he will look sad.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, sadness is one and the self-same thing, dear imp.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No, no; O Lord, sir, no.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How canst thou part sadness and melancholy, my</LINE>
<LINE>tender juvenal?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>By a familiar demonstration of the working, my tough senior.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why tough senior? why tough senior?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why tender juvenal? why tender juvenal?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I spoke it, tender juvenal, as a congruent epitheton</LINE>
<LINE>appertaining to thy young days, which we may</LINE>
<LINE>nominate tender.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And I, tough senior, as an appertinent title to your</LINE>
<LINE>old time, which we may name tough.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Pretty and apt.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How mean you, sir? I pretty, and my saying apt? or</LINE>
<LINE>I apt, and my saying pretty?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Thou pretty, because little.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Little pretty, because little. Wherefore apt?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And therefore apt, because quick.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Speak you this in my praise, master?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>In thy condign praise.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I will praise an eel with the same praise.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What, that an eel is ingenious?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That an eel is quick.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I do say thou art quick in answers: thou heatest my blood.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I am answered, sir.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I love not to be crossed.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Aside</STAGEDIR>  He speaks the mere contrary; crosses love not him.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I have promised to study three years with the duke.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You may do it in an hour, sir.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Impossible.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How many is one thrice told?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I am ill at reckoning; it fitteth the spirit of a tapster.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You are a gentleman and a gamester, sir.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I confess both: they are both the varnish of a</LINE>
<LINE>complete man.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Then, I am sure, you know how much the gross sum of</LINE>
<LINE>deuce-ace amounts to.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>It doth amount to one more than two.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Which the base vulgar do call three.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>True.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, sir, is this such a piece of study? Now here</LINE>
<LINE>is three studied, ere ye'll thrice wink: and how</LINE>
<LINE>easy it is to put 'years' to the word 'three,' and</LINE>
<LINE>study three years in two words, the dancing horse</LINE>
<LINE>will tell you.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A most fine figure!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>To prove you a cipher.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I will hereupon confess I am in love: and as it is</LINE>
<LINE>base for a soldier to love, so am I in love with a</LINE>
<LINE>base wench. If drawing my sword against the humour</LINE>
<LINE>of affection would deliver me from the reprobate</LINE>
<LINE>thought of it, I would take Desire prisoner, and</LINE>
<LINE>ransom him to any French courtier for a new-devised</LINE>
<LINE>courtesy. I think scorn to sigh: methinks I should</LINE>
<LINE>outswear Cupid. Comfort, me, boy: what great men</LINE>
<LINE>have been in love?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Hercules, master.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Most sweet Hercules! More authority, dear boy, name</LINE>
<LINE>more; and, sweet my child, let them be men of good</LINE>
<LINE>repute and carriage.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Samson, master: he was a man of good carriage, great</LINE>
<LINE>carriage, for he carried the town-gates on his back</LINE>
<LINE>like a porter: and he was in love.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O well-knit Samson! strong-jointed Samson! I do</LINE>
<LINE>excel thee in my rapier as much as thou didst me in</LINE>
<LINE>carrying gates. I am in love too. Who was Samson's</LINE>
<LINE>love, my dear Moth?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A woman, master.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Of what complexion?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Of all the four, or the three, or the two, or one of the four.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Tell me precisely of what complexion.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Of the sea-water green, sir.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Is that one of the four complexions?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>As I have read, sir; and the best of them too.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Green indeed is the colour of lovers; but to have a</LINE>
<LINE>love of that colour, methinks Samson had small reason</LINE>
<LINE>for it. He surely affected her for her wit.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>It was so, sir; for she had a green wit.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>My love is most immaculate white and red.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Most maculate thoughts, master, are masked under</LINE>
<LINE>such colours.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Define, define, well-educated infant.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>My father's wit and my mother's tongue, assist me!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sweet invocation of a child; most pretty and</LINE>
<LINE>pathetical!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>If she be made of white and red,</LINE>
<LINE>Her faults will ne'er be known,</LINE>
<LINE>For blushing cheeks by faults are bred</LINE>
<LINE>And fears by pale white shown:</LINE>
<LINE>Then if she fear, or be to blame,</LINE>
<LINE>By this you shall not know,</LINE>
<LINE>For still her cheeks possess the same</LINE>
<LINE>Which native she doth owe.</LINE>
<LINE>A dangerous rhyme, master, against the reason of</LINE>
<LINE>white and red.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Is there not a ballad, boy, of the King and the Beggar?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The world was very guilty of such a ballad some</LINE>
<LINE>three ages since: but I think now 'tis not to be</LINE>
<LINE>found; or, if it were, it would neither serve for</LINE>
<LINE>the writing nor the tune.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I will have that subject newly writ o'er, that I may</LINE>
<LINE>example my digression by some mighty precedent.</LINE>
<LINE>Boy, I do love that country girl that I took in the</LINE>
<LINE>park with the rational hind Costard: she deserves well.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Aside</STAGEDIR>  To be whipped; and yet a better love than</LINE>
<LINE>my master.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sing, boy; my spirit grows heavy in love.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And that's great marvel, loving a light wench.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I say, sing.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Forbear till this company be past.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Enter DULL, COSTARD, and JAQUENETTA</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DULL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir, the duke's pleasure is, that you keep Costard</LINE>
<LINE>safe: and you must suffer him to take no delight</LINE>
<LINE>nor no penance; but a' must fast three days a week.</LINE>
<LINE>For this damsel, I must keep her at the park: she</LINE>
<LINE>is allowed for the day-woman. Fare you well.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I do betray myself with blushing. Maid!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JAQUENETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Man?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I will visit thee at the lodge.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JAQUENETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That's hereby.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I know where it is situate.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JAQUENETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Lord, how wise you are!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I will tell thee wonders.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JAQUENETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>With that face?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I love thee.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JAQUENETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>So I heard you say.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And so, farewell.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JAQUENETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Fair weather after you!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DULL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Come, Jaquenetta, away!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exeunt DULL and JAQUENETTA</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Villain, thou shalt fast for thy offences ere thou</LINE>
<LINE>be pardoned.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Well, sir, I hope, when I do it, I shall do it on a</LINE>
<LINE>full stomach.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Thou shalt be heavily punished.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I am more bound to you than your fellows, for they</LINE>
<LINE>are but lightly rewarded.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Take away this villain; shut him up.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Come, you transgressing slave; away!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Let me not be pent up, sir: I will fast, being loose.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No, sir; that were fast and loose: thou shalt to prison.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Well, if ever I do see the merry days of desolation</LINE>
<LINE>that I have seen, some shall see.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What shall some see?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Nay, nothing, Master Moth, but what they look upon.</LINE>
<LINE>It is not for prisoners to be too silent in their</LINE>
<LINE>words; and therefore I will say nothing: I thank</LINE>
<LINE>God I have as little patience as another man; and</LINE>
<LINE>therefore I can be quiet.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exeunt MOTH and COSTARD</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I do affect the very ground, which is base, where</LINE>
<LINE>her shoe, which is baser, guided by her foot, which</LINE>
<LINE>is basest, doth tread. I shall be forsworn, which</LINE>
<LINE>is a great argument of falsehood, if I love. And</LINE>
<LINE>how can that be true love which is falsely</LINE>
<LINE>attempted? Love is a familiar; Love is a devil:</LINE>
<LINE>there is no evil angel but Love. Yet was Samson so</LINE>
<LINE>tempted, and he had an excellent strength; yet was</LINE>
<LINE>Solomon so seduced, and he had a very good wit.</LINE>
<LINE>Cupid's butt-shaft is too hard for Hercules' club;</LINE>
<LINE>and therefore too much odds for a Spaniard's rapier.</LINE>
<LINE>The first and second cause will not serve my turn;</LINE>
<LINE>the passado he respects not, the duello he regards</LINE>
<LINE>not: his disgrace is to be called boy; but his</LINE>
<LINE>glory is to subdue men. Adieu, valour! rust rapier!</LINE>
<LINE>be still, drum! for your manager is in love; yea,</LINE>
<LINE>he loveth. Assist me, some extemporal god of rhyme,</LINE>
<LINE>for I am sure I shall turn sonnet. Devise, wit;</LINE>
<LINE>write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exit</STAGEDIR>
</SCENE>

</ACT>

<ACT><TITLE>ACT II</TITLE>

<SCENE><TITLE>SCENE I.  The same.</TITLE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter the PRINCESS of France, ROSALINE, MARIA,
KATHARINE, BOYET, Lords, and other Attendants</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Now, madam, summon up your dearest spirits:</LINE>
<LINE>Consider who the king your father sends,</LINE>
<LINE>To whom he sends, and what's his embassy:</LINE>
<LINE>Yourself, held precious in the world's esteem,</LINE>
<LINE>To parley with the sole inheritor</LINE>
<LINE>Of all perfections that a man may owe,</LINE>
<LINE>Matchless Navarre; the plea of no less weight</LINE>
<LINE>Than Aquitaine, a dowry for a queen.</LINE>
<LINE>Be now as prodigal of all dear grace</LINE>
<LINE>As Nature was in making graces dear</LINE>
<LINE>When she did starve the general world beside</LINE>
<LINE>And prodigally gave them all to you.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean,</LINE>
<LINE>Needs not the painted flourish of your praise:</LINE>
<LINE>Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye,</LINE>
<LINE>Not utter'd by base sale of chapmen's tongues:</LINE>
<LINE>I am less proud to hear you tell my worth</LINE>
<LINE>Than you much willing to be counted wise</LINE>
<LINE>In spending your wit in the praise of mine.</LINE>
<LINE>But now to task the tasker: good Boyet,</LINE>
<LINE>You are not ignorant, all-telling fame</LINE>
<LINE>Doth noise abroad, Navarre hath made a vow,</LINE>
<LINE>Till painful study shall outwear three years,</LINE>
<LINE>No woman may approach his silent court:</LINE>
<LINE>Therefore to's seemeth it a needful course,</LINE>
<LINE>Before we enter his forbidden gates,</LINE>
<LINE>To know his pleasure; and in that behalf,</LINE>
<LINE>Bold of your worthiness, we single you</LINE>
<LINE>As our best-moving fair solicitor.</LINE>
<LINE>Tell him, the daughter of the King of France,</LINE>
<LINE>On serious business, craving quick dispatch,</LINE>
<LINE>Importunes personal conference with his grace:</LINE>
<LINE>Haste, signify so much; while we attend,</LINE>
<LINE>Like humble-visaged suitors, his high will.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Proud of employment, willingly I go.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>All pride is willing pride, and yours is so.</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>Exit BOYET</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>Who are the votaries, my loving lords,</LINE>
<LINE>That are vow-fellows with this virtuous duke?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>First Lord</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Lord Longaville is one.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Know you the man?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MARIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I know him, madam: at a marriage-feast,</LINE>
<LINE>Between Lord Perigort and the beauteous heir</LINE>
<LINE>Of Jaques Falconbridge, solemnized</LINE>
<LINE>In Normandy, saw I this Longaville:</LINE>
<LINE>A man of sovereign parts he is esteem'd;</LINE>
<LINE>Well fitted in arts, glorious in arms:</LINE>
<LINE>Nothing becomes him ill that he would well.</LINE>
<LINE>The only soil of his fair virtue's gloss,</LINE>
<LINE>If virtue's gloss will stain with any soil,</LINE>
<LINE>Is a sharp wit matched with too blunt a will;</LINE>
<LINE>Whose edge hath power to cut, whose will still wills</LINE>
<LINE>It should none spare that come within his power.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Some merry mocking lord, belike; is't so?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MARIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>They say so most that most his humours know.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Such short-lived wits do wither as they grow.</LINE>
<LINE>Who are the rest?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>KATHARINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The young Dumain, a well-accomplished youth,</LINE>
<LINE>Of all that virtue love for virtue loved:</LINE>
<LINE>Most power to do most harm, least knowing ill;</LINE>
<LINE>For he hath wit to make an ill shape good,</LINE>
<LINE>And shape to win grace though he had no wit.</LINE>
<LINE>I saw him at the Duke Alencon's once;</LINE>
<LINE>And much too little of that good I saw</LINE>
<LINE>Is my report to his great worthiness.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Another of these students at that time</LINE>
<LINE>Was there with him, if I have heard a truth.</LINE>
<LINE>Biron they call him; but a merrier man,</LINE>
<LINE>Within the limit of becoming mirth,</LINE>
<LINE>I never spent an hour's talk withal:</LINE>
<LINE>His eye begets occasion for his wit;</LINE>
<LINE>For every object that the one doth catch</LINE>
<LINE>The other turns to a mirth-moving jest,</LINE>
<LINE>Which his fair tongue, conceit's expositor,</LINE>
<LINE>Delivers in such apt and gracious words</LINE>
<LINE>That aged ears play truant at his tales</LINE>
<LINE>And younger hearings are quite ravished;</LINE>
<LINE>So sweet and voluble is his discourse.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>God bless my ladies! are they all in love,</LINE>
<LINE>That every one her own hath garnished</LINE>
<LINE>With such bedecking ornaments of praise?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>First Lord</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Here comes Boyet.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Re-enter BOYET</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Now, what admittance, lord?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Navarre had notice of your fair approach;</LINE>
<LINE>And he and his competitors in oath</LINE>
<LINE>Were all address'd to meet you, gentle lady,</LINE>
<LINE>Before I came. Marry, thus much I have learnt:</LINE>
<LINE>He rather means to lodge you in the field,</LINE>
<LINE>Like one that comes here to besiege his court,</LINE>
<LINE>Than seek a dispensation for his oath,</LINE>
<LINE>To let you enter his unpeopled house.</LINE>
<LINE>Here comes Navarre.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Enter FERDINAND, LONGAVILLE, DUMAIN, BIRON, and
Attendants</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Fair princess, welcome to the court of Navarre.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Fair' I give you back again; and 'welcome' I have</LINE>
<LINE>not yet: the roof of this court is too high to be</LINE>
<LINE>yours; and welcome to the wide fields too base to be mine.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You shall be welcome, madam, to my court.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I will be welcome, then: conduct me thither.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Hear me, dear lady; I have sworn an oath.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Our Lady help my lord! he'll be forsworn.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Not for the world, fair madam, by my will.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, will shall break it; will and nothing else.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Your ladyship is ignorant what it is.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Were my lord so, his ignorance were wise,</LINE>
<LINE>Where now his knowledge must prove ignorance.</LINE>
<LINE>I hear your grace hath sworn out house-keeping:</LINE>
<LINE>Tis deadly sin to keep that oath, my lord,</LINE>
<LINE>And sin to break it.</LINE>
<LINE>But pardon me. I am too sudden-bold:</LINE>
<LINE>To teach a teacher ill beseemeth me.</LINE>
<LINE>Vouchsafe to read the purpose of my coming,</LINE>
<LINE>And suddenly resolve me in my suit.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Madam, I will, if suddenly I may.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You will the sooner, that I were away;</LINE>
<LINE>For you'll prove perjured if you make me stay.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I know you did.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How needless was it then to ask the question!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You must not be so quick.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Tis 'long of you that spur me with such questions.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Your wit's too hot, it speeds too fast, 'twill tire.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Not till it leave the rider in the mire.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What time o' day?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The hour that fools should ask.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Now fair befall your mask!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Fair fall the face it covers!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And send you many lovers!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Amen, so you be none.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Nay, then will I be gone.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Madam, your father here doth intimate</LINE>
<LINE>The payment of a hundred thousand crowns;</LINE>
<LINE>Being but the one half of an entire sum</LINE>
<LINE>Disbursed by my father in his wars.</LINE>
<LINE>But say that he or we, as neither have,</LINE>
<LINE>Received that sum, yet there remains unpaid</LINE>
<LINE>A hundred thousand more; in surety of the which,</LINE>
<LINE>One part of Aquitaine is bound to us,</LINE>
<LINE>Although not valued to the money's worth.</LINE>
<LINE>If then the king your father will restore</LINE>
<LINE>But that one half which is unsatisfied,</LINE>
<LINE>We will give up our right in Aquitaine,</LINE>
<LINE>And hold fair friendship with his majesty.</LINE>
<LINE>But that, it seems, he little purposeth,</LINE>
<LINE>For here he doth demand to have repaid</LINE>
<LINE>A hundred thousand crowns; and not demands,</LINE>
<LINE>On payment of a hundred thousand crowns,</LINE>
<LINE>To have his title live in Aquitaine;</LINE>
<LINE>Which we much rather had depart withal</LINE>
<LINE>And have the money by our father lent</LINE>
<LINE>Than Aquitaine so gelded as it is.</LINE>
<LINE>Dear Princess, were not his requests so far</LINE>
<LINE>From reason's yielding, your fair self should make</LINE>
<LINE>A yielding 'gainst some reason in my breast</LINE>
<LINE>And go well satisfied to France again.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You do the king my father too much wrong</LINE>
<LINE>And wrong the reputation of your name,</LINE>
<LINE>In so unseeming to confess receipt</LINE>
<LINE>Of that which hath so faithfully been paid.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I do protest I never heard of it;</LINE>
<LINE>And if you prove it, I'll repay it back</LINE>
<LINE>Or yield up Aquitaine.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>We arrest your word.</LINE>
<LINE>Boyet, you can produce acquittances</LINE>
<LINE>For such a sum from special officers</LINE>
<LINE>Of Charles his father.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Satisfy me so.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>So please your grace, the packet is not come</LINE>
<LINE>Where that and other specialties are bound:</LINE>
<LINE>To-morrow you shall have a sight of them.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>It shall suffice me: at which interview</LINE>
<LINE>All liberal reason I will yield unto.</LINE>
<LINE>Meantime receive such welcome at my hand</LINE>
<LINE>As honour without breach of honour may</LINE>
<LINE>Make tender of to thy true worthiness:</LINE>
<LINE>You may not come, fair princess, in my gates;</LINE>
<LINE>But here without you shall be so received</LINE>
<LINE>As you shall deem yourself lodged in my heart,</LINE>
<LINE>Though so denied fair harbour in my house.</LINE>
<LINE>Your own good thoughts excuse me, and farewell:</LINE>
<LINE>To-morrow shall we visit you again.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sweet health and fair desires consort your grace!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Thy own wish wish I thee in every place!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exit</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Lady, I will commend you to mine own heart.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Pray you, do my commendations; I would be glad to see it.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I would you heard it groan.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Is the fool sick?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sick at the heart.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Alack, let it blood.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Would that do it good?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>My physic says 'ay.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Will you prick't with your eye?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No point, with my knife.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Now, God save thy life!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And yours from long living!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I cannot stay thanksgiving.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Retiring</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir, I pray you, a word: what lady is that same?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The heir of Alencon, Katharine her name.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A gallant lady. Monsieur, fare you well.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exit</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I beseech you a word: what is she in the white?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A woman sometimes, an you saw her in the light.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Perchance light in the light. I desire her name.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>She hath but one for herself; to desire that were a shame.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Pray you, sir, whose daughter?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Her mother's, I have heard.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>God's blessing on your beard!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Good sir, be not offended.</LINE>
<LINE>She is an heir of Falconbridge.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Nay, my choler is ended.</LINE>
<LINE>She is a most sweet lady.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Not unlike, sir, that may be.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exit LONGAVILLE</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What's her name in the cap?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Rosaline, by good hap.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Is she wedded or no?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>To her will, sir, or so.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You are welcome, sir: adieu.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Farewell to me, sir, and welcome to you.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exit BIRON</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MARIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That last is Biron, the merry madcap lord:</LINE>
<LINE>Not a word with him but a jest.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And every jest but a word.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>It was well done of you to take him at his word.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I was as willing to grapple as he was to board.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MARIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Two hot sheeps, marry.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And wherefore not ships?</LINE>
<LINE>No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MARIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You sheep, and I pasture: shall that finish the jest?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>So you grant pasture for me.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Offering to kiss her</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MARIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Not so, gentle beast:</LINE>
<LINE>My lips are no common, though several they be.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Belonging to whom?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MARIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>To my fortunes and me.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Good wits will be jangling; but, gentles, agree:</LINE>
<LINE>This civil war of wits were much better used</LINE>
<LINE>On Navarre and his book-men; for here 'tis abused.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>If my observation, which very seldom lies,</LINE>
<LINE>By the heart's still rhetoric disclosed with eyes,</LINE>
<LINE>Deceive me not now, Navarre is infected.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>With what?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>With that which we lovers entitle affected.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Your reason?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, all his behaviors did make their retire</LINE>
<LINE>To the court of his eye, peeping thorough desire:</LINE>
<LINE>His heart, like an agate, with your print impress'd,</LINE>
<LINE>Proud with his form, in his eye pride express'd:</LINE>
<LINE>His tongue, all impatient to speak and not see,</LINE>
<LINE>Did stumble with haste in his eyesight to be;</LINE>
<LINE>All senses to that sense did make their repair,</LINE>
<LINE>To feel only looking on fairest of fair:</LINE>
<LINE>Methought all his senses were lock'd in his eye,</LINE>
<LINE>As jewels in crystal for some prince to buy;</LINE>
<LINE>Who, tendering their own worth from where they were glass'd,</LINE>
<LINE>Did point you to buy them, along as you pass'd:</LINE>
<LINE>His face's own margent did quote such amazes</LINE>
<LINE>That all eyes saw his eyes enchanted with gazes.</LINE>
<LINE>I'll give you Aquitaine and all that is his,</LINE>
<LINE>An you give him for my sake but one loving kiss.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Come to our pavilion: Boyet is disposed.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But to speak that in words which his eye hath</LINE>
<LINE>disclosed.</LINE>
<LINE>I only have made a mouth of his eye,</LINE>
<LINE>By adding a tongue which I know will not lie.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Thou art an old love-monger and speakest skilfully.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MARIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>He is Cupid's grandfather and learns news of him.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Then was Venus like her mother, for her father is but grim.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Do you hear, my mad wenches?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MARIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What then, do you see?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, our way to be gone.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You are too hard for me.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exeunt</STAGEDIR>
</SCENE>

</ACT>

<ACT><TITLE>ACT III</TITLE>

<SCENE><TITLE>SCENE I.  The same.</TITLE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO and MOTH</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Warble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Concolinel.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Singing</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sweet air! Go, tenderness of years; take this key,</LINE>
<LINE>give enlargement to the swain, bring him festinately</LINE>
<LINE>hither: I must employ him in a letter to my love.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Master, will you win your love with a French brawl?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How meanest thou? brawling in French?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No, my complete master: but to jig off a tune at</LINE>
<LINE>the tongue's end, canary to it with your feet, humour</LINE>
<LINE>it with turning up your eyelids, sigh a note and</LINE>
<LINE>sing a note, sometime through the throat, as if you</LINE>
<LINE>swallowed love with singing love, sometime through</LINE>
<LINE>the nose, as if you snuffed up love by smelling</LINE>
<LINE>love; with your hat penthouse-like o'er the shop of</LINE>
<LINE>your eyes; with your arms crossed on your thin-belly</LINE>
<LINE>doublet like a rabbit on a spit; or your hands in</LINE>
<LINE>your pocket like a man after the old painting; and</LINE>
<LINE>keep not too long in one tune, but a snip and away.</LINE>
<LINE>These are complements, these are humours; these</LINE>
<LINE>betray nice wenches, that would be betrayed without</LINE>
<LINE>these; and make them men of note--do you note</LINE>
<LINE>me?--that most are affected to these.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How hast thou purchased this experience?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>By my penny of observation.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But O,--but O,--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'The hobby-horse is forgot.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Callest thou my love 'hobby-horse'?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No, master; the hobby-horse is but a colt, and your</LINE>
<LINE>love perhaps a hackney. But have you forgot your love?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Almost I had.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Negligent student! learn her by heart.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>By heart and in heart, boy.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And out of heart, master: all those three I will prove.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What wilt thou prove?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A man, if I live; and this, by, in, and without, upon</LINE>
<LINE>the instant: by heart you love her, because your</LINE>
<LINE>heart cannot come by her; in heart you love her,</LINE>
<LINE>because your heart is in love with her; and out of</LINE>
<LINE>heart you love her, being out of heart that you</LINE>
<LINE>cannot enjoy her.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I am all these three.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And three times as much more, and yet nothing at</LINE>
<LINE>all.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Fetch hither the swain: he must carry me a letter.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A message well sympathized; a horse to be ambassador</LINE>
<LINE>for an ass.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ha, ha! what sayest thou?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Marry, sir, you must send the ass upon the horse,</LINE>
<LINE>for he is very slow-gaited. But I go.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The way is but short: away!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>As swift as lead, sir.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The meaning, pretty ingenious?</LINE>
<LINE>Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Minime, honest master; or rather, master, no.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I say lead is slow.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You are too swift, sir, to say so:</LINE>
<LINE>Is that lead slow which is fired from a gun?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sweet smoke of rhetoric!</LINE>
<LINE>He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that's he:</LINE>
<LINE>I shoot thee at the swain.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Thump then and I flee.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exit</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A most acute juvenal; voluble and free of grace!</LINE>
<LINE>By thy favour, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face:</LINE>
<LINE>Most rude melancholy, valour gives thee place.</LINE>
<LINE>My herald is return'd.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Re-enter MOTH with COSTARD</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A wonder, master! here's a costard broken in a shin.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Some enigma, some riddle: come, thy l'envoy; begin.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No enigma, no riddle, no l'envoy; no salve in the</LINE>
<LINE>mail, sir: O, sir, plantain, a plain plantain! no</LINE>
<LINE>l'envoy, no l'envoy; no salve, sir, but a plantain!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>By virtue, thou enforcest laughter; thy silly</LINE>
<LINE>thought my spleen; the heaving of my lungs provokes</LINE>
<LINE>me to ridiculous smiling. O, pardon me, my stars!</LINE>
<LINE>Doth the inconsiderate take salve for l'envoy, and</LINE>
<LINE>the word l'envoy for a salve?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Do the wise think them other? is not l'envoy a salve?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No, page: it is an epilogue or discourse, to make plain</LINE>
<LINE>Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain.</LINE>
<LINE>I will example it:</LINE>
<LINE>The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,</LINE>
<LINE>Were still at odds, being but three.</LINE>
<LINE>There's the moral. Now the l'envoy.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I will add the l'envoy. Say the moral again.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,</LINE>
<LINE>Were still at odds, being but three.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Until the goose came out of door,</LINE>
<LINE>And stay'd the odds by adding four.</LINE>
<LINE>Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow with</LINE>
<LINE>my l'envoy.</LINE>
<LINE>The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,</LINE>
<LINE>Were still at odds, being but three.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Until the goose came out of door,</LINE>
<LINE>Staying the odds by adding four.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A good l'envoy, ending in the goose: would you</LINE>
<LINE>desire more?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The boy hath sold him a bargain, a goose, that's flat.</LINE>
<LINE>Sir, your pennyworth is good, an your goose be fat.</LINE>
<LINE>To sell a bargain well is as cunning as fast and loose:</LINE>
<LINE>Let me see; a fat l'envoy; ay, that's a fat goose.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Come hither, come hither. How did this argument begin?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>By saying that a costard was broken in a shin.</LINE>
<LINE>Then call'd you for the l'envoy.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>True, and I for a plantain: thus came your</LINE>
<LINE>argument in;</LINE>
<LINE>Then the boy's fat l'envoy, the goose that you bought;</LINE>
<LINE>And he ended the market.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But tell me; how was there a costard broken in a shin?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I will tell you sensibly.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Thou hast no feeling of it, Moth: I will speak that l'envoy:</LINE>
<LINE>I Costard, running out, that was safely within,</LINE>
<LINE>Fell over the threshold and broke my shin.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>We will talk no more of this matter.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Till there be more matter in the shin.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sirrah Costard, I will enfranchise thee.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O, marry me to one Frances: I smell some l'envoy,</LINE>
<LINE>some goose, in this.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>By my sweet soul, I mean setting thee at liberty,</LINE>
<LINE>enfreedoming thy person; thou wert immured,</LINE>
<LINE>restrained, captivated, bound.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>True, true; and now you will be my purgation and let me loose.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I give thee thy liberty, set thee from durance; and,</LINE>
<LINE>in lieu thereof, impose on thee nothing but this:</LINE>
<LINE>bear this significant</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>Giving a letter</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>to the country maid Jaquenetta:</LINE>
<LINE>there is remuneration; for the best ward of mine</LINE>
<LINE>honour is rewarding my dependents. Moth, follow.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exit</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Like the sequel, I. Signior Costard, adieu.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>My sweet ounce of man's flesh! my incony Jew!</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>Exit MOTH</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>Now will I look to his remuneration. Remuneration!</LINE>
<LINE>O, that's the Latin word for three farthings: three</LINE>
<LINE>farthings--remuneration.--'What's the price of this</LINE>
<LINE>inkle?'--'One penny.'--'No, I'll give you a</LINE>
<LINE>remuneration:' why, it carries it. Remuneration!</LINE>
<LINE>why, it is a fairer name than French crown. I will</LINE>
<LINE>never buy and sell out of this word.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Enter BIRON</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O, my good knave Costard! exceedingly well met.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Pray you, sir, how much carnation ribbon may a man</LINE>
<LINE>buy for a remuneration?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What is a remuneration?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Marry, sir, halfpenny farthing.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, then, three-farthing worth of silk.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I thank your worship: God be wi' you!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Stay, slave; I must employ thee:</LINE>
<LINE>As thou wilt win my favour, good my knave,</LINE>
<LINE>Do one thing for me that I shall entreat.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>When would you have it done, sir?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>This afternoon.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Well, I will do it, sir: fare you well.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Thou knowest not what it is.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I shall know, sir, when I have done it.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, villain, thou must know first.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I will come to your worship to-morrow morning.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>It must be done this afternoon.</LINE>
<LINE>Hark, slave, it is but this:</LINE>
<LINE>The princess comes to hunt here in the park,</LINE>
<LINE>And in her train there is a gentle lady;</LINE>
<LINE>When tongues speak sweetly, then they name her name,</LINE>
<LINE>And Rosaline they call her: ask for her;</LINE>
<LINE>And to her white hand see thou do commend</LINE>
<LINE>This seal'd-up counsel. There's thy guerdon; go.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Giving him a shilling</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Gardon, O sweet gardon! better than remuneration,</LINE>
<LINE>a'leven-pence farthing better: most sweet gardon! I</LINE>
<LINE>will do it sir, in print. Gardon! Remuneration!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exit</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And I, forsooth, in love! I, that have been love's whip;</LINE>
<LINE>A very beadle to a humorous sigh;</LINE>
<LINE>A critic, nay, a night-watch constable;</LINE>
<LINE>A domineering pedant o'er the boy;</LINE>
<LINE>Than whom no mortal so magnificent!</LINE>
<LINE>This whimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy;</LINE>
<LINE>This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid;</LINE>
<LINE>Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms,</LINE>
<LINE>The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans,</LINE>
<LINE>Liege of all loiterers and malcontents,</LINE>
<LINE>Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces,</LINE>
<LINE>Sole imperator and great general</LINE>
<LINE>Of trotting 'paritors:--O my little heart:--</LINE>
<LINE>And I to be a corporal of his field,</LINE>
<LINE>And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop!</LINE>
<LINE>What, I! I love! I sue! I seek a wife!</LINE>
<LINE>A woman, that is like a German clock,</LINE>
<LINE>Still a-repairing, ever out of frame,</LINE>
<LINE>And never going aright, being a watch,</LINE>
<LINE>But being watch'd that it may still go right!</LINE>
<LINE>Nay, to be perjured, which is worst of all;</LINE>
<LINE>And, among three, to love the worst of all;</LINE>
<LINE>A wightly wanton with a velvet brow,</LINE>
<LINE>With two pitch-balls stuck in her face for eyes;</LINE>
<LINE>Ay, and by heaven, one that will do the deed</LINE>
<LINE>Though Argus were her eunuch and her guard:</LINE>
<LINE>And I to sigh for her! to watch for her!</LINE>
<LINE>To pray for her! Go to; it is a plague</LINE>
<LINE>That Cupid will impose for my neglect</LINE>
<LINE>Of his almighty dreadful little might.</LINE>
<LINE>Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue and groan:</LINE>
<LINE>Some men must love my lady and some Joan.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exit</STAGEDIR>
</SCENE>

