dience hiss, you may cry, Well done, Hercules! Now thou crushest the snake! That is the way to make an offence gracious; though few have the grace to do it. Arm. For the rest of the worthies? Hol. I will play three myself. Hol. We attend. Arm. We will have, if this fadge' not, an antic. I beseech you, follow. Hol. Via, goodman Dull! Thou hast spoken no word all this while. Dull. Nor understood none neither, sir. Hol. Allons! we will employ thee. Dull. I'll make one in a dance, or so; or I will play on the tabor to the worthies, and let them dance the hay. Hol. Most dull, honest Dull, to our sport, away. [Exeunt. SCENE II. Another part of the same. Before the Princess's Pavilion. Enter the Princess, KATHARINE, ROSALINE, and MARIA. Prin. Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart, If fairings come thus plentifully in. A lady walled about with diamonds!— Ros. Madam, came nothing else along with that? rhyme, As would be crammed up in a sheet of paper, 1 i. e. suit not, go not. An Italian exclamation, signifying Courage! Come on! Ros. That was the way to make his god-head wax;1 For he hath been five thousand years a boy. Kath. Ay, and a shrewd, unhappy gallows too. Ros. You'll ne'er be friends with him: he killed your sister. Kath. He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy; She might have been a grandam ere she died! Ros. What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word? Kath. A light condition in a beauty dark. Ros. We need more light to find your meaning out. Kath. You'll mar the light by taking it in snuff:2 Therefore I'll darkly end the argument. Ros. Look, what you do, you do it still i'the dark. Kath. So do not you; for you are a light wench. Ros. Indeed, I weigh not you; and therefore light. Kath. You weigh me not,-O, that's you care not for me. Ros. Great reason; for, past cure is still past care. Prin. Well bandied both; a set of wit well played. But, Rosaline, you have a favor too. Who sent it, and what is it? I would you knew; Ros. The numbers true; and, were the numbering too, I am compared to twenty thousand fairs. O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter! Ros. Much, in the letters; nothing in the praise. 1 Grow. 2 Snuff is here used equivocally for anger, and the snuff of a candle. See King Henry IV. Act i. Sc. 3. 3 A set is a term at tennis for a game. Prin. Beauteous as ink; a good conclusion. Ros. 'Ware pencils! How! Let me not die debtor, My red dominical, my golden letter. O that your face were not so full of O's! your Kath. A pox of that jest! And beshrew all shrows! Prin. But what was sent to you from fair Dumain? Kath. Madam, this glove. Prin. Did he not send you twain? Kath. Yes, madam; and moreover, Some thousand verses of a faithful lover; A huge translation of hypocrisy, Vilely compiled, profound simplicity. Mar. This, and these pearls, to me sent Longaville; The letter is too long by half a mile. Prin. I think no less. Dost thou not wish in heart, The chain were longer, and the letter short? Mar. Ay, or I would these hands might never part. O that I knew he were but in by the week!2 Prin. None are so surely caught, when they are catched, As wit turned fool. Folly, in wisdom hatched, 1 She advises Katharine to beware of drawing likenesses, lest she should retaliate. 2 This is an expression taken from the hiring of servants; meaning, “I wish I knew that he was in love with me, or my servant," as the phrase is. 3 The meaning of this obscure line seems to be,-I would make him proud to flatter me, who make a mock of his flattery. 4 The old copies read pertaunt-like. The modern editions read, with Sir T. Hanmer, portent-like. Hath wisdom's warrant, and the help of school; Ros. The blood of youth burns not with such excess, As gravity's revolt to wantonness. Mar. Folly in fools bears not so strong a note, As foolery in the wise, when wit doth dote; Since all the power thereof it doth apply, To prove, by wit, worth in simplicity. Enter BOYET. Prin. Here comes Boyet, and mirth is in his face. Boyet. O, I am stabbed with laughter! Where's her grace? Prin. Thy news, Boyet? Boyet. Arm, wenches, arm! Prepare, madam, prepare!— Encounters mounted are Love doth approach disguised, Armed in arguments. You'll be surprised: Muster your wits; stand in your own defence; That charge their breath against us? say, scout, say. I thought to close mine eyes some half an hour, The boy replied, An angel is not evil; I should have feared her, had she been a devil. With that all laughed, and clapped him on the shoul der; Making the bold wag by their praises bolder. One rubbed his elbow, thus; and fleered, and swore, Cried, Via! we will do't, come what will come : Prin. But what, but what, come they to visit us? Boyet. They do, they do; and are appareled thus, Like Muscovites, or Russians. As I guess, 2 The purpose is, to parle, to court, and dance; By favors several, which they did bestow. Prin. And will they so? The gallants shall be tasked; For, ladies, we will every one be masked; And not a man of them shall have the grace, Hold, Rosaline, this favor thou shalt wear; And then the king will court thee for his dear; Hold, take thou this, my sweet, and give me thine ; And change your favors too; so shall your loves 1 Spleen ridiculous is a ridiculous fit of laughter. The spleen was anciently supposed to be the cause of laughter. 2 In the first year of K. Henry VIII. at a banquet made for the foreign ambassadors in the parliament chamber at Westminster, "came the Lorde Henry Earle of Wiltshire and the Lorde Fitzwater, in two long gownes of yellow satin traversed with white satin, and in every bend of white was a bend of crimosen sattin after the fashion of Russia or Ruslande, with furred hattes of grey on their hedes, either of them havyng an hatchet in their handes, and bootes with pykes turned up."-Hall, Henry VIII, p. 6. |