To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die; Biron. I can but say their protestation over, King. Your oath is past to pass away from these. Biron. Let me say no, my liege, an if you please ; I only swore, to study with your grace, And stay here in your court for three years' space. Long. You swore to that, Biron, and to the rest. Biron. By yea and nay, sir, then I swore in jest.— What is the end of study? let me know. King.Why,that to know, which else we should not know. Biron. Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from common sense? King. Ay, that is study's god-like recompense. Study knows that, which yet it doth not know: } King. These be the stops that hinder study quite, And train our intellects to vain delight. [1] By all these the poet seems to mean, all these gentlemen, who have sworn to prosecute she same studies with me. STEEVENS, Biron. Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain, Which, with pain purchas'd, doth inherit pain : As, painfully to pore upon a book, To seek the light of truth; while truth the while Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile : Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed, That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks; Save base authority from others' books. 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. 3 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. Fit in his place and time. Biron. Something then in rhyme. Long. Biron is like an envious sneaping frost,* That bites the first-born infants of the spring. Biron.Well,say I am: why should proud summer boast, Before the birds have any cause to sing? Why should I joy in an abortive birth? [2] Falsely is here, and in many other places, the same as dishonestly or treacherously The whole sense of this jingling declamation is only this, that a man by too close study may read himself blind. JOHNSON. [3] The consequence, says Biron, of too much knowledge, is not any real solution of doubts, but mere empty reputation. That is, too much knowledge gives only fame, a name which every godfather can give likerise. JOHNSON. [4] So sneaping winds in The Winter's Tale. To sneap is to check, to rebukes Thus also, Falstaff, "I will not undergo this sneap, without reply." STEE. 80* VOL. II. Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled shows ;5 Climb o'er the house t' unlock the little gate. King. Well, sit you out go home, Biron ; 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.-And 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? Lung. Marry, that did I. Biron. Sweet lord, and why? Long. To fright them hence with that dread penalty. Biron. A dangerous law against gentility. [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 complete majesty,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. While it doth study to have what it would, King. We must, of force, dispense with this decree ; She must lie here on mere necessity. [5] By shows the poet means Maygames, at which a snow would be very unwelcome and unexpected. it is only a periphrasis for May. T.WARTON. [6] Lie here, means reside here, in the same sense as an ambassador is said to lie lieger. REED. 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 : 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 : Suggestions are to others, as to me; But, I believe, although I seem so loth, King. Ay,that there is: our court, you know,is haunted A man in all the world's new fashion planted, For interim to our studies, shall relate, And I will use him for my minstrelsy.2 Biron. Armado is a most illustrious wight, A man of fire-new words,3 fashion's own knight. [7] Biron, amidst his extravagancies, speaks with great justness against the folly of vows. They are made without sufficient regard to the variations of life, and are therefore broken by some unforeseen necessity. They proceed commonly from a presumptuous confidence, and a false estimate of human power. JOHNSON. [8] Suggestions-Temptations. JOHNSON. [9] Quick recreation-Lively sport, spritely diversion. JOHNSON. [1] This passage, I believe, means no more than that Don Armado was a man nicely versed in ceremonial distinctions, one who could distinguish in the most delicate questions of honour the exact boundaries of right and wrong. Compliment, in Shakspeare's time, did not signify. at least, did not only signify verbal civility, or phrases of courtesy, but, according to its original meaning, the trappings, or ornamental appendages of a character, in the same manner and on the same principles of speech with accomplishment Complement is, as Armado well expresses it, the varnish of a complete man JOHNS. [2] i. e. I will make a minstrel of him, whose occupation was to relate fabulous stories. DOUCE. [3] i. e. (says an intelligent writer in the Edinburgh Magazine,) words newly coined, new from the forge. Fire new, new off the irons, and the Scottish expression bren-new have all the same origin." STEEVENS. 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 :4 but I would see his own person in flesh and blood. Biron. This is he. Dull. Signior Arme-Arme-commend you. There's villainy abroad; this letter will tell you more. Cost. Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me. King. A letter from the magnificent Armado. 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 ? Long. To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately; or to forbear both. Biron. Well, sir, be it as the style 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. 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 manner 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. [4] i. e. Thirdborough, a peace officer, alike in authority with a headborough or a constable." [5] i. e. in the fact. SIR J. HAWKINS. A forensick term. A thief is said to be taken with the manner, i. e. mainour or manour, (for so it is written in our old law books,) when he is apprehended with the thing stolen in his possession. The thing that he has taken was called mainour, from the Fr. manier, manu tractare. MALONE. |