</ACT>

<ACT><TITLE>ACT IV</TITLE>

<SCENE><TITLE>SCENE I.  The same.</TITLE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter the PRINCESS, and her train, a Forester,
BOYET, ROSALINE, MARIA, and KATHARINE</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Was that the king, that spurred his horse so hard</LINE>
<LINE>Against the steep uprising of the hill?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I know not; but I think it was not he.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Whoe'er a' was, a' show'd a mounting mind.</LINE>
<LINE>Well, lords, to-day we shall have our dispatch:</LINE>
<LINE>On Saturday we will return to France.</LINE>
<LINE>Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush</LINE>
<LINE>That we must stand and play the murderer in?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Forester</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice;</LINE>
<LINE>A stand where you may make the fairest shoot.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I thank my beauty, I am fair that shoot,</LINE>
<LINE>And thereupon thou speak'st the fairest shoot.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Forester</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Pardon me, madam, for I meant not so.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What, what? first praise me and again say no?</LINE>
<LINE>O short-lived pride! Not fair? alack for woe!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Forester</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Yes, madam, fair.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Nay, never paint me now:</LINE>
<LINE>Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow.</LINE>
<LINE>Here, good my glass, take this for telling true:</LINE>
<LINE>Fair payment for foul words is more than due.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Forester</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Nothing but fair is that which you inherit.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>See see, my beauty will be saved by merit!</LINE>
<LINE>O heresy in fair, fit for these days!</LINE>
<LINE>A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise.</LINE>
<LINE>But come, the bow: now mercy goes to kill,</LINE>
<LINE>And shooting well is then accounted ill.</LINE>
<LINE>Thus will I save my credit in the shoot:</LINE>
<LINE>Not wounding, pity would not let me do't;</LINE>
<LINE>If wounding, then it was to show my skill,</LINE>
<LINE>That more for praise than purpose meant to kill.</LINE>
<LINE>And out of question so it is sometimes,</LINE>
<LINE>Glory grows guilty of detested crimes,</LINE>
<LINE>When, for fame's sake, for praise, an outward part,</LINE>
<LINE>We bend to that the working of the heart;</LINE>
<LINE>As I for praise alone now seek to spill</LINE>
<LINE>The poor deer's blood, that my heart means no ill.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Do not curst wives hold that self-sovereignty</LINE>
<LINE>Only for praise sake, when they strive to be</LINE>
<LINE>Lords o'er their lords?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Only for praise: and praise we may afford</LINE>
<LINE>To any lady that subdues a lord.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Here comes a member of the commonwealth.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Enter COSTARD</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>God dig-you-den all! Pray you, which is the head lady?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Thou shalt know her, fellow, by the rest that have no heads.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Which is the greatest lady, the highest?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The thickest and the tallest.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The thickest and the tallest! it is so; truth is truth.</LINE>
<LINE>An your waist, mistress, were as slender as my wit,</LINE>
<LINE>One o' these maids' girdles for your waist should be fit.</LINE>
<LINE>Are not you the chief woman? you are the thickest here.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What's your will, sir? what's your will?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I have a letter from Monsieur Biron to one Lady Rosaline.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O, thy letter, thy letter! he's a good friend of mine:</LINE>
<LINE>Stand aside, good bearer. Boyet, you can carve;</LINE>
<LINE>Break up this capon.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I am bound to serve.</LINE>
<LINE>This letter is mistook, it importeth none here;</LINE>
<LINE>It is writ to Jaquenetta.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>We will read it, I swear.</LINE>
<LINE>Break the neck of the wax, and every one give ear.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Reads</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'By heaven, that thou art fair, is most infallible;</LINE>
<LINE>true, that thou art beauteous; truth itself, that</LINE>
<LINE>thou art lovely. More fairer than fair, beautiful</LINE>
<LINE>than beauteous, truer than truth itself, have</LINE>
<LINE>commiseration on thy heroical vassal! The</LINE>
<LINE>magnanimous and most illustrate king Cophetua set</LINE>
<LINE>eye upon the pernicious and indubitate beggar</LINE>
<LINE>Zenelophon; and he it was that might rightly say,</LINE>
<LINE>Veni, vidi, vici; which to annothanize in the</LINE>
<LINE>vulgar,--O base and obscure vulgar!--videlicet, He</LINE>
<LINE>came, saw, and overcame: he came, one; saw two;</LINE>
<LINE>overcame, three. Who came? the king: why did he</LINE>
<LINE>come? to see: why did he see? to overcome: to</LINE>
<LINE>whom came he? to the beggar: what saw he? the</LINE>
<LINE>beggar: who overcame he? the beggar. The</LINE>
<LINE>conclusion is victory: on whose side? the king's.</LINE>
<LINE>The captive is enriched: on whose side? the</LINE>
<LINE>beggar's. The catastrophe is a nuptial: on whose</LINE>
<LINE>side? the king's: no, on both in one, or one in</LINE>
<LINE>both. I am the king; for so stands the comparison:</LINE>
<LINE>thou the beggar; for so witnesseth thy lowliness.</LINE>
<LINE>Shall I command thy love? I may: shall I enforce</LINE>
<LINE>thy love? I could: shall I entreat thy love? I</LINE>
<LINE>will. What shalt thou exchange for rags? robes;</LINE>
<LINE>for tittles? titles; for thyself? me. Thus,</LINE>
<LINE>expecting thy reply, I profane my lips on thy foot,</LINE>
<LINE>my eyes on thy picture. and my heart on thy every</LINE>
<LINE>part. Thine, in the dearest design of industry,</LINE>
<LINE>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.'</LINE>
<LINE>Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar</LINE>
<LINE>'Gainst thee, thou lamb, that standest as his prey.</LINE>
<LINE>Submissive fall his princely feet before,</LINE>
<LINE>And he from forage will incline to play:</LINE>
<LINE>But if thou strive, poor soul, what art thou then?</LINE>
<LINE>Food for his rage, repasture for his den.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What plume of feathers is he that indited this letter?</LINE>
<LINE>What vane? what weathercock? did you ever hear better?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I am much deceived but I remember the style.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Else your memory is bad, going o'er it erewhile.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>This Armado is a Spaniard, that keeps here in court;</LINE>
<LINE>A phantasime, a Monarcho, and one that makes sport</LINE>
<LINE>To the prince and his bookmates.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Thou fellow, a word:</LINE>
<LINE>Who gave thee this letter?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I told you; my lord.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>To whom shouldst thou give it?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>From my lord to my lady.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>From which lord to which lady?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>From my lord Biron, a good master of mine,</LINE>
<LINE>To a lady of France that he call'd Rosaline.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Thou hast mistaken his letter. Come, lords, away.</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>To ROSALINE</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>Here, sweet, put up this: 'twill be thine another day.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exeunt PRINCESS and train</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Who is the suitor? who is the suitor?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Shall I teach you to know?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, my continent of beauty.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, she that bears the bow.</LINE>
<LINE>Finely put off!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>My lady goes to kill horns; but, if thou marry,</LINE>
<LINE>Hang me by the neck, if horns that year miscarry.</LINE>
<LINE>Finely put on!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Well, then, I am the shooter.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And who is your deer?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>If we choose by the horns, yourself come not near.</LINE>
<LINE>Finely put on, indeed!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MARIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes</LINE>
<LINE>at the brow.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But she herself is hit lower: have I hit her now?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Shall I come upon thee with an old saying, that was</LINE>
<LINE>a man when King Pepin of France was a little boy, as</LINE>
<LINE>touching the hit it?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>So I may answer thee with one as old, that was a</LINE>
<LINE>woman when Queen Guinover of Britain was a little</LINE>
<LINE>wench, as touching the hit it.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it,</LINE>
<LINE>Thou canst not hit it, my good man.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>An I cannot, cannot, cannot,</LINE>
<LINE>An I cannot, another can.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exeunt ROSALINE and KATHARINE</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>By my troth, most pleasant: how both did fit it!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MARIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A mark marvellous well shot, for they both did hit it.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A mark! O, mark but that mark! A mark, says my lady!</LINE>
<LINE>Let the mark have a prick in't, to mete at, if it may be.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MARIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Wide o' the bow hand! i' faith, your hand is out.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Indeed, a' must shoot nearer, or he'll ne'er hit the clout.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>An if my hand be out, then belike your hand is in.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Then will she get the upshoot by cleaving the pin.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MARIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Come, come, you talk greasily; your lips grow foul.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>She's too hard for you at pricks, sir: challenge her to bowl.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I fear too much rubbing. Good night, my good owl.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exeunt BOYET and MARIA</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>By my soul, a swain! a most simple clown!</LINE>
<LINE>Lord, Lord, how the ladies and I have put him down!</LINE>
<LINE>O' my troth, most sweet jests! most incony</LINE>
<LINE>vulgar wit!</LINE>
<LINE>When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it</LINE>
<LINE>were, so fit.</LINE>
<LINE>Armado o' th' one side,--O, a most dainty man!</LINE>
<LINE>To see him walk before a lady and to bear her fan!</LINE>
<LINE>To see him kiss his hand! and how most sweetly a'</LINE>
<LINE>will swear!</LINE>
<LINE>And his page o' t' other side, that handful of wit!</LINE>
<LINE>Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!</LINE>
<LINE>Sola, sola!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Shout within</STAGEDIR>
<STAGEDIR>Exit COSTARD, running</STAGEDIR>
</SCENE>

<SCENE><TITLE>SCENE II.  The same.</TITLE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SIR NATHANIEL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Very reverend sport, truly; and done in the testimony</LINE>
<LINE>of a good conscience.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The deer was, as you know, sanguis, in blood; ripe</LINE>
<LINE>as the pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in</LINE>
<LINE>the ear of caelo, the sky, the welkin, the heaven;</LINE>
<LINE>and anon falleth like a crab on the face of terra,</LINE>
<LINE>the soil, the land, the earth.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SIR NATHANIEL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Truly, Master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly</LINE>
<LINE>varied, like a scholar at the least: but, sir, I</LINE>
<LINE>assure ye, it was a buck of the first head.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir Nathaniel, haud credo.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DULL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Twas not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Most barbarous intimation! yet a kind of</LINE>
<LINE>insinuation, as it were, in via, in way, of</LINE>
<LINE>explication; facere, as it were, replication, or</LINE>
<LINE>rather, ostentare, to show, as it were, his</LINE>
<LINE>inclination, after his undressed, unpolished,</LINE>
<LINE>uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather,</LINE>
<LINE>unlettered, or ratherest, unconfirmed fashion, to</LINE>
<LINE>insert again my haud credo for a deer.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DULL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I said the deer was not a haud credo; twas a pricket.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Twice-sod simplicity, his coctus!</LINE>
<LINE>O thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SIR NATHANIEL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred</LINE>
<LINE>in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he</LINE>
<LINE>hath not drunk ink: his intellect is not</LINE>
<LINE>replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in</LINE>
<LINE>the duller parts:</LINE>
<LINE>And such barren plants are set before us, that we</LINE>
<LINE>thankful should be,</LINE>
<LINE>Which we of taste and feeling are, for those parts that</LINE>
<LINE>do fructify in us more than he.</LINE>
<LINE>For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a fool,</LINE>
<LINE>So were there a patch set on learning, to see him in a school:</LINE>
<LINE>But omne bene, say I; being of an old father's mind,</LINE>
<LINE>Many can brook the weather that love not the wind.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DULL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You two are book-men: can you tell me by your wit</LINE>
<LINE>What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five</LINE>
<LINE>weeks old as yet?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Dictynna, goodman Dull; Dictynna, goodman Dull.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DULL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What is Dictynna?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SIR NATHANIEL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The moon was a month old when Adam was no more,</LINE>
<LINE>And raught not to five weeks when he came to</LINE>
<LINE>five-score.</LINE>
<LINE>The allusion holds in the exchange.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DULL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Tis true indeed; the collusion holds in the exchange.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>God comfort thy capacity! I say, the allusion holds</LINE>
<LINE>in the exchange.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DULL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And I say, the pollusion holds in the exchange; for</LINE>
<LINE>the moon is never but a month old: and I say beside</LINE>
<LINE>that, 'twas a pricket that the princess killed.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph</LINE>
<LINE>on the death of the deer? And, to humour the</LINE>
<LINE>ignorant, call I the deer the princess killed a pricket.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SIR NATHANIEL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Perge, good Master Holofernes, perge; so it shall</LINE>
<LINE>please you to abrogate scurrility.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I will something affect the letter, for it argues facility.</LINE>
<LINE>The preyful princess pierced and prick'd a pretty</LINE>
<LINE>pleasing pricket;</LINE>
<LINE>Some say a sore; but not a sore, till now made</LINE>
<LINE>sore with shooting.</LINE>
<LINE>The dogs did yell: put L to sore, then sorel jumps</LINE>
<LINE>from thicket;</LINE>
<LINE>Or pricket sore, or else sorel; the people fall a-hooting.</LINE>
<LINE>If sore be sore, then L to sore makes fifty sores</LINE>
<LINE>one sorel.</LINE>
<LINE>Of one sore I an hundred make by adding but one more L.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SIR NATHANIEL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A rare talent!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DULL</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Aside</STAGEDIR>  If a talent be a claw, look how he claws</LINE>
<LINE>him with a talent.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; a</LINE>
<LINE>foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures,</LINE>
<LINE>shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions,</LINE>
<LINE>revolutions: these are begot in the ventricle of</LINE>
<LINE>memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater, and</LINE>
<LINE>delivered upon the mellowing of occasion. But the</LINE>
<LINE>gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am</LINE>
<LINE>thankful for it.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SIR NATHANIEL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir, I praise the Lord for you; and so may my</LINE>
<LINE>parishioners; for their sons are well tutored by</LINE>
<LINE>you, and their daughters profit very greatly under</LINE>
<LINE>you: you are a good member of the commonwealth.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Mehercle, if their sons be ingenuous, they shall</LINE>
<LINE>want no instruction; if their daughters be capable,</LINE>
<LINE>I will put it to them: but vir sapit qui pauca</LINE>
<LINE>loquitur; a soul feminine saluteth us.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JAQUENETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>God give you good morrow, master Parson.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Master Parson, quasi pers-on. An if one should be</LINE>
<LINE>pierced, which is the one?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Marry, master schoolmaster, he that is likest to a hogshead.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Piercing a hogshead! a good lustre of conceit in a</LINE>
<LINE>tuft of earth; fire enough for a flint, pearl enough</LINE>
<LINE>for a swine: 'tis pretty; it is well.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JAQUENETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Good master Parson, be so good as read me this</LINE>
<LINE>letter: it was given me by Costard, and sent me</LINE>
<LINE>from Don Armado: I beseech you, read it.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Fauste, precor gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra</LINE>
<LINE>Ruminat,--and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! I</LINE>
<LINE>may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice;</LINE>
<LINE>Venetia, Venetia,</LINE>
<LINE>Chi non ti vede non ti pretia.</LINE>
<LINE>Old Mantuan, old Mantuan! who understandeth thee</LINE>
<LINE>not, loves thee not. Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa.</LINE>
<LINE>Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? or rather,</LINE>
<LINE>as Horace says in his--What, my soul, verses?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SIR NATHANIEL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, sir, and very learned.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Let me hear a staff, a stanze, a verse; lege, domine.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SIR NATHANIEL</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Reads</STAGEDIR></LINE>
<LINE>If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?</LINE>
<LINE>Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vow'd!</LINE>
<LINE>Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithful prove:</LINE>
<LINE>Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like</LINE>
<LINE>osiers bow'd.</LINE>
<LINE>Study his bias leaves and makes his book thine eyes,</LINE>
<LINE>Where all those pleasures live that art would</LINE>
<LINE>comprehend:</LINE>
<LINE>If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice;</LINE>
<LINE>Well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend,</LINE>
<LINE>All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder;</LINE>
<LINE>Which is to me some praise that I thy parts admire:</LINE>
<LINE>Thy eye Jove's lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder,</LINE>
<LINE>Which not to anger bent, is music and sweet fire.</LINE>
<LINE>Celestial as thou art, O, pardon, love, this wrong,</LINE>
<LINE>That sings heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You find not the apostraphas, and so miss the</LINE>
<LINE>accent: let me supervise the canzonet. Here are</LINE>
<LINE>only numbers ratified; but, for the elegancy,</LINE>
<LINE>facility, and golden cadence of poesy, caret.</LINE>
<LINE>Ovidius Naso was the man: and why, indeed, Naso,</LINE>
<LINE>but for smelling out the odouriferous flowers of</LINE>
<LINE>fancy, the jerks of invention? Imitari is nothing:</LINE>
<LINE>so doth the hound his master, the ape his keeper,</LINE>
<LINE>the tired horse his rider. But, damosella virgin,</LINE>
<LINE>was this directed to you?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JAQUENETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Biron, one of the strange</LINE>
<LINE>queen's lords.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I will overglance the superscript: 'To the</LINE>
<LINE>snow-white hand of the most beauteous Lady</LINE>
<LINE>Rosaline.' I will look again on the intellect of</LINE>
<LINE>the letter, for the nomination of the party writing</LINE>
<LINE>to the person written unto: 'Your ladyship's in all</LINE>
<LINE>desired employment, BIRON.' Sir Nathaniel, this</LINE>
<LINE>Biron is one of the votaries with the king; and here</LINE>
<LINE>he hath framed a letter to a sequent of the stranger</LINE>
<LINE>queen's, which accidentally, or by the way of</LINE>
<LINE>progression, hath miscarried. Trip and go, my</LINE>
<LINE>sweet; deliver this paper into the royal hand of the</LINE>
<LINE>king: it may concern much. Stay not thy</LINE>
<LINE>compliment; I forgive thy duty; adieu.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JAQUENETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Good Costard, go with me. Sir, God save your life!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Have with thee, my girl.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SIR NATHANIEL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very</LINE>
<LINE>religiously; and, as a certain father saith,--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir tell me not of the father; I do fear colourable</LINE>
<LINE>colours. But to return to the verses: did they</LINE>
<LINE>please you, Sir Nathaniel?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SIR NATHANIEL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Marvellous well for the pen.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I do dine to-day at the father's of a certain pupil</LINE>
<LINE>of mine; where, if, before repast, it shall please</LINE>
<LINE>you to gratify the table with a grace, I will, on my</LINE>
<LINE>privilege I have with the parents of the foresaid</LINE>
<LINE>child or pupil, undertake your ben venuto; where I</LINE>
<LINE>will prove those verses to be very unlearned,</LINE>
<LINE>neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention: I</LINE>
<LINE>beseech your society.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SIR NATHANIEL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And thank you too; for society, saith the text, is</LINE>
<LINE>the happiness of life.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And, certes, the text most infallibly concludes it.</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>To DULL</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>Sir, I do invite you too; you shall not</LINE>
<LINE>say me nay: pauca verba. Away! the gentles are at</LINE>
<LINE>their game, and we will to our recreation.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exeunt</STAGEDIR>
</SCENE>

