HOUNDS.

My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, So flew'd*, so sanded; and their heads are hung With ears that sweep away the morning dew; Crook-knee'd, and dew-lap'd like Thessalian bulls, Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells, Each under each. A cry more tuneable Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn.

ACT V.

THE POWER OF IMAGINATION.

THE lunatic, the lover, and the poet,
Are of imagination all compact+:

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to hea-
And, as imagination bodies forth

[ven;

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation, and a name.

SIMPLICITY AND DUTY.

For never any thing can be amiss, When simpleness and duty tender it.

Hip. I love not to see wretchedness o'ercharg'd, And duty in his service perishing.

MODEST DUTY ALWAYS ACCEPTABLE.

Where I have come, great clerks have purposed To greet me with premeditated welcomes; Where I have seen them shiver and look pale,

* The flews are the large chaps of a hound.

+ Are made of mere imagination.

Make periods in the midst of sentences,
Throttle their practis'd accent in their fears,
And, in conclusion, dumbly have broke off,
Not paying me a welcome: Trust me, sweet,
Out of this silence, yet, I pick'd a welcome;
And in the modesty of fearful duty

I read as much as from the rattling tongue
Of saucy and audacious eloquence.

TIME.

The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve.

NIGHT.

Now the hungry lion roars,

And the wolf behowls the moon;
Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,
All with weary task fordone *.
Now the wasted brands do glow,

Whilst the scritch-owl, scritching loud,

Puts the wretch, that lies in woe,
In remembrance of a shroud.
Now it is the time of night,

That the graves, all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his sprite,
In the church-way paths to glide.
* Overcome.

Much Ado About Nothing.

ACT I.

PEACE INSPIRES LOVE.

BUT
now I am return'd, and that war-thoughts
Have left their places vacant, in their rooms
Come thronging soft and delicate desires,
All prompting me how fair young Hero is.
D. Pedro. Thou wilt be like a lover presently,
And tire the hearer with a book of words:
If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it;
And I will break with her, and with her father,
And thou shalt have her: Was 't not to this end,
That thou began'st to twist so fine a story?
Claud. How sweetly do you minister to love,
That know love's grief by his complexion!
But lest my liking might too sudden seem,
I would have salv'd it with a longer treatise.
D. Pedro. What need the bridge much broader
than the flood?

The fairest grant is the necessity:

Look, what will serve, is fit: 'tis once, thou lov'st; And I will fit thee with the remedy.

* Once for all.

I know, we shall have revelling to-night;
I will assume thy part in some disguise,
And tell fair Hero I am Claudio;
And in her bosom I'll unclasp my heart.

ACT II.

FRIENDSHIP IN LOVE.

FRIENDSHIP is constant in all other things,

Save in the office and affairs of love:

Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues;
Let every eye negotiate for itself,

And trust no agent: for beauty is a witch,
Against whose charms faith melteth into blood *.

MERIT ALWAYS MODEST.

It is the witness still of excellency,
To put a strange face on his own perfection.

BENEDICT THE BACHELOR'S RECANTATION.

This can be no trick: The conference was sadly borne +-They have the truth of this from Hero. They seem to pity the lady; it seems, her affections have their full bent. Love me! why it must be requited. I hear how I am censured: they say, I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive the love come from her; they say too, that she will rather die than give any sign of affection.-I did never think to marry:-I must not seem proud:-Happy are they that hear their detractions, and can put them to mending. They say, the lady is fair; 'tis a truth, I can bear them witness: and virtuous;-'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me:-By my troth, it is no addition to her wit; nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have railed so long against marriage :-But doth not the appe* Passion. † Seriously carried on.

tite alter? A man loves the meat in his youth, that he cannot endure in his age: Shall quips, and sentences, and these paper bullets of the brain, awe a man from the career of his humour? No: The world must be peopled. When I said, I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Here comes Beatrice: By this day, she's a fair lady: I do spy some marks of love in her.

ACT. III.

FAVOURITES COMPARED TO HONEYSUCKLES.

BID her steal into the pleached bower,
Where honeysuckles, ripen'd by the sun,
Forbid the sun to enter;-like favourites,
Made proud by princes, that advance their pride
Against that power that bred it.

A SCORNFUL AND SATYRICAL BEAUTY.

*

Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes,
Misprising what they look on; and her wit
Values itself so highly, that to her

All matter else seems weak: she cannot love,
Nor take no shape nor project of affection,
She is so self-endeared.

I never yet saw man,

How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featur'd
But she would spell him backward: if fair-faced,
She'd swear, the gentleman should be her sister;
If black, why, nature, drawing of an antic,
'Made a foul blot: if tall, a lance ill-headed;
If low, an agate very vilely cut:

If speaking, why, a vane blown with all wind:
If silent, why a block moved with none.
So turns she every man the wrong side out;
And never gives to truth and virtue, that
Which simpleness and merit purchaseth.
* Undervaluing.