O, dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you more. Dum. Now the number is even. Biron. True, true; we are four: Hence, sirs; away. Will these turtles be gone? King. Cost. Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay. [Exeunt COST. and JAQ. Biron. Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O let us embrace! As true we are, as flesh and blood can be: The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face; Young blood will not obey an old decree: We cannot cross the cause why we were born; Therefore, of all hands 17 must we be forsworn. King. What, did these rent lines show some love of thine? Biron. Did they, quoth you? Who sees the heavenly Rosaline, That like a rude and savage man of Inde, At the first opening of the gorgeous east 18, Bows not his vassal head; and, strucken blind, Kisses the base ground with obedient breast? What peremptory eagle-sighted eye Dares look upon the heaven of her brow, That is not blinded by her majesty? King. What zeal, what fury hath inspir'd thee now? My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon; She, an attending star, scarce seen a light. 17 i. e. at any rate, at all events. 18 Milton has transplanted this into the third line of the second book of Paradise Lost: 'Or where the gorgeous east.' 19 Here, and indeed throughout the play, the name of Birón is accented on the second syllable. In the first folio and quarto Of all complexions the cull'd sovereignty Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek; Where several worthies make one dignity; Where nothing wants; that want itself doth seek. Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues,— Fye, painted rhetorick! O, she needs it not: To things of sale a seller's praise belongs; She passes praise; then praise too short doth blot. A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn, And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy. O, who can give an oath? where is a book? No face is fair, that is not full so black. King. O paradox! Black is the badge of hell, The hue of dungeons, and the scowl of night; And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well 20 copies it is spelled Berowne. From the line before us it appears that it was pronounced Biroon. Mr. Boswell has remarked that this was the mode in which all French words of this termination were pronounced in English. Mr. Fox always said Touloon when speaking of Toulon in the House of Commons. 20 Crest is here properly opposed to badge. Black, says the King, is the badge of hell, but that which graces heaven is the crest of beauty. Black darkens hell, and is therefore hateful: white adorns heaven, and is therefore lovely. Crest, is the very top, the height of beauty or utmost degree of fairness. So in K. John: this is the very top The height, the crest, or crest unto the crest Biron. Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light. O, if in black my lady's brows be deckt, It mourns, that painting, and usurping hair 21, And therefore is she born to make black fair. Dum. To look like her, are chimney-sweepers black. Long. And since her time, are colliers counted bright. King. And Ethiops of their sweet complexion crack. Dum. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light. Biron. Your mistresses dare never come in rain, For fear their colours should be wash'd away. King. Twere good, yours did; for, sir, to tell you plain, I'll find a fairer face not wash'd to-day. Biron. I'll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here. King. No devil will fright thee then so much as she. The street should see as she walk'd over head. 21 This alludes to the fashion prevalent among ladies in Shakspeare's time, of wearing false hair, or periwigs as they were then called, before that covering for the head had been adopted by men. King. But what of this? Are we not all in love? Biron. O, nothing so sure; and thereby all for sworn. King. Then leave this chat; and, good Birón, now prove Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn. Dum. Ay, marry, there;-some flattery for this evil. Long. O, some authority how to proceed; Some tricks, some quillets 22, how to cheat the devil. Dum. Some salve for perjury. Biron. O, 'tis more than need!Have at you then, affection's men at arms: Consider what you first did swear unto;To fast, to study, and to see no woman;Flat treason 'gainst the kingly state of youth. Say, can you fast? your stomachs are too young; And abstinence engenders maladies. And where that you have vow'd to study, lords, The nimble spirits in the arteries; As motion, and long during action, tires N. 22 A quillet is a sly trick or turn in argument, or excuse. Bailey derives it, with much probability, from quibblet, as a diminutive of quibble. And study too, the causer of your vow: Do we not likewise see our learning there? Above their functions and their offices. 23 This hemistich is omitted in all the modern editions except that by Mr. Boswell. It is found in the first quarto and first folio. 24 i. e. our true books, from which we derive most information; the eyes of women. 25 So in Milton's Il Penseroso : 'With a sad leaden, downward cast.' And in Gray's Hymn to Adversity: With leaden eye that loves the ground.' |