Part 24 (1/2)

_Ros_ Not till it leave the rider in the mire

_Biron_ What time o' day?

_Ros_ The hour that fools should ask

_Biron_ Now fair befall your mask!

_Ros_ Fair fall the face it covers!

_Biron_ And send you many lovers!

_Ros_ Aone”

Clearly this Rosaline, too, has Dian's wit and is not in love with Biron, any more than the Rosaline of ”Romeo and Juliet” was in love with Romeo

The next allusion is even aville and Boyet are talking; Longaville shows his admiration for one of the Princess's women, ”the one in the white” he declares, is a most sweet lady”

_Biron_ What is her naood hap

_Biron_ Is she wedded or no?

_Boyet_ To her will, sir, or so

_Biron_ You are welcome, sir: adieu”

This, ”To her will, sir, or so,” is exactly in the spirit of the sonnets: every one will remember the first two lines of sonnet 135:

”Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy _Will_, And _Will_ to boot, and _Will_ in overplus;”

That, ”To her will, sir, or so,” I find astonishi+ngly significant, for not only has it nothing to do with the play and is therefore unexpected, but the character-drawing is unexpected, too; maids are not usually wedded to their will in a double sense, and no other of these maids of honour is described at all

A little later Biron speaks again of Rosaline in a hich shocks expectation First of all, he rages at hi in love at all

”And I, forsooth in love! I, that have been love's whip!” Here I pause again, it see confession to us, just as when he admitted without reason that Jaques was lewd Be that as it , so utterly unforeseen are they, and therefore the more characteristic:

”Nay, to be perjured, which is worst of all; And, a three, to love the worst of all;”

The first line of this couplet, that he is perjured in loving Rosalineto the circumstances of the play; but Shakespeare also talks of himself in sonnet 152 as ”perjured,” for he only swears in order to lance at the fact that he is married and therefore perjured when he swears love to one not his wife It is well to keep this ”perjured” in memory

But it is the second line which is thethe three of the Princess's women he loves ”the worst of all” Up to this s of Rosaline and the other ladies; we had no idea that any one of them was bad, much less that Rosaline was ”the worst of all” The suspicion grows upon us, a suspicion which is confir of himself and of a particular woman; else we should have to admit that his portraiture of Rosaline's character was artistically bad, and bad without excuse, for why should he lavish all this wealth of unpleasant detail on a oes on, however, to make the fault worse; he next speaks of his love Rosaline as--

”A whitely wanton with a velvet brow, With two pitch-balls stuck in her face for eyes; Ay, and by heaven, one that will do the deed; Though Argus were her eunuch and her guard: And I to sigh for her! to watch for her!

To pray for her! Go to! it is a plague”

It is, of course, a blot upon the play for Biron to declare that his love is a wanton of the worst It is not merely unexpected and uncalled-for; it diminishes our sympathy with Biron and his love, and also with the play But we have already found the rule trustworthy that whenever Shakespearepersonal feeling and not for want of wit, and this rule evidently holds good here Shakespeare-Biron is picturing the woman he himself loves; for not only does he describe her as a wanton to the detriment of the play; but he pictures her precisely, and this Rosaline is the only person in the play of e have any physical description at all

Moreover, he has given such precise and repeated photographs of no other character in any of his plays: