Study is like the heaven's glorious sun,

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 fixed 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 nought but fame; And every godfather can give a name.

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?

Biron.

Dum. In reason nothing.
Biron.

Fit in his place and time.

Something then in rhyme.

Long. Birón is like an envious sneaping frost,
That bites the first-born infants of the spring.
Biron. Well, say I am; why should proud sum-
mer boast,

Before the birds have any cause to sing?
Why should I joy in an abortive birth?
At Christmas I no more desire a rose

Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled shows7;
But like of each thing that in season grows.

5 That is, too much knowledge gives no real solution of doubts, but merely fame, or a name, a thing which every godfather can give.

6 i. e. nipping. In The Winter's Tale, Act i. Sc. 1. we have sneaping winds. To sneap is also to check, to rebuke. See Note on King Henry IV. Part II. Act ii. Sc. 1.

7 By these shows the poet means May-games, at which a snow would be very unwelcome and unexpected. It is only a periphrasis for May.

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, Birón; 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;
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 devis'd 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 3.

[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,A maid of grace, and cómplete majesty,

8 The word gentility here does not signify that rank of people called gentry; but what the French express by gentilesse, i.e. elegantia, urbanitas.

About surrender-up of Aquitain

To her decrepit, sick, and bed-rid father: Therefore this article is made in vain,

Or vainly comes the admired princess hither. King. What say you, lords? why, this was quite forgot.

Biron. So study evermore is overshot; 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 decree; She must lie9 here on mere necessity.

Biron. Necessity will make us all forsworn Three thousand times within this three years' space:

For every man with his affects is born;

Not by might master'd, but by special grace: If I break faith, this word shall speak for me, I am forsworn on mere necessity.

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;

10

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 11 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,
That hath a mint of phrases in his brain :

9 That is, reside here. So in Sir Henry Wotton's equivocal definition: An Ambassador is an honest man sent to lie (i. e. reside) abroad for the good of his country.'

10 Temptations.

11 Lively, sprightly.

One, whom the musick of his own vain tongue
Doth ravish, like enchanting harmony;
A man of complements 12, whom right and wrong
Have chose as umpire of their mutiny:
This child of fancy, that Armado hight 13,

For interim to our studies, shall relate,
In high-born words, the worth of many a knight
From tawny Spain, lost in the world's debate.
How you delight, my lords, I know not, I;
But, I protest, I love to hear him lie,
And I will use him for my minstrelsy 14.

Biron. Armado is a most illustrious wight,
A man of fire-new 15 words, fashion's own knight.
Long. Costard the swain, and he, shall be our sport;
And, so to study, three years is but short.

Enter DULL, with a Letter, and COSTARD.
Dull. Which is the duke's own person?

Biron. This, fellow; What would'st?

Dull. I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his grace's tharborough 16: but I would see his own person in flesh and blood.

Biron. This is he.

Dull. Signior Arme-Arme-commends you. There's villany abroad; this letter will tell you more. Cost. Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching

me.

King. A letter from the magnificent Armado.

12 Complements is here used in its ancient sense of accomplishments. Vide Note on K. Henry V. Act ii. Sc. 2.

13 i. e. who is called Armado.

14 I will make use of him instead of a minstrel, whose occupation was to relate fabulous stories.

15 i. e. new from the forge; we have still retained a similar mode of speech in the colloquial phrase brand-new. 16 i. e. third-horough, a peace-officer.

VOL. II.

EE

Biron. How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high words.

Long. A high hope for a low having: God grant us patience!

Biron. To hear? or forbear hearing 17?

Long. To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately; or to forbear both.

Biron. Well, sir, be it as the style 18 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 19.

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 manuer 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.

17 To hear? or forbear laughing?' is possibly the true reading. 18 A quibble is here intended between a stile and style. 19 That is, in the fact. A thief is said to be taken with the manner (mainour) when he is taken with the thing stolen about him. The thing stolen was called mainour, manour, or meinour, from the French manier, manu tractare.