King. It shall suffice me at which interview, All liberal reason I will yield unto.

Meantime, receive such welcome at my hand,
As honour, without breach of honour, may
Make tender of to thy true worthiness.
You may not come, fair princess, in my gates;
But here without you shall be so receiv'd,
As you shall deem yourself lodg'd in my heart,
Though so denied fair harbour in my house.
Your own good thoughts excuse me, and farewell:
To-morrow shall we visit you again.

Prin. Sweet health and fair desires consort your

grace!

King. Thy own wish wish I thee in every place! [Exeunt KING and his Train. Bir. Lady, I will commend you to my own heart. Ros. 'Pray you, do my commendations; I would be glad to see it.

Bir. I would you heard it groan.

Ros. Is the fool sick?

Bir. Sick at heart.

Ros. Alack! let it blood.

Bir. Would that do it good?

Ros. My physic says, ay.

Bir. Will you prick't with your eye?

6

Ros. No point, with my knife.

Bir. Now, God save thy life!

Ros. And yours from long living!

Bir. I cannot stay thanksgiving.

[Retiring

Dum. Sir, I pray you, a word: What lady is that

same?

Point, in French, is an adverb of negation, but, if properly spoken, is not sounded like the point of a knife. A quibble was however intended. Florio in his Dictionary explains punto by "never a whit ;-no point, as the Frenchman says."

Boy. The heir of Alençon, Katharine her name. Dum. A gallant lady! Monsieur, fare you well. [Exit

Lon. I beseech you, a word: What is she in the white ?

Boy. A woman sometimes, an you saw her in the light.

Lon. Perchance, light in the light: I desire her

name.

Boy. She hath but one for herself; to desire that, were a shame.

Lon. Pray you, sir, whose daughter?
Boy. Her mother's, I have heard.
Lon. God's blessing on your beard!
Boy. Good sir, be not offended:
She is an heir of Falconbridge.
Lon. Nay, my choler is ended.
She is a most sweet lady.

Boy. Not unlike, sir; that may be.

[Exit LONGAVILLE.

Bir. What's her name, in the cap?

Boy. Rosaline, by good hap.

Bir. Is she wedded, or no?

Boy. To her will, sir, or so.

Bir. You are welcome, sir: adieu!

Boy. Farewell to me, sir, and welcome to you.

[Exit BIRON.

· Ladies unmask.

Mar. That last is Biron, the merry mad-cap lord: Not a word with him but a jest.

Boy.

And every jest but a word.

Prin. It was well done of you to take him at

his word.

Boy. I was as willing to grapple, as he was to board.

Mar. Two hot sheeps, marry!

Boy.

And wherefore not ships?

No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips.

Mar. You sheep, and I pasture: Shall that finish the jest?

Boy. So you grant pasture for me.

Mar.

[Offering to kiss her.

Not so, gentle beast:

To my fortunes and me.

My lips are no common, though several' they be. Boy. Belonging to whom?

Mar.

Prin. Good wits will be jangling; but, gentles,

agree:

The civil war of wits were much better us'd
On Navarre and his book-men; for here 'tis abus’d.
Boy. If my observation, (which very seldom lies,)
By the heart's still rhetoric, disclosed with eyes,
Deceive me not now, Navarre is infected.

Prin. With what?

Boy. With that which we lovers entitle, affected. Prin. Your reason?

Boy. Why, all his behaviours did make their retire

To the court of his eye, peeping thorough desire :
His heart, like an agate, with your print impress'd,
Proud with his form, in his eye pride express'd :
His tongue, all impatient to speak and not see,
Did stumble with haste in his eye-sight to be;

8

7 A quibble is here intended upon the word several, which, besides its ordinary signification of separate, distinct, signified also an enclosed pasture, as opposed to an open field or common. Thus, in Lord Bacon's Apothegms: "There was a lord that was leane of visage, but immediately after his marriage he grew fat. One said to him, Your lordship doth contrary to other married men; for they first wax lean, and you wax fat.' Sir Walter Raleigh stood by, and said, Why there is no beast, that if you take him from the common, and put him into the several, but he will wax fat.""

1

Although the expression in the text is extremely odd, yet the

All senses to that sense did make their repair,
To feel only looking on fairest of fair :

Methought, all his senses were lock'd in his eye,
As jewels in crystal for some prince to buy ;
Who, tend'ring their own worth, from where they
were glass'd,

9

Did point you to buy them, along as you pass'd. His face's own margent did quote such amazes, That all eyes saw his eyes enchanted with gazes. I'll give you Aquitain, and all that is his,

An you give him for my sake but one loving kiss.

Prin. Come, to our pavilion: Boyet is dispos'd Boy. But to speak that in words, which his eye hath disclos'd:

I only have made a mouth of his eye,

By adding a tongue which I know will not lie. Ros. Thou art an old love-monger, and speak'st skilfully.

Mar. He is Cupid's grandfather, and learns news of him.

Ros. Then was Venus like her mother; for her father is but grim.

Boy. Do you hear, my mad wenches?

sense appears to be, that his tongue envied the quickness of his eyes, and strove to be as rapid in its utterance as they in their perception.

9 In Shakespeare's time, notes, quotations, &c., were usually printed in the margin of books.

ACT III.

SCENE I. Another part of the same.

Enter ARMADO and MOTH.

Arm. Warble, child; make passionate my sense

of hearing.

Moth. Concolinel1

[Singing. Arm. Sweet air! - Go, tenderness of years; take this key, give enlargement to the swain, bring him festinately hither: I must employ him in a letter to my love.

2

Moth. Master, will you win your love with a French brawl ? 3

The songs formerly used on the stage were often popular ditties, and therefore were omitted in the writing of a play. Such is apparently the case here; Concolinel being the first word of Moth's "sweet air." The song is probably lost; at least, it has not been identified.

H.

That is, hastily. So, in Lear: "Advise the Duke where you are going to a most festinate preparation."

6

3 Brawl, from the French bransle, is a kind of dance mentioned by several old writers, and thus described by Marston : The brawl! why, 'tis but two singles to the left, two on the right, three doubles forwards, a traverse of six rounds: do this twice, three singles side galliard trick of twenty coranto pace: a figure of eight, three singles broken down, come up, meet two doubles, fall back, and then honour." Ben Jonson gives it a most poetical dash in The Vision of Delight :

"In curious knots and mazes so,

The Spring at first was taught to go;
And Zephyr, when he came to woo
His Flora, had their motions too :
And thence did Venus learn to lead
The Idalian brawls, and so to tread
As if the wind, not she, did walk;
Nor prest a flower, nor bow'd a stalk."

And Gray thus alludes to Elizabeth's "dancing Chancellor," while describing the ancient seat of the Hattous: