In honourable terms; nay, he can sing

A mean most meanly; and, in ushering,
Mend him who can: the ladies call him, sweet;
The stairs, as he treads on them, kiss his feet:
This is the flower that smiles on every one,
To show his teeth as white as whales'b bone:
And consciences, that will not die in debt,
Pay him the due of honey-tongued Boyet.
KING. A blister on his sweet tongue, with my heart,
That put Armado's page out of his part!

Enter the PRINCESS, ushered by BOYET; ROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, and

Attendants.

BIRON. See where it comes!-Behaviour, what wert thou,

c

Till this man show'd thee? and what art thou now?
KING. All hail, sweet madam, and fair time of day!
PRIN. Fair, in all hail, is foul, as I conceive.
KING. Construe my speeches better, if you may.
PRIN. Then wish me better, I will give you leave.
KING. We came to visit

you; and purpose now

To lead you to our court: vouchsafe it then.
PRIN. This field shall hold me; and so hold your vow:
Nor God, nor I, delights in perjur'd men.

KING. Rebuke me not for that which you provoke ;

The virtue of your eye must break my oath.
PRIN. You nick-name virtue: vice you should have spoke ;
For virtue's office never breaks men's troth.
Now, by my maiden honour, yet as pure
As the unsullied lily, I protest,

A world of torments though I should endure,
I would not yield to be your house's guest:
So much I hate a breaking-cause to be
Of heavenly oaths, vow'd with integrity.
KING. O, you have liv'd in desolation here,
Unseen, unvisited, much to our shame.

PRIN. Not so, my lord, it is not so, I swear;

We have had pastimes here, and pleasant game;

A mess of Russians left us but of late.

KING. How, madam? Russians?

• A mean most meanly. The mean, in vocal music, is an intermediate part; a part-whether tenor, or second soprano, or contra-tenor-between the two extremes of highest and lowest.

b Whales' bone. The tooth of the walrus. Whales' is read as a dissyllable.

• The early copies read "mad man." We agree with the removal of the epithet in the modern copies. It probably arose in a printer's error, man being repeated (the commonest of a compositor's faults), and then corrected by the printer's reader to mad.

PRIN.

Ay, in truth, my lord;

Trim gallants, full of courtship, and of state.
Ros. Madam, speak true:-It is not so, my lord;
My lady, (to the manner of the days,)
In courtesy, gives undeserving praise.
We four, indeed, confronted were with four
In Russian habit; here they stay'd an hour,
And talk'd apace; and in that hour, my lord,
They did not bless us with one happy word.
I dare not call them fools; but this I think,
When they are thirsty, fools would fain have drink.
BIRON. This jest is dry to me. Gentle-sweet",

Your wit makes wise things foolish; when we greet
With eyes best seeing heaven's fiery eye,
By light we lose light: Your capacity
Is of that nature, that to your huge store

Wise things seem foolish, and rich things but poor.
Ros. This proves you wise and rich, for in my eye,—
BIRON. I am a fool, and full of poverty.
Ros. But that you take what doth to you belong,

It were a fault to snatch words from my tongue.
BIRON. O, I am yours, and all that I possess.
Ros. All the fool mine?

Ros. Which of the visors was it that you wore ?

BIRON. Where? when? what visor? why demand you this?
Ros. There, then, that visor; that superfluous case,

That hid the worse, and show'd the better face.

KING. We are descried: they'll mock us now downright.

DUM. Let us confess, and turn it to a jest.

PRIN. Amaz'd, my lord? Why looks your highness sad?

Ros. Help, hold his brows! he'll swoon! Why look you pale?—

Sea-sick, I think, coming from Muscovy.

BIRON. Thus pour the stars down plagues for perjury.

Can any face of brass hold longer out?—

Here stand I, lady; dart thy skill at me;

Bruise me with scorn, confound me with a flout;
Thrust thy sharp wit quite through my ignorance;
Cut me to pieces with thy keen conceit;

And I will wish thee never more to dance,
Nor never more in Russian habit wait.

Gentle-sweet is an example of

• Gentle-sweet. The second folio has "fair gentle sweet."
Shakspere's use of compound epithets, which beauty would be spoiled by another adjective.
Biron, we apprehend, says aside "this jest is dry to me;" and then, after a pause, addresses
Rosaline.

O! never will I trust to speeches penn'd,

Nor to the motion of a schoolboy's tongue; Nor never come in visor to my friend;

Nor woo in rhyme, like a blind harper's song: Taffata phrases, silken terms precise,

Three-pil'd hyperboles, spruce affectation", Figures pedantical; these summer-flies

Have blown me full of maggot ostentation:

I do forswear them: and I here protest,

By this white glove, (how white the hand, God knows!)
Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express'd

In russet yeas, and honest kersey noes:
And, to begin, wench,-so God help me, la!—
My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw.
Ros. Sans SANS, I pray you.

BIRON.

Yet I have a trick
Of the old rage:-bear with me, I am sick;
I'll leave it by degrees. Soft, let us see ;—
Write 66 Lord have mercy on us,' "b on those three;
They are infected, in their hearts it lies;
They have the plague, and caught it of your eyes:
These lords are visited; you are not free,

For the Lord's tokens on you do I see.

