As honour, without breach of honour, may
Make tender of to thy true worthiness:
You may not come, fair princess, in my gates;
But here without you shall be so receiv'd,
As you shall deem yourself lodg'd in my heart,
Though so denied fair harbour in my house.
Your own good thoughts excuse me, and farewell:
To-morrow shall we visit you again.

Prin. Sweet health and fair desires consort your grace!

King. Thy own wish wish I thee in every place! [Exeunt King and his Train. Biron. Lady, I will commend you to my own heart.

Ros. 'Pray you, do my commendations; I would be glad to see it.

Biron. I would, you heard it groan.

Ros. Is the fool sick?

Biron. Sick at heart.

Ros. Alack, let it blood.

Biron. Would that do it good?

Ros. My Physick says, 19.

Biron. Will you prick't with your eye?
Ros. No point 10, with my knife.
Biron. Now, God save thy life!
Ros. And yours from long living!
Biron. I cannot stay thanksgiving.

[Retiring.

Dum. Sir, I pray you, a word: What lady is that same?

Boyet. The heir of Alençon, Rosaline her name.

9 The old spelling of the affirmative particle ay is here retained for the sake of the rhyme.

10 Point, in French, is an adverb of negation, but, if properly spoken, is not sounded like the point of a knife. A quibble was however intended. Perhaps Shakspeare was not well acquainted with the pronunciation of French. Florio in his Italian Dictionary, in v. PUNTO: explains it by never a whit;-no point, as the Frenchman says.' See Act v. Sc. 2. p. 388.

Dum. A gallant lady! Monsieur, fare you well.

[Exit.

Long. I beseech you a word; What is she in the

white?

Boyet. A woman sometimes, an you saw her in the light.

Long. Perchance, light in the light: I desire her

name.

Boyet. She hath but one for herself; to desire that, were a shame.

Long. Pray you, sir, whose daughter?
Boyet. Her mother's, I have heard.
Long. God's blessing on your beard!
Boyet. Good sir, be not offended:
She is an heir of Falconbridge.
Long. Nay, my choler is ended.
She is a most sweet lady.

Boyet. Not unlike, sir; that may be.

[Exit LONG.

Biron. What's her name, in the cap?

Boyet. Katharine, by good hap.

Biron. Is she wedded, or no?

Boyet. To her will, sir, or so.

Biron. You are welcome, sir; adieu!

Boyet. Farewell to me, sir, and welcome to you. [Exit BIRON.-Ladies unmask. Mar. That last is Biron, the merry mad-cap lord; Not a word with him but a jest.

Boyet.

And every jest but a word. Prin. It was well done of you to take him at his

word.

Boyet. I was as willing to grapple, as he was to

board.

Mar. Two hot sheeps, marry!

Boyet.

And wherefore not ships?

No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips.

Mar. You sheep, and I pasture; Shall that finish the jest?

Boyet. So you grant pasture for me.

Mar.

[Offering to kiss her. Not so, gentle beast;

11

My lips are no common, though several 11 they be. Boyet. Belonging to whom?

Mar.

To my fortunes and me. Prin. Good wits will be jangling; but, gentles,

agree:

The civil war of wits were much better used
On Navarre and his book-men; for here 'tis abused.
Boyet. If my observation (which very seldom
lies),

By the heart's still rhetorick, disclosed with eyes 12,
Deceive me not now. Navarre is infected.

Prin. With what?

Boyet. With that which we lovers entitle, affected. Prin. Your reason?

Boyet. Why, all his behaviours did make their

retire.

To the court of his eye, peeping thorough desire: His heart, like an agate, with your print impressed, Proud with his form, in his eye pride expressed:

11 A quibble is here intended upon the word several, which besides its ordinary signification of separate, distinct, signified also an enclosed pasture as opposed to an open field or common. Bacon and others used it in this sense. Dr. James has given a different explanation of the term, which may be its local signification, but the above is the general sense in old writers. One example may suffice. There was a lord that was leane of visage, but immediately after his marriage he grew fat. One said to him "Your Lordship doth contrary to other married men; for they first wax lean, and you wax fat." Sir Walter Raleigh stood by, and said "Why there is no beast, that if you take him from the common, and put him into the several, but he will wax fat."' -Bacon's Apothegms, 1625, p. 296.

12 So in Daniel's Complaint of Rosamond, 1594:

'Sweet silent rhetoric of persuading eyes
Dumb eloquence.'

His tongue, all impatient to speak and not see 13,
Did stumble with haste in his eye-sight to be;
All senses to that sense did make their repair,
To feel only looking on fairest of fair;

Methought, all his senses were lock'd in his eye,
As jewels in crystal for some prince to buy;
Who, tend'ring their own worth, from where they
were glass'd,

Did point you to buy them, along as you pass'd.
His face's own margent 14 did quote such amazes,
That all eyes saw his eyes enchanted with gazes;
I'll give you Aquitain, and all that is his,

An you give him for my sake but one loving kiss. Prin. Come, to our pavilion: Boyet is dispos'dBoyet. But to speak that in words, which his eye hath disclos'd:

I only have made a mouth of his eye,

By adding a tongue which I know will not lie. Ros. Thou art an old love-monger, and speak'st skilfully.

Mar. He is Cupid's grandfather, and learns news of him.

Ros. Then was Venus like her mother; for her father is but grim.

Boyet. Do you hear, my mad wenches?

13 Although the expression in the text is extremely odd, yet the sense appears to be, that his tongue envied the quickness of his eyes, and strove to be as rapid in its utterance, as they in their perception.

14 In Shakspeare's time notes, quotations, &c. were usually printed in the exterior margin of books.

ACT III.

SCENE I. Another part of the same.

Enter ARMADO and MOTH.

Arm. Warble, child, make passionate my sense

of hearing.

Moth. Concolinel1.

Arm. Sweet air!-Go, tenderness of

[Singing.

years; take this key, give enlargement to the swain, bring him festinately hither; I must employ him in a letter to my love.

2

Moth. Master, will you win your love with a French brawl3?

4

Arm. How mean'st thou? brawling in French? Moth. No, my complete master: but to jig off a tune at the tongue's end, canary to it with your feet, humour it with turning up your eye-lids; sigh a note, and sing a note; sometime through the throat, as if you swallowed love with singing love; sometime through the nose, as if you snuffed up love by smelling love; with your hat penthouselike o'er the shop

1 A song is apparently lost here. In old comedies the songs are frequently omitted. On this occasion the stage direction is generally Here they sing―or Cantant.

2 i. e. hastily. So in Lear: 'Advise the Duke where you are going to a most festinate preparation.'

3 A kind of dance; spelt bransle by some authors: being the French name for the same dance. There is the figure of it set down in Marston's Malcontent. It appears that several persons united hands in a circle, and gave each other continual shakes, the steps changing with the tune. It usually consisted of three pas, and a pied-joint to the time of four strokes of the bow; which being repeated, was termed a double brawl.

4 Canary was the name of a sprightly dance, sometimes accompanied by the castanets.