<SCENE><TITLE>SCENE III.  The same.</TITLE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter BIRON, with a paper</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The king he is hunting the deer; I am coursing</LINE>
<LINE>myself: they have pitched a toil; I am toiling in</LINE>
<LINE>a pitch,--pitch that defiles: defile! a foul</LINE>
<LINE>word. Well, set thee down, sorrow! for so they say</LINE>
<LINE>the fool said, and so say I, and I the fool: well</LINE>
<LINE>proved, wit! By the Lord, this love is as mad as</LINE>
<LINE>Ajax: it kills sheep; it kills me, I a sheep:</LINE>
<LINE>well proved again o' my side! I will not love: if</LINE>
<LINE>I do, hang me; i' faith, I will not. O, but her</LINE>
<LINE>eye,--by this light, but for her eye, I would not</LINE>
<LINE>love her; yes, for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing</LINE>
<LINE>in the world but lie, and lie in my throat. By</LINE>
<LINE>heaven, I do love: and it hath taught me to rhyme</LINE>
<LINE>and to be melancholy; and here is part of my rhyme,</LINE>
<LINE>and here my melancholy. Well, she hath one o' my</LINE>
<LINE>sonnets already: the clown bore it, the fool sent</LINE>
<LINE>it, and the lady hath it: sweet clown, sweeter</LINE>
<LINE>fool, sweetest lady! By the world, I would not care</LINE>
<LINE>a pin, if the other three were in. Here comes one</LINE>
<LINE>with a paper: God give him grace to groan!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Stands aside</STAGEDIR>
<STAGEDIR>Enter FERDINAND, with a paper</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay me!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Aside</STAGEDIR>  Shot, by heaven! Proceed, sweet Cupid:</LINE>
<LINE>thou hast thumped him with thy bird-bolt under the</LINE>
<LINE>left pap. In faith, secrets!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Reads</STAGEDIR></LINE>
<LINE>So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not</LINE>
<LINE>To those fresh morning drops upon the rose,</LINE>
<LINE>As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote</LINE>
<LINE>The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows:</LINE>
<LINE>Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright</LINE>
<LINE>Through the transparent bosom of the deep,</LINE>
<LINE>As doth thy face through tears of mine give light;</LINE>
<LINE>Thou shinest in every tear that I do weep:</LINE>
<LINE>No drop but as a coach doth carry thee;</LINE>
<LINE>So ridest thou triumphing in my woe.</LINE>
<LINE>Do but behold the tears that swell in me,</LINE>
<LINE>And they thy glory through my grief will show:</LINE>
<LINE>But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep</LINE>
<LINE>My tears for glasses, and still make me weep.</LINE>
<LINE>O queen of queens! how far dost thou excel,</LINE>
<LINE>No thought can think, nor tongue of mortal tell.</LINE>
<LINE>How shall she know my griefs? I'll drop the paper:</LINE>
<LINE>Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here?</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>Steps aside</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>What, Longaville! and reading! listen, ear.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Now, in thy likeness, one more fool appear!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Enter LONGAVILLE, with a paper</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay me, I am forsworn!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>In love, I hope: sweet fellowship in shame!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>One drunkard loves another of the name.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Am I the first that have been perjured so?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I could put thee in comfort. Not by two that I know:</LINE>
<LINE>Thou makest the triumviry, the corner-cap of society,</LINE>
<LINE>The shape of Love's Tyburn that hangs up simplicity.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I fear these stubborn lines lack power to move:</LINE>
<LINE>O sweet Maria, empress of my love!</LINE>
<LINE>These numbers will I tear, and write in prose.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid's hose:</LINE>
<LINE>Disfigure not his slop.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>This same shall go.</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>Reads</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,</LINE>
<LINE>'Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,</LINE>
<LINE>Persuade my heart to this false perjury?</LINE>
<LINE>Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.</LINE>
<LINE>A woman I forswore; but I will prove,</LINE>
<LINE>Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee:</LINE>
<LINE>My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;</LINE>
<LINE>Thy grace being gain'd cures all disgrace in me.</LINE>
<LINE>Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is:</LINE>
<LINE>Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine,</LINE>
<LINE>Exhalest this vapour-vow; in thee it is:</LINE>
<LINE>If broken then, it is no fault of mine:</LINE>
<LINE>If by me broke, what fool is not so wise</LINE>
<LINE>To lose an oath to win a paradise?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>This is the liver-vein, which makes flesh a deity,</LINE>
<LINE>A green goose a goddess: pure, pure idolatry.</LINE>
<LINE>God amend us, God amend! we are much out o' the way.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>By whom shall I send this?--Company! stay.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Steps aside</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>All hid, all hid; an old infant play.</LINE>
<LINE>Like a demigod here sit I in the sky.</LINE>
<LINE>And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'ereye.</LINE>
<LINE>More sacks to the mill! O heavens, I have my wish!</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter DUMAIN, with a paper</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>Dumain transform'd! four woodcocks in a dish!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O most divine Kate!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O most profane coxcomb!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>By heaven, the wonder in a mortal eye!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>By earth, she is not, corporal, there you lie.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Her amber hair for foul hath amber quoted.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>An amber-colour'd raven was well noted.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>As upright as the cedar.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Stoop, I say;</LINE>
<LINE>Her shoulder is with child.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>As fair as day.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, as some days; but then no sun must shine.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O that I had my wish!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And I had mine!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And I mine too, good Lord!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Amen, so I had mine: is not that a good word?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I would forget her; but a fever she</LINE>
<LINE>Reigns in my blood and will remember'd be.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A fever in your blood! why, then incision</LINE>
<LINE>Would let her out in saucers: sweet misprision!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Once more I'll read the ode that I have writ.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Once more I'll mark how love can vary wit.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Reads</STAGEDIR></LINE>
<LINE>On a day--alack the day!--</LINE>
<LINE>Love, whose month is ever May,</LINE>
<LINE>Spied a blossom passing fair</LINE>
<LINE>Playing in the wanton air:</LINE>
<LINE>Through the velvet leaves the wind,</LINE>
<LINE>All unseen, can passage find;</LINE>
<LINE>That the lover, sick to death,</LINE>
<LINE>Wish himself the heaven's breath.</LINE>
<LINE>Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;</LINE>
<LINE>Air, would I might triumph so!</LINE>
<LINE>But, alack, my hand is sworn</LINE>
<LINE>Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn;</LINE>
<LINE>Vow, alack, for youth unmeet,</LINE>
<LINE>Youth so apt to pluck a sweet!</LINE>
<LINE>Do not call it sin in me,</LINE>
<LINE>That I am forsworn for thee;</LINE>
<LINE>Thou for whom Jove would swear</LINE>
<LINE>Juno but an Ethiope were;</LINE>
<LINE>And deny himself for Jove,</LINE>
<LINE>Turning mortal for thy love.</LINE>
<LINE>This will I send, and something else more plain,</LINE>
<LINE>That shall express my true love's fasting pain.</LINE>
<LINE>O, would the king, Biron, and Longaville,</LINE>
<LINE>Were lovers too! Ill, to example ill,</LINE>
<LINE>Would from my forehead wipe a perjured note;</LINE>
<LINE>For none offend where all alike do dote.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Advancing</STAGEDIR>  Dumain, thy love is far from charity.</LINE>
<LINE>You may look pale, but I should blush, I know,</LINE>
<LINE>To be o'erheard and taken napping so.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Advancing</STAGEDIR>  Come, sir, you blush; as his your case is such;</LINE>
<LINE>You chide at him, offending twice as much;</LINE>
<LINE>You do not love Maria; Longaville</LINE>
<LINE>Did never sonnet for her sake compile,</LINE>
<LINE>Nor never lay his wreathed arms athwart</LINE>
<LINE>His loving bosom to keep down his heart.</LINE>
<LINE>I have been closely shrouded in this bush</LINE>
<LINE>And mark'd you both and for you both did blush:</LINE>
<LINE>I heard your guilty rhymes, observed your fashion,</LINE>
<LINE>Saw sighs reek from you, noted well your passion:</LINE>
<LINE>Ay me! says one; O Jove! the other cries;</LINE>
<LINE>One, her hairs were gold, crystal the other's eyes:</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>To LONGAVILLE</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>You would for paradise break faith, and troth;</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>To DUMAIN</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath.</LINE>
<LINE>What will Biron say when that he shall hear</LINE>
<LINE>Faith so infringed, which such zeal did swear?</LINE>
<LINE>How will he scorn! how will he spend his wit!</LINE>
<LINE>How will he triumph, leap and laugh at it!</LINE>
<LINE>For all the wealth that ever I did see,</LINE>
<LINE>I would not have him know so much by me.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy.</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>Advancing</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>Ah, good my liege, I pray thee, pardon me!</LINE>
<LINE>Good heart, what grace hast thou, thus to reprove</LINE>
<LINE>These worms for loving, that art most in love?</LINE>
<LINE>Your eyes do make no coaches; in your tears</LINE>
<LINE>There is no certain princess that appears;</LINE>
<LINE>You'll not be perjured, 'tis a hateful thing;</LINE>
<LINE>Tush, none but minstrels like of sonneting!</LINE>
<LINE>But are you not ashamed? nay, are you not,</LINE>
<LINE>All three of you, to be thus much o'ershot?</LINE>
<LINE>You found his mote; the king your mote did see;</LINE>
<LINE>But I a beam do find in each of three.</LINE>
<LINE>O, what a scene of foolery have I seen,</LINE>
<LINE>Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow and of teen!</LINE>
<LINE>O me, with what strict patience have I sat,</LINE>
<LINE>To see a king transformed to a gnat!</LINE>
<LINE>To see great Hercules whipping a gig,</LINE>
<LINE>And profound Solomon to tune a jig,</LINE>
<LINE>And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys,</LINE>
<LINE>And critic Timon laugh at idle toys!</LINE>
<LINE>Where lies thy grief, O, tell me, good Dumain?</LINE>
<LINE>And gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain?</LINE>
<LINE>And where my liege's? all about the breast:</LINE>
<LINE>A caudle, ho!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Too bitter is thy jest.</LINE>
<LINE>Are we betray'd thus to thy over-view?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Not you to me, but I betray'd by you:</LINE>
<LINE>I, that am honest; I, that hold it sin</LINE>
<LINE>To break the vow I am engaged in;</LINE>
<LINE>I am betray'd, by keeping company</LINE>
<LINE>With men like men of inconstancy.</LINE>
<LINE>When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme?</LINE>
<LINE>Or groan for love? or spend a minute's time</LINE>
<LINE>In pruning me? When shall you hear that I</LINE>
<LINE>Will praise a hand, a foot, a face, an eye,</LINE>
<LINE>A gait, a state, a brow, a breast, a waist,</LINE>
<LINE>A leg, a limb?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Soft! whither away so fast?</LINE>
<LINE>A true man or a thief that gallops so?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I post from love: good lover, let me go.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JAQUENETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>God bless the king!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What present hast thou there?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Some certain treason.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What makes treason here?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Nay, it makes nothing, sir.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>If it mar nothing neither,</LINE>
<LINE>The treason and you go in peace away together.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JAQUENETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I beseech your grace, let this letter be read:</LINE>
<LINE>Our parson misdoubts it; 'twas treason, he said.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Biron, read it over.</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>Giving him the paper</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>Where hadst thou it?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JAQUENETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Of Costard.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Where hadst thou it?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>BIRON tears the letter</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How now! what is in you? why dost thou tear it?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A toy, my liege, a toy: your grace needs not fear it.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>It did move him to passion, and therefore let's hear it.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>It is Biron's writing, and here is his name.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Gathering up the pieces</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>To COSTARD</STAGEDIR>  Ah, you whoreson loggerhead! you were</LINE>
<LINE>born to do me shame.</LINE>
<LINE>Guilty, my lord, guilty! I confess, I confess.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That you three fools lack'd me fool to make up the mess:</LINE>
<LINE>He, he, and you, and you, my liege, and I,</LINE>
<LINE>Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die.</LINE>
<LINE>O, dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you more.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Now the number is even.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>True, true; we are four.</LINE>
<LINE>Will these turtles be gone?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Hence, sirs; away!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O, let us embrace!</LINE>
<LINE>As true we are as flesh and blood can be:</LINE>
<LINE>The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face;</LINE>
<LINE>Young blood doth not obey an old decree:</LINE>
<LINE>We cannot cross the cause why we were born;</LINE>
<LINE>Therefore of all hands must we be forsworn.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What, did these rent lines show some love of thine?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Did they, quoth you? Who sees the heavenly Rosaline,</LINE>
<LINE>That, like a rude and savage man of Inde,</LINE>
<LINE>At the first opening of the gorgeous east,</LINE>
<LINE>Bows not his vassal head and strucken blind</LINE>
<LINE>Kisses the base ground with obedient breast?</LINE>
<LINE>What peremptory eagle-sighted eye</LINE>
<LINE>Dares look upon the heaven of her brow,</LINE>
<LINE>That is not blinded by her majesty?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What zeal, what fury hath inspired thee now?</LINE>
<LINE>My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon;</LINE>
<LINE>She an attending star, scarce seen a light.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Biron:</LINE>
<LINE>O, but for my love, day would turn to night!</LINE>
<LINE>Of all complexions the cull'd sovereignty</LINE>
<LINE>Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek,</LINE>
<LINE>Where several worthies make one dignity,</LINE>
<LINE>Where nothing wants that want itself doth seek.</LINE>
<LINE>Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues,--</LINE>
<LINE>Fie, painted rhetoric! O, she needs it not:</LINE>
<LINE>To things of sale a seller's praise belongs,</LINE>
<LINE>She passes praise; then praise too short doth blot.</LINE>
<LINE>A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn,</LINE>
<LINE>Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye:</LINE>
<LINE>Beauty doth varnish age, as if new-born,</LINE>
<LINE>And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy:</LINE>
<LINE>O, 'tis the sun that maketh all things shine.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>By heaven, thy love is black as ebony.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Is ebony like her? O wood divine!</LINE>
<LINE>A wife of such wood were felicity.</LINE>
<LINE>O, who can give an oath? where is a book?</LINE>
<LINE>That I may swear beauty doth beauty lack,</LINE>
<LINE>If that she learn not of her eye to look:</LINE>
<LINE>No face is fair that is not full so black.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O paradox! Black is the badge of hell,</LINE>
<LINE>The hue of dungeons and the suit of night;</LINE>
<LINE>And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light.</LINE>
<LINE>O, if in black my lady's brows be deck'd,</LINE>
<LINE>It mourns that painting and usurping hair</LINE>
<LINE>Should ravish doters with a false aspect;</LINE>
<LINE>And therefore is she born to make black fair.</LINE>
<LINE>Her favour turns the fashion of the days,</LINE>
<LINE>For native blood is counted painting now;</LINE>
<LINE>And therefore red, that would avoid dispraise,</LINE>
<LINE>Paints itself black, to imitate her brow.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>To look like her are chimney-sweepers black.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And since her time are colliers counted bright.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And Ethiopes of their sweet complexion crack.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Your mistresses dare never come in rain,</LINE>
<LINE>For fear their colours should be wash'd away.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Twere good, yours did; for, sir, to tell you plain,</LINE>
<LINE>I'll find a fairer face not wash'd to-day.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I'll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No devil will fright thee then so much as she.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face see.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O, if the streets were paved with thine eyes,</LINE>
<LINE>Her feet were much too dainty for such tread!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O, vile! then, as she goes, what upward lies</LINE>
<LINE>The street should see as she walk'd overhead.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But what of this? are we not all in love?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Nothing so sure; and thereby all forsworn.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Then leave this chat; and, good Biron, now prove</LINE>
<LINE>Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, marry, there; some flattery for this evil.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O, some authority how to proceed;</LINE>
<LINE>Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Some salve for perjury.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Tis more than need.</LINE>
<LINE>Have at you, then, affection's men at arms.</LINE>
<LINE>Consider what you first did swear unto,</LINE>
<LINE>To fast, to study, and to see no woman;</LINE>
<LINE>Flat treason 'gainst the kingly state of youth.</LINE>
<LINE>Say, can you fast? your stomachs are too young;</LINE>
<LINE>And abstinence engenders maladies.</LINE>
<LINE>And where that you have vow'd to study, lords,</LINE>
<LINE>In that each of you have forsworn his book,</LINE>
<LINE>Can you still dream and pore and thereon look?</LINE>
<LINE>For when would you, my lord, or you, or you,</LINE>
<LINE>Have found the ground of study's excellence</LINE>
<LINE>Without the beauty of a woman's face?</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>From women's eyes this doctrine I derive;
They are the ground, the books, the academes
From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>Why, universal plodding poisons up</LINE>
<LINE>The nimble spirits in the arteries,</LINE>
<LINE>As motion and long-during action tires</LINE>
<LINE>The sinewy vigour of the traveller.</LINE>
<LINE>Now, for not looking on a woman's face,</LINE>
<LINE>You have in that forsworn the use of eyes</LINE>
<LINE>And study too, the causer of your vow;</LINE>
<LINE>For where is any author in the world</LINE>
<LINE>Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?</LINE>
<LINE>Learning is but an adjunct to ourself</LINE>
<LINE>And where we are our learning likewise is:</LINE>
<LINE>Then when ourselves we see in ladies' eyes,</LINE>
<LINE>Do we not likewise see our learning there?</LINE>
<LINE>O, we have made a vow to study, lords,</LINE>
<LINE>And in that vow we have forsworn our books.</LINE>
<LINE>For when would you, my liege, or you, or you,</LINE>
<LINE>In leaden contemplation have found out</LINE>
<LINE>Such fiery numbers as the prompting eyes</LINE>
<LINE>Of beauty's tutors have enrich'd you with?</LINE>
<LINE>Other slow arts entirely keep the brain;</LINE>
<LINE>And therefore, finding barren practisers,</LINE>
<LINE>Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil:</LINE>
<LINE>But love, first learned in a lady's eyes,</LINE>
<LINE>Lives not alone immured in the brain;</LINE>
<LINE>But, with the motion of all elements,</LINE>
<LINE>Courses as swift as thought in every power,</LINE>
<LINE>And gives to every power a double power,</LINE>
<LINE>Above their functions and their offices.</LINE>
<LINE>It adds a precious seeing to the eye;</LINE>
<LINE>A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind;</LINE>
<LINE>A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound,</LINE>
<LINE>When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd:</LINE>
<LINE>Love's feeling is more soft and sensible</LINE>
<LINE>Than are the tender horns of cockl'd snails;</LINE>
<LINE>Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste:</LINE>
<LINE>For valour, is not Love a Hercules,</LINE>
<LINE>Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?</LINE>
<LINE>Subtle as Sphinx; as sweet and musical</LINE>
<LINE>As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair:</LINE>
<LINE>And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods</LINE>
<LINE>Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.</LINE>
<LINE>Never durst poet touch a pen to write</LINE>
<LINE>Until his ink were temper'd with Love's sighs;</LINE>
<LINE>O, then his lines would ravish savage ears</LINE>
<LINE>And plant in tyrants mild humility.</LINE>
<LINE>From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:</LINE>
<LINE>They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;</LINE>
<LINE>They are the books, the arts, the academes,</LINE>
<LINE>That show, contain and nourish all the world:</LINE>
<LINE>Else none at all in ought proves excellent.</LINE>
<LINE>Then fools you were these women to forswear,</LINE>
<LINE>Or keeping what is sworn, you will prove fools.</LINE>
<LINE>For wisdom's sake, a word that all men love,</LINE>
<LINE>Or for love's sake, a word that loves all men,</LINE>
<LINE>Or for men's sake, the authors of these women,</LINE>
<LINE>Or women's sake, by whom we men are men,</LINE>
<LINE>Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves,</LINE>
<LINE>Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths.</LINE>
<LINE>It is religion to be thus forsworn,</LINE>
<LINE>For charity itself fulfills the law,</LINE>
<LINE>And who can sever love from charity?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Advance your standards, and upon them, lords;</LINE>
<LINE>Pell-mell, down with them! but be first advised,</LINE>
<LINE>In conflict that you get the sun of them.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Now to plain-dealing; lay these glozes by:</LINE>
<LINE>Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And win them too: therefore let us devise</LINE>
<LINE>Some entertainment for them in their tents.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>First, from the park let us conduct them thither;</LINE>
<LINE>Then homeward every man attach the hand</LINE>
<LINE>Of his fair mistress: in the afternoon</LINE>
<LINE>We will with some strange pastime solace them,</LINE>
<LINE>Such as the shortness of the time can shape;</LINE>
<LINE>For revels, dances, masks and merry hours</LINE>
<LINE>Forerun fair Love, strewing her way with flowers.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Away, away! no time shall be omitted</LINE>
<LINE>That will betime, and may by us be fitted.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Allons! allons! Sow'd cockle reap'd no corn;</LINE>
<LINE>And justice always whirls in equal measure:</LINE>
<LINE>Light wenches may prove plagues to men forsworn;</LINE>
<LINE>If so, our copper buys no better treasure.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exeunt</STAGEDIR>
</SCENE>

