Of fighs, of groans, of forrow, and of teen!
O me, with what strict patience have I fat,
To fee a king transformed to a gnat!
To fee great Hercules whipping a gig,
And profound Solomon to tune a jig,
And Neftor play at push-pin with the boys,
And critick 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 jeft.

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 fin 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 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 waift, A leg, a limb?

KING. Soft; Whither away so faft ? A true man, or a thief, that gallops so ?

BIRON. I post from love; good lover, let me go. Enter FAQUENETTA and COSTARD.

FA2. God bless the king!

KING. What present haft thou there?
COST. Some certain treafon.

KING. What makes treafon here?

Cost. Nay, it makes nothing, fir.

KING. If it mar nothing neither,

The treason, and you, go in peace away together.

JA. I beseech your grace, let this letter be read; Our parson misdoubts it; 'twas treason, he said.

KING. Biron, read it over.

Where hadst thou it?

JA2. Of Costard.

KING. Where hadst thou it?

[Giving him the letter.

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 [hear it.

fear it.

LONG. It did move him to passion, and therefore let's DUM. It is Biron's writing, and here is his name.

[Picks up the pieces.

BIRON. Ah, you whoreson loggerhead, [To COSTARD.] you were born to do me shame.

Guilty, my lord, guilty; I confefs, I confefs.
KING. What ?
[up the mess:
BIRON. That you three fools lack'd me fool to make
He, he, and you, and you, my liege, and I,

Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die.
O, dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you more.
DUM. Now the number is even.

BIRON. True true; we are four :

Will these turtles be gone?

KING. Hence, firs; away.

COST. Walk afide the true folk, and let the traitors stay. [Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA.

BIRON. Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O let us embrace! As true we are, as flesh and blood can be :

The fea 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 must we be forsworn.

[thine? KING. What, did these rent lines show some love of BIRON. Did they, quoth you? Who fees the heavenly

Rosaline,

That, like a rude and savage man of Inde,

At the first opening of the gorgeous east, Bows not his vassal head; and, ftrucken blind, Kisses the base ground with obedient breast? What peremptory eagle-fighted 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: O, but for my love, day would turn to night! Of all complexions the cull'd fovereignty

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,— Fie, painted rhetorick! O, she needs it not : To things of fale 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 fun, 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 fuch wood were felicity.

0, 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 fo 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 deckt,
It mourns, that painting, and ufurping hair,
Should ravish doters with a false aspéct ;

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, fince 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, fir, to tell you plain, I'll find a fairer face not wash'd to-day. BIRON. I'll prove her fair, or talk till dooms-day 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 fee. [Showing his shoe.

BIRON. O, if the streets were paved with thine eyes, Her feet were much too dainty for fuch tread! DUM. O vile! then as she goes, what upward lies The street should fee 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 forfworn.
KING. Then leave this chat; and, good Birón, 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:.
Confider, what you first did swear unto ;-
To fast, to study, and to fee 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 finewy 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 caufer of your vow :
For where is any author in the world,
Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye ?