Or, study where to meet some mistress fine, Study knows that, which yet it doth not know: KING. These be the stops that hinder study quite, And train our intellects to vain delight. BIRON. Why, all delights are vain; and that most vain, Which, with pain purchas'd, doth inherit pain: As, painfully to pore upon a book, To seek the light of truth; while truth the while Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile: By fixing it upon a fairer eye; Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed, That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks; Save base authority from others' books. These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights, That give a name to every fixed star, Have no more profit of their shining nights, Than those that walk, and wot not what they are. KING. How well he 's read, to reason against reading! LONG. He weeds the corn, and still lets grow the weeding. KING. Biron is like an envious sneaping frost, That bites the first-born infants of the spring. BIRON. Well, say I am; why should proud summer boast, Before the birds have any cause to sing? Why should I joy in any abortive birth? Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled shows; So you, to study now it is too late, Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate. KING. Well, sit you out; go home, Biron; adieu ! BIRON. No, my good lord; I have sworn to stay with you; And, though I have for barbarism spoke more, Than for that angel knowledge you can say; Yet, confident I'll keep what I have swore, And bide the penance of each three years' day. Give me the paper,—let me read the same; KING. How well this yielding rescues thee from shame! Item, That no woman shall come within a mile of my court Hath this been proclaim'd? LONG. Four days ago. BIRON. Let's see the penalty. [Reads.] -On pain of losing her tongue. Who devis'd this penalty? LONG. Marry, that did I. BIRON. Sweet lord, and why? LONG. To fright them hence with that dread penalty. [Reads.] Item, If any man be seen to walk with a woman within the term of three years, he shall endure such public shame as the rest of the court shall possibly devise. This article, my liege, yourself must break; For, well you know, here comes in embassy The French king's daughter, with yourself to speak,- About surrender-up of Aquitain To her decrepit, sick, and bed-rid father: Therefore this article is made in vain, Or vainly comes th' admired princess hither. KING. What say you, lords? why, this was quite forgot. While it doth study to have what it would, KING. We must, of force, dispense with this decree; BIRON. Necessity will make us all forsworn Three thousand times within this three years' space: Not by might master'd, but by special grace. So to the laws at large I write my name: And he that breaks them in the least degree Suggestions are to others, as to me; But is there no quick recreation granted? [Subscribes. KING. Ay, that there is: our court, you know, is haunted A man in all the world's new fashion planted, But, I protest, I love to hear him lie, And I will use him for my minstrelsy. BIRON. Armado is a most illustrious wight, Enter DULL, with a letter, and COSTARD. DULL. Which is the duke's own person? BIRON. This, fellow. What wouldst ? DULL. I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his grace's tharborough: but I would see his own person in flesh and blood. BIRON. This is he. DULL. Signior Arme-Arme-commends you. villainy abroad; this letter will tell you more. There's COST. Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me. BIRON. How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high words. LONG. A high hope for a low heaven: God grant us patience! BIRON. To hear? or forbear hearing? LONG. To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately; or to forbear both. BIRON. Well, sir, be it as the style shall give us cause to climb in the merriness. COST. The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta. The manner of it is, I was taken with the manner. BIRON. In what manner? COST. In manner and form following, sir; all those three: I was seen with her in the manor house, sitting with her upon the form, and taken following her into the park; which, put together, is in manner and form following. Now, sir, for the manner, it is the manner of a man to speak to a woman for the form,-in some form. BIRON. For the following, sir? Cost. As it shall follow in my correction: And God defend the right! KING. Will you hear this letter with attention? BIRON. As we would hear an oracle. COST. Such is the simplicity of man to hearken after the flesh. KING. [Reads.] "Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent, and sole dominator of Navarre, my soul's earth's God, and body's fostering patron, COST. Not a word of Costard yet. KING. "So it is,— COST. It may be so: but if he say it is so, he is, in telling true, but so. KING. Peace! COST. -be to me, and every man that dares not fight! KING. No words! COST. —of other men's secrets, I beseech you. KING. "So it is, besieged with sable-coloured melancholy, I did commend the black-oppressing humour to the most wholesome physic of thy health-giving air; and, as I am a gentleman, betook myself to walk. The time when? About the sixth hour; when beasts most graze, birds best peck, and men sit down to that nourishment which is called supper. So much for the time when: Now for the ground which; which, I mean, I walked upon: it is yclept thy park. Then for the place where; where, I mean, I did encounter that obscene and most preposterous event, that draweth from my snow-white pen the ebon-coloured ink, which here thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or seest: But to the place where,— It standeth north-north-east and by east from the west corner of thy curious-knotted garden. There did I see that lowspirited swain, that base minnow of thy mirth, COST. Me? KING. "that unletter'd small-knowing soul, COST. Me? |