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The king of Navarre’s park.
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[Enter FERDINAND king of Navarre, BIRON, LONGAVILLE] [p]and DUMAIN]
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Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,
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Live register'd upon our brazen tombs
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And then grace us in the disgrace of death;
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When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,
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The endeavor of this present breath may buy
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That honour which shall bate his scythe's keen edge
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And make us heirs of all eternity.
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Therefore, brave conquerors,—for so you are,
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That war against your own affections
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And the huge army of the world's desires,—
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Our late edict shall strongly stand in force:
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Navarre shall be the wonder of the world;
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Our court shall be a little Academe,
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Still and contemplative in living art.
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You three, Biron, Dumain, and Longaville,
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Have sworn for three years' term to live with me
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My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes
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That are recorded in this schedule here:
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Your oaths are pass'd; and now subscribe your names,
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That his own hand may strike his honour down
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That violates the smallest branch herein:
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If you are arm'd to do as sworn to do,
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Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too.
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I am resolved; 'tis but a three years' fast:
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The mind shall banquet, though the body pine:
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Fat paunches have lean pates, and dainty bits
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Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits.
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My loving lord, Dumain is mortified:
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The grosser manner of these world's delights
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He throws upon the gross world's baser slaves:
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To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die;
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With all these living in philosophy.
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I can but say their protestation over;
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So much, dear liege, I have already sworn,
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That is, to live and study here three years.
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But there are other strict observances;
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As, not to see a woman in that term,
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Which I hope well is not enrolled there;
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And one day in a week to touch no food
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And but one meal on every day beside,
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The which I hope is not enrolled there;
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And then, to sleep but three hours in the night,
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And not be seen to wink of all the day—
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When I was wont to think no harm all night
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And make a dark night too of half the day—
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Which I hope well is not enrolled there:
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O, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep,
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Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep!
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Your oath is pass'd to pass away from these.
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Let me say no, my liege, an if you please:
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I only swore to study with your grace
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And stay here in your court for three years' space.
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You swore to that, Biron, and to the rest.
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By yea and nay, sir, then I swore in jest.
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What is the end of study? let me know.
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Why, that to know, which else we should not know.
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Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from common sense?
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Ay, that is study's godlike recompense.
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Come on, then; I will swear to study so,
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To know the thing I am forbid to know:
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As thus,—to study where I well may dine,
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When I to feast expressly am forbid;
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Or study where to meet some mistress fine,
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When mistresses from common sense are hid;
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Or, having sworn too hard a keeping oath,
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Study to break it and not break my troth.
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If study's gain be thus and this be so,
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Study knows that which yet it doth not know:
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Swear me to this, and I will ne'er say no.
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These be the stops that hinder study quite
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And train our intellects to vain delight.
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Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain,
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Which with pain purchased doth inherit pain:
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As, painfully to pore upon a book
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To seek the light of truth; while truth the while
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Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look:
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Light seeking light doth light of light beguile:
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So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,
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Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.
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Study me how to please the eye indeed
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By fixing it upon a fairer eye,
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Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed
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And give him light that it was blinded by.
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Study is like the heaven's glorious sun
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That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks:
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Small have continual plodders ever won
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Save base authority from others' books
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These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights
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That give a name to every fixed star
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Have no more profit of their shining nights
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Than those that walk and wot not what they are.
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Too much to know is to know nought but fame;
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And every godfather can give a name.
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How well he's read, to reason against reading!
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Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding!
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He weeds the corn and still lets grow the weeding.
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The spring is near when green geese are a-breeding.
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Fit in his place and time.
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Something then in rhyme.
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Biron is like an envious sneaping frost,
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That bites the first-born infants of the spring.
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Well, say I am; why should proud summer boast
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Before the birds have any cause to sing?
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Why should I joy in any abortive birth?
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At Christmas I no more desire a rose
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Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled mirth;
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But like of each thing that in season grows.
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So you, to study now it is too late,
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Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate.
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Well, sit you out: go home, Biron: adieu.
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No, my good lord; I have sworn to stay with you:
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And though I have for barbarism spoke more
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Than for that angel knowledge you can say,
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Yet confident I'll keep what I have swore
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And bide the penance of each three years' day.
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Give me the paper; let me read the same;
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And to the strict'st decrees I'll write my name.
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How well this yielding rescues thee from shame!
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[Reads]'Item, That no woman shall come within a
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mile of my court:' Hath this been proclaimed?
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Let's see the penalty.
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'On pain of losing her tongue.' Who devised this penalty?
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To fright them hence with that dread penalty.
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A dangerous law against gentility!
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'Item, If any man be seen to talk with a woman
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within the term of three years, he shall endure such
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public shame as the rest of the court can possibly devise.'
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This article, my liege, yourself must break;
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For well you know here comes in embassy
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The French king's daughter with yourself to speak—
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A maid of grace and complete majesty—
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About surrender up of Aquitaine
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To her decrepit, sick and bedrid father:
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Therefore this article is made in vain,
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Or vainly comes the admired princess hither.
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What say you, lords? Why, this was quite forgot.
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So study evermore is overshot:
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While it doth study to have what it would
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It doth forget to do the thing it should,
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And when it hath the thing it hunteth most,
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'Tis won as towns with fire, so won, so lost.
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We must of force dispense with this decree;
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She must lie here on mere necessity.
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Necessity will make us all forsworn
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Three thousand times within this three years' space;
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For every man with his affects is born,
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Not by might master'd but by special grace:
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If I break faith, this word shall speak for me;
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I am forsworn on 'mere necessity.'
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So to the laws at large I write my name:
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And he that breaks them in the least degree
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Stands in attainder of eternal shame:
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Suggestions are to other as to me;
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But I believe, although I seem so loath,
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I am the last that will last keep his oath.
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But is there no quick recreation granted?
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Ay, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted
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With a refined traveller of Spain;
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A man in all the world's new fashion planted,
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That hath a mint of phrases in his brain;
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One whom the music of his own vain tongue
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Doth ravish like enchanting harmony;
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A man of complements, whom right and wrong
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Have chose as umpire of their mutiny:
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This child of fancy, that Armado hight,
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For interim to our studies shall relate
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In high-born words the worth of many a knight
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From tawny Spain lost in the world's debate.
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How you delight, my lords, I know not, I;
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But, I protest, I love to hear him lie
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And I will use him for my minstrelsy.
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Armado is a most illustrious wight,
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A man of fire-new words, fashion's own knight.
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Costard the swain and he shall be our sport;
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And so to study, three years is but short.
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[Enter DULL with a letter, and COSTARD]
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Which is the duke's own person?
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This, fellow: what wouldst?
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I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his
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grace's tharborough: but I would see his own person
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Signior Arme—Arme—commends you. There's villany
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abroad: this letter will tell you more.
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Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me.
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A letter from the magnificent Armado.
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How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high words.
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A high hope for a low heaven: God grant us patience!
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To hear? or forbear laughing?
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To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately; or to
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Well, sir, be it as the style shall give us cause to
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climb in the merriness.
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The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta.
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The manner of it is, I was taken with the manner.
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In manner and form following, sir; all those three:
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I was seen with her in the manor-house, sitting with
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her upon the form, and taken following her into the
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park; which, put together, is in manner and form
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following. Now, sir, for the manner,—it is the
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manner of a man to speak to a woman: for the form,—
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For the following, sir?
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As it shall follow in my correction: and God defend
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Will you hear this letter with attention?
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As we would hear an oracle.
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Such is the simplicity of man to hearken after the flesh.
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[Reads]'Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent and
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sole dominator of Navarre, my soul's earth's god,
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and body's fostering patron.'
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Not a word of Costard yet.
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It may be so: but if he say it is so, he is, in
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telling true, but so.
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Be to me and every man that dares not fight!
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Of other men's secrets, I beseech you.
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[Reads]'So it is, besieged with sable-coloured
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melancholy, I did commend the black-oppressing humour
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to the most wholesome physic of thy health-giving
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air; and, as I am a gentleman, betook myself to
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walk. The time when. About the sixth hour; when
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beasts most graze, birds best peck, and men sit down
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to that nourishment which is called supper: so much
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for the time when. Now for the ground which; which,
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I mean, I walked upon: it is y-cleped thy park. Then
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for the place where; where, I mean, I did encounter
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that obscene and preposterous event, that draweth
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from my snow-white pen the ebon-coloured ink, which
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here thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or seest;
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but to the place where; it standeth north-north-east
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and by east from the west corner of thy curious-
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knotted garden: there did I see that low-spirited
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swain, that base minnow of thy mirth,'—
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[Reads]'that unlettered small-knowing soul,'—
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[Reads]'that shallow vassal,'—
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[Reads]'which, as I remember, hight Costard,'—
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[Reads]'sorted and consorted, contrary to thy
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established proclaimed edict and continent canon,
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which with,—O, with—but with this I passion to say
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[Reads]'with a child of our grandmother Eve, a
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female; or, for thy more sweet understanding, a
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woman. Him I, as my ever-esteemed duty pricks me on,
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have sent to thee, to receive the meed of
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punishment, by thy sweet grace's officer, Anthony
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Dull; a man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and
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'Me, an't shall please you; I am Anthony Dull.
