A wife of such wood were felicity.
O! who can give an oath? where is a book?
That I may swear beauty doth beauty lack,
If that she learn not of her eye to look :

No face is fair, that is not full so black. King. O paradox! Black is the badge of hell, The hue of dungeons, and the scowl of night'; And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well. Biron. Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light.

O! if in black my lady's brows be deck'd,

It mourns, that painting, and usurping hair, Should ravish doters with a false aspect;

And therefore is she born to make black fair. Her favour turns the fashion of the days;

For native blood is counted painting now, And therefore red, that would avoid dispraise, Paints itself black, to imitate her brow.

Dum. To look like her are chimney-sweepers black. Long. And since her time are colliers counted bright. King. And Ethiops of their sweet complexion crack. Dum. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light. Biron. Your mistresses dare never come in rain,

For fear their colours should be wash'd away. King. "Twere good, yours did; for, sir, to tell you plain,

I'll find a fairer face not wash'd to-day.

Biron. I'll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here.
King. No devil will fright thee then so much as she.
Dum. I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear.
Long. Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face

see.

Biron. O! if the streets were paved with thine eyes, Her feet were much too dainty for such tread.

the scowl of night ;] This is also Theobald's emendation. The old copies have "the school of night." Capell prints "stole of night,"

3 — AND usurping hair,] The necessary conjunction is found in the folio, 1632; not in that of 1623, nor in the 4to, 1598.

Dum. O vile! then, as she goes, what upward lies

The street should see, as she walk'd over head. King. But what of this? Are we not all in love? Biron. O! nothing so sure; and thereby all forsworn. King. Then leave this chat: and, good Biron, now prove

Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn.

Dum. Ay, marry, there; some flattery for this evil. Long. O some authority how to proceed; Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil. Dum. Some salve for perjury.

Biron.

O! 'tis more than need.-
Have at you, then, affection's men at arms.
Consider, what you first did swear unto ;-
To fast, to study, and to see no woman:
Flat treason 'gainst the kingly state of youth.
Say, can you fast? your stomachs are too young,
And abstinence engenders maladies.

And where that you have vow'd to study, lords,
In that each of you hath forsworn his book,
Can you still dream, and pore, and thereon look?
For when would you, my lord, or you, or you,
Have found the ground of study's excellence,
Without the beauty of a woman's face?
From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:

They are the ground, the books, the Academes,

From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire.
Why, universal plodding prisons up

The nimble spirits in the arteries,

As motion, and long-during action, tires
The sinewy vigour of the traveller.
Now, for not looking on a woman's face,
You have in that forsworn the use of eyes,
And study, too, the causer of your vow;
For where is any author in the world,
Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?

6 PRISONS up] The old reading, 4to. and folio, is poisons up.

Learning is but an adjunct to ourself,

And where we are, our learning likewise is:
Then, when ourselves we see in ladies' eyes,
With ourselves,

7

Do we not likewise see our learning there?
O! we have made a vow to study, lords,
And in that vow we have forsworn our books;
For when would you, my liege, or you, or you,
In leaden contemplation have found out
Such fiery numbers, as the prompting eyes
Of beauty's tutors have enrich'd you with?
Other slow arts entirely keep the brain,
And therefore, finding barren practisers,
Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil;
But love, first learned in a lady's eyes,
Lives not alone immured in the brain,
But with the motion of all elements
Courses as swift as thought in every power,
And gives to every power a double power,
Above their functions and their offices.
It adds a precious seeing to the eye;
A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind;
A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound,
When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd:
Love's feeling is more soft, and sensible,
Than are the tender horns of cockled snails :
Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste.
For valour is not love a Hercules,

Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?

Subtle as sphinx; as sweet, and musical,

As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair;
And, when love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.

8

Never durst poet touch a pen to write,

7 Of BEAUTY's tutors] So all the old copies: Malone and Steevens read,

"beauteous tutors," surely without any pretence of improvement.

• MAKES heaven drowsy] Malone, following the folio, reads make.

Until his ink were temper'd with love's sighs;
O! then his lines would ravish savage ears,
And plant in tyrants mild humility.

fools.

From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the Academes,
That show, contain, and nourish all the world,
Else none at all in aught proves excellent.
Then, fools you were these women to forswear,
Or, keeping what is sworn, you
will prove
For wisdom's sake, a word that all men love,
Or for love's sake, a word that loves all men,
Or for men's sake, the authors of these women,
Or women's sake, by whom we men are men,
Let us once lose our oaths, to find ourselves,
Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths.
It is religion to be thus forsworn;

For charity itself fulfils the law,

And who can sever love from charity?

King. Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field! Biron. Advance your standards, and upon them, lords!

Pell-mell, down with them! but be first advis'd,
In conflict that you get the sun of them.

Long. Now to plain-dealing: lay these glozes by. Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France?

King. And win them too: therefore, let us devise Some entertainment for them in their tents.

Biron. First, from the park let us conduct them thither;

Then, homeward, every man attach the hand

Of his fair mistress. In the afternoon

We will with some strange pastime solace them,
Such as the shortness of the time can shape;
For revels, dances, masks, and merry hours,
Fore-run fair Love, strewing her way with flowers.
King. Away, away! no time shall be omitted,

That will be time, and may by us be fitted.

Biron. Allons! allons'!-Sow'd cockle reap'd no

corn;

And justice always whirls in equal measure: Light wenches may prove plagues to men forsworn If so, our copper buys no better treasure.

[Exeunt.

ACT V. SCENE I.

Another part of the Same.

Enter HOLOFERNES, Sir NATHANIEL, and DULL'.

Hol. Satis quod sufficit.

Nath. I praise God for you, sir: your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy. I did converse this quondam day with a companion of the king's, who is intituled, nominated, or called, Don Adriano de Armado.

Hol. Novi hominem tanquam te: his humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical. He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were, too perigrinate, as I may call it.

Nath. A most singular and choice epithet.

[Draws out his table-book.

9 ALLONS! ALLONS !] "Alone, alone," 4to, 1598, and the folios. It occurs again at the end of the first scene of Act v., where it is also misprinted, alone.

1 Enter Holofernes, Sir Nathaniel, and Dull.] The old stage-direction is, "Enter the Pedant, the Curate, and Dull;" and Holofernes is called the "Pedant" throughout the scene, both in the 4to. and folio.

2- witty without AFFECTION,] i. e. affectation, a sense common in Shakespeare and other writers of his time.