1    Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,
2    Live register'd upon our brazen tombs
3    And then grace us in the disgrace of death;
4    When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,
5    The endeavor of this present breath may buy
6    That honour which shall bate his scythe's keen edge
7    And make us heirs of all eternity.
8    Therefore, brave conquerors,--for so you are,
9    That war against your own affections
10   And the huge army of the world's desires,--
11   Our late edict shall strongly stand in force:
12   Navarre shall be the wonder of the world;
13   Our court shall be a little Academe,
14   Still and contemplative in living art.
15   You three, Biron, Dumain, and Longaville,
16   Have sworn for three years' term to live with me
17   My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes
18   That are recorded in this schedule here:
19   Your oaths are pass'd; and now subscribe your names,
20   That his own hand may strike his honour down
21   That violates the smallest branch herein:
22   If you are arm'd to do as sworn to do,
23   Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too.

24   I am resolved; 'tis but a three years' fast:
25   The mind shall banquet, though the body pine:
26   Fat paunches have lean pates, and dainty bits
27   Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits.

28   My loving lord, Dumain is mortified:
29   The grosser manner of these world's delights
30   He throws upon the gross world's baser slaves:
31   To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die;
32   With all these living in philosophy.

33   I can but say their protestation over;
34   So much, dear liege, I have already sworn,
35   That is, to live and study here three years.
36   But there are other strict observances;
37   As, not to see a woman in that term,
38   Which I hope well is not enrolled there;
39   And one day in a week to touch no food
40   And but one meal on every day beside,
41   The which I hope is not enrolled there;
42   And then, to sleep but three hours in the night,
43   And not be seen to wink of all the day--
44   When I was wont to think no harm all night
45   And make a dark night too of half the day--
46   Which I hope well is not enrolled there:
47   O, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep,
48   Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep!

49   Your oath is pass'd to pass away from these.

50   Let me say no, my liege, an if you please:
51   I only swore to study with your grace
52   And stay here in your court for three years' space.

53   You swore to that, Biron, and to the rest.

54   By yea and nay, sir, then I swore in jest.
55   What is the end of study? let me know.

56   Why, that to know, which else we should not know.

57   Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from common sense?

58   Ay, that is study's godlike recompense.

59   Come on, then; I will swear to study so,
60   To know the thing I am forbid to know:
61   As thus,--to study where I well may dine,
62   When I to feast expressly am forbid;
63   Or study where to meet some mistress fine,
64   When mistresses from common sense are hid;
65   Or, having sworn too hard a keeping oath,
66   Study to break it and not break my troth.
67   If study's gain be thus and this be so,
68   Study knows that which yet it doth not know:
69   Swear me to this, and I will ne'er say no.

70   These be the stops that hinder study quite
71   And train our intellects to vain delight.

72   Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain,
73   Which with pain purchased doth inherit pain:
74   As, painfully to pore upon a book
75   To seek the light of truth; while truth the while
76   Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look:
77   Light seeking light doth light of light beguile:
78   So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,
79   Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.
80   Study me how to please the eye indeed
81   By fixing it upon a fairer eye,
82   Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed
83   And give him light that it was blinded by.
84   Study is like the heaven's glorious sun
85   That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks:
86   Small have continual plodders ever won
87   Save base authority from others' books
88   These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights
89   That give a name to every fixed star
90   Have no more profit of their shining nights
91   Than those that walk and wot not what they are.
92   Too much to know is to know nought but fame;
93   And every godfather can give a name.

94   How well he's read, to reason against reading!

95   Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding!

96   He weeds the corn and still lets grow the weeding.

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

98   How follows that?

99   Fit in his place and time.

100  In reason nothing.

101  Something then in rhyme.

102  Biron is like an envious sneaping frost,
103  That bites the first-born infants of the spring.

104  Well, say I am; why should proud summer boast
105  Before the birds have any cause to sing?
106  Why should I joy in any abortive birth?
107  At Christmas I no more desire a rose
108  Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled mirth;
109  But like of each thing that in season grows.
110  So you, to study now it is too late,
111  Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate.

112  Well, sit you out: go home, Biron: adieu.

113  No, my good lord; I have sworn to stay with you:
114  And though I have for barbarism spoke more
115  Than for that angel knowledge you can say,
116  Yet confident I'll keep what I have swore
117  And bide the penance of each three years' day.
118  Give me the paper; let me read the same;
119  And to the strict'st decrees I'll write my name.

120  How well this yielding rescues thee from shame!

Reads
121   'Item, That no woman shall come within a
122  mile of my court:' Hath this been proclaimed?

123  Four days ago.

124  Let's see the penalty.
Reads
125  'On pain of losing her tongue.' Who devised this penalty?

126  Marry, that did I.

127  Sweet lord, and why?

128  To fright them hence with that dread penalty.

129  A dangerous law against gentility!
Reads
130  'Item, If any man be seen to talk with a woman
131  within the term of three years, he shall endure such
132  public shame as the rest of the court can possibly devise.'
133  This article, my liege, yourself must break;
134  For well you know here comes in embassy
135  The French king's daughter with yourself to speak--
136  A maid of grace and complete majesty--
137  About surrender up of Aquitaine
138  To her decrepit, sick and bedrid father:
139  Therefore this article is made in vain,
140  Or vainly comes the admired princess hither.

141  What say you, lords? Why, this was quite forgot.

142  So study evermore is overshot:
143  While it doth study to have what it would
144  It doth forget to do the thing it should,
145  And when it hath the thing it hunteth most,
146  'Tis won as towns with fire, so won, so lost.

