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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, observ'd your fashion;
Saw sighs reek from you, noted well your passion:
Ah me! says one; O Jove! the other cries;
One, her hairs were gold, crystal the other's eyes:
You would for paradise break faith and troth;

[To LONG. And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath. [To DUMAIN.

What will Birón say, when that he shall hear
Faith infringed, which such zeal did swear?
How will he scorn? how will he spend his wit?
How will he triumph, leap, and laugh at it?
For all the wealth that ever I did see,

I would not have him know so much by me.
Biron. Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy.-
Ah, good my liege, I pray thee pardon me:

[Descends from the Tree. Good heart, what grace hast thou, thus to reprove These worms for loving, that art most in love? Your do make no coaches 11; in your tears,

eyes

There is no certain princess that appears:

You'll not be perjur'd, 'tis a hateful thing;
Tush, none but minstrels like of sonneting.
But are you not asham'd? 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 I have seen,

Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow, and of teen 12!

11 Alluding to a passage in the King's Sonnet:

'No drop but as a coach doth carry thee.'

12 Grief.

O me, with what strict patience have I sat,
To see a king transformed to a gnat 13!
To see great Hercules whipping a gigg,
And profound Solomon to tune a jigg,
And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys,
And critick 14 Timon laugh at idle toys?
Where lies thy grief, O tell me, good Dumain?
And gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain?
And where my liege's? all about the breast:
A caudle, ho!

King.

Too bitter is thy jest. Are we betray'd thus to thy over-view?

Biron. Not you by me, but I betray'd to you; I, that am honest: I, that hold it sin

To break the vow I am engaged in ;

I am betray'd, by keeping company

With moon-like men, of strange inconstancy.
When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme?
Or
groan for Joan? or spend a minute's time
In pruning 15 me? When shall you hear that I
Will praise a hand, a foot, a face, an eye,
A gait, a state, a brow, a breast, a waist,
A leg, a limb?—

King.

Soft; Whither away so fast? A true man, or a thief, that gallops so?

Biron. I post from love; good lover, let me go.

13 Gnat is the reading of the old copy, and there seems no necessity for changing it to knot or any other word, as some of the editors have been desirous of doing. Neither do I think there is any allusion to the singing of the gnat, as others have supposed; but it is merely put as an insignificant insect, just as he calls the others worms above.

14 Cynic.

15 A bird is said to be pruning himself when he picks and sleeks his feathers. So in K. Henry IV. Part I.

'Which makes him prune himself, and bristle up
The crest of youth.'

Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD.

Jaq. God bless the king!

King.

What present hast thou there?

Cost. Some certain treason.
King.

What makes treason here 16?

Cost. Nay, it makes nothing, sir. King. If it mar nothing neither, The treason, and you, go in peace away together. Jaq. I beseech your grace, let this letter be read; Our parson misdoubts it; 'twas treason, he said. Biron. Biron, read it over. [Giving him the letter. Where hadst thou it?

Jaq. Of Costard.

King. Where hadst thou it?

Cost. Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio, King. How now! what is in you? why dost thou tear it?

Biron. A toy, my liege, a toy; your grace needs not fear it.

Long. It did move him to passion, and therefore
let's hear it.

Dum. It is Biron's writing, and here is his name.
[Picks up the pieces.
Biron. Ah, you whoreson loggerhead, [To Cos-
TARD.] you were born to do me shame.-

Guilty, my lord, guilty; I confess, I confess.
King. What?

Biron. That you three fools lack'd me fool to make up the mess:

He, he, and you, my liege, and I,

Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die.

16 That is what does treason here?' What makest thou there? or, what hast thou there to do? Quid istic tibi negotii est?-Baret. Shakspeare plays on this phrase in the same manner in As You Like It, Act i. Sc. 1. and in King Richard III. Act i. Sc. 3.

O, dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you more. Dum. Now the number is even.

Biron.

True, true; we are four:

Hence, sirs; away.

Will these turtles be gone?

King.

Cost. Walk aside the true folk, and let the trai-
tors stay.
[Exeunt COST. and JAQ.
Biron. Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O let us em-
brace!

As true we are, as flesh and blood can be:
The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face;
Young blood will not obey an old decree:
We cannot cross the cause why we were born;
Therefore, of all hands 17 must we be forsworn.
King. What, did these rent lines show some love
of thine?

Biron. Did they, quoth you? Who sees the heavenly Rosaline,

That like a rude and savage man of Inde,

At the first opening of the gorgeous east 18, Bows not his vassal head; and, strucken blind, Kisses the base ground with obedient breast? What peremptory eagle-sighted eye

Dares look upon the heaven of her brow,

That is not blinded by her majesty?

King. What zeal, what fury hath inspir'd thee now?

My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon;
She, an attending star, scarce seen a light.
Biron. My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Birón 19:
O, but for my love, day would turn to night!
17 i. e. at any rate, at all events.

18 Milton has transplanted this into the third line of the second book of Paradise Lost:

'Or where the gorgeous east.'

19 Here, and indeed throughout the play, the name of Birón is accented on the second syllable. In the first folio and quarto

Of all complexions the cull'd sovereignty

Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek; Where several worthies make one dignity;

Where nothing wants; that want itself doth seek.

Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues,

Fye, painted rhetorick! O, she needs it not: To things of sale a seller's praise belongs;

She passes praise; then praise too short doth
blot.

A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn,
Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye:
Beauty doth varnish age, as if new-born,

And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy.
O, 'tis the sun, that maketh all things shine!
King. By heaven, thy love is black as ebony.
Biron. Is ebony like her? O wood divine!
A wife of such wood were felicity.

O, who can give an oath? where is a book?
That I may swear, beauty doth beauty lack,
If that she learn not of her eye to look:

No face is fair, that is not full so black. King. O paradox! Black is the badge of hell,

The hue of dungeons, and the scowl of night; And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well 20 copies it is spelled Berowne. From the line before us it appears that it was pronounced Biroon. Mr. Boswell has remarked that this was the mode in which all French words of this termination were pronounced in English. Mr. Fox always said Touloon when speaking of Toulon in the House of Commons.

20 Crest is here properly opposed to badge. Black, says the King, is the badge of hell, but that which graces heaven is the crest of beauty. Black darkens hell, and is therefore hateful: white adorns heaven, and is therefore lovely. Crest, is the very top, the height of beauty or utmost degree of fairness. So in K. John:

this is the very top

The height, the crest, or crest unto the crest
Of murder's arms.'

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