will prove those verses to be very unlearned,
neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention: I
beseech your society.
SIR NATHANIEL And thank you too; for society, saith the text, is
the happiness of life.
HOLOFERNES And, certes, the text most infallibly concludes it.
To DULL
Sir, I do invite you too; you shall not
say me nay: pauca verba. Away! the gentles are at
their game, and we will to our recreation.
Exeunt
Scene 3
The same.
Enter BIRON, with a paper
BIRON The king he is hunting the deer; I am coursing
myself: they have pitched a toil; I am toiling in
a pitch,–pitch that defiles: defile! a foul
word. Well, set thee down, sorrow! for so they say
the fool said, and so say I, and I the fool: well
proved, wit! By the Lord, this love is as mad as
Ajax: it kills sheep; it kills me, I a sheep:
well proved again o’ my side! I will not love: if
I do, hang me; i’ faith, I will not. O, but her
eye,–by this light, but for her eye, I would not
love her; yes, for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing
in the world but lie, and lie in my throat. By
heaven, I do love: and it hath taught me to rhyme
and to be melancholy; and here is part of my rhyme,
and here my melancholy. Well, she hath one o’ my
sonnets already: the clown bore it, the fool sent
it, and the lady hath it: sweet clown, sweeter
fool, sweetest lady! By the world, I would not care
a pin, if the other three were in. Here comes one
with a paper: God give him grace to groan!
Stands aside
Enter FERDINAND, with a paper
FERDINAND Ay me!
BIRON [Aside]
Shot, by heaven! Proceed, sweet Cupid:
thou hast thumped him with thy bird-bolt under the
left pap. In faith, secrets!
FERDINAND [Reads]
So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not
To those fresh morning drops upon the rose,
As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote
The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows:
Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright
Through the transparent bosom of the deep,
As doth thy face through tears of mine give light;
Thou shinest in every tear that I do weep:
No drop but as a coach doth carry thee;
So ridest thou triumphing in my woe.
Do but behold the tears that swell in me,
And they thy glory through my grief will show:
But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep
My tears for glasses, and still make me weep.
O queen of queens! how far dost thou excel,
No thought can think, nor tongue of mortal tell.
How shall she know my griefs? I’ll drop the paper:
Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here?
Steps aside
What, Longaville! and reading! listen, ear.
BIRON Now, in thy likeness, one more fool appear!
Enter LONGAVILLE, with a paper
LONGAVILLE Ay me, I am forsworn!
BIRON Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers.
FERDINAND In love, I hope: sweet fellowship in shame!
BIRON One drunkard loves another of the name.
LONGAVILLE Am I the first that have been perjured so?
BIRON I could put thee in comfort. Not by two that I know:
Thou makest the triumviry, the corner-cap of society,
The shape of Love’s Tyburn that hangs up simplicity.
LONGAVILLE I fear these stubborn lines lack power to move:
O sweet Maria, empress of my love!
These numbers will I tear, and write in prose.
BIRON O, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid’s hose:
Disfigure not his slop.
LONGAVILLE This same shall go.
Reads
Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,
‘Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,
Persuade my heart to this false perjury?
Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.
A woman I forswore; but I will prove,
Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee:
My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;
Thy grace being gain’d cures all disgrace in me.
Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is:
Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine,
Exhalest this vapour-vow; in thee it is:
If broken then, it is no fault of mine:
If by me broke, what fool is not so wise
To lose an oath to win a paradise?
BIRON This is the liver-vein, which makes flesh a deity,
A green goose a goddess: pure, pure idolatry.
God amend us, God amend! we are much out o’ the way.
LONGAVILLE By whom shall I send this?–Company! stay.
Steps aside
BIRON All hid, all hid; an old infant play.
Like a demigod here sit I in the sky.
And wretched fools’ secrets heedfully o’ereye.
More sacks to the mill! O heavens, I have my wish!
Enter DUMAIN, with a paper
Dumain transform’d! four woodcocks in a dish!
DUMAIN O most divine Kate!
BIRON O most profane coxcomb!
DUMAIN By heaven, the wonder in a mortal eye!
BIRON By earth, she is not, corporal, there you lie.
DUMAIN Her amber hair for foul hath amber quoted.
BIRON An amber-colour’d raven was well noted.
DUMAIN As upright as the cedar.
BIRON Stoop, I say;
Her shoulder is with child.
DUMAIN As fair as day.
BIRON Ay, as some days; but then no sun must shine.
DUMAIN O that I had my wish!
LONGAVILLE And I had mine!
FERDINAND And I mine too, good Lord!
BIRON Amen, so I had mine: is not that a good word?
DUMAIN I would forget her; but a fever she
Reigns in my blood and will remember’d be.
BIRON A fever in your blood! why, then incision
Would let her out in saucers: sweet misprision!
DUMAIN Once more I’ll read the ode that I have writ.
BIRON Once more I’ll mark how love can vary wit.
DUMAIN [Reads]
On a day–alack the day!–
Love, whose month is ever May,
Spied a blossom passing fair
Playing in the wanton air:
Through the velvet leaves the wind,
All unseen, can passage find;
That the lover, sick to death,
Wish himself the heaven’s breath.
Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;
Air, would I might triumph so!
But, alack, my hand is sworn
Ne’er to pluck thee from thy thorn;
Vow, alack, for youth unmeet,
Youth so apt to pluck a sweet!
Do not call it sin in me,
That I am forsworn for thee;
Thou for whom Jove would swear
Juno but an Ethiope were;
And deny himself for Jove,
Turning mortal for thy love.
This will I send, and something else more plain,
That shall express my true love’s fasting pain.
O, would the king, Biron, and Longaville,
Were lovers too! Ill, to example ill,
Would from my forehead wipe a perjured note;
For none offend where all alike do dote.
LONGAVILLE [Advancing]
Dumain, thy love is far from charity.
You may look pale, but I should blush, I know,
To be o’erheard and taken napping so.
FERDINAND [Advancing]
Come, sir, you blush; as his your case is such;
You chide at him, offending twice as much;
You do not love Maria; Longaville
Did never sonnet for her sake compile,
Nor never lay his wreathed arms athwart
His loving bosom to keep down his heart.
I have been closely shrouded in this bush
And mark’d you both and for you both did blush:
I heard your guilty rhymes, observed your fashion,
Saw sighs reek from you, noted well your passion:
Ay me! says one; O Jove! the other cries;
One, her hairs were gold, crystal the other’s eyes:
To LONGAVILLE
You would for paradise break faith, and troth;
To DUMAIN
And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath.
What will Biron say when that he shall hear
Faith so infringed, which such zeal did swear?
How will he scorn! how will he spend his wit!
How will he triumph, leap and laugh at it!
For all the wealth that ever I did see,
I would not have him know so much by me.
BIRON Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy.
Advancing
Ah, good my liege, I pray thee, pardon me!
Good heart, what grace hast thou, thus to reprove
These worms for loving, that art most in love?
Your eyes do make no coaches; in your tears
There is no certain princess that appears;
You’ll not be perjured, ’tis a hateful thing;
Tush, none but minstrels like of sonneting!
But are you not ashamed? nay, are you not,
All three of you, to be thus much o’ershot?
You found his mote; the king your mote did see;
But I a beam do find in each of three.
O, what a scene of foolery have I seen,
Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow and of teen!
O me, with what strict patience have I sat,
To see a king transformed to a gnat!
To see great Hercules whipping a gig,