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[Reads]'For Jaquenetta,—so is the weaker vessel
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called which I apprehended with the aforesaid
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swain,—I keep her as a vessel of the law's fury;
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and shall, at the least of thy sweet notice, bring
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her to trial. Thine, in all compliments of devoted
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and heart-burning heat of duty.
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DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.'
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This is not so well as I looked for, but the best
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Ay, the best for the worst. But, sirrah, what say
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Sir, I confess the wench.
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Did you hear the proclamation?
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I do confess much of the hearing it but little of
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It was proclaimed a year's imprisonment, to be taken
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I was taken with none, sir: I was taken with a damsel.
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Well, it was proclaimed 'damsel.'
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This was no damsel, neither, sir; she was a virgin.
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It is so varied, too; for it was proclaimed 'virgin.'
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If it were, I deny her virginity: I was taken with a maid.
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This maid will not serve your turn, sir.
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This maid will serve my turn, sir.
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Sir, I will pronounce your sentence: you shall fast
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a week with bran and water.
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I had rather pray a month with mutton and porridge.
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And Don Armado shall be your keeper.
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My Lord Biron, see him deliver'd o'er:
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And go we, lords, to put in practise that
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Which each to other hath so strongly sworn.
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[Exeunt FERDINAND, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN]
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I'll lay my head to any good man's hat,
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These oaths and laws will prove an idle scorn.
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I suffer for the truth, sir; for true it is, I was
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taken with Jaquenetta, and Jaquenetta is a true
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girl; and therefore welcome the sour cup of
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prosperity! Affliction may one day smile again; and
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till then, sit thee down, sorrow!
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[Enter DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO and MOTH]
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Boy, what sign is it when a man of great spirit
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A great sign, sir, that he will look sad.
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Why, sadness is one and the self-same thing, dear imp.
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No, no; O Lord, sir, no.
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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How canst thou part sadness and melancholy, my
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By a familiar demonstration of the working, my tough senior.
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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Why tough senior? why tough senior?
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Why tender juvenal? why tender juvenal?
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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I spoke it, tender juvenal, as a congruent epitheton
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appertaining to thy young days, which we may
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And I, tough senior, as an appertinent title to your
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old time, which we may name tough.
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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How mean you, sir? I pretty, and my saying apt? or
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I apt, and my saying pretty?
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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Thou pretty, because little.
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Little pretty, because little. Wherefore apt?
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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And therefore apt, because quick.
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Speak you this in my praise, master?
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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In thy condign praise.
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I will praise an eel with the same praise.
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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What, that an eel is ingenious?
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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I do say thou art quick in answers: thou heatest my blood.
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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I love not to be crossed.
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[Aside]He speaks the mere contrary; crosses love not him.
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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I have promised to study three years with the duke.
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You may do it in an hour, sir.
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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How many is one thrice told?
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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I am ill at reckoning; it fitteth the spirit of a tapster.
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You are a gentleman and a gamester, sir.
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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I confess both: they are both the varnish of a
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Then, I am sure, you know how much the gross sum of
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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It doth amount to one more than two.
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Which the base vulgar do call three.
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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Why, sir, is this such a piece of study? Now here
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is three studied, ere ye'll thrice wink: and how
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easy it is to put 'years' to the word 'three,' and
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study three years in two words, the dancing horse
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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To prove you a cipher.
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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I will hereupon confess I am in love: and as it is
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base for a soldier to love, so am I in love with a
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base wench. If drawing my sword against the humour
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of affection would deliver me from the reprobate
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thought of it, I would take Desire prisoner, and
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ransom him to any French courtier for a new-devised
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courtesy. I think scorn to sigh: methinks I should
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outswear Cupid. Comfort, me, boy: what great men
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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Most sweet Hercules! More authority, dear boy, name
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more; and, sweet my child, let them be men of good
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Samson, master: he was a man of good carriage, great
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carriage, for he carried the town-gates on his back
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like a porter: and he was in love.
