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?