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Biron. And what to me, my love and what to me?
Ros. You must be purged too, your sins are rank;
You are attaint' with faults and perjury;
Therefore, if you my favour mean to get,

A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest,
But seek the weary beds of people sick.

Dum. But what to me, my love? but what to me?
Kath. A wife!-A beard, fair health, and honesty;
With three-fold love I wish you all these three.

Dum. O, shall I say, I thank you, gentle wife?
King. Not so, my lord;-a twelvemonth and a day
I'll mark no words that smooth-fac'd wooers say:
Come when the king doth to my lady come,
Then, if I have much love, I'll give you some.

Dum. I'll serve thee true and faithfully till then.
Kath. Yet swear not, lest you be forsworn again.
Long. What says Maria?

Mar.
At the twelvemonth's end,
I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend.
Long. I'll stay with patience; but the time is long.
Mar. The liker you; few taller are so young.
Biron. Studies, my lady? mistress, look on me.
Behold the window of my heart, mine eye,
What humble suit attends thy answer there;
Impose some service on me for thy love.

Ros. Oft have I heard of you, my lord Birón,
Before I saw you: and the world's large tongue
Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks;
Full of comparisons and wounding flouts;
Which you on all estates will execute,
That lie within the mercy of your wit:

To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain;
And, therewithal, to win me, you please,
(Without the which I am not to be won,)

You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day
Visit the speechless sick, and still converse

With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,

With all the fierce endeavour of your wit,

To enforce the pained impotent to smile.

Biron. To move wild laughter in the throat of death?

It cannot be; it is impossible:

Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.

Ros. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit,

Whose influence is begot of that loose grace,

Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools:

A jest's prosperity lies in the ear

Of him that hears it, never in the tongue

Of him that makes it; then, if sickly ears,

Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear groans,
Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,
And I will have you, and that fault withal;
But, if they will not, throw away that spirit,
And I shall find you empty of that fault,

1 Stained.

Right joyful of your reformation.

Biron. A twelvemonth? well, befal what will befal,

I'll jost a twelvemonth in an hospital.

Prin. [To the King.] Ay, sweet my lord: and so I take my leave. King. No, madam: we will bring you on your way.

Biron. Our wooing doth not end like an old play;

Jack hath not Jill: these ladies' courtesy

Might well have made our sport a comedy.

King. Come, sir, it wants a twelvemonth and a day, And then 'twill end.

Biron.

That's too long for a play.

Enter Armado.

Arm. Sweet majesty, vouchsafe me.--
Prin. Was not that Hector?

Dum. The worthy knight of Troy.

Arm. I will kiss thy royal finger and take leave: I am a votary; I have vowed to Jaquenetta to hold the plough for her sweet love three years. But, most esteemed greatness, will you hear the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled, in praise of the owl and the cuckoo? it should have followed in the end of our show. King. Call them forth quickly, we will do so. Arm. Holla! approach.

Enter Holofernes, Nathaniel, Moth, Costard, and others. This side is Hiems, winter; this Ver, the spring; the one maintain'd by the owl, the other by the cuckoo. Ver, begin.

SONG.
I.

SPRING. When daisies pied,1 and violets blue,

And lady-smocks all silver-white,

And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,

Do paint the meadows with delight,

The cuckoo then, on every tree,

Mocks married men, for thus sings he,
Cuckoo';

Cuckoo, cuckoo,-O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!

II.

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer smocks,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,

Mocks married men, for thus sings he,
Cuckoo ;

Cuckoo, cuckoo,-O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!

III.

WINTER. When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,

1 Variegated.

And Tom bears logs into the hall,

And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-who;

Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note.
While greasy Joan doth keel1 the pot.

IV.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-who;

Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

Arm. The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo.

You, that way; we, this way.

1 Scum.

2 Wild apples.

[Exeunt.

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SCENE.-Partly at Venice, and partly at Belmont, the Seat of Portia, on the Continent.

Act First.

SCENE I. VENICE. A STREET.

Enter Antonio, Salarino, and Salanio.

Ant. In sooth, I know not why I am so sad;
It wearies me; you say it wearies you;
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn;

And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,
That I have much ado to know myself.

Salar. Your mind is tossing on the ocean;
There, where your argosies1 with portly sail,--
Like signiors and rich burghers of the flood,
Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea,-

Do overpeer the petty traffickers,

That curt'sy to them, do them reverence,

As they fly by them with their woven wings.
Salan. Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth

The better part of my affections would

Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still
Plucking the grass, to know where sits the wind;
Peering in maps, for ports, and piers, and roads;
And every object, that might make me fear

1 Large trading vessels.

Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt,
Would make me sad.

Salar.
My wind, cooling my broth,
Would blow me to an ague, when I thought
What harm a wind too great might do at sea.
I should not see the sandy hour-glass run,
But I should think of shallows and of flats;
And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand,
Vailing her high-top lower than her ribs,
To kiss her burial. Should I go to church,
And see the holy edifice of stone,

And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks?
Which touching but my gentle vessel's side,
Would scatter all her spices on the stream;
Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks;
And, in a word, but even now worth this,

And now worth nothing! Shall I have the thought
To think on this; and shall I lack the thought,
That such a thing, bechanc'd, would make me sad?
But, tell not me; I know Antonio

Is sad to think upon his merchandize.

Ant. Believe me, no: I thank my fortune for it, My ventures are not in one bottom trusted,

Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate

Upon the fortune of this present year:

Therefore, my merchandize makes me not sad.
Salan. Why then you are in love.

Ant.

Fie, fie!

Salan. Not in love neither? Then let's say, you are sad, Because you are not merry and 'twere as easy

For you, to laugh, and leap, and say, you are merry,

Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus,

Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time;

Some that will evermore peep through their eyes,
And laugh, like parrots, at a bag-piper;
And other of such vinegar aspect,

That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile,
Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.

Enter Bassanio, Lorenzo, and Gratiano.

Salan. Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman, Gratiano, and Lorenzo: Fare you well;

We leave you now with better company.

Salar. I would have staid till I had made you merry,

If worthier friends had not prevented me.

Ant. Your worth is very dear in my regard.

I take it, your own business calls on you,

And you embrace the occasion to depart.
Salar. Good morrow, my good lords.

Bass. Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? Say, when? You grow exceeding strange: Must it be so?

Salar. We'll make our leisures to attend on yours.

[Exeunt Salarino and Salanio.

1 Lowering.

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