They talk apart

LONGUEVILLE

What says Maria?

MARIA At the twelvemonth’s end

I’ll change my black gown for a faithful friend.

LONGUEVILLE

I’ll stay with patience; but the time is long.

MARIA

The liker you—few taller are so young.

They talk apart

BIRON (to Rosaline)

Studies my lady? Mistress, look on me.

Behold the window of my heart, mine eye,

What humble suit attends thy answer there.

Impose some service on me for thy love.

ROSALINE

Oft have I heard of you, my lord Biron,

Before I saw you; and the world’s large tongue

Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks,

Full of comparisons and wounding flouts,

Which you on all estates will execute

That lie within the mercy of your wit.

To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain,

And therewithal to win me if you please,

Without the which I am not to be won,

You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day

Visit the speechless sick and still converse

With groaning wretches, and your task shall be

With all the fierce endeavour of your wit

To enforce the pained impotent to smile.

BIRON

To move wild laughter in the throat of death?—

It cannot be, it is impossible.

Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.

ROSALINE

Why, that’s the way to choke a gibing spirit,

Whose influence is begot of that loose grace

Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools.

A jest’s prosperity lies in the ear

Of him that hears it, never in the tongue

Of him that makes it. Then if sickly ears,

Deafed with the clamours of their own dear groans,

Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,

And I will have you and that fault withal.

But if they will not, throw away that spirit,

And I shall find you empty of that fault,

Right joyful of your reformation.

BIRON

A twelvemonth? Well, befall what will befall,

I’ll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital.

QUEEN (to the King)

Ay, sweet my lord, and so I take my leave.

KING

No, madam, we will bring you on your way.

BIRON

Our wooing doth not end like an old play.

Jack hath not Jill. These ladies’ courtesy

Might well have made our sport a comedy.

KING

Come, sir, it wants a twelvemonth an’ a day,

And then ’twill end.

BIRON

That’s too long for a play.

Enter Armado the braggart

ARMADO (to the King) Sweet majesty, vouchsafe me.

QUEEN Was not that Hector?

DUMAINE The worthy knight of Troy.

ARMADO

I will kiss thy royal finger and take leave.

I am a votary, I have vowed to Jaquenetta

To hold the plough for her sweet love three year.

But, most esteemed greatness, will you hear the

dialogue that the two learned men have compiled in

praise of the owl and the cuckoo ? It should have

followed in the end of our show.

KING Call them forth quickly, we will do so.

ARMADO

Holla, approach!

Enter Holofernes, Nathaniel, Costard, Mote, Dull, Jaquenetta, and others

This side is Hiems, winter,

This Ver, the spring, the one maintained by the owl,

The other by the cuckoo. Ver, begin.

SPRING (sings)

When daisies pied and violets blue,

And lady-smocks, all silver-white,

And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue

Do paint the meadows with delight,

The cuckoo then on every tree

Mocks married men, for thus sings he:

Cuckoo!

Cuckoo, cuckoo—O word of fear,

Unpleasing to a married ear.

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,

And merry larks are ploughmen’s clocks;

When turtles tread, and rooks and daws,

And maidens bleach their summer smocks,

The cuckoo then on every tree

Mocks married men, for thus sings he:

Cuckoo!

Cuckoo, cuckoo—O word of fear,

Unpleasing to a married ear.

WINTER (sings)

When icicles hang by the wall,

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,

And Tom bears logs into the hall,

And milk comes frozen home in pail;

When blood is nipped, and ways be foul,

Then nightly sings the staring owl:

Tu-whit, tu-whoo!—a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,

And coughing drowns the parson’s saw,

And birds sit brooding in the snow,

And Marian’s nose looks red and raw;

When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,

Then nightly sings the staring owl:

Tu-whit, tu-whoo!—a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

⌈ARMADO⌉ The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo. You that way, we this way. Exeunt, severally

ADDITIONAL PASSAGES

A. The following lines found after 4.3.293 in the First Quarto represent an unrevised version of parts of Biron’s long speech, 4.3.287-341. The first six lines form the basis of 4.3.294-9; the next three are revised at 4.3.326- 30; the next four at 4.3.300-2; the last nine are less directly related to the revised version.

And where that you have vowed to study, lords,

In that each of you have forsworn his book,

Can you still dream, and pore, and thereon look?