dience hiss, you may cry, Well done, Hercules! Now thou crushest the snake! That is the way to make an offence gracious; though few have the grace to do it. Arm. For the rest of the worthies?

Hol. I will play three myself.
Moth. Thrice worthy gentleman!
Arm. Shall I tell you a thing?

Hol. We attend.

Arm. We will have, if this fadge' not, an antic. I beseech you, follow.

Hol. Via, goodman Dull! Thou hast spoken no word all this while.

Dull. Nor understood none neither, sir.

Hol. Allons! we will employ thee.

Dull. I'll make one in a dance, or so; or I will play on the tabor to the worthies, and let them dance the hay.

Hol. Most dull, honest Dull, to our sport, away.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II. Another part of the same. Before the Princess's Pavilion.

Enter the Princess, KATHARINE, ROSALINE, and MARIA.

Prin. Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart,

If fairings come thus plentifully in.

A lady walled about with diamonds!—
Look you,
what I have from the loving king.

Ros. Madam, came nothing else along with that?
Prin. Nothing but this? Yes, as much love in

rhyme,

As would be crammed up in a sheet of paper,
Writ on both sides the leaf, margent and all;
That he was fain to seal on Cupid's name.

1 i. e. suit not, go not.

An Italian exclamation, signifying Courage! Come on!

Ros. That was the way to make his god-head wax;1 For he hath been five thousand years a boy.

Kath. Ay, and a shrewd, unhappy gallows too.

Ros. You'll ne'er be friends with him: he killed your sister.

Kath. He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy;
And so she died. Had she been light like you,
Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit,

She might have been a grandam ere she died!
And so may you; for a light heart lives long.

Ros. What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word?

Kath. A light condition in a beauty dark.

Ros. We need more light to find your meaning out. Kath. You'll mar the light by taking it in snuff:2 Therefore I'll darkly end the argument.

Ros. Look, what you do, you do it still i'the dark. Kath. So do not you; for you are a light wench. Ros. Indeed, I weigh not you; and therefore light. Kath. You weigh me not,-O, that's you care not for me.

Ros. Great reason; for, past cure is still past care. Prin. Well bandied both; a set of wit well played.

But, Rosaline, you have a favor too.

Who sent it, and what is it?

I would you knew;

Ros.
And if my face were but as fair as yours,
My favor were as great; be witness this.
Nay, I have verses too, I thank Birón;

The numbers true; and, were the numbering too,
I were the fairest goddess on the ground.

I am compared to twenty thousand fairs.

O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter!
Prin. Any thing like?

Ros. Much, in the letters; nothing in the praise.

1 Grow.

2 Snuff is here used equivocally for anger, and the snuff of a candle. See King Henry IV. Act i. Sc. 3.

3 A set is a term at tennis for a game.

Prin. Beauteous as ink; a good conclusion.
Kath. Fair as a text B in a copy-book.

Ros. 'Ware pencils! How! Let me not die

debtor,

My red dominical, my golden letter.

O that your face were not so full of O's!

your

Kath. A pox of that jest! And beshrew all shrows! Prin. But what was sent to you from fair Dumain? Kath. Madam, this glove.

Prin.

Did he not send you twain?

Kath. Yes, madam; and moreover,

Some thousand verses of a faithful lover;

A huge translation of hypocrisy,

Vilely compiled, profound simplicity.

Mar. This, and these pearls, to me sent Longaville; The letter is too long by half a mile.

Prin. I think no less. Dost thou not wish in heart, The chain were longer, and the letter short?

Mar. Ay, or I would these hands might never part.
Prin. We are wise girls, to mock our lovers so.
Ros. They are worse fools to purchase mocking so.
That same Birón I'll torture ere I go.

O that I knew he were but in by the week!2
How I would make him fawn, and beg and seek,
And wait the season, and observe the times,
And spend his prodigal wits in bootless rhymes;
And shape his service wholly to my behests;
And make him proud to make me proud that jests! 3
So potent-like would I o'ersway his state,
That he should be my fool, and I his fate.

