Lon. I'll stay with patience; but the time is

long.

Mar. The liker you: few taller are so young.
Bir. Studies my lady? mistress, look on me ;
Behold the window of my heart, mine eye;
What humble suit attends thy answer there:
Impose some service on me for thy love.

Ros. Oft have I heard of you, my lord Biron,
Before I saw you; and the world's large tongue
Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks s;
Full of comparisons and wounding flouts; 1
Which you on all estates will execute,
That lie within the mercy of your wit.
To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain,
And, therewithal, to win me, if you please,
(Without the which I am not to be won)

You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day
Visit the speechless sick, and still converse
With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,
With all the fierce2 endeavor of your wit,

To enforce the pained impotent to smile.

Bir. To move wild laughter in the throat of death?

It cannot be; it is impossible :

Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.

Ros. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit,

Whose influence is begot of that loose grace,

1 Cutting sarcasms.

2 Vehement.

Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools.
A jest's prosperity lies in the ear

Of him that hears it, never in the tongue

Of him that makes it: then, if sickly ears,
Deaf'd with the clamors of their own dear groans,
Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,

And I will have you, and that fault withal:
But, if they will not, throw away that spirit,
And I shall find you empty of that fault,

Right joyful of your reformation.

Bir. A twelvemonth? well, befal what will befal, I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital.

Prin. Ay, sweet my lord; and so I take my leave. [to the King.

King. No, madam: we will bring you on your

way.

Bir. Our wooing doth not end like an old play ; Jack hath not Jill: these ladies' courtesy

Might well have made our sport a comedy.

King. Come, sir, it wants a twelvemonth and a

day,

And then 'twill end.

'Bir.

That's too long for a play.

Enter ARMADO.

Arm. Sweet majesty, vouchsafe me,—
Prin. Was not that Hector?

Dum. The worthy knight of Troy.

Arm. I will kiss thy royal finger, and take leave. I am a votary; I have vowed to Jaquenetta to hold

the plough for her sweet love three years.

But,

most esteemed greatness, will you hear the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled, in praise of the owl and the cuckoo? it should have followed in the end of our show.

King. Call them forth quickly; we will do so.
Arm. Holla! approach.

Enter HOLOFERNES, NATHANIEL, MOTH, COSTARD, and others.

This side is Hiems, winter; this Ver, the spring ; the one maintained by the owl, the other by the cuckoo. Ver, begin.

SONG.

I.

Spring. When daisies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white,

And cuckoo-buds, of yellow hue,
Do paint the meadows with delight;
The cuckoo then, on every tree,

Mocks married men, for thus sings he :

Cuckoo ;

Cuckoo, cuckoo,-O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!

II.

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks;
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer smocks;
The cuckoo then, on eyery tree,

Mocks married men, for thus sings he :

III.

Winter. When icicles hang by the wall,

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,

And milk comes frozen home in pail :
When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl :-
To-who:

Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel1 the pot.

IV.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,

And Marian's nose looks red and raw :
When roasted crabs2 hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl :—
To-who:

Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

Arm. The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo. You, that way; we, this way.

[Exeunt

1 Scum.

2 Wild apples.

END OF VOL. IIJ.