(Without the which I am not to be won)

You shall this twelve-month term from day to day
Visit the speechless sick, and still converse

With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,
With all the fierce 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.

1040

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 that 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,

1050

And I shall find you empty of that fault,

Right joyful of your reformation.

Biron. A twelve-month? well, befall what will befall,

I'll jest a twelve-month 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 twelve-month 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. That worthy knight of Troy.

1060

Arm. I will kiss thy royal finger, and take leave: I am a votary; I have vow'd 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 parise of the owl and the cuckow? it should have follow'd in the end of our show.

1079 King. Call them forth quickly, we will do so. Arm. Holla! approach.

Enter all, for the Song.

This side is Hiems; winter.

This Ver, the spring; the one maintain'd by the owl,

The other by the cuckow.

Ver, begin.

SONG.

SONG.

SPRING.

When daizies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckow-buds of yellow hue,

Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckow then, on every tree
Mocks marry'd men, for thus sings he,
Cuckow;

Cuckow, cuchow,—0 word of fear,
Unpleasing to a marry'd ear!

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are plowmen's clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer-smocks,
The cuckow then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he,
Cuckow;

Cuckow, cuckow,-O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a marry'd ear!

/WINTER.

When isicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,

And milk comes frozen home in pail,

1080

1090

1100

When

114

LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST.

A& V.

When blood is nipt, and ways be foul,

Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-who;

Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,

And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl.

Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-who;

Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth heel the pot.

1110

Arm. The words of Mercury are harsh after the

songs of Apollo. You, that way; we,

this way.

[Exeunt omnes.

THE END.