</ACT>

<ACT><TITLE>ACT V</TITLE>

<SCENE><TITLE>SCENE I.  The same.</TITLE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Satis quod sufficit.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SIR NATHANIEL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I praise God for you, sir: your reasons at dinner</LINE>
<LINE>have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without</LINE>
<LINE>scurrility, witty without affection, audacious without</LINE>
<LINE>impudency, learned without opinion, and strange with-</LINE>
<LINE>out heresy. I did converse this quondam day with</LINE>
<LINE>a companion of the king's, who is intituled, nomi-</LINE>
<LINE>nated, or called, Don Adriano de Armado.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Novi hominem tanquam te: his humour is lofty, his</LINE>
<LINE>discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye</LINE>
<LINE>ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general</LINE>
<LINE>behavior vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical. He is</LINE>
<LINE>too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it</LINE>
<LINE>were, too peregrinate, as I may call it.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SIR NATHANIEL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A most singular and choice epithet.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Draws out his table-book</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer</LINE>
<LINE>than the staple of his argument. I abhor such</LINE>
<LINE>fanatical phantasimes, such insociable and</LINE>
<LINE>point-devise companions; such rackers of</LINE>
<LINE>orthography, as to speak dout, fine, when he should</LINE>
<LINE>say doubt; det, when he should pronounce debt,--d,</LINE>
<LINE>e, b, t, not d, e, t: he clepeth a calf, cauf;</LINE>
<LINE>half, hauf; neighbour vocatur nebor; neigh</LINE>
<LINE>abbreviated ne. This is abhominable,--which he</LINE>
<LINE>would call abbominable: it insinuateth me of</LINE>
<LINE>insanie: anne intelligis, domine? to make frantic, lunatic.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SIR NATHANIEL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Laus Deo, bene intelligo.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Bon, bon, fort bon, Priscian! a little scratch'd,</LINE>
<LINE>'twill serve.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SIR NATHANIEL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Videsne quis venit?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Video, et gaudeo.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Enter DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO, MOTH, and COSTARD</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Chirrah!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>To MOTH</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Quare chirrah, not sirrah?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Men of peace, well encountered.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Most military sir, salutation.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Aside to COSTARD</STAGEDIR>  They have been at a great feast</LINE>
<LINE>of languages, and stolen the scraps.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O, they have lived long on the alms-basket of words.</LINE>
<LINE>I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word;</LINE>
<LINE>for thou art not so long by the head as</LINE>
<LINE>honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier</LINE>
<LINE>swallowed than a flap-dragon.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Peace! the peal begins.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>To HOLOFERNES</STAGEDIR>  Monsieur, are you not lettered?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Yes, yes; he teaches boys the hornbook. What is a,</LINE>
<LINE>b, spelt backward, with the horn on his head?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ba, pueritia, with a horn added.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ba, most silly sheep with a horn. You hear his learning.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Quis, quis, thou consonant?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The third of the five vowels, if you repeat them; or</LINE>
<LINE>the fifth, if I.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I will repeat them,--a, e, i,--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The sheep: the other two concludes it,--o, u.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum, a sweet</LINE>
<LINE>touch, a quick venue of wit! snip, snap, quick and</LINE>
<LINE>home! it rejoiceth my intellect: true wit!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Offered by a child to an old man; which is wit-old.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What is the figure? what is the figure?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Horns.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Thou disputest like an infant: go, whip thy gig.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about</LINE>
<LINE>your infamy circum circa,--a gig of a cuckold's horn.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst</LINE>
<LINE>have it to buy gingerbread: hold, there is the very</LINE>
<LINE>remuneration I had of thy master, thou halfpenny</LINE>
<LINE>purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of discretion. O, an</LINE>
<LINE>the heavens were so pleased that thou wert but my</LINE>
<LINE>bastard, what a joyful father wouldst thou make me!</LINE>
<LINE>Go to; thou hast it ad dunghill, at the fingers'</LINE>
<LINE>ends, as they say.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O, I smell false Latin; dunghill for unguem.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Arts-man, preambulate, we will be singled from the</LINE>
<LINE>barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the</LINE>
<LINE>charge-house on the top of the mountain?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Or mons, the hill.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I do, sans question.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir, it is the king's most sweet pleasure and</LINE>
<LINE>affection to congratulate the princess at her</LINE>
<LINE>pavilion in the posteriors of this day, which the</LINE>
<LINE>rude multitude call the afternoon.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is</LINE>
<LINE>liable, congruent and measurable for the afternoon:</LINE>
<LINE>the word is well culled, chose, sweet and apt, I do</LINE>
<LINE>assure you, sir, I do assure.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir, you shall present before her the Nine Worthies.</LINE>
<LINE>Sir, as concerning some entertainment of time, some</LINE>
<LINE>show in the posterior of this day, to be rendered by</LINE>
<LINE>our assistants, at the king's command, and this most</LINE>
<LINE>gallant, illustrate, and learned gentleman, before</LINE>
<LINE>the princess; I say none so fit as to present the</LINE>
<LINE>Nine Worthies.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SIR NATHANIEL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Where will you find men worthy enough to present them?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Joshua, yourself; myself and this gallant gentleman,</LINE>
<LINE>Judas Maccabaeus; this swain, because of his great</LINE>
<LINE>limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the Great; the</LINE>
<LINE>page, Hercules,--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Pardon, sir; error: he is not quantity enough for</LINE>
<LINE>that Worthy's thumb: he is not so big as the end of his club.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Shall I have audience? he shall present Hercules in</LINE>
<LINE>minority: his enter and exit shall be strangling a</LINE>
<LINE>snake; and I will have an apology for that purpose.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>An excellent device! so, if any of the audience</LINE>
<LINE>hiss, you may cry 'Well done, Hercules! now thou</LINE>
<LINE>crushest the snake!' that is the way to make an</LINE>
<LINE>offence gracious, though few have the grace to do it.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>For the rest of the Worthies?--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I will play three myself.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Thrice-worthy gentleman!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Shall I tell you a thing?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>We attend.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>We will have, if this fadge not, an antique. I</LINE>
<LINE>beseech you, follow.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Via, goodman Dull! thou hast spoken no word all this while.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DULL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Nor understood none neither, sir.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Allons! we will employ thee.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DULL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I'll make one in a dance, or so; or I will play</LINE>
<LINE>On the tabour to the Worthies, and let them dance the hay.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Most dull, honest Dull! To our sport, away!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exeunt</STAGEDIR>
</SCENE>

<SCENE><TITLE>SCENE II.  The same.</TITLE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter the PRINCESS, KATHARINE, ROSALINE, and MARIA</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart,</LINE>
<LINE>If fairings come thus plentifully in:</LINE>
<LINE>A lady wall'd about with diamonds!</LINE>
<LINE>Look you what I have from the loving king.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Madame, came nothing else along with that?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Nothing but this! yes, as much love in rhyme</LINE>
<LINE>As would be cramm'd up in a sheet of paper,</LINE>
<LINE>Writ o' both sides the leaf, margent and all,</LINE>
<LINE>That he was fain to seal on Cupid's name.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That was the way to make his godhead wax,</LINE>
<LINE>For he hath been five thousand years a boy.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>KATHARINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You'll ne'er be friends with him; a' kill'd your sister.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>KATHARINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy;</LINE>
<LINE>And so she died: had she been light, like you,</LINE>
<LINE>Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit,</LINE>
<LINE>She might ha' been a grandam ere she died:</LINE>
<LINE>And so may you; for a light heart lives long.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>KATHARINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A light condition in a beauty dark.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>We need more light to find your meaning out.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>KATHARINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You'll mar the light by taking it in snuff;</LINE>
<LINE>Therefore I'll darkly end the argument.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Look what you do, you do it still i' the dark.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>KATHARINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>So do not you, for you are a light wench.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Indeed I weigh not you, and therefore light.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>KATHARINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You weigh me not? O, that's you care not for me.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Great reason; for 'past cure is still past care.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Well bandied both; a set of wit well play'd.</LINE>
<LINE>But Rosaline, you have a favour too:</LINE>
<LINE>Who sent it? and what is it?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I would you knew:</LINE>
<LINE>An if my face were but as fair as yours,</LINE>
<LINE>My favour were as great; be witness this.</LINE>
<LINE>Nay, I have verses too, I thank Biron:</LINE>
<LINE>The numbers true; and, were the numbering too,</LINE>
<LINE>I were the fairest goddess on the ground:</LINE>
<LINE>I am compared to twenty thousand fairs.</LINE>
<LINE>O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Any thing like?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Much in the letters; nothing in the praise.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Beauteous as ink; a good conclusion.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>KATHARINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Fair as a text B in a copy-book.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Ware pencils, ho! let me not die your debtor,</LINE>
<LINE>My red dominical, my golden letter:</LINE>
<LINE>O, that your face were not so full of O's!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>KATHARINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A pox of that jest! and I beshrew all shrows.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But, Katharine, what was sent to you from fair Dumain?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>KATHARINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Madam, this glove.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Did he not send you twain?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>KATHARINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Yes, madam, and moreover</LINE>
<LINE>Some thousand verses of a faithful lover,</LINE>
<LINE>A huge translation of hypocrisy,</LINE>
<LINE>Vilely compiled, profound simplicity.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MARIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>This and these pearls to me sent Longaville:</LINE>
<LINE>The letter is too long by half a mile.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I think no less. Dost thou not wish in heart</LINE>
<LINE>The chain were longer and the letter short?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MARIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, or I would these hands might never part.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>We are wise girls to mock our lovers so.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>They are worse fools to purchase mocking so.</LINE>
<LINE>That same Biron I'll torture ere I go:</LINE>
<LINE>O that I knew he were but in by the week!</LINE>
<LINE>How I would make him fawn and beg and seek</LINE>
<LINE>And wait the season and observe the times</LINE>
<LINE>And spend his prodigal wits in bootless rhymes</LINE>
<LINE>And shape his service wholly to my hests</LINE>
<LINE>And make him proud to make me proud that jests!</LINE>
<LINE>So perttaunt-like would I o'ersway his state</LINE>
<LINE>That he should be my fool and I his fate.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>None are so surely caught, when they are catch'd,</LINE>
<LINE>As wit turn'd fool: folly, in wisdom hatch'd,</LINE>
<LINE>Hath wisdom's warrant and the help of school</LINE>
<LINE>And wit's own grace to grace a learned fool.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The blood of youth burns not with such excess</LINE>
<LINE>As gravity's revolt to wantonness.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MARIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Folly in fools bears not so strong a note</LINE>
<LINE>As foolery in the wise, when wit doth dote;</LINE>
<LINE>Since all the power thereof it doth apply</LINE>
<LINE>To prove, by wit, worth in simplicity.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Here comes Boyet, and mirth is in his face.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Enter BOYET</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O, I am stabb'd with laughter! Where's her grace?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Thy news Boyet?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Prepare, madam, prepare!</LINE>
<LINE>Arm, wenches, arm! encounters mounted are</LINE>
<LINE>Against your peace: Love doth approach disguised,</LINE>
<LINE>Armed in arguments; you'll be surprised:</LINE>
<LINE>Muster your wits; stand in your own defence;</LINE>
<LINE>Or hide your heads like cowards, and fly hence.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Saint Denis to Saint Cupid! What are they</LINE>
<LINE>That charge their breath against us? say, scout, say.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Under the cool shade of a sycamore</LINE>
<LINE>I thought to close mine eyes some half an hour;</LINE>
<LINE>When, lo! to interrupt my purposed rest,</LINE>
<LINE>Toward that shade I might behold addrest</LINE>
<LINE>The king and his companions: warily</LINE>
<LINE>I stole into a neighbour thicket by,</LINE>
<LINE>And overheard what you shall overhear,</LINE>
<LINE>That, by and by, disguised they will be here.</LINE>
<LINE>Their herald is a pretty knavish page,</LINE>
<LINE>That well by heart hath conn'd his embassage:</LINE>
<LINE>Action and accent did they teach him there;</LINE>
<LINE>'Thus must thou speak,' and 'thus thy body bear:'</LINE>
<LINE>And ever and anon they made a doubt</LINE>
<LINE>Presence majestical would put him out,</LINE>
<LINE>'For,' quoth the king, 'an angel shalt thou see;</LINE>
<LINE>Yet fear not thou, but speak audaciously.'</LINE>
<LINE>The boy replied, 'An angel is not evil;</LINE>
<LINE>I should have fear'd her had she been a devil.'</LINE>
<LINE>With that, all laugh'd and clapp'd him on the shoulder,</LINE>
<LINE>Making the bold wag by their praises bolder:</LINE>
<LINE>One rubb'd his elbow thus, and fleer'd and swore</LINE>
<LINE>A better speech was never spoke before;</LINE>
<LINE>Another, with his finger and his thumb,</LINE>
<LINE>Cried, 'Via! we will do't, come what will come;'</LINE>
<LINE>The third he caper'd, and cried, 'All goes well;'</LINE>
<LINE>The fourth turn'd on the toe, and down he fell.</LINE>
<LINE>With that, they all did tumble on the ground,</LINE>
<LINE>With such a zealous laughter, so profound,</LINE>
<LINE>That in this spleen ridiculous appears,</LINE>
<LINE>To cheque their folly, passion's solemn tears.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But what, but what, come they to visit us?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>They do, they do: and are apparell'd thus.</LINE>
<LINE>Like Muscovites or Russians, as I guess.</LINE>
<LINE>Their purpose is to parle, to court and dance;</LINE>
<LINE>And every one his love-feat will advance</LINE>
<LINE>Unto his several mistress, which they'll know</LINE>
<LINE>By favours several which they did bestow.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And will they so? the gallants shall be task'd;</LINE>
<LINE>For, ladies, we shall every one be mask'd;</LINE>
<LINE>And not a man of them shall have the grace,</LINE>
<LINE>Despite of suit, to see a lady's face.</LINE>
<LINE>Hold, Rosaline, this favour thou shalt wear,</LINE>
<LINE>And then the king will court thee for his dear;</LINE>
<LINE>Hold, take thou this, my sweet, and give me thine,</LINE>
<LINE>So shall Biron take me for Rosaline.</LINE>
<LINE>And change your favours too; so shall your loves</LINE>
<LINE>Woo contrary, deceived by these removes.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Come on, then; wear the favours most in sight.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>KATHARINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But in this changing what is your intent?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The effect of my intent is to cross theirs:</LINE>
<LINE>They do it but in mocking merriment;</LINE>
<LINE>And mock for mock is only my intent.</LINE>
<LINE>Their several counsels they unbosom shall</LINE>
<LINE>To loves mistook, and so be mock'd withal</LINE>
<LINE>Upon the next occasion that we meet,</LINE>
<LINE>With visages displayed, to talk and greet.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But shall we dance, if they desire to't?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No, to the death, we will not move a foot;</LINE>
<LINE>Nor to their penn'd speech render we no grace,</LINE>
<LINE>But while 'tis spoke each turn away her face.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, that contempt will kill the speaker's heart,</LINE>
<LINE>And quite divorce his memory from his part.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Therefore I do it; and I make no doubt</LINE>
<LINE>The rest will ne'er come in, if he be out</LINE>
<LINE>There's no such sport as sport by sport o'erthrown,</LINE>
<LINE>To make theirs ours and ours none but our own:</LINE>
<LINE>So shall we stay, mocking intended game,</LINE>
<LINE>And they, well mock'd, depart away with shame.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Trumpets sound within</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The trumpet sounds: be mask'd; the maskers come.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>The Ladies mask</STAGEDIR>
<STAGEDIR>Enter Blackamoors with music; MOTH; FERDINAND,
BIRON, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN, in Russian habits,
and masked</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>All hail, the richest beauties on the earth!--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Beauties no richer than rich taffeta.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A holy parcel of the fairest dames.</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>The Ladies turn their backs to him</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>That ever turn'd their--backs--to mortal views!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Aside to MOTH</STAGEDIR>  Their eyes, villain, their eyes!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That ever turn'd their eyes to mortal views!--Out--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>True; out indeed.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Out of your favours, heavenly spirits, vouchsafe</LINE>
<LINE>Not to behold--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Aside to MOTH</STAGEDIR>  Once to behold, rogue.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Once to behold with your sun-beamed eyes,</LINE>
<LINE>--with your sun-beamed eyes--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>They will not answer to that epithet;</LINE>
<LINE>You were best call it 'daughter-beamed eyes.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>They do not mark me, and that brings me out.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Is this your perfectness? be gone, you rogue!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exit MOTH</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What would these strangers? know their minds, Boyet:</LINE>
<LINE>If they do speak our language, 'tis our will:</LINE>
<LINE>That some plain man recount their purposes</LINE>
<LINE>Know what they would.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What would you with the princess?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Nothing but peace and gentle visitation.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What would they, say they?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Nothing but peace and gentle visitation.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, that they have; and bid them so be gone.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>She says, you have it, and you may be gone.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Say to her, we have measured many miles</LINE>
<LINE>To tread a measure with her on this grass.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>They say, that they have measured many a mile</LINE>
<LINE>To tread a measure with you on this grass.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>It is not so. Ask them how many inches</LINE>
<LINE>Is in one mile: if they have measured many,</LINE>
<LINE>The measure then of one is easily told.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>If to come hither you have measured miles,</LINE>
<LINE>And many miles, the princess bids you tell</LINE>
<LINE>How many inches doth fill up one mile.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Tell her, we measure them by weary steps.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>She hears herself.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How many weary steps,</LINE>
<LINE>Of many weary miles you have o'ergone,</LINE>
<LINE>Are number'd in the travel of one mile?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>We number nothing that we spend for you:</LINE>
<LINE>Our duty is so rich, so infinite,</LINE>
<LINE>That we may do it still without accompt.</LINE>
<LINE>Vouchsafe to show the sunshine of your face,</LINE>
<LINE>That we, like savages, may worship it.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>My face is but a moon, and clouded too.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Blessed are clouds, to do as such clouds do!</LINE>
<LINE>Vouchsafe, bright moon, and these thy stars, to shine,</LINE>
<LINE>Those clouds removed, upon our watery eyne.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O vain petitioner! beg a greater matter;</LINE>
<LINE>Thou now request'st but moonshine in the water.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Then, in our measure do but vouchsafe one change.</LINE>
<LINE>Thou bid'st me beg: this begging is not strange.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Play, music, then! Nay, you must do it soon.</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>Music plays</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>Not yet! no dance! Thus change I like the moon.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Will you not dance? How come you thus estranged?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You took the moon at full, but now she's changed.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Yet still she is the moon, and I the man.</LINE>
<LINE>The music plays; vouchsafe some motion to it.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Our ears vouchsafe it.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But your legs should do it.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Since you are strangers and come here by chance,</LINE>
<LINE>We'll not be nice: take hands. We will not dance.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why take we hands, then?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Only to part friends:</LINE>
<LINE>Curtsy, sweet hearts; and so the measure ends.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>More measure of this measure; be not nice.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>We can afford no more at such a price.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Prize you yourselves: what buys your company?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Your absence only.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That can never be.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Then cannot we be bought: and so, adieu;</LINE>
<LINE>Twice to your visor, and half once to you.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>If you deny to dance, let's hold more chat.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>In private, then.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I am best pleased with that.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>They converse apart</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>White-handed mistress, one sweet word with thee.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Honey, and milk, and sugar; there is three.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Nay then, two treys, and if you grow so nice,</LINE>
<LINE>Metheglin, wort, and malmsey: well run, dice!</LINE>
<LINE>There's half-a-dozen sweets.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Seventh sweet, adieu:</LINE>
<LINE>Since you can cog, I'll play no more with you.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>One word in secret.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Let it not be sweet.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Thou grievest my gall.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Gall! bitter.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Therefore meet.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>They converse apart</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Will you vouchsafe with me to change a word?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MARIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Name it.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Fair lady,--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MARIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Say you so? Fair lord,--</LINE>
<LINE>Take that for your fair lady.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Please it you,</LINE>
<LINE>As much in private, and I'll bid adieu.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>They converse apart</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>KATHARINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What, was your vizard made without a tongue?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I know the reason, lady, why you ask.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>KATHARINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O for your reason! quickly, sir; I long.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You have a double tongue within your mask,</LINE>
<LINE>And would afford my speechless vizard half.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>KATHARINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Veal, quoth the Dutchman. Is not 'veal' a calf?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A calf, fair lady!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>KATHARINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No, a fair lord calf.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Let's part the word.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>KATHARINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No, I'll not be your half</LINE>
<LINE>Take all, and wean it; it may prove an ox.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Look, how you butt yourself in these sharp mocks!</LINE>
<LINE>Will you give horns, chaste lady? do not so.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>KATHARINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Then die a calf, before your horns do grow.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>One word in private with you, ere I die.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>KATHARINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Bleat softly then; the butcher hears you cry.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>They converse apart</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen</LINE>
<LINE>As is the razor's edge invisible,</LINE>
<LINE>Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen,</LINE>
<LINE>Above the sense of sense; so sensible</LINE>
<LINE>Seemeth their conference; their conceits have wings</LINE>
<LINE>Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter things.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Not one word more, my maids; break off, break off.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>By heaven, all dry-beaten with pure scoff!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Farewell, mad wenches; you have simple wits.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Twenty adieus, my frozen Muscovits.</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>Exeunt FERDINAND, Lords, and Blackamoors</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>Are these the breed of wits so wonder'd at?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Tapers they are, with your sweet breaths puff'd out.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Well-liking wits they have; gross, gross; fat, fat.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O poverty in wit, kingly-poor flout!</LINE>
<LINE>Will they not, think you, hang themselves tonight?</LINE>
<LINE>Or ever, but in vizards, show their faces?</LINE>
<LINE>This pert Biron was out of countenance quite.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O, they were all in lamentable cases!</LINE>
<LINE>The king was weeping-ripe for a good word.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Biron did swear himself out of all suit.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MARIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Dumain was at my service, and his sword:</LINE>
<LINE>No point, quoth I; my servant straight was mute.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>KATHARINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Lord Longaville said, I came o'er his heart;</LINE>
<LINE>And trow you what he called me?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Qualm, perhaps.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>KATHARINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Yes, in good faith.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Go, sickness as thou art!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Well, better wits have worn plain statute-caps.</LINE>
