Too much to know, is, to know nought but fame; And every godfather can give a name.

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.

Dum. In reason nothing.
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 sum. mer boast,

Before the birds have any cause to sing?

Why should I joy in an abortive birth?

At Christmas I no more desire a rose

Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled showst;
But like of each thing, that in season grows.
So you, to study now it is too late,

Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate.

King. Well, sit you out: go home, Birón; adieu! Biron. No, my good lord; I have sworn to stay

with you

And, though I have for barbarism spoke more,
Thau 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 bath this been proclaim'd?

* Nipping.

+ Games, sports.

Long.

Four days ago.

Who devis'd this?

Biron. Let's see the penalty.

[Reads. On pain of losing her tongue.—

Long. Marry, that did I.

Biron. Sweet lord, and why?

Long. To fright them hence with that dread pe. nalty.

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 cómplete 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.

Biron. So study evermore is overshot; While it doth study to have what it would, It doth forget to do the thing it should: And when it hath the thing it hunteth most, 'Tis won, as towns with fire; so won, so lost. King. We must, of force, dispense with this de cree;

She must lie* here on mere necessity.

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:
If I break faith, this word shall speak for me,
I am forsworn on mere necessity.—

* Reside.

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,
I am the last that will last keep his oath.
But is there no quickt recreation granted :
King. Ay, that there is: our court, you know, is
haunted

With a refined traveller of Spain;

A man in all the world's new fashion planted,
That hath a mint of phrases in his brain:
One, whom the musick of his own vain tongue
Doth ravish, like enchanting harmony;
A man of complements, whom right and wrong
Have chose as umpire of their mutiny:
This child of fancy, that Armado hight

For interim to our studies, shall relate,
In high-born words, the worth of many a knight
From tawny Spain, lost in the world's debate.
How you delight, my lords, I know not, I;
But I protest, I love to hear him lie,

And I will use him for my minstrelsy.

Biron. Armado is a most illustrious wight,

A man of fire-new words, fashion's own knight. 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§: but I would see his own person in flesh and blood.

* Temptations.

Called.

+ Lively, spritely. § i.e. third-borough, a peace-officer.

Biron. This is be.

Dull. Signior Arme-Arme-commends 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.

Cost. Such is the simplicity of man to hearken after the flesh.

King. [Reads.] Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent, and sole dominator of Navarre, my soul's earth's God, and body's fostering patron,Cost. Not a word of Costard yet.

In the fact.

King. So it is,

Cost. It may be so: but if he say it is so, he is, in telling true, but so, so...

King. Peace.

Cost. -be to me, and every man that dares not fight!

King. No words.

Cost. of other men's secrets, I beseech you.

King. So it is, besieged with sable-coloured melancholy, I did commend the black-oppressing humour to the most wholesome physick of thy healthgiving air; and, as 1 am a gentleman, betook myself to walk. The time when? About the sixth hour; when beasts most graze, birds best peck, and men sit down to that nourishment which is called supper. So much for the time when. Now for the ground which; which, I mean, I walked upon: it is ycleped thy park. Then for the place where; where, I mean, I did encounter that obscene and most preposterous event, that draweth from my snow-white pen the ebon-coloured ink, which here thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or seest: but to the place, where, It standeth north-north-east and by east from the west corner of thy curiousknotted garden: there did I see that low-spirited swain, that base minnow of thy mirth,

Cost. Me.

King. - that unletter'd small-knowing soul,
Cost. Me.

King. that shallow vassal,

Cost. Still me.

King. which, as I remember, hight Costard, Cost. O me!

King. sorted and consorted, contrary to thy established proclaimed edict and continent canon, with-with,-O with-but with this I passion to suy wherewith.

Cost. With a wench.

King. - with a child of our grandmother Eve, a female; or, for thy more sweet understanding,