The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  And give him light that it was blinded by.

  Study is like the heavens’ glorious sun,

  That will not be deep searched with saucy looks.

  Small have continual plodders ever won

  Save base authority from others’ books.

  These earthly godfathers of heaven’s lights,

  That give a name to every fixed star,

  Have no more profit of their shining nights

  Than those that walk and wot not what they are.

  Too much to know is to know naught but fame,

  And every godfather can give a name.

  KING

  How well he’s read, to reason against reading!

  DUMAINE

  Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding.

  LONGUEVILLE

  He weeds the corn and still lets grow the weeding.

  BIRON

  The spring is near when green geese are a-breeding.

  DUMAINE

  How follows that?

  BIRON

  Fit in his place and time.

  DUMAINE

  In reason nothing.

  BIRON

  Something then in rhyme.

  KING

  Biron is like an envious sneaping frost,

  That bites the first-born infants of the spring.

  BIRON

  Well, say I am! Why should proud summer boast

  Before the birds have any cause to sing?

  Why should I joy in any abortive birth?

  At Christmas I no more desire a rose

  Than wish a snow in May’s new-fangled shows,

  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, Biron. Adieu.

  BIRON

  No, my good lord, I have sworn to stay with you.

  And though I have for barbarism spoke more

  Than for that angel knowledge you can say,

  Yet confident I’ll keep what I have sworn,

  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 (giving a paper)

  How well this yielding rescues thee from shame!

  BIRON (reads) ‘Item: that no woman shall come within a mile of my court.’ Hath this been proclaimed?

  LONGUEVILLE Four days ago.

  BIRON Let’s see the penalty. ‘On pain of losing her tongue.’ Who devised this penalty?

  LONGUEVILLE Marry, that did I.

  BIRON Sweet lord, and why?

  LONGUEVILLE

  To fright them hence with that dread penalty.

  BIRON

  A dangerous law against gentility.

  ‘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 possible 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 complete majesty—

  About surrender-up of Aquitaine

  To her decrepit, sick, and bedrid father.

  Therefore this article is made in vain,

  Or vainly comes th’admirèd 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 decree.

  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 mastered, but by special grace.

  If I break faith, this word shall speak for me:

  I am forsworn on mere necessity.

  So to the laws at large I write my name,

  And he that breaks them in the least degree

  Stands in attainder of eternal shame.

  He signs

  Suggestions are to other as to me,

  But I believe, although I seem so loath,

  I am the last that will last keep his oath.

  But is there no quick 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 who the music 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-borne 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.

  LONGUEVILLE

  Costard the swain and he shall be our sport,

  And so to study three years is but short.

  Enter a constable, Anthony Dull, with Costard with a letter

  DULL Which is the Duke’s own person?

  BIRON This, fellow. What wouldst?

  DULL I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his grace’s farborough. But I would see his own person in flesh and blood.

  BIRON This is he.

  DULL Senor Arm—Arm—commends you. There’s villainy abroad. This letter will tell you more.

  COSTARD 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.

  LONGUEVILLE A high hope for a low heaven. God grant us patience.

  BIRON To hear, or forbear laughing?

  LONGUEVILLE 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.

  COSTARD The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta. The manner of it is, I was taken with the manner.

  BIRON In what manner?

  COSTARD 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?

  COSTARD 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.

  COSTARD 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’—

  COSTARD Not a word of Costard yet.

  KING ‘So it is’—

  COSTARD It may be so; but if he say it is so, he is, in telling true, but so.

  KING Peace!

  COSTARD Be to me and every man that dares not fight.

  KING No words!

&n
bsp; COSTARD 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 physic of thy health-giving air, and, as I 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 yclept 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 curious-knotted garden. There did I see that low-spirited swain, that base minnow of thy mirth’—

  COSTARD Me?

  KING ‘That unlettered, small-knowing sout’—

  COSTARD Me?

  KING ‘That shallow vassal’—

  COSTARD Still me?

  KING ‘Which, as I remember, hight Costard’—

  COSTARD 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 say wherewith’—COSTARD With a wench.

  KING ‘With a child of our grandmother Eve, a female, or for thy more sweet understanding a woman. Him I, as my ever-esteemed duty pricks me on, have sent to thee, to receive the meed of punishment, by thy sweet grace’s officer Anthony Dull, a man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation.’

