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Of fighs, of groans, of forrow, and of teen!
O me, with what strict patience have I fat,
To fee a king transformed to a gnat!
To fee great Hercules whipping a gig,
And profound Solomon to tune a jig,
And Neftor play at push-pin with the boys,
And critick Timon laugh at idle toys!

Where lies thy grief, O tell me, good Dumain?
And, gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain?
And where my liege's? all about the breast :-
A caudle, ho!

KING. Too bitter is thy jeft.

Are we betray'd thus to thy over-view?

BIRON. Not you by me, but I betray'd to you; I, that am honeft; I, that hold it fin To break the vow I am engaged in ; I am betray'd, by keeping company With moon-like men, of ftrange inconftancy. When shall you fee me write a thing in rhyme ? Or groan for Joan? or spend a minute's time In pruning me? When shall you hear that I Will praise a hand, a foot, a face, an eye, A gait, a state, a brow, a breast, a waist, A leg, a limb?—

KING. Soft; Whither away fo faft?

A true man, or a thief, that gallops fo?

BIRON. I poft from love; good lover, let me go.
Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD.

J42. God bless the king!

KING. What present haft thou there?

COST. Some certain treason.

KING. What makes treafon here?

Cosr. Nay, it makes nothing, fir.

KING. If it mar nothing neither,

The treason, and you, go in peace away together.
J42. I befeech your grace, let this letter be read;
Our parfon mifdoubts it; 'twas treafon, he said.

KING. Biron, read it over.

Where hadft thou it?

J42. Of Coftard.

KING. Where hadft thou it?

[Giving him the letter.

COST. Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio.

KING. How now! what is in you? why doft thou tear it? BIRON. A toy, my liege, a toy; your grace needs not

fear it.

[hear it. LONG. It did move him to paffion, and therefore let's DUM. It is Biron's writing, and here is his name.

[Picks up the pieces. BIRON. Ah, you whorefon loggerhead, [To COSTARD.] you were born to do me shame.

Guilty, my lord, guilty; I confess, I confefs.

KING. What?

[up the mess:

BIRON. That you three fools lack'd me fool to make He, he, and you, and you, my liege, and I,

Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die.

O, dismiss this audience, and I fhall tell you more.
DUM. Now the number is even.

BIRON. True true; we are four :

Will these turtles be gone?

KING. Hence, firs; away.

COST. Walk afide the true folk, and let the traitors stay.

[Exeunt COSTARD and FAQUENETTA.

BIRON. Sweet lords, fweet lovers, O let us embrace! As true we are, as flesh and blood can be:

The fea will ebb and flow, heaven fhow his face;

Young blood will not obey an old decree :

We cannot cross the cause why we were born;
Therefore, of all hands muft we be forfworn.

[thine $ KING. What, did these rent lines fhow fome love of BIRON. Did they, quoth you? Who fees the heavenly Rofaline,

That, like a rude and favage man of Inde,

At the first opening of the gorgeous east, Bows not his vaffal head; and, ftrucken blind, Kisses the base ground with obedient breast? What peremptory eagle-fighted 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 ftar, scarce seen a light. BIRON. My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Birón: O, but for my love, day would turn to night! Of all complexions the cull'd fovereignty

Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek; Where feveral worthies make one dignity;

Where nothing wants, that want itself doth feek. Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues,

Fie, painted rhetorick! O, fhe needs it not : To things of fale a feller's praise belongs;

She paffes praife; then praife too fhort doth blot. A wither'd hermit, five-fcore winters worn,

Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye: Beauty doth varnish age, as if new-born,

And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy. O, 'tis the fun, that maketh all things fhine! KING. By heaven, thy love is black as ebony. BIRON. Is ebony like her? O wood divine!

A wife of fuch wood were felicity.

O, who can give an oath? where is a book?
That I may fwear, beauty doth beauty lack,
If that she learn not of her eye to look :

No face is fair, that is not full fo black.
KING. O paradox! Black is the badge of hell,

The hue of dungeons, and the fcowl of night; And beauty's creft becomes the heavens well. BIRON. Devils fooneft tempt, refembling spirits of light O, if in black my lady's brows be deckt,

It mourns, that painting, and ufurping hair, Should ravish doters with a falfe afpéct ;

And therefore is the born to make black fair.

Her favour turns the fashion of the days;

For native blood is counted painting now; And therefore red, that would avoid difpraife, Paints itself black, to imitate her brow. DUM. To look like her, are chimney-sweepers black, LONG. And, fince 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 mistreffes dare never come in rain,

For fear their colours fhould be wash'd away.
KING. 'Twere good, yours did; for, fir, to tell you plain,
I'll find a fairer face not wafh'd to-day.

BIRON. I'll prove her fair, or talk till dooms-day here.
KING. No devil will fright thee then fo much as fhe.
DUM. I never knew man hold vile ftuff fo dear.
LONG. Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face fee.
[Showing his fhoe.

BIRON. O, if the streets were paved with thine eyes,
Her feet were much too dainty for fuch
fread!
DUM. O vile! then as fhe goes, what upward lies
The street fhould fee as fhe walk'd over head.

KING. But what of this? Are we not all in love? BIRON. O, nothing fo fure; and thereby all forfworn. KING. Then leave this chat; and, good Birón, now prove Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn.

DUм. Ay, marry, there ;-some flattery for this evil.
LONG. O, fome authority how to proceed;

Some tricks, fome quillets, how to cheat the devil.
DUM. Some falve for perjury.

BIRON. O, 'tis more than need!

Have at you then, affection's men at arms:.
Confider, what you first did fwear unto ;-
To faft, to ftudy,-and to fee no woman;→→→
Flat treafon 'gainst the kingly state of youth.
Say, can you faft? your stomachs are too young;
And abstinence engenders maladies.

And where that you have vow'd to study, lords,
In that each of you hath forfworn his book:
Can you ftill dream, and pore, and thereon look?
For when would you, my lord, or you, or you,
Have found the ground of ftudy's excellence,
Without the beauty of a woman's face?
From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:

They are the ground, the books, the academes,
From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire.
Why, universal plodding prisons up

The nimble spirits in the arteries;

As motion, and long-during action, tires
The finewy vigour of the traveller.
Now, for not looking on a woman's face,
You have in that forfworn the use of
eyes;
And study too, the caufer of your vow:
For where is any author in the world,
Teaches fuch beauty as a woman's eye?

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