Full of dear guiltiness; and, therefore, this,→
If for my love (as there is no such cause)
You will do aught, this shall you do for me:
Your oath I will not trust: but go with speed
To some forlorn and naked hermitage,
Remote from all the pleasures of the world;
There stay, until the twelve celestial signs
Have brought about their annual reckoning:
If this austere insociable life

Change not your offer made in heat of blood;
If frosts, and fasts, hard lodging, and thin weeds,
Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love,
But that it bear this trial, and last love;
Then, at the expiration of the year,

Come challenge, challenge me by these deserts,
And, by this virgin-palm, now kissing thine,
I will be thine and, 'till that instant, shut
My woeful self up in a mourning house;
Raining the tears of lamentation,

For the remembrance of my father's death.
If this thou do deny, let our hands part;
Neither entitled in the other's heart.

King. If this, or more than this, I would deny, To flatter up these powers of mine with rest, The sudden hand of death close up mine eye!

980

990

Hence ever then my heart is in thy breast.
Biron. And what to me, my love, and what to me?
Ros. You must be purged too, your sins are rank;
You are attaint with fault and perjury:

Therefore, if you my favour mean to get,
K

1001

A twelve

A twelve-month shall you spend, and never rest,
But seek the weary beds of people sick.

Dum. But what to me, my love? but what to me? Kath. A wife!-a beard, fair health, and honesty ; With three-fold love I wish you all these three.

Dum. O, shall I say, I thank you, gentle wife? Kath. Not so, my lord; a twelve-month and a day

1011

I'll mark no words that smooth-fac'd wooers say:
Come when the king doth to my lady come,
Then, if I have much love, I'll give you some.
Dum. I'll serve thee true and faithfully 'till then.
Kath. Yet swear not, lest you be forsworn again.
Long. What says Maria?

Mar. At the twelve-month's end,

I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend.

Long. I'll stay with patience; but the time is long, Mar. The liker you; few taller are so young. Biron. 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.

1021

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; Full of comparisons, and wounding flouts; 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,

1029

(Without

(Without the which I am not to be won)

You shall this twelve-month term from day to day
Visit the speechless sick, and still converse
With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,
With all the fierce endeavour of your wit,

To enforce the pained impotent to smile.

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

It cannot be; it is impossible:

Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.

1040

Ros. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit, Whose influence is begot of that loose grace, 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 clamours 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, 1050 And I shall find you empty of that fault,

Right joyful of your reformation.

Biron. A twelve-month? well, befall what will befall,

I'll jest a twelve-month 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.

Biron. 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 twelve-month and a

day,

And then 'twill end.

Biron. That's too long for a play.

Enter ARMADO.

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

Dum. That worthy knight of Troy.

1060

Arm. I will kiss thy royal finger, and take leave: I am a votary; I have vow'd to Jaquenetta to hold the plough for her sweet love three year.

But, most

esteemed greatness, will you hear the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled, in praise of the owl and the cuckow? it should have follow'd in the end of our show.

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

Enter all, for the Song.

This side is Hiems; winter.

1072

This Ver, the spring; the one maintain'd by the owl,

The other by the cuckow.

Ver, begin.

SONG.

SONG.

SPRING,

When daizies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckow-buds of yellow hue,

Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckow then, on every tree,
Mocks marry'd men, for thus sings he,
Cuckow;

Cuckow, cuckow,O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a marry'd ear!

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are plowmen's clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer-smocks,
The cuckow then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he,
Cuckow;

Cuckow, cuckow,—0 word of fear,
Unpleasing to a marry'd ear!

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,

1080

1090

1100

When