  DULL Me, an’t shall please you. I am Anthony Dull.

  KING ‘For Jaquenetta—so is the weaker vessel called—which I apprehended with the aforesaid swain, I keep her as a vessel of thy law’s fury, and shall at the least of thy sweet notice bring her to trial. Thine in all compliments of devoted and heartburning heat of duty,

  Don Adriano de Armado.’

  BIRON This is not so well as I looked for, but the best that ever I heard.

  KING Ay, the best for the worst. (To Costard) But, sirrah, what say you to this?

  COSTARD Sir, I confess the wench.

  KING Did you hear the proclamation?

  COSTARD I do confess much of the hearing it, but little of the marking of it.

  KING It was proclaimed a year’s imprisonment to be taken with a wench.

  COSTARD I was taken with none, sir. I was taken with a damsel.

  KING Well, it was proclaimed ‘damsel’.

  COSTARD This was no damsel, neither, sir. She was a virgin.

  ⌈KING⌉ It is so varied, too, for it was proclaimed ‘virgin’.

  COSTARD If it were, I deny her virginity. I was taken with a maid.

  KING This ‘maid’ will not serve your turn, sir.

  COSTARD This maid will serve my turn, sir.

  KING Sir, I will pronounce your sentence. You shall fast a week with bran and water.

  COSTARD I had rather pray a month with mutton and porridge.

  KING

  And Don Armado shall be your keeper.

  My lord Biron, see him delivered o’er,

  And go we, lords, to put in practice that

  Which each to other hath so strongly sworn.

  Exeunt the King, Longueville, and Dumaine

  BIRON

  I’ll lay my head to any good man’s hat

  These oaths and laws will prove an idle scorn.

  Sirrah, come on.

  COSTARD I suffer for the truth, sir; for true it is I was taken with Jaquenetta, and Jaquenetta is a true girl, and therefore, welcome the sour cup of prosperity, affliction may one day smile again; and till then, sit thee down, sorrow. Exeunt

  1.2 Enter Armado and Mote, his page

  ARMADO Boy, what sign is it when a man of great spirit grows melancholy?

  MOTE A great sign, sir, that he will look sad.

  ARMADO Why, sadness is one and the selfsame thing, dear imp.

  MOTE No, no, O Lord, sir, no.

  ARMADO How canst thou part sadness and melancholy, my tender juvenal?

  MOTE By a familiar demonstration of the working, my tough señor.

  ARMADO Why ‘tough señor’? Why ‘tough señor’?

  MOTE Why ‘tender juvenal’? Why ‘tender juvenal’?

  ARMADO I spoke it, tender juvenal, as a congruent epitheton appertaining to thy young days, which we may nominate ‘tender’.

  MOTE And I, tough señor, as an appertinent title to your old time, which we may name ‘tough’.

  ARMADO Pretty and apt.

  MOTE How mean you, sir? I ‘pretty’ and my saying ‘apt’? Or I ‘apt’ and my saying ‘pretty’?

  ARMADO Thou ‘pretty’, because little.

  MOTE Little pretty, because little. Wherefore ‘apt’?

  ARMADO And therefore ‘apt’ because quick.

  MOTE Speak you this in my praise, master?

  ARMADO In thy condign praise.

  MOTE I will praise an eel with the same praise.

  ARMADO What—that an eel is ingenious?

  MOTE That an eel is quick.

  ARMADO I do say thou art quick in answers. Thou heatest my blood.

  MOTE I am answered, sir.

  ARMADO I love not to be crossed.

  MOTE (aside) He speaks the mere contrary-crosses love not him.

  ARMADO I have promised to study three years with the Duke.

  MOTE You may do it in an hour, sir.

  ARMADO Impossible. - MOTE How many is one, thrice told?

  ARMADO I am ill at reckoning; it fitteth the spirit of a tapster.

  MOTE You are a gentleman and a gamester, sir. ARMADO I confess both. They are both the varnish of a complete man.

  MOTE Then I am sure you know how much the gross sum of deuce-ace amounts to.

  ARMADO It doth amount to one more than two.

  MOTE Which the base vulgar do call three.

  ARMADO True.