PRIN. No, they are free that gave these tokens to us.
BIRON. Our states are forfeit, seek not to undo us.
Ros. It is not so. For how can this be true,

That you stand forfeit, being those that sue?
BIRON. Peace; for I will not have to do with you.
Ros. Nor shall not, if I do as I intend.

BIRON. Speak for yourselves, my wit is at an end.

KING. Teach us, sweet madam, for our rude transgression
Some fair excuse.

What did you whisper in your lady's ear?

KING. That more than all the world I did respect her.

• Affection is the old reading; modern editors read affectation; but affection is used in the same sense in the beginning of this act. On the other hand, we have affectation in 'The Merry Wives of Windsor.' Without affectation the line has imperfect rhythm, and there is no rhyme to ostentation.

Lord have mercy on us—the fearful inscription on houses visited with the plague.

PRIN. When she shall challenge this, you will reject her.
KING. Upon mine honour, no.

PRIN.

Peace, peace, forbear; Your oath once broke, you force not a to forswear. KING. Despise me, when I break this oath of mine. PRIN. I will: and therefore keep it :-Rosaline,

What did the Russian whisper in your ear?
Ros. Madam, he swore that he did hold me dear
As precious eye-sight: and did value me
Above this world: adding thereto, moreover,
That he would wed me, or else die my lover.
PRIN. God give thee joy of him! the noble lord
Most honourably doth uphold his word.

KING. What mean you, madam? by my life, my troth,
I never swore this lady such an oath.

Ros. By heaven you did; and to confirm it plain,
You gave me this: but take it, sir, again.
KING. My faith, and this, the princess I did give ;
I knew her by this jewel on her sleeve.
PRIN. Pardon me, sir, this jewel did she wear;

And lord Biron, I thank him, is my dear :-
What; will you have me, or your pearl again?
BIRON. Neither of either; I remit both twain.
I see the trick on 't :-Here was a consent,
(Knowing aforehand of our merriment,)
To dash it like a Christmas comedy:

Some carry-tale, some please-man, some slight zany,
Some mumble-news, some trencher-knight, some Dick,-
That smiles his cheek in years; and knows the trick
To make my lady laugh, when she's dispos'd,-
Told our intents before: which once disclos'd,
The ladies did change favours; and then we,
Following the signs, woo'd but the sign of she.
Now to our perjury to add more terror,
We are again forsworn: in will, and error.
Much upon this it is :-And might not you,
Forestal our sport, to make us thus untrue?

[To BOYET.

• Force not-hesitate not.

In years. Malone reads in jeers. We have, in 'Twelfth Night,' "He doth smile his cheek into more lines than are in the new map." The character which Biron gives of Boyet is not that of a jeerer; he is a carry-tale-a please-man.. The in years is supposed by Warburton to mean into wrinkles. Tieck ingeniously gives an explanation to the supposed wrinkles: Boyet is neither young nor old; but he has smiled so continually that his cheek, which, in respect of his years, would have been smooth, has become wrinkled through too much smiling.

Do not you know my lady's foot by the squire",
And laugh upon the apple of her eye?
And stand between her back, sir, and the fire,
Holding a trencher, jesting merrily?

You put our page out: Go, you are allow'db;
Die when you will, a smock shall be your shroud.
You leer upon me, do you?. there's an eye,
Wounds like a leaden sword.

BOYET.

Full merrily

Hath this brave manage, this career, been run.

BIRON. Lo, he is tilting straight! Peace; I have done.

Enter CoSTARD.

Welcome pure wit! thou partest a fair fray.

COST. O Lord, sir, they would know,

Whether the three worthies shall come in, or no.

BIRON. What, are there but three?

COST.

For every one pursents three. BIRON.

No, sir; but it is vara fine,

And three times thrice is nine.

COST. Not so, sir; under correction, sir; I hope, it is not so:

You cannot beg us 30, sir, I can assure you, sir; we know what we know ; I hope, sir, three times thrice, sir,—

COST. Under correction, sir, we know whereuntil it doth amount.

BIRON. By Jove, I always took three threes for nine.

COST. O Lord, sir, it were a pity you should get your living by reckoning, sir. BIRON. How much is it?

COST. O Lord, sir, the parties themselves, the actors, sir, will show whereuntil it doth amount: for mine own part, I am, as they say, but to parfect one man, in one poor man; Pompion the great, sir.

BIRON. Art thou one of the worthies?

COST. It pleased them to think me worthy of Pompion the great : for mine own part, I know not the degree of the worthy; but I am to stand for him. BIRON. Go, bid them prepare.

COST. We will turn it finely off, sir; we will take some care.
KING. Biron, they will shame us, let them not approach.
BIRON. We are shame-proof, my lord: and 't is some policy

To have one show worse than the king's and his company.
KING. I say, they shall not come.

PRIN. Nay, my good lord, let me o'er-rule you now:
That sport best pleases that doth least know how:

• The squire-esquierre, a rule, or square.

Allow'd you are an allowed fool. As in 'Twelfth Night'"There is no slander in an allow'd fool."

[Exit COSTARD.