D. Pedro. Come, let us hence, and put on other weeds: And then to Leonato's we will go. SCENE IV.-A Room in LEONATO's House. Upon the error that you heard debated: Ant. Well, I am glad that all things sort so well. Bene. And so am I, being else by faith enforc'd To call young Claudio to a reckoning for it. Leon. Well, daughter, and you gentlewomen all, Withdraw into a chamber by yourselves, And when I send for you, come hither mask'd: The prince and Claudio promis'd by this hour To visit me.-You know your office, brother; You must be father to your brother's daughter, And give. her to young Claudio. [Exeunt ladies. Ant. Which I will do with confirm'd countenance. Bene. Friar, I must entreat your pains, I think. Friar. To do what, signior? Bene. To bind me, or undo me; one of them. — Signior Leonato, truth it is, good signior, Your niece regards me with an eye of favour. Leon. That eye my daughter lent her: 'tis most And got a calf in that same noble feat, Re-enter ANTONIO, with the ladies masked. Ant. This same is she, and I do give you her. Claud. Why, then she's mine.-Sweet, let me see your face. Leon. No, that you shall not, till you take her hand Before this friar, and swear to marry her. Claud. Give me your hand before this holy friar: I am your husband, if you like of me. Hero. And when I liv'd, I was your other wife: [Unmasking. And when you lov'd, you were my other husband. Claud. Another Hero! Friar. All this amazement can I qualify: Bene. Soft and fair, friar.-Which is Beatrice? Beat. [Unmasking.] I answer to that name. What is your will? Bene. Do not you love me? Beat. Have been deceived; for they swore you did. For here's a paper, written in his hand, A halting sonnet of his own pure brain, Fashion'd to Beatrice. Hero. And here's another, Writ in my cousin's hand, stolen from her pocket, Containing her affection unto Benedick. Bene. A miracle! here's our own hands against our hearts.-Come, I will have thee; but, by this light, I take thee for pity. Beat. I would not deny you;-but, by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion; and partly to save your life, for I was told you were in a consump tion. Bene. Peace! I will stop your mouth. [Kissing her. SCENE III.] D. Pedro. How dost thou, Benedick, the married man? Bene. I'll tell thee what, prince; a college of wit-crackers cannot flout me out of my humour. Dost thou think I care for a satire, or an epigram? No: if a man will be beaten with brains, he shall wear nothing handsome about him. In brief, since I do purpose to marry, I will think nothing to any purpose that the world can say against it; and therefore never flout at me for what I have said against it; for man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion. For thy part, Claudio, I did think to have beaten thee; but, in that thou art like to be my kinsman, live unbruised, and love my cousin. Claud. I had well hoped thou wouldst have denied Beatrice, that I might have cudgelled thee out of thy single life, to make thee a double-dealer; which, out of question, thou wilt be, if my cousin do not look exceeding narrowly to thee. Bene. Come, come, we are friends.-Let's have a dance ere we are married, that we may lighten our own hearts, and our wives' heels. Leon. We'll have dancing afterward. Bene. First, of my word; therefore play, music! -Prince, thou art sad; get thee a wife, get thee a wife: there is no staff more reverend than one tipped with horn. ACT I. [edge, SCENE I.-A Park, with a Palace in it. Enter the King, BIRON, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN. King. Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives, Live register'd upon our brazen tombs, And then grace us in the disgrace of death; When, spite of cormorant devouring Time, Th' endeavour of this present breath may buy That honour which shall bate his scythe's keen And make us heirs of all eternity. Therefore, brave conquerors,--for so you are, That war against your own affections, And the huge army of the world's desires,Our late edict shall strongly stand in force: Navarre shall be the wonder of the world; Our court shall be a little Academe, Still and contemplative in living art. You three, Biron, Dumain, and Longaville, Have sworn for three years' term to live with me, My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes That are recorded in this schedule here: Your oaths are past; and now subscribe your names, That his own hand may strike his honour down, Biron. I can but say their protestation over; As, not to see a woman in that term,― King. Your oath is pass'd to pass away from these. King. Why, that to know, which else we should not know. Biron. Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from common sense? King. Ay, that is study's god-like recompense. Biron. Come on, then; I will swear to study so, To know the thing I am forbid to know: As thus, to study where I well may dine, When I to feast expressly am forbid; Or study where to meet some mistress fine, When mistresses from common sense are hid; Or, having sworn too hard-a-keeping oath, Study to break it, and not break my troth. If study's gain be thus, and this be so, Study knows that which yet it doth not know: Swear me to this, and I will ne'er say no. King. These be the stops that hinder study quite, And train our intellects to vain delight. [vain, Biron. Why, all delights are vain; but that most 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 Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look: Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile: By fixing it upon a fairer eye; And give him light that it was blinded by. That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks: Small have continual plodders ever won, Save base authority from others' books. These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights, That give a name to every fixèd star, Have no more profit of their shining nights Than those that walk, and wot not what they are. Too much to know, is to know naught but fame; King. How well he's read, to reason against reading! Dum. Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding! Long. He weeds the corn, and still lets grow the weeding. Biron. The spring is near, when green geese are a breeding. Dum. How follows that? Fit in his place and time. Something, then, in rhyme. 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 an abortive birth? And though I have for barbarism spoke more Than for that angel knowledge you can say, Yet confident I'll keep to what I swore, And bide the penance of each three years' day. Give me the paper,-let me read the same; And to the strict'st decrees I'll write my name. King. How well this yielding rescues thee from shame! Biron. [Reads.] "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 devised this penalty? Long. Marry, that did I. Biron. Sweet lord, and why? Long. To fright them hence with that dread penalty. Biron. A dangerous law against gentility! [Reads.] "Item, If any man be seen to talk with a woman within the term of three years, he shall endure such public shame as the rest of the court can 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,— To her decrepit, sick, and bed-rid father: Or vainly comes th' admired princess hither. King. What say you, lords? why, this was quite Biron. So study evermore is overshot: [forgot. While it doth study to have what it would, It doth forget to do the thing it should; And when it hath the thing it hunteth most, 'Tis won, as towns with fire; so won, so lost. King. We must of force dispense with this deShe must lie here on mere necessity. [cree; Biron. Necessity will make us all forsworn Not by might master'd, but by special grace: So to the laws at large I write my name: [Subscribes. And he that breaks them in the least degree Stands in attainder of eternal shame: Suggestions are to others, as to me; But I believe, although I seem so loath, I am the last that will last keep his oath. But is there no quick recreation granted? King. Ay, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted With a refined traveller of Spain; A man in all the world's new fashion planted, A man of complements, whom right and wrong For interim to our studies, shall relate, In high-born words, the worth of many a knight 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. LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. 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 King. Will you hear this letter with attention? Cost. Such is the simplicity of man to hearken King. [Reads.] 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. [Reads.] "So it is, besieged with sablecoloured 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 ycleped thy park. where, I mean, I did encounter that obscene and Then for the place where; 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 low-spirited swain, that base minnow of thy mirth," Cost. Me. King. [Reads.] "-that unlettered small-knowing soul," King. [Reads.] "that shallow vassal,' Cost. Still me. King. [Reads.] "which, as I remember, hight Costard, Cost. O, me. King. [Reads.] "-sorted and consorted, contrary to thy established proclaimed edict and continent canon, with-with,-O, with-but with this I passion to say wherewith," Cost. With a wench. King. [Reads.] "-with a child of our grandmother Eve, a female; or, for thy more sweet understanding, a woman. duty pricks me on) have sent to thee, to receive the Him I (as my ever-esteemed meed of punishment, by thy sweet grace's officer, [ACT I. Antony Dull; a man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation." Dull. Dull. Me, an't shall please you: I am Antony aforesaid swain,) I keep her as a vessel of thy law's King. [Reads.] fury; and shall, at the least of thy sweet notice, weaker vessel called, which I apprehended with the "For Jaquenetta, (so is the bring her to trial. devoted and heart-burning heat of duty, Thine, in all compliments of DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO." Biron. This is not so well as I looked for, but the best that ever I heard. King. Ay, the best for the worst.-But, sirrah, what say you to this? Cost. Sir, I confess the wench. little of the marking of it. King. Did you hear the proclamation? Cost. I do confess much of the hearing it, but to be taken with a wench. Cost. I was taken with none, Sir: I was taken with a damosel. King. Well, it was proclaimed damosel. Cost. This was no damosel neither, Sir: she was a virgin. King. It is so varied too; for it was proclaimed virgin. Cost. If it were, I deny her virginity: I was taken with a maid. King. This maid will not serve your turn, Sir. Cost. I had rather pray a month with mutton and porridge. My lord Biron, see him deliver'd o'er:- [Exeunt King, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN. girl; and, therefore, Welcome the sour cup of pros- Arm. Boy, what sign is it, when a man of great spirit grows melancholy? Moth. A great sign, Sir, that he will look sad. choly, my tender juvenal? Moth. No, no; O lord! Sir, no. Moth. By a familiar demonstration of the working, my tough senior. Arm. Why tough senior? why tough senior? epitheton appertaining to thy young days, which we |