Navarre. The King's Park.
 Enter FERDINAND, King of Navarre, BEROWNE, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAINE.

King	Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,
	Live registered upon our brazen tombs,
	And then grace us in the disgrace of death,
	When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,
	Th' endeavour of this present breath may buy
	That honour which shall bate his scythe's keen edge,
	And make us heirs of all eternity.
	Therefore, brave conquerors - for so you are,
	That war against your own affections
	And the huge army of the world's desires-
	Our late edict shall strongly stand in force:
	Navarre shall be the wonder of the world;
	Our court shall be a little academe,
	Still and contemplative in living art.
	You three, Berowne, Dumaine, and Longaville,
	Have sworn for three years' term to live with me
	My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes
	That are recorded in this schedule here.
	Your oaths are passed; and now subscribe your names,
	That his own hand may strike his honour down
	That violates the smallest branch herein.
	If you are armed to do as sworn to do,
	Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too.

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

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

Berowne	I can but say their protestation over;
	So much, dear liege, I have already sworn,
	That is, to live and study here three years.
	But there are other strict observances,
	As not to see a woman in that term,
	Which I hope well is not enrolld there;
	And one day in a week to touch no food,
	And but one meal on every day beside,
	The which I hope is not enrolld there;
	And then to sleep but three hours in the night,
	And not be seen to wink of all the day,
	When I was wont to think no harm all night,
	And make a dark night too of half the day,
	Which I hope well is not enrolld there.
	O, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep,
	Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep.

King	Your oath is passed to pass away from these.

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

Longaville	You swore to that, Berowne, and to the rest.

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

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

Berowne	Things hid and barred, you mean, from common sense?

King	Ay, that is study's godlike recompense.

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

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

Berowne	Why, all delights are vain, but that most vain
	Which with pain purchased doth inherit pain;
	As, painfully to pore upon a book
		To seek the light of truth, while truth the while
	Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look.
		Light seeking light doth light of light beguile;
	So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,
	Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.
	Study me how to please the eye indeed,
		By fixing it upon a fairer eye,
	Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed,
		And give him light that it was blinded by.
	Study is like the heaven's glorious sun,
		That will not be deep-searched with saucy looks.
	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 fixd 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 nought 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!

Longaville	He weeds the corn, and still lets grow the weeding.

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

Dumaine	How follows that?

Berowne						Fit in his place and time.

Dumaine	In reason nothing.

Berowne							Something then in rhyme.

King	Berowne is like an envious sneaping frost
		That bites the first-born infants of the spring.

Berowne	Well, say I am; why should proud summer boast
		Before the birds have any cause to sing?
	Why should I joy in an 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, Berowne; adieu.

Berowne	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 strictest decrees I'll write my name.

King	How well this yielding rescues thee from shame.

Berowne	[Reads.] "Item: that no woman shall come within a mile of my 
	court" - Hath this been proclaimed?

Longaville	Four days ago.

Berowne	Let's see the penalty. [Reads.] " - on pain of losing her 
	tongue." Who devised this penalty?

Longaville	Marry, that did I.

Berowne	Sweet lord, and why?

Longaville	To fright them hence with that dread penalty.

Berowne	A dangerous law against gentility!
	[Reads.]	"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 possibly 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' admird princess hither.

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

Berowne	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.

Berowne	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,
															[Signing his name.
		And he that breaks them in the least degree
	Stands in attainder of eternal shame.
		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 refind 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-born 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.

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

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

                  Enter DULL with a letter, and COSTARD.

Dull	Which is the duke's own person?

Berowne	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.

Berowne	This is he.

Dull	Signor 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.

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

Longaville	A high hope for a low heaven. God grant us patience!

Berowne	To hear, or forbear hearing?

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

Berowne	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.

Berowne	In what manner?

Costard	In manner and form following, sir, all those three. I was 
	seen with her in the manor-house, sitting with her upon the 
	form, and taken following her into the park; which, put 
	together, is 'in manner and form following'. Now, sir, for 
	the manner - it is the manner of a man to speak to a woman. 
	For the form - in some form.

Berowne	For the following, sir?

Costard	As it shall follow in my correction - and God defend the 
	right!

King	Will you hear this letter with attention?

Berowne	As we would hear an oracle.

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

King	[Reads.]	"Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent, and sole 
	dominator of Navarre, my soul's earth's god, and body's 
	fostering patron."

Costard	Not a word of Costard yet.

King	[Reads.]	"So it is"-

Costard	It may be so, but if he say it is so, he is, in telling true, 
	but so.

King	Peace!

Costard	Be to me and every man that dares not fight.

King	No words!

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

King	[Reads.]	"So it is, besieged with sable-coloured melancholy, 
	I did commend the black-oppressing humour to the most 
	wholesome physic of thy health-giving air; and, as I am a 
	gentleman, betook myself to walk. The time when? About the 
	sixth hour, when beasts most graze, birds best peck, and men 
	sit down to that nourishment which is called supper. So much 
	for the time when. Now for the ground which - which, I mean, 
	I walked upon - It is ycleped thy park. Then for the place 
	where - where, I mean, I did encounter that obscene and most 
	preposterous event that draweth from my snow-white pen the 
	ebon-coloured ink which here thou viewest, beholdest, 
	surveyest, or seest. But to the place where: it standeth 
	north-north-east and by east from the west corner of thy 
	curious-knotted garden. There did I see that low-spirited 
	swain, that base minnow of thy mirth-"

Costard	Me?

King	[Reads.]	" - that unlettered small-knowing soul,-"

Costard	Me?

King	[Reads.]	" - that shallow vassal,-"

Costard	Still me?

King	[Reads.]	" - which, as I remember, hight Costard-"

Costard	O, me.

King	[Reads.]	" - sorted and consorted, contrary to thy 
	established proclaimed edict and continent canon, which with, 
	O, with -  but with this I passion to say wherewith-"

Costard	With a wench.

King	[Reads.]	" - With a child of our grandmother Eve, a female; 
	or, for thy more sweet understanding, a woman. Him I, as my 
	ever-esteemed duty pricks me on, have sent to thee, to 
	receive the meed of punishment, by thy sweet grace's officer 
	Anthony Dull, a man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and 
	estimation."

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

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

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

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

Costard	Sir, I confess the wench.

King	Did you hear the proclamation?

Costard	I do confess much of the hearing it, but little of the 
	marking of it.

King	It was proclaimed a year's imprisonment to be taken with a 
	wench.

Costard	I was taken with none, sir; I was taken with a damsel.

King	Well, it was proclaimed 'damsel'.

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

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

Costard	If it were, I deny her virginity; I was taken with a maid.

King	This 'maid' will not serve your turn, sir.

Costard	This maid will serve my turn, sir.

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

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

King	And Don Armado shall be your keeper.
	My Lord Berowne, see him delivered o'er;
	And go we, lords, to put in practice that
	Which each to other hath so strongly sworn.
							 [Exeunt KING, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAINE.

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

Costard	I suffer for the truth, sir; for true it is I was taken with 
	Jaquenetta, and Jaquenetta is a true girl; and therefore 
	welcome the sour cup of prosperity! Affliction may one day 
	smile again - and till then, sit thee down, sorrow!
															[Exeunt.