<LINE>But will you hear? the king is my love sworn.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And quick Biron hath plighted faith to me.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>KATHARINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And Longaville was for my service born.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MARIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Dumain is mine, as sure as bark on tree.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Madam, and pretty mistresses, give ear:</LINE>
<LINE>Immediately they will again be here</LINE>
<LINE>In their own shapes; for it can never be</LINE>
<LINE>They will digest this harsh indignity.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Will they return?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>They will, they will, God knows,</LINE>
<LINE>And leap for joy, though they are lame with blows:</LINE>
<LINE>Therefore change favours; and, when they repair,</LINE>
<LINE>Blow like sweet roses in this summer air.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How blow? how blow? speak to be understood.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Fair ladies mask'd are roses in their bud;</LINE>
<LINE>Dismask'd, their damask sweet commixture shown,</LINE>
<LINE>Are angels vailing clouds, or roses blown.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Avaunt, perplexity! What shall we do,</LINE>
<LINE>If they return in their own shapes to woo?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Good madam, if by me you'll be advised,</LINE>
<LINE>Let's, mock them still, as well known as disguised:</LINE>
<LINE>Let us complain to them what fools were here,</LINE>
<LINE>Disguised like Muscovites, in shapeless gear;</LINE>
<LINE>And wonder what they were and to what end</LINE>
<LINE>Their shallow shows and prologue vilely penn'd</LINE>
<LINE>And their rough carriage so ridiculous,</LINE>
<LINE>Should be presented at our tent to us.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ladies, withdraw: the gallants are at hand.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Whip to our tents, as roes run o'er land.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exeunt PRINCESS, ROSALINE, KATHARINE, and MARIA</STAGEDIR>
<STAGEDIR>Re-enter FERDINAND, BIRON, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN,
in their proper habits</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Fair sir, God save you! Where's the princess?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Gone to her tent. Please it your majesty</LINE>
<LINE>Command me any service to her thither?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That she vouchsafe me audience for one word.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I will; and so will she, I know, my lord.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exit</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>This fellow pecks up wit as pigeons pease,</LINE>
<LINE>And utters it again when God doth please:</LINE>
<LINE>He is wit's pedler, and retails his wares</LINE>
<LINE>At wakes and wassails, meetings, markets, fairs;</LINE>
<LINE>And we that sell by gross, the Lord doth know,</LINE>
<LINE>Have not the grace to grace it with such show.</LINE>
<LINE>This gallant pins the wenches on his sleeve;</LINE>
<LINE>Had he been Adam, he had tempted Eve;</LINE>
<LINE>A' can carve too, and lisp: why, this is he</LINE>
<LINE>That kiss'd his hand away in courtesy;</LINE>
<LINE>This is the ape of form, monsieur the nice,</LINE>
<LINE>That, when he plays at tables, chides the dice</LINE>
<LINE>In honourable terms: nay, he can sing</LINE>
<LINE>A mean most meanly; and in ushering</LINE>
<LINE>Mend him who can: the ladies call him sweet;</LINE>
<LINE>The stairs, as he treads on them, kiss his feet:</LINE>
<LINE>This is the flower that smiles on every one,</LINE>
<LINE>To show his teeth as white as whale's bone;</LINE>
<LINE>And consciences, that will not die in debt,</LINE>
<LINE>Pay him the due of honey-tongued Boyet.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A blister on his sweet tongue, with my heart,</LINE>
<LINE>That put Armado's page out of his part!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>See where it comes! Behavior, what wert thou</LINE>
<LINE>Till this madman show'd thee? and what art thou now?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Re-enter the PRINCESS, ushered by BOYET, ROSALINE,
MARIA, and KATHARINE</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>All hail, sweet madam, and fair time of day!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Fair' in 'all hail' is foul, as I conceive.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Construe my speeches better, if you may.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Then wish me better; I will give you leave.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>We came to visit you, and purpose now</LINE>
<LINE>To lead you to our court; vouchsafe it then.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>This field shall hold me; and so hold your vow:</LINE>
<LINE>Nor God, nor I, delights in perjured men.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Rebuke me not for that which you provoke:</LINE>
<LINE>The virtue of your eye must break my oath.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You nickname virtue; vice you should have spoke;</LINE>
<LINE>For virtue's office never breaks men's troth.</LINE>
<LINE>Now by my maiden honour, yet as pure</LINE>
<LINE>As the unsullied lily, I protest,</LINE>
<LINE>A world of torments though I should endure,</LINE>
<LINE>I would not yield to be your house's guest;</LINE>
<LINE>So much I hate a breaking cause to be</LINE>
<LINE>Of heavenly oaths, vow'd with integrity.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O, you have lived in desolation here,</LINE>
<LINE>Unseen, unvisited, much to our shame.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Not so, my lord; it is not so, I swear;</LINE>
<LINE>We have had pastimes here and pleasant game:</LINE>
<LINE>A mess of Russians left us but of late.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How, madam! Russians!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, in truth, my lord;</LINE>
<LINE>Trim gallants, full of courtship and of state.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Madam, speak true. It is not so, my lord:</LINE>
<LINE>My lady, to the manner of the days,</LINE>
<LINE>In courtesy gives undeserving praise.</LINE>
<LINE>We four indeed confronted were with four</LINE>
<LINE>In Russian habit: here they stay'd an hour,</LINE>
<LINE>And talk'd apace; and in that hour, my lord,</LINE>
<LINE>They did not bless us with one happy word.</LINE>
<LINE>I dare not call them fools; but this I think,</LINE>
<LINE>When they are thirsty, fools would fain have drink.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>This jest is dry to me. Fair gentle sweet,</LINE>
<LINE>Your wit makes wise things foolish: when we greet,</LINE>
<LINE>With eyes best seeing, heaven's fiery eye,</LINE>
<LINE>By light we lose light: your capacity</LINE>
<LINE>Is of that nature that to your huge store</LINE>
<LINE>Wise things seem foolish and rich things but poor.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>This proves you wise and rich, for in my eye,--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I am a fool, and full of poverty.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But that you take what doth to you belong,</LINE>
<LINE>It were a fault to snatch words from my tongue.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O, I am yours, and all that I possess!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>All the fool mine?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I cannot give you less.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Which of the vizards was it that you wore?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Where? when? what vizard? why demand you this?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>There, then, that vizard; that superfluous case</LINE>
<LINE>That hid the worse and show'd the better face.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>We are descried; they'll mock us now downright.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Let us confess and turn it to a jest.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Amazed, my lord? why looks your highness sad?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Help, hold his brows! he'll swoon! Why look you pale?</LINE>
<LINE>Sea-sick, I think, coming from Muscovy.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Thus pour the stars down plagues for perjury.</LINE>
<LINE>Can any face of brass hold longer out?</LINE>
<LINE>Here stand I lady, dart thy skill at me;</LINE>
<LINE>Bruise me with scorn, confound me with a flout;</LINE>
<LINE>Thrust thy sharp wit quite through my ignorance;</LINE>
<LINE>Cut me to pieces with thy keen conceit;</LINE>
<LINE>And I will wish thee never more to dance,</LINE>
<LINE>Nor never more in Russian habit wait.</LINE>
<LINE>O, never will I trust to speeches penn'd,</LINE>
<LINE>Nor to the motion of a schoolboy's tongue,</LINE>
<LINE>Nor never come in vizard to my friend,</LINE>
<LINE>Nor woo in rhyme, like a blind harper's song!</LINE>
<LINE>Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise,</LINE>
<LINE>Three-piled hyperboles, spruce affectation,</LINE>
<LINE>Figures pedantical; these summer-flies</LINE>
<LINE>Have blown me full of maggot ostentation:</LINE>
<LINE>I do forswear them; and I here protest,</LINE>
<LINE>By this white glove;--how white the hand, God knows!--</LINE>
<LINE>Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express'd</LINE>
<LINE>In russet yeas and honest kersey noes:</LINE>
<LINE>And, to begin, wench,--so God help me, la!--</LINE>
<LINE>My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sans sans, I pray you.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Yet I have a trick</LINE>
<LINE>Of the old rage: bear with me, I am sick;</LINE>
<LINE>I'll leave it by degrees. Soft, let us see:</LINE>
<LINE>Write, 'Lord have mercy on us' on those three;</LINE>
<LINE>They are infected; in their hearts it lies;</LINE>
<LINE>They have the plague, and caught it of your eyes;</LINE>
<LINE>These lords are visited; you are not free,</LINE>
<LINE>For the Lord's tokens on you do I see.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No, they are free that gave these tokens to us.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Our states are forfeit: seek not to undo us.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>It is not so; for how can this be true,</LINE>
<LINE>That you stand forfeit, being those that sue?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Peace! for I will not have to do with you.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Nor shall not, if I do as I intend.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Speak for yourselves; my wit is at an end.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Teach us, sweet madam, for our rude transgression</LINE>
<LINE>Some fair excuse.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The fairest is confession.</LINE>
<LINE>Were not you here but even now disguised?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Madam, I was.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And were you well advised?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I was, fair madam.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>When you then were here,</LINE>
<LINE>What did you whisper in your lady's ear?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That more than all the world I did respect her.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>When she shall challenge this, you will reject her.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Upon mine honour, no.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Peace, peace! forbear:</LINE>
<LINE>Your oath once broke, you force not to forswear.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Despise me, when I break this oath of mine.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I will: and therefore keep it. Rosaline,</LINE>
<LINE>What did the Russian whisper in your ear?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Madam, he swore that he did hold me dear</LINE>
<LINE>As precious eyesight, and did value me</LINE>
<LINE>Above this world; adding thereto moreover</LINE>
<LINE>That he would wed me, or else die my lover.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>God give thee joy of him! the noble lord</LINE>
<LINE>Most honourably doth unhold his word.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What mean you, madam? by my life, my troth,</LINE>
<LINE>I never swore this lady such an oath.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>By heaven, you did; and to confirm it plain,</LINE>
<LINE>You gave me this: but take it, sir, again.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>My faith and this the princess I did give:</LINE>
<LINE>I knew her by this jewel on her sleeve.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Pardon me, sir, this jewel did she wear;</LINE>
<LINE>And Lord Biron, I thank him, is my dear.</LINE>
<LINE>What, will you have me, or your pearl again?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Neither of either; I remit both twain.</LINE>
<LINE>I see the trick on't: here was a consent,</LINE>
<LINE>Knowing aforehand of our merriment,</LINE>
<LINE>To dash it like a Christmas comedy:</LINE>
<LINE>Some carry-tale, some please-man, some slight zany,</LINE>
<LINE>Some mumble-news, some trencher-knight, some Dick,</LINE>
<LINE>That smiles his cheek in years and knows the trick</LINE>
<LINE>To make my lady laugh when she's disposed,</LINE>
<LINE>Told our intents before; which once disclosed,</LINE>
<LINE>The ladies did change favours: and then we,</LINE>
<LINE>Following the signs, woo'd but the sign of she.</LINE>
<LINE>Now, to our perjury to add more terror,</LINE>
<LINE>We are again forsworn, in will and error.</LINE>
<LINE>Much upon this it is: and might not you</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>To BOYET</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>Forestall our sport, to make us thus untrue?</LINE>
<LINE>Do not you know my lady's foot by the squier,</LINE>
<LINE>And laugh upon the apple of her eye?</LINE>
<LINE>And stand between her back, sir, and the fire,</LINE>
<LINE>Holding a trencher, jesting merrily?</LINE>
<LINE>You put our page out: go, you are allow'd;</LINE>
<LINE>Die when you will, a smock shall be your shroud.</LINE>
<LINE>You leer upon me, do you? there's an eye</LINE>
<LINE>Wounds like a leaden sword.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Full merrily</LINE>
<LINE>Hath this brave manage, this career, been run.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Lo, he is tilting straight! Peace! I have done.</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter COSTARD</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>Welcome, pure wit! thou partest a fair fray.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O Lord, sir, they would know</LINE>
<LINE>Whether the three Worthies shall come in or no.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What, are there but three?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No, sir; but it is vara fine,</LINE>
<LINE>For every one pursents three.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And three times thrice is nine.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Not so, sir; under correction, sir; I hope it is not so.</LINE>
<LINE>You cannot beg us, sir, I can assure you, sir we know</LINE>
<LINE>what we know:</LINE>
<LINE>I hope, sir, three times thrice, sir,--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Is not nine.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Under correction, sir, we know whereuntil it doth amount.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>By Jove, I always took three threes for nine.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O Lord, sir, it were pity you should get your living</LINE>
<LINE>by reckoning, sir.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How much is it?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O Lord, sir, the parties themselves, the actors,</LINE>
<LINE>sir, will show whereuntil it doth amount: for mine</LINE>
<LINE>own part, I am, as they say, but to parfect one man</LINE>
<LINE>in one poor man, Pompion the Great, sir.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Art thou one of the Worthies?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>It pleased them to think me worthy of Pompion the</LINE>
<LINE>Great: for mine own part, I know not the degree of</LINE>
<LINE>the Worthy, but I am to stand for him.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Go, bid them prepare.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>We will turn it finely off, sir; we will take</LINE>
<LINE>some care.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exit</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Biron, they will shame us: let them not approach.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>We are shame-proof, my lord: and tis some policy</LINE>
<LINE>To have one show worse than the king's and his company.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I say they shall not come.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Nay, my good lord, let me o'errule you now:</LINE>
<LINE>That sport best pleases that doth least know how:</LINE>
<LINE>Where zeal strives to content, and the contents</LINE>
<LINE>Dies in the zeal of that which it presents:</LINE>
<LINE>Their form confounded makes most form in mirth,</LINE>
<LINE>When great things labouring perish in their birth.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A right description of our sport, my lord.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Enter DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Anointed, I implore so much expense of thy royal</LINE>
<LINE>sweet breath as will utter a brace of words.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Converses apart with FERDINAND, and delivers him a paper</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Doth this man serve God?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why ask you?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>He speaks not like a man of God's making.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That is all one, my fair, sweet, honey monarch; for,</LINE>
<LINE>I protest, the schoolmaster is exceeding</LINE>
<LINE>fantastical; too, too vain, too too vain: but we</LINE>
<LINE>will put it, as they say, to fortuna de la guerra.</LINE>
<LINE>I wish you the peace of mind, most royal couplement!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exit</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Here is like to be a good presence of Worthies. He</LINE>
<LINE>presents Hector of Troy; the swain, Pompey the</LINE>
<LINE>Great; the parish curate, Alexander; Armado's page,</LINE>
<LINE>Hercules; the pedant, Judas Maccabaeus: And if</LINE>
<LINE>these four Worthies in their first show thrive,</LINE>
<LINE>These four will change habits, and present the other five.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>There is five in the first show.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You are deceived; 'tis not so.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The pedant, the braggart, the hedge-priest, the fool</LINE>
<LINE>and the boy:--</LINE>
<LINE>Abate throw at novum, and the whole world again</LINE>
<LINE>Cannot pick out five such, take each one in his vein.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The ship is under sail, and here she comes amain.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Enter COSTARD, for Pompey</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I Pompey am,--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You lie, you are not he.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I Pompey am,--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>With libbard's head on knee.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Well said, old mocker: I must needs be friends</LINE>
<LINE>with thee.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I Pompey am, Pompey surnamed the Big--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The Great.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>It is, 'Great,' sir:--</LINE>
<LINE>Pompey surnamed the Great;</LINE>
<LINE>That oft in field, with targe and shield, did make</LINE>
<LINE>my foe to sweat:</LINE>
<LINE>And travelling along this coast, I here am come by chance,</LINE>
<LINE>And lay my arms before the legs of this sweet lass of France,</LINE>
<LINE>If your ladyship would say, 'Thanks, Pompey,' I had done.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Great thanks, great Pompey.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Tis not so much worth; but I hope I was perfect: I</LINE>
<LINE>made a little fault in 'Great.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>My hat to a halfpenny, Pompey proves the best Worthy.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Enter SIR NATHANIEL, for Alexander</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SIR NATHANIEL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>When in the world I lived, I was the world's</LINE>
<LINE>commander;</LINE>
<LINE>By east, west, north, and south, I spread my</LINE>
<LINE>conquering might:</LINE>
<LINE>My scutcheon plain declares that I am Alisander,--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Your nose says, no, you are not for it stands too right.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Your nose smells 'no' in this, most tender-smelling knight.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The conqueror is dismay'd. Proceed, good Alexander.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SIR NATHANIEL</SPEAKER>
<LINE>When in the world I lived, I was the world's</LINE>
<LINE>commander,--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Most true, 'tis right; you were so, Alisander.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Pompey the Great,--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Your servant, and Costard.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Take away the conqueror, take away Alisander.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>To SIR NATHANIEL</STAGEDIR>  O, sir, you have overthrown</LINE>
<LINE>Alisander the conqueror! You will be scraped out of</LINE>
<LINE>the painted cloth for this: your lion, that holds</LINE>
<LINE>his poll-axe sitting on a close-stool, will be given</LINE>
<LINE>to Ajax: he will be the ninth Worthy. A conqueror,</LINE>
<LINE>and afeard to speak! run away for shame, Alisander.</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>SIR NATHANIEL retires</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>There, an't shall please you; a foolish mild man; an</LINE>
<LINE>honest man, look you, and soon dashed. He is a</LINE>
<LINE>marvellous good neighbour, faith, and a very good</LINE>
<LINE>bowler: but, for Alisander,--alas, you see how</LINE>
<LINE>'tis,--a little o'erparted. But there are Worthies</LINE>
<LINE>a-coming will speak their mind in some other sort.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Enter HOLOFERNES, for Judas; and MOTH, for Hercules</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Great Hercules is presented by this imp,</LINE>
<LINE>Whose club kill'd Cerberus, that three-headed canis;</LINE>
<LINE>And when he was a babe, a child, a shrimp,</LINE>
<LINE>Thus did he strangle serpents in his manus.</LINE>
<LINE>Quoniam he seemeth in minority,</LINE>
<LINE>Ergo I come with this apology.</LINE>