147  We must of force dispense with this decree;
148  She must lie here on mere necessity.

149  Necessity will make us all forsworn
150  Three thousand times within this three years' space;
151  For every man with his affects is born,
152  Not by might master'd but by special grace:
153  If I break faith, this word shall speak for me;
154  I am forsworn on 'mere necessity.'
155  So to the laws at large I write my name:
Subscribes
156  And he that breaks them in the least degree
157  Stands in attainder of eternal shame:
158  Suggestions are to other as to me;
159  But I believe, although I seem so loath,
160  I am the last that will last keep his oath.
161  But is there no quick recreation granted?

162  Ay, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted
163  With a refined traveller of Spain;
164  A man in all the world's new fashion planted,
165  That hath a mint of phrases in his brain;
166  One whom the music of his own vain tongue
167  Doth ravish like enchanting harmony;
168  A man of complements, whom right and wrong
169  Have chose as umpire of their mutiny:
170  This child of fancy, that Armado hight,
171  For interim to our studies shall relate
172  In high-born words the worth of many a knight
173  From tawny Spain lost in the world's debate.
174  How you delight, my lords, I know not, I;
175  But, I protest, I love to hear him lie
176  And I will use him for my minstrelsy.

177  Armado is a most illustrious wight,
178  A man of fire-new words, fashion's own knight.

179  Costard the swain and he shall be our sport;
180  And so to study, three years is but short.

181  Which is the duke's own person?

182  This, fellow: what wouldst?

183  I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his
184  grace's tharborough: but I would see his own person
185  in flesh and blood.

186  This is he.

187  Signior Arme--Arme--commends you. There's villany
188  abroad: this letter will tell you more.

189  Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me.

190  A letter from the magnificent Armado.

191  How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high words.

192  A high hope for a low heaven: God grant us patience!

193  To hear? or forbear laughing?

194  To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately; or to
195  forbear both.

196  Well, sir, be it as the style shall give us cause to
197  climb in the merriness.

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

200  In what manner?

201  In manner and form following, sir; all those three:
202  I was seen with her in the manor-house, sitting with
203  her upon the form, and taken following her into the
204  park; which, put together, is in manner and form
205  following. Now, sir, for the manner,--it is the
206  manner of a man to speak to a woman: for the form,--
207  in some form.

208  For the following, sir?

209  As it shall follow in my correction: and God defend
210  the right!

211  Will you hear this letter with attention?

212  As we would hear an oracle.

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

Reads
214   'Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent and
215  sole dominator of Navarre, my soul's earth's god,
216  and body's fostering patron.'

217  Not a word of Costard yet.

Reads
218   'So it is,'--

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

221  Peace!

222  Be to me and every man that dares not fight!

223  No words!

224  Of other men's secrets, I beseech you.

Reads
225   'So it is, besieged with sable-coloured
226  melancholy, I did commend the black-oppressing humour
227  to the most wholesome physic of thy health-giving
228  air; and, as I am a gentleman, betook myself to
229  walk. The time when. About the sixth hour; when
230  beasts most graze, birds best peck, and men sit down
231  to that nourishment which is called supper: so much
232  for the time when. Now for the ground which; which,
233  I mean, I walked upon: it is y-cleped thy park. Then
234  for the place where; where, I mean, I did encounter
235  that obscene and preposterous event, that draweth
236  from my snow-white pen the ebon-coloured ink, which
237  here thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or seest;
238  but to the place where; it standeth north-north-east
239  and by east from the west corner of thy curious-
240  knotted garden: there did I see that low-spirited
241  swain, that base minnow of thy mirth,'--

242  Me?

Reads
243   'that unlettered small-knowing soul,'--

244  Me?

Reads
245   'that shallow vassal,'--

246  Still me?

Reads
247   'which, as I remember, hight Costard,'--

248  O, me!

Reads
249   'sorted and consorted, contrary to thy
250  established proclaimed edict and continent canon,
251  which with,--O, with--but with this I passion to say
252  wherewith,--

253  With a wench.

Reads
254   'with a child of our grandmother Eve, a
255  female; or, for thy more sweet understanding, a
256  woman. Him I, as my ever-esteemed duty pricks me on,
257  have sent to thee, to receive the meed of
258  punishment, by thy sweet grace's officer, Anthony
259  Dull; a man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and
260  estimation.'

261  'Me, an't shall please you; I am Anthony Dull.

Reads
262   'For Jaquenetta,--so is the weaker vessel
263  called which I apprehended with the aforesaid
264  swain,--I keep her as a vessel of the law's fury;
265  and shall, at the least of thy sweet notice, bring
266  her to trial. Thine, in all compliments of devoted
267  and heart-burning heat of duty.
268  DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.'

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

271  Ay, the best for the worst. But, sirrah, what say
272  you to this?

273  Sir, I confess the wench.

274  Did you hear the proclamation?

275  I do confess much of the hearing it but little of
276  the marking of it.

277  It was proclaimed a year's imprisonment, to be taken
278  with a wench.

279  I was taken with none, sir: I was taken with a damsel.

280  Well, it was proclaimed 'damsel.'

281  This was no damsel, neither, sir; she was a virgin.

282  It is so varied, too; for it was proclaimed 'virgin.'

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

284  This maid will not serve your turn, sir.

285  This maid will serve my turn, sir.

286  Sir, I will pronounce your sentence: you shall fast
287  a week with bran and water.

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

289  And Don Armado shall be your keeper.
290  My Lord Biron, see him deliver'd o'er:
291  And go we, lords, to put in practise that
292  Which each to other hath so strongly sworn.

293  I'll lay my head to any good man's hat,
294  These oaths and laws will prove an idle scorn.
295  Sirrah, come on.

296  I suffer for the truth, sir; for true it is, I was
297  taken with Jaquenetta, and Jaquenetta is a true
298  girl; and therefore welcome the sour cup of
299  prosperity! Affliction may one day smile again; and
300  till then, sit thee down, sorrow!