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Then fools you were these women to forswear;
Or, keeping what is sworn, you will prove fools.
For wisdom's sake, a word that all men love;
Or for love's sake, a word that loves all men ;
Or for men's sake, the authors of these women;
Or women's sake, by whom we men are men;
Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves,
Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths:
It is religion to be thus forsworn:

For charity itself fulfils the law;

And who can sever love from charity?

King. Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field! Biron. Advance your standards, and upon them, lords;

Pell-mell, down with them! but be first advis'd, In conflict that you get the sun of them.

Long. Now to plain-dealing; lay these glozes by: Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France?

King. And win them too: therefore let us devise Some entertainment for them in their tents.

Biron. First, from the park let us conduct them thither;

Then, homeward, every man attach the hand
Of his fair mistress: in the afternoon

We will with some strange pastime solace them,
Such as the shortness of the time can shape;
For revels, dances, masks, and merry hours,
Fore-run fair Love, strewing her way with flowers.
King. Away, away! no time shall be omitted,
That will be time, and may by us be fitted.
Biron. Allons! Allons! Sow'd cockle reap'd

no corn;

And justice always whirls in equal measure: Light wenches may prove plagues to men forsworn; If so, our copper buys no better treasure.

[Exeunt.

ACT V.

SCENE I.-Another part of the same.

Enter HOLOFERNES, Sir Nathaniel, and DULL. Hol. Satis quod sufficit.

Nath. I praise God for you, sir; your reasons6 at dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection," audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy. I did converse this quondam day with a companion of the king's, who is intituled, nominated, or called, Don Adriano de Armado.

Hol. Novi hominem tanquam te: His humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical.8 He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were, too peregrinate, as I may call it. Nath. A most singular and choice epithet.

[Takes out his table-book. Hol. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor such fantastical phantasms, such insociable and point-devise companions; such rackers of orthography, as to speak, dout, fine, when he should say, doubt; det, when he should pronounce, debt; d, e, b, t; not, d, e, t: he clepeth a calf, cauf; half, hauf; neighbour, vocatur, nebour, neigh, abbreviated, ne: This is abhominable, (which he would call abominable,) it insinuateth me of in8 Boastful. 1 Finical exactness.

6 Discourses.
9 Over-dressed.

7 Affectation.

sanie; Ne intelligis, domine? to make frantick, lunatick.

Nath. Laus Deo, bone intelligo.

Hol. Bone? bone, for benè: Priscian a little scratch'd; 'twill serve.

Enter ARMADO, MOTH, and COSTARD.

Nath. Videsne quis venit?

Hol. Video, & gaudeo.

Arm. Chirra!

Hol. Quare Chirra, not sirrah?

Arm. Men of peace, well encounter'd.

Hol. Most military sir, salutation.

[TO MOTH.

Moth. They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps.

[TO COSTARD aside. Cost. O, they have lived long in the alms-basket of words! I marvel, thy master hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon. 2

Moth. Peace; the peal begins.

Arm. Monsieur, [To HoL.] are you not letter'd?

Moth. Yes, yes; he teaches boys the hornbook:

What is a, b, spelt backward with a horn on his head?

Hol. Ba, pueritia, with a horn added.

Moth. Ba, most silly sheep, with a horn:

You hear his learning.

Hol. Quis, quis, thou consonant?

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2 A small inflammable substance, swallowed in a glass

of wine.

Moth. The third of the five vowels, if you repeat them; or the fifth, if I.

Hol. I will repeat them, a, e, i.—

Moth. The sheep: the other two concludes it;

o, u.

Arm. Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum, a sweet touch 3, a quick venew of wit: snip, snap, quick and home; it rejoiceth my intellect: true wit.

Moth. Offered by a child to an old man; which is wit-old.

Hol. What is the figure? what is the figure?
Moth. Horns.

Hol. Thou disputest like an infant: go, whip thy gig.

Moth. Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your infamy circùm circà; A gig of a cuckold's horn!

Cost. An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy gingerbread: hold, there is the very remuneration I had of thy master, thou half-penny purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of discretion. O, an the heavens were so pleased, that thou wert but my bastard! what a joyful father wouldst thou make me! Go to; thou hast it ad dunghill, at the fingers' ends, as they say.

Hol. Ŏ, I smell false Latin; dunghill for unguem.

Arm. Arts-man, præambula; we will be singled from the barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the charge-house on the top of the mountain? Hol. Or, mons, the hill.

Arm. At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain. Hol. I do, sans question.

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Arm. Sir, it is the king's most sweet pleasure and affection, to congratulate the princess at her pavilion, in the posteriors of this day; which the rude multitude call, the afternoon.

Hol. The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is liable, congruent, and measurable for the afternoon: the word is well cull'd, chose; sweet and apt, I do assure you, sir, I do assure.

Arm. Sir, the king is a noble gentleman; and my familiar, I do assure you, very good friend: For what is inward 5 between us, let it pass: - [ do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy;-I beseech thee, apparel thy head;-and among other importunate and most serious designs, and of great import indeed, too;—but let that pass: for I must tell thee, it will please his grace (by the world) sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder; and with his royal finger, thus, dally with my excrement, with my mustachio: but, sweet heart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no fable; some certain special honours it pleaseth his greatness to impart to Armado, a soldier, a man of travel, that hath seen the world: but let that pass.The very all of all is, but, sweet heart, I do implore secrecy, that the king would have me present the princess, sweet chuck7, with some delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant, or antick, or firework. Now, understanding that the curate and your sweet self, are good at such eruptions, and sudden breaking out of mirth, as it were, I have acquainted you withal, to the end to crave your

assistance.

Hol. Sir, you shall present before her the nine worthies. Sir Nathaniel, as concerning some

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5 Confidential.

6 Beard.

7 Chick.

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