<LINE>Keep some state in thy exit, and vanish.</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>MOTH retires</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>Judas I am,--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A Judas!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Not Iscariot, sir.</LINE>
<LINE>Judas I am, ycliped Maccabaeus.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Judas Maccabaeus clipt is plain Judas.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A kissing traitor. How art thou proved Judas?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Judas I am,--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The more shame for you, Judas.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What mean you, sir?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>To make Judas hang himself.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Begin, sir; you are my elder.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Well followed: Judas was hanged on an elder.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I will not be put out of countenance.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Because thou hast no face.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What is this?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A cittern-head.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The head of a bodkin.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A Death's face in a ring.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The face of an old Roman coin, scarce seen.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The pommel of Caesar's falchion.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The carved-bone face on a flask.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Saint George's half-cheek in a brooch.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, and in a brooch of lead.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, and worn in the cap of a tooth-drawer.</LINE>
<LINE>And now forward; for we have put thee in countenance.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You have put me out of countenance.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>False; we have given thee faces.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But you have out-faced them all.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>An thou wert a lion, we would do so.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Therefore, as he is an ass, let him go.</LINE>
<LINE>And so adieu, sweet Jude! nay, why dost thou stay?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>For the latter end of his name.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>For the ass to the Jude; give it him:--Jud-as, away!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>HOLOFERNES</SPEAKER>
<LINE>This is not generous, not gentle, not humble.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A light for Monsieur Judas! it grows dark, he may stumble.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>HOLOFERNES retires</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Alas, poor Maccabaeus, how hath he been baited!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Enter DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO, for Hector</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Hide thy head, Achilles: here comes Hector in arms.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Though my mocks come home by me, I will now be merry.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Hector was but a Troyan in respect of this.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But is this Hector?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I think Hector was not so clean-timbered.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>His leg is too big for Hector's.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>More calf, certain.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No; he is best endued in the small.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>This cannot be Hector.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>He's a god or a painter; for he makes faces.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty,</LINE>
<LINE>Gave Hector a gift,--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A gilt nutmeg.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A lemon.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Stuck with cloves.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No, cloven.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Peace!--</LINE>
<LINE>The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty</LINE>
<LINE>Gave Hector a gift, the heir of Ilion;</LINE>
<LINE>A man so breathed, that certain he would fight; yea</LINE>
<LINE>From morn till night, out of his pavilion.</LINE>
<LINE>I am that flower,--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That mint.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That columbine.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sweet Lord Longaville, rein thy tongue.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I must rather give it the rein, for it runs against Hector.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, and Hector's a greyhound.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The sweet war-man is dead and rotten; sweet chucks,</LINE>
<LINE>beat not the bones of the buried: when he breathed,</LINE>
<LINE>he was a man. But I will forward with my device.</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>To the PRINCESS</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>Sweet royalty, bestow on me the sense of hearing.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Speak, brave Hector: we are much delighted.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I do adore thy sweet grace's slipper.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Aside to DUMAIN</STAGEDIR>  Loves her by the foot,--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Aside to BOYET</STAGEDIR>  He may not by the yard.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>This Hector far surmounted Hannibal,--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The party is gone, fellow Hector, she is gone; she</LINE>
<LINE>is two months on her way.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What meanest thou?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Faith, unless you play the honest Troyan, the poor</LINE>
<LINE>wench is cast away: she's quick; the child brags in</LINE>
<LINE>her belly already: tis yours.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Dost thou infamonize me among potentates? thou shalt</LINE>
<LINE>die.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Then shall Hector be whipped for Jaquenetta that is</LINE>
<LINE>quick by him and hanged for Pompey that is dead by</LINE>
<LINE>him.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Most rare Pompey!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Renowned Pompey!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Greater than great, great, great, great Pompey!</LINE>
<LINE>Pompey the Huge!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Hector trembles.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Pompey is moved. More Ates, more Ates! stir them</LINE>
<LINE>on! stir them on!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Hector will challenge him.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, if a' have no man's blood in's belly than will</LINE>
<LINE>sup a flea.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>By the north pole, I do challenge thee.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I will not fight with a pole, like a northern man:</LINE>
<LINE>I'll slash; I'll do it by the sword. I bepray you,</LINE>
<LINE>let me borrow my arms again.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Room for the incensed Worthies!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>COSTARD</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I'll do it in my shirt.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Most resolute Pompey!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MOTH</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Master, let me take you a buttonhole lower. Do you</LINE>
<LINE>not see Pompey is uncasing for the combat? What mean</LINE>
<LINE>you? You will lose your reputation.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Gentlemen and soldiers, pardon me; I will not combat</LINE>
<LINE>in my shirt.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You may not deny it: Pompey hath made the challenge.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sweet bloods, I both may and will.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What reason have you for't?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The naked truth of it is, I have no shirt; I go</LINE>
<LINE>woolward for penance.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BOYET</SPEAKER>
<LINE>True, and it was enjoined him in Rome for want of</LINE>
<LINE>linen: since when, I'll be sworn, he wore none but</LINE>
<LINE>a dishclout of Jaquenetta's, and that a' wears next</LINE>
<LINE>his heart for a favour.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Enter MERCADE</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MERCADE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>God save you, madam!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Welcome, Mercade;</LINE>
<LINE>But that thou interrupt'st our merriment.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MERCADE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I am sorry, madam; for the news I bring</LINE>
<LINE>Is heavy in my tongue. The king your father--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Dead, for my life!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MERCADE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Even so; my tale is told.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Worthies, away! the scene begins to cloud.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>For mine own part, I breathe free breath. I have</LINE>
<LINE>seen the day of wrong through the little hole of</LINE>
<LINE>discretion, and I will right myself like a soldier.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exeunt Worthies</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How fares your majesty?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Boyet, prepare; I will away tonight.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Madam, not so; I do beseech you, stay.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Prepare, I say. I thank you, gracious lords,</LINE>
<LINE>For all your fair endeavors; and entreat,</LINE>
<LINE>Out of a new-sad soul, that you vouchsafe</LINE>
<LINE>In your rich wisdom to excuse or hide</LINE>
<LINE>The liberal opposition of our spirits,</LINE>
<LINE>If over-boldly we have borne ourselves</LINE>
<LINE>In the converse of breath: your gentleness</LINE>
<LINE>Was guilty of it. Farewell worthy lord!</LINE>
<LINE>A heavy heart bears not a nimble tongue:</LINE>
<LINE>Excuse me so, coming too short of thanks</LINE>
<LINE>For my great suit so easily obtain'd.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The extreme parts of time extremely forms</LINE>
<LINE>All causes to the purpose of his speed,</LINE>
<LINE>And often at his very loose decides</LINE>
<LINE>That which long process could not arbitrate:</LINE>
<LINE>And though the mourning brow of progeny</LINE>
<LINE>Forbid the smiling courtesy of love</LINE>
<LINE>The holy suit which fain it would convince,</LINE>
<LINE>Yet, since love's argument was first on foot,</LINE>
<LINE>Let not the cloud of sorrow justle it</LINE>
<LINE>From what it purposed; since, to wail friends lost</LINE>
<LINE>Is not by much so wholesome-profitable</LINE>
<LINE>As to rejoice at friends but newly found.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I understand you not: my griefs are double.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief;</LINE>
<LINE>And by these badges understand the king.</LINE>
<LINE>For your fair sakes have we neglected time,</LINE>
<LINE>Play'd foul play with our oaths: your beauty, ladies,</LINE>
<LINE>Hath much deform'd us, fashioning our humours</LINE>
<LINE>Even to the opposed end of our intents:</LINE>
<LINE>And what in us hath seem'd ridiculous,--</LINE>
<LINE>As love is full of unbefitting strains,</LINE>
<LINE>All wanton as a child, skipping and vain,</LINE>
<LINE>Form'd by the eye and therefore, like the eye,</LINE>
<LINE>Full of strange shapes, of habits and of forms,</LINE>
<LINE>Varying in subjects as the eye doth roll</LINE>
<LINE>To every varied object in his glance:</LINE>
<LINE>Which parti-coated presence of loose love</LINE>
<LINE>Put on by us, if, in your heavenly eyes,</LINE>
<LINE>Have misbecomed our oaths and gravities,</LINE>
<LINE>Those heavenly eyes, that look into these faults,</LINE>
<LINE>Suggested us to make. Therefore, ladies,</LINE>
<LINE>Our love being yours, the error that love makes</LINE>
<LINE>Is likewise yours: we to ourselves prove false,</LINE>
<LINE>By being once false for ever to be true</LINE>
<LINE>To those that make us both,--fair ladies, you:</LINE>
<LINE>And even that falsehood, in itself a sin,</LINE>
<LINE>Thus purifies itself and turns to grace.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>We have received your letters full of love;</LINE>
<LINE>Your favours, the ambassadors of love;</LINE>
<LINE>And, in our maiden council, rated them</LINE>
<LINE>At courtship, pleasant jest and courtesy,</LINE>
<LINE>As bombast and as lining to the time:</LINE>
<LINE>But more devout than this in our respects</LINE>
<LINE>Have we not been; and therefore met your loves</LINE>
<LINE>In their own fashion, like a merriment.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Our letters, madam, show'd much more than jest.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>So did our looks.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>We did not quote them so.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Now, at the latest minute of the hour,</LINE>
<LINE>Grant us your loves.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A time, methinks, too short</LINE>
<LINE>To make a world-without-end bargain in.</LINE>
<LINE>No, no, my lord, your grace is perjured much,</LINE>
<LINE>Full of dear guiltiness; and therefore this:</LINE>
<LINE>If for my love, as there is no such cause,</LINE>
<LINE>You will do aught, this shall you do for me:</LINE>
<LINE>Your oath I will not trust; but go with speed</LINE>
<LINE>To some forlorn and naked hermitage,</LINE>
<LINE>Remote from all the pleasures of the world;</LINE>
<LINE>There stay until the twelve celestial signs</LINE>
<LINE>Have brought about the annual reckoning.</LINE>
<LINE>If this austere insociable life</LINE>
<LINE>Change not your offer made in heat of blood;</LINE>
<LINE>If frosts and fasts, hard lodging and thin weeds</LINE>
<LINE>Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love,</LINE>
<LINE>But that it bear this trial and last love;</LINE>
<LINE>Then, at the expiration of the year,</LINE>
<LINE>Come challenge me, challenge me by these deserts,</LINE>
<LINE>And, by this virgin palm now kissing thine</LINE>
<LINE>I will be thine; and till that instant shut</LINE>
<LINE>My woeful self up in a mourning house,</LINE>
<LINE>Raining the tears of lamentation</LINE>
<LINE>For the remembrance of my father's death.</LINE>
<LINE>If this thou do deny, let our hands part,</LINE>
<LINE>Neither entitled in the other's heart.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>If this, or more than this, I would deny,</LINE>
<LINE>To flatter up these powers of mine with rest,</LINE>
<LINE>The sudden hand of death close up mine eye!</LINE>
<LINE>Hence ever then my heart is in thy breast.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>[And what to me, my love? and what to me?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You must be purged too, your sins are rack'd,</LINE>
<LINE>You are attaint with faults and perjury:</LINE>
<LINE>Therefore if you my favour mean to get,</LINE>
<LINE>A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest,</LINE>
<LINE>But seek the weary beds of people sick.]</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But what to me, my love? but what to me? A wife?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>KATHARINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A beard, fair health, and honesty;</LINE>
<LINE>With three-fold love I wish you all these three.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O, shall I say, I thank you, gentle wife?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>KATHARINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Not so, my lord; a twelvemonth and a day</LINE>
<LINE>I'll mark no words that smooth-faced wooers say:</LINE>
<LINE>Come when the king doth to my lady come;</LINE>
<LINE>Then, if I have much love, I'll give you some.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I'll serve thee true and faithfully till then.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>KATHARINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Yet swear not, lest ye be forsworn again.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What says Maria?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MARIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>At the twelvemonth's end</LINE>
<LINE>I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LONGAVILLE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I'll stay with patience; but the time is long.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>MARIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The liker you; few taller are so young.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Studies my lady? mistress, look on me;</LINE>
<LINE>Behold the window of my heart, mine eye,</LINE>
<LINE>What humble suit attends thy answer there:</LINE>
<LINE>Impose some service on me for thy love.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Oft have I heard of you, my Lord Biron,</LINE>
<LINE>Before I saw you; and the world's large tongue</LINE>
<LINE>Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks,</LINE>
<LINE>Full of comparisons and wounding flouts,</LINE>
<LINE>Which you on all estates will execute</LINE>
<LINE>That lie within the mercy of your wit.</LINE>
<LINE>To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain,</LINE>
<LINE>And therewithal to win me, if you please,</LINE>
<LINE>Without the which I am not to be won,</LINE>
<LINE>You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day</LINE>
<LINE>Visit the speechless sick and still converse</LINE>
<LINE>With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,</LINE>
<LINE>With all the fierce endeavor of your wit</LINE>
<LINE>To enforce the pained impotent to smile.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>To move wild laughter in the throat of death?</LINE>
<LINE>It cannot be; it is impossible:</LINE>
<LINE>Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ROSALINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit,</LINE>
<LINE>Whose influence is begot of that loose grace</LINE>
<LINE>Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools:</LINE>
<LINE>A jest's prosperity lies in the ear</LINE>
<LINE>Of him that hears it, never in the tongue</LINE>
<LINE>Of him that makes it: then, if sickly ears,</LINE>
<LINE>Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear groans,</LINE>
<LINE>Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,</LINE>
<LINE>And I will have you and that fault withal;</LINE>
<LINE>But if they will not, throw away that spirit,</LINE>
<LINE>And I shall find you empty of that fault,</LINE>
<LINE>Right joyful of your reformation.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A twelvemonth! well; befall what will befall,</LINE>
<LINE>I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>To FERDINAND</STAGEDIR>  Ay, sweet my lord; and so I take my leave.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No, madam; we will bring you on your way.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Our wooing doth not end like an old play;</LINE>
<LINE>Jack hath not Jill: these ladies' courtesy</LINE>
<LINE>Might well have made our sport a comedy.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Come, sir, it wants a twelvemonth and a day,</LINE>
<LINE>And then 'twill end.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>BIRON</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That's too long for a play.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Re-enter DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sweet majesty, vouchsafe me,--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PRINCESS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Was not that Hector?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUMAIN</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The worthy knight of Troy.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I will kiss thy royal finger, and take leave. I am</LINE>
<LINE>a votary; I have vowed to Jaquenetta to hold the</LINE>
<LINE>plough for her sweet love three years. But, most</LINE>
<LINE>esteemed greatness, will you hear the dialogue that</LINE>
<LINE>the two learned men have compiled in praise of the</LINE>
<LINE>owl and the cuckoo? It should have followed in the</LINE>
<LINE>end of our show.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>FERDINAND</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Call them forth quickly; we will do so.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Holla! approach.</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>Re-enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, MOTH, COSTARD,
and others</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>This side is Hiems, Winter, this Ver, the Spring;</LINE>
<LINE>the one maintained by the owl, the other by the</LINE>
<LINE>cuckoo. Ver, begin.</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>THE SONG</STAGEDIR>
<SUBHEAD>SPRING.</SUBHEAD>
<LINE>When daisies pied and violets blue</LINE>
<LINE>And lady-smocks all silver-white</LINE>
<LINE>And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue</LINE>
<LINE>Do paint the meadows with delight,</LINE>
<LINE>The cuckoo then, on every tree,</LINE>
<LINE>Mocks married men; for thus sings he,  Cuckoo;</LINE>
<LINE>Cuckoo, cuckoo: O word of fear,</LINE>
<LINE>Unpleasing to a married ear!</LINE>
<LINE>When shepherds pipe on oaten straws</LINE>
<LINE>And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,</LINE>
<LINE>When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,</LINE>
<LINE>And maidens bleach their summer smocks</LINE>
<LINE>The cuckoo then, on every tree,</LINE>
<LINE>Mocks married men; for thus sings he,  Cuckoo;</LINE>
<LINE>Cuckoo, cuckoo: O word of fear,</LINE>
<LINE>Unpleasing to a married ear!</LINE>
<SUBHEAD>WINTER.</SUBHEAD>
<LINE>When icicles hang by the wall</LINE>
<LINE>And Dick the shepherd blows his nail</LINE>
<LINE>And Tom bears logs into the hall</LINE>
<LINE>And milk comes frozen home in pail,</LINE>
<LINE>When blood is nipp'd and ways be foul,</LINE>
<LINE>Then nightly sings the staring owl,  Tu-whit;</LINE>
<LINE>Tu-who, a merry note,</LINE>
<LINE>While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.</LINE>
<LINE>When all aloud the wind doth blow</LINE>
<LINE>And coughing drowns the parson's saw</LINE>
<LINE>And birds sit brooding in the snow</LINE>
<LINE>And Marian's nose looks red and raw,</LINE>
<LINE>When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,</LINE>
<LINE>Then nightly sings the staring owl,  Tu-whit;</LINE>
<LINE>Tu-who, a merry note,</LINE>
<LINE>While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of</LINE>
<LINE>Apollo. You that way: we this way.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exeunt</STAGEDIR>
</SCENE>
</ACT>
</PLAY>