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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O well-knit Samson! strong-jointed Samson! I do
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excel thee in my rapier as much as thou didst me in
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carrying gates. I am in love too. Who was Samson's
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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Of all the four, or the three, or the two, or one of the four.
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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Tell me precisely of what complexion.
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Of the sea-water green, sir.
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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Is that one of the four complexions?
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As I have read, sir; and the best of them too.
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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Green indeed is the colour of lovers; but to have a
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love of that colour, methinks Samson had small reason
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for it. He surely affected her for her wit.
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It was so, sir; for she had a green wit.
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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My love is most immaculate white and red.
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Most maculate thoughts, master, are masked under
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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Define, define, well-educated infant.
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My father's wit and my mother's tongue, assist me!
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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Sweet invocation of a child; most pretty and
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If she be made of white and red,
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Her faults will ne'er be known,
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For blushing cheeks by faults are bred
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And fears by pale white shown:
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Then if she fear, or be to blame,
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By this you shall not know,
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For still her cheeks possess the same
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Which native she doth owe.
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A dangerous rhyme, master, against the reason of
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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Is there not a ballad, boy, of the King and the Beggar?
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The world was very guilty of such a ballad some
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three ages since: but I think now 'tis not to be
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found; or, if it were, it would neither serve for
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the writing nor the tune.
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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I will have that subject newly writ o'er, that I may
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example my digression by some mighty precedent.
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Boy, I do love that country girl that I took in the
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park with the rational hind Costard: she deserves well.
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[Aside]To be whipped; and yet a better love than
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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Sing, boy; my spirit grows heavy in love.
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And that's great marvel, loving a light wench.
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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Forbear till this company be past.
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[Enter DULL, COSTARD, and JAQUENETTA]
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Sir, the duke's pleasure is, that you keep Costard
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safe: and you must suffer him to take no delight
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nor no penance; but a' must fast three days a week.
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For this damsel, I must keep her at the park: she
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is allowed for the day-woman. Fare you well.
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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I do betray myself with blushing. Maid!
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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I will visit thee at the lodge.
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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I know where it is situate.
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Lord, how wise you are!
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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I will tell thee wonders.
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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Fair weather after you!
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Come, Jaquenetta, away!
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[Exeunt DULL and JAQUENETTA]
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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Villain, thou shalt fast for thy offences ere thou
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Well, sir, I hope, when I do it, I shall do it on a
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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Thou shalt be heavily punished.
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I am more bound to you than your fellows, for they
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are but lightly rewarded.
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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Take away this villain; shut him up.
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Come, you transgressing slave; away!
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Let me not be pent up, sir: I will fast, being loose.
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No, sir; that were fast and loose: thou shalt to prison.
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Well, if ever I do see the merry days of desolation
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that I have seen, some shall see.
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Nay, nothing, Master Moth, but what they look upon.
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It is not for prisoners to be too silent in their
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words; and therefore I will say nothing: I thank
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God I have as little patience as another man; and
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therefore I can be quiet.
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[Exeunt MOTH and COSTARD]
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Don Adriano de Armado.
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I do affect the very ground, which is base, where
249
her shoe, which is baser, guided by her foot, which
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is basest, doth tread. I shall be forsworn, which
251
is a great argument of falsehood, if I love. And
252
how can that be true love which is falsely
253
attempted? Love is a familiar; Love is a devil:
254
there is no evil angel but Love. Yet was Samson so
255
tempted, and he had an excellent strength; yet was
256
Solomon so seduced, and he had a very good wit.
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Cupid's butt-shaft is too hard for Hercules' club;
258
and therefore too much odds for a Spaniard's rapier.
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The first and second cause will not serve my turn;
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the passado he respects not, the duello he regards
261
not: his disgrace is to be called boy; but his
262
glory is to subdue men. Adieu, valour! rust rapier!
263
be still, drum! for your manager is in love; yea,
264
he loveth. Assist me, some extemporal god of rhyme,
265
for I am sure I shall turn sonnet. Devise, wit;
266
write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio.
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