  MOTE Why, sir, is this such a piece of study ? Now here is ‘three’ studied ere ye’ll thrice wink, and how easy it is to put ‘years’ to the word ‘three’ and study ‘three years’ in two words, the dancing horse will tell you. ARMADO A most fine figure.

  MOTE (aside) To prove you a cipher.

  ARMADO I will hereupon confess I am in love; and as it is base for a soldier to love, so am I in love with a base wench. If drawing my sword against the humour of affection would deliver me from the reprobate thought of it, I would take desire prisoner and ransom him to any French courtier for a new-devised curtsy. I think scorn to sigh. Methinks I should outswear Cupid. Comfort me, boy. What great men have been in love?

  MOTE Hercules, master.

  ARMADO Most sweet Hercules! More authority, dear boy. Name more—and, sweet my child, let them be men of good repute and carriage.

  MOTE Samson, master; he was a man of good carriage, great carriage, for he carried the town-gates on his back like a porter, and he was in love.

  ARMADO O well-knit Samson, strong-jointed Samson! I do excel thee in my rapier as much as thou didst me in carrying gates. I am in love, too. Who was Samson’s love, my dear Mote?

  MOTE A woman, master.

  ARMADO Of what complexion ?

  MOTE Of all the four, or the three, or the two, or one of the four.

  ARMADO Tell me precisely of what complexion?

  MOTE Of the sea-water green, sir.

  ARMADO Is that one of the four complexions?

  MOTE As I have read, sir; and the best of them, too.

  ARMADO Green indeed is the colour of lovers, but to have a love of that colour, methinks Samson had small reason for it. He surely affected her for her wit.

  MOTE It was so, sir, for she had a green wit.

  ARMADO My love is most immaculate white and red.

  MOTE Most maculate thoughts, master, are masked under such colours.

  ARMADO Define, define, well-educated infant.

  MOTE My father’s wit and my mother’s tongue
assist me!

  ARMADO Sweet invocation of a child!—most pretty and pathetical.

  MOTE If she be made of white and red

  Her faults will ne’er be known,

  For blushing cheeks by faults are bred

  And fears by pale white shown.

  Then if she fear or be to blame,

  By this you shall not know;

  For still her cheeks possess the same

  Which native she doth owe.

  A dangerous rhyme, master, against the reason of white and red.

  ARMADO Is there not a ballad, boy, of the King and the Beggar?

  MOTE The world was very guilty of such a ballad some three ages since, but I think now ’tis not to be found; or if it were, it would neither serve for the writing nor the tune.

  ARMADO I will have that subject newly writ o’er, that I may example my digression by some mighty precedent. Boy, I do love that country girl that I took in the park with the rational hind Costard. She deserves well.

  MOTE (aside) To be whipped—and yet a better love than my master.

  ARMADO Sing, boy. My spirit grows heavy in love.

  MOTE And that’s great marvel, loving a light wench. ARMADO I say, sing.

  MOTE Forbear till this company be past. Enter Costard the clown, Constable Dull, and Jaquenetta, a wench

  DULL (to Armado) Sir, the Duke’s pleasure is that you keep Costard safe, and you must suffer him to take no delight, nor no penance, but a must fast three days a week. For this damsel, I must keep her at the park. She is allowed for the dey-woman. Fare you well.

  ARMADO (aside) I do betray myself with blushing.—Maid.

  JAQUENETTA Man.

  ARMADO I will visit thee at the lodge.

  JAQUENETTA That’s hereby.

  ARMADO I know where it is situate.

  JAQUENETTA Lord, how wise you are!

  ARMADO I will tell thee wonders.

  JAQUENETTA With that face?

  ARMADO I love thee.

  JAQUENETTA So I heard you say.

  ARMADO And so farewell.

  JAQUENETTA Fair weather after you.

  ⌈DULL⌉ Come, Jaquenetta, away.

  ⌈Exeunt Dull and Jaquenetta⌉

  ARMADO Villain, thou shalt fast for thy offences ere thou be pardoned.

  COSTARD Well, sir, I hope when I do it I shall do it on a full stomach.

  ARMADO Thou shalt be heavily punished.

  COSTARD I am more bound to you than your fellows, for they are but lightly rewarded.

  ARMADO Take away this villain. Shut him up.

  MOTE Come, you transgressing slave. Away!