Prin. None are so surely caught, when they are catched,

As wit turned fool. Folly, in wisdom hatched,

1 She advises Katharine to beware of drawing likenesses, lest she should retaliate.

2 This is an expression taken from the hiring of servants; meaning, “I wish I knew that he was in love with me, or my servant," as the phrase is. 3 The meaning of this obscure line seems to be,-I would make him proud to flatter me, who make a mock of his flattery.

4 The old copies read pertaunt-like. The modern editions read, with Sir T. Hanmer, portent-like.

Hath wisdom's warrant, and the help of school;
And wit's own grace to grace a learned fool.

Ros. The blood of youth burns not with such excess, As gravity's revolt to wantonness.

Mar. Folly in fools bears not so strong a note, As foolery in the wise, when wit doth dote; Since all the power thereof it doth apply,

To prove, by wit, worth in simplicity.

Enter BOYET.

Prin. Here comes Boyet, and mirth is in his face. Boyet. O, I am stabbed with laughter! Where's her grace?

Prin. Thy news, Boyet?

Boyet.

Arm, wenches, arm!
Against your peace.

Prepare, madam, prepare!— Encounters mounted are

Love doth approach disguised,

Armed in arguments. You'll be surprised:

Muster your wits; stand in your own defence;
Or hide your heads like cowards, and fly hence.
Prin. Saint Dennis to saint Cupid! What are
they,

That charge their breath against us? say, scout, say.
Boyet. Under the cool shade of a sycamore,

I thought to close mine eyes some half an hour,
When, lo! to interrupt my purposed rest,
Toward that shade I might behold addressed
The king and his companions. Warily
I stole into a neighbor thicket by,
And overheard what you shall overhear;
That, by and by, disguised they will be here.
Their herald is a pretty, knavish page,
That well by heart hath conned his embassage.
Action, and accent, did they teach him there;
Thus must thou speak, and thus thy body bear;
And ever and anon they made a doubt,
Presence majestical would put him out;
For, quoth the king, an angel shalt thou see;
Yet fear not thou, but speak audaciously.

The boy replied, An angel is not evil;

I should have feared her, had she been a devil.

With that all laughed, and clapped him on the shoul

der;

Making the bold wag by their praises bolder.

One rubbed his elbow, thus; and fleered, and swore,
A better speech was never spoke before;
Another, with his finger and his thumb,

Cried, Via! we will do't, come what will come :
The third he capered, and cried, All goes well;
The fourth turned on the toe, and down he fell.
With that they all did tumble on the ground,
With such a zealous laughter, so profound,
That in this spleen ridiculous' appears,
To check their folly, passion's solemn tears.

Prin. But what, but what, come they to visit us? Boyet. They do, they do; and are appareled thus, Like Muscovites, or Russians. As I guess,

2

The purpose is, to parle, to court, and dance;
And every one his love-feat will advance
Unto his several mistress; which they'll know

By favors several, which they did bestow.

Prin. And will they so? The gallants shall be tasked;

For, ladies, we will every one be masked;

And not a man of them shall have the grace,
Despite of suit, to see a lady's face.-

Hold, Rosaline, this favor thou shalt wear;

And then the king will court thee for his dear;

Hold, take thou this, my sweet, and give me thine ;
So shall Birón take me for Rosaline.-

And change your favors too; so shall your loves
Woo contrary, deceived by these removes.

1 Spleen ridiculous is a ridiculous fit of laughter. The spleen was anciently supposed to be the cause of laughter.

2 In the first year of K. Henry VIII. at a banquet made for the foreign ambassadors in the parliament chamber at Westminster, "came the Lorde Henry Earle of Wiltshire and the Lorde Fitzwater, in two long gownes of yellow satin traversed with white satin, and in every bend of white was a bend of crimosen sattin after the fashion of Russia or Ruslande, with furred hattes of grey on their hedes, either of them havyng an hatchet in their handes, and bootes with pykes turned up."-Hall, Henry VIII, p. 6.