LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. ACT I. SCENE I. Navarre. The Palace. Enter the King, BIRON, LON L GAVILLE, and DUMAIN. King. ET fame, that all hunt after in their lives, Therefore, brave conquerors!-for fo you are, Your oaths are past, and now subscribe your names; If you are arm'd to do, as fworn to do, Dum. My loving lord, Dumain is mortify'd; To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die; Biron. I can but fay their proteftation over,. King. Your oath is pass'd, to pafs away from these. Biron. Let me fay, no, my liege, an' if you please ; I only fwore to ftudy with your grace, And stay, here in your court for three years' space. Long. You fwore to that, Biron, and to the reft. Biron. By yea and nay, fir, then I fwore in jest.What is the end of study? let me know.. King. Why, that to know, which else we fhould not know, Biron. Things hid and barr'd (you mean) from com- King. Ay; that is ftudy's god-like recompence. King. These be the stops that hinder study quite, [] By 'all thefe' the poet feems to mean, all thefe gentlemen' who have fworn to profecute the fame ftudies with me. STEEV. And train our intellects to vain delight. 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 feek the light of truth; while truth the while Doth falfely[2] blind the eye-fight of his look; Light, feeking light, doth light of light beguile : So, ere you find where light in darkness lies, Your light grows dark by lofing of your eyes. Study me how to please the eye indeed, By fixing it upon a fairer eye; Who dazzling fo, that eye fhall be his heed, That will not be deep fearch'd with faucy looks; Than thofe that walk and wot not what they are. Too much to know, is to know naught but fame; And every godfather can give a name.[3] King. How well he's read, to reafon against reading! Dum. Proceeded well, to ftop all good proceeding! Long. He weeds the corn, and ftill let's grow the weeding. Biron. The fpring is near, when green geefe are a breeding. Dum. How follows that? Biron. Fit in his place and time. Dum. In reafon nothing. Biron. Something then in rhyme. Long. Biron' is like an envious fneaping froft, That bites the first-born infants of the spring. Biron. Well, fay I am: why fhould proud fummer boast, Before the birds have any cause to fing? Why fhould I joy in an abortive birth? [2] Falfely' is here and in many other places, the fame as dishoneftly or treacherously. The whole fenfe of this gingling declamation is only this, that a man by too clofe ftudy may read himself blind. JOHNS. [3] The confequence, fays Biron, of too much knowledge, is not any real folution of doubts, but mere empty reputation. That is, too much knowledge gives only fame, a name which every godfather can give like. wife. JOHNS. At Christmas I no more defire a rofe, Than with a fnow in May's new-fangled shows ; That were to climb o'er the house t'unlock the gate. And, though I have for barbarism spoke more, And 'bide the penance of each three years' day. King. How well this yielding rescues thee from fhame! Biron. [Reading.] Item, That no woman shall come within a mile of my court. Hath this been proclaimed ? Long. Four days ago. Biron. Let's fee the penalty.-[Reading.] On pain of lofing her tongue-Who devis'd this penalty? Long. Marry, that did I. Biron. Sweet lord, and why? Long. To fright them hence with that dread penalty. Biron. A dangerous law against gentility! Item, [Reading.] If any man be feen to talk with a woman within the term of three years, he shall endure fuch public fhame as the rest of the court can possibly devise.— This article, my liege, yourself muft break; For, well you know, here comes in embaffy The French king's daughter, with yourself to speak,A maid of grace, and complete majesty,― About furrender-up of Aquitain To her decrepit, fick, and bed-rid father: Or vainly comes the admired princefs hither. While it doth study to have what it would, King. We must, of force, dispense with this decree ; She muft lie here on mere neceffity. Biron. Neceffity will make us all forfworn Three thousand times within this three years space: For every man with his affects is born; Not by might mafter'd, but by especial grace ; If I break faith, this word shall speak for me, I am forfworn on mere neceffity.[4] So to the laws at large I write my name, And he that breaks them in the leaft degree, Stands in attainder of eternal fhame : Suggeftions[5] are to others, as to me; But, I believe, although I feem fo 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 ftudies, fhall relate [4] Biron, amidft his extravagancies, fpeaks with great juftnefs against the folly of vows. They are made without fufficient regard to the variations of life, and are therefore broken by fome unforeseen neceffity. They proceed commonly from a presumptuous confidence, and a false estimate of human power. JOHNS. [5] Temptations. JOHNS. [6] An exceffive complaifance is here admirably painted, in the perfon of one who was willing to make even right and wrong, friends: and to per fuade the one to recede from the accustomed ftubbornnefs of her nature, and wink at the liberties of her oppofite, rather than he would incur the imputation of ill-breeding in keeping up the quarrel. WARB. This paffage, I believe, means no more than that Don Armado was a man nicely verfed in ceremonial distinctions, one who could diftinguish in the molt delicate queftions of honour the exact boundaries of right and wrong. Compliment.' in Shakespeare's time, did not fignify, at leaft did not only fignify verbal civility, or phrafes of courtefy, but according to its original meaning, the trappings, or ornamental appendages of a character, in the fame manner, and on the fame principles of fpeech with 'accomplishment.' "Compliment' is, as Armado well expreffes it, the varnish of a complete man. JOHNS. [7] i. e. He thall relate to us the celebrated ftories recorded in the old romances, and in their very ftyle. Why he fays 'from tawny Spain' is, because these romances being of Spanish original, the heroes and the fcene were generally of that country. Why he fays, loft in the world's debate' is, because the fubject of thofe romances were the crufades of the European Christians against the Saracens of Afia and Africa. WARB. VOL. II. Cc |