To fee great Hercules whipping a gigg,
And profound Salomon tuning a jygg 2
And Neftor play at push-pin with the boys,
And Critick Timon laugh at idle toys.

Where lyes thy grief? O tell me good Dumain ;
And gentle Longaville, where lyes thy pain?
And where my Liege's? all about the breaft.
A caudle hoa!

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 honeft, I that hold it fin
To break the vow I am engaged in.
I am betray'd by keeping company
With men, like men of strange inconftancy.
When shall you see me write a thing in rhime?
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 gate, a state, a brow, a breaft, a waste,
A leg, a limb?

King. Soft, whither away fo fast?

A true man or a thief, that gallops fo.

Biron. I poft from love, good lover let me go.

Enter Jaquenetta and Coftard.

Jaq. God bless the King.

King. What prefent haft thou there?

Coft. Some certain treason.

King. What makes treason here?

Coft. Nay it makes nothing, Sir.

King. If it mar nothing neither,

The treason and you go in peace away together.

VOL. II.

S

Jaq.

Jaq. I beseech your Grace, let this letter be read, Our parfon misdoubts it: it was treason, he said.

King. Biron, read it over.

Where hadft thou it?

Jaq. Of Coftard.

King. Where hadft thou it?

[He reads the letter.

Coft. Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio.

King. How now, what is in you? why doft thou tear it? Biron. A toy, my Liege, a toy: your Grace needs not fear it. Long. It did move him to paffion, and therefore let's hear it. Dum. It is Biron's writing, and here is his name.

Biron. Ah you whorefon loggerhead, you were born to do me shame.

Guilty my lord, guilty: I confefs, I confefs.

King. What?

Biron. That you three fools lackt me fool to make up the mess.

He, he and you: and you my Liege, and I
Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die.
O difmifs this audience, and I fhall tell you more.
Dum. Now the number is even.

Biron. True, true, we are four:
Will these turtles be gone?

King. Hence Sirs, away.

Cost. Walk afide the true folk, and let the traitors stay.
Biron. Sweet lords, fweet lovers, O let us imbrace :
As true we are as flesh and blood can be.

The fea will ebb and flow, heav'n will fhew his face :
Young blood doth not obey an old decree.

We cannot cross the cause why we were born:
Therefore of all hands must we be forfworn.

King. What, did these rent lines fhew fome love of thine?
Biron. Did they, quoth you? who fees the heavenly Ro-

faline,

2

That

That (like a rude and savage man of Inde)

At the firft opening of the gorgeous east, Bows not his vaffal 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 Biron. O but for my love, day would turn to night. Of all complexions the cull'd Soveraignty,

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

Where nothing wants that want it self doth feek.
Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues;
Fie painted rhetorick, O fhe needs it not:
To things of fale, a feller's praise belongs:
She paffes praise, then praise too fhort doth blot.
A wither'd hermite, fivefcore 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 fhine.

King. By heaven thy love is black as ebony.
Biron. Is ebony like her? O word divine!
A wife of fuch 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 fo black.

King. O paradox, black is the badge of hell;

The hue of dungeons, and the school of night; And beauty's creft becomes the heavens well.

Biron. Devils foonest tempt, resembling spirits of light: O, if in black my lady's brow be 'deckt:

It mourns, that painting and ufurping hair Should ravifh doters with a false afpect:

And therefore is the 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 difpraise,
Paints it felf black to imitate her brow.

Dum. To look like her are chimney-fweepers black.
Long. And fince her time, are colliers counted bright.
King. And Ethiops of their fweet complexion crack.
Dum. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light.
Biron. Your mistreffes dare never come in rain,
For fear their colours fhould be washt away.

King. 'Twere good yours did: for, Sir, to tell you plain,
I'll find a fairer face not washt to-day.

Biron. I'll prove her fair, or talk 'till dooms-day here.

King. No devil will fright thee then fo much as the. Dum. I never knew man hold vile ftuff fo dear.

Long. Look, here's thy love, my foot and her face fee. Biron. O if the ftreets were paved with thine eyes, Her feet were much too dainty for such tread. Dum. O vile! then as the goes, what upward lyes The street should fee as the walk'd over head. King. But what of this, are we not all inle?

Biron. Nothing fo fure, and thereby all forfworn. King. Then leave this chat, and good Biron now prove Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn.

Dum.

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

Biron. O'tis more than need.
Have at you then affections.

Men at arms,

Confider what you firft did fwear unto :
To faft, to study, and to fee no woman;
Flat treason 'gainst the kingly state of youth.
Say, can you faft? your ftomachs are too young:
And abftinence ingenders maladies.

And where that you have vow'd to ftudy (Lords)
In that each of you hath forfworn 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 womens eyes this doctrine I derive;
They are the ground, the book, the academies,
From whence doth fpring the true Promethean fire:
Why, univerfal plodding poifons up

The nimble fpirits 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 forfworn the ufe of eyes:
And study too, the caufer of your vow.
For where is any author in the world,
Teaches fuch beauty as a woman's eye?
Learning is but an adjunct to our felf,
And where we are, our learning likewife is.
Then when our felves we fee in ladies eyes,
Do we not likewise see our learning there?