Varying in subjects as the eye doth roll
To every varied object in his glance:
Which party-coated presence of loose love
Put on by us, if, in your heavenly eyes,
Have misbecom'd our oaths and gravities,
Those heavenly eyes, that look into these faults,
Suggested 9 us to make; Therefore, ladies,
Our love being yours, the error that love makes
Is likewise yours: we to ourselves prove false,
By being once false for ever to be true
To those that make us both,-fair ladies, you:
And even that falsehood, in itself a sin
Thus purifies itself, and turns to grace.
Prin. We have receiv'd your letters, full of

love;
Your favours, the embassadors of love :
And, in our maiden council, rated them
At courtship, pleasant jest, and courtesy,
As bombast, and as lining to the time :
But more devout than this, in our respects,
Have we not been; and therefore met your loves
In their own fashion, like a merriment.

Dum. Our letters, madam, show'd much more

a

than jest.

Long. So did our looks.
Ros.

We did not quote' them so.
King. Now, at the latest minute of the hour,
Grant us your loves.
Prin.

A time, methinks, too short To make a world-without-end bargain in : No, no, my lord, your grace is perjur'd much, 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,2
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 intitled 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! 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 faults and perjury;
Therefore, if you my favour mean to get,
A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest,
But seek the weary beds of people sick.
Dum. But what to me, my love? but what to

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?

I Kath. Not so, my lord; - a twelvemonth and a

day 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.

Ros. Oft have I heard of you, my lord Birón, 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, (Without the which I am not to be won,) You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day Visit the speechless sick, and still converse With groaning wretches; and your task shall be, With all the fierces 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. 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 ihat 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, And I shall find you empty of that fault, Right joyful of your reformation. Biron. A twelve-month? well, befal what will

befal, I'll jest a twelvemonth 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 twelvemonth and a day, And then 'twill end. Biron.

That's too long for a play..

Enter ARMADO.
Arm. Sweet majesty, vouchsafe me,–
Prin. Was not that Hector ?
Dum. The worthy knight of Troy.

Arm. I will kiss thy royal finger, and take leave: I am a votary; I have vowed to Jaquenetta to hold the plough for her sweet love three years. But, most esteemed greatness, will you hear the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled, in praise of the owl and the cuckoo ? it should have followed in the end of our show.

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

Enter HOLOFERNES, NATHANIEL, MOTH, COSTARD,

and others. This side is Hiems, winter; this Ver, the spring; the one maintain’d by the owl, the other by the cuckoo. Ver, begin.

SONG.
Spring. When daisies pied, and violets blue,

And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,

Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he,

Cuckoo;
Cuckoo, cuckoo,-word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear?