scurrility, witty without affection 5, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy. I did converse this quondam day with a companion of the king's, who is intituled, nominated, or called, Don Adriano de Armado. Hol. Novi hominem tanquam te: His humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical. He is too picked", too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were, too peregrinate, as I may call it. 6 Nath. A most singular and choice epithet. [Takes out his table book. Hol. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical fantasms, such insociable and point-devise companions; such rakers of orthography, as to speak, dout, fine, when he should say, doubt; det, when he should pronounce debt; d, e, b, t; not d, e, t: he clepeth a calf, cauf; half, hauf; neighbour, vocatur, nebour; neigh, abbreviated, ne: This is abhominable, (which he would call abominable,) it insinuateth me of insanie; Ne intelligis domine? to make frantick, lunatick. Nath. Laus Deo, bone intelligo. Hol. Bone? scratch'd; 'will serve. bone, for benè: Priscian a little Enter ARMADO, MOTH, and COSTARD. Nath. Videsne quis venit ? Hol. Video, et gaudeo. places, signifies discourse; and that audacious is used in a good sense for spirited, animated, confident. Opinion is the same with obstinacy or opiniatreté. JOHNSON. 5 6 ·without affection,] i. e. without affectation. 7 He is too picked,] nicely drest. 8 - point-devise —] A French expression for the utmost, or finical exactness. Arm. Chirra! Hol. Quare Chirra, not sirrah? Arm. Men of peace, well encounter'd. [TO MOTH. Moth. They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps. [To COSTARD aside. Cost. O, they have liv'd long in the alms-basket of words! I marvel, thy master hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier swallowed than a flapdragon. 9 Moth. Peace; the peal begins. Arm. Monsieur, [to HoL.] are you not letter'd? Moth. Yes, yes; he teaches boys the hornbook:What is a, b, spelt backward with a horn on his head? Hol. Ba, pueritia, with a horn added. Moth. Ba, most silly sheep, with a horn: hear his learning. Hol. Quis, quis, thou consonant? - You Moth. The third of the five vowels, if you repeat them; or the fifth, if I. Hol. I will repeat them, a, e, i. — Moth. The sheep: the other two concludes it; o, u. Arm. Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum, a sweet touch, a quick venew of wit': snip, snap, quick and home; it rejoiceth my intellect: true wit. Moth. Offer'd by a child to an old man; which is wit-old. Hol. What is the figure? what is the figure? Hol. Thou disputest like an infant; go, whip thy gig. a flap-dragon.] A flap-dragon is a small inflammable substance, which topers swallow in a glass of wine. 1 — a quick venew of wit:] A venew is the technical term for a bout at the fencing-school. whip about your infamy circùm circà; A gig of a cuckold's horn. Cost. An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy gingerbread: hold, there is the very remuneration I had of thy master, thou half-penny purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of discretion. O, an the heavens were so pleased, that thou wert but my bastard! what a joyful father wouldst thou make me! Go to; thou hast it ad dunghill, at the finger's ends, as they say. Hol. O, I smell false Latin; dunghill for unguem. Arm. Arts-man, præambula; we will be singled from the barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the chargehouse on the top of the mountain ? Hol. Or mons, the hill. Arm. At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain. Arm. Sir, it is the king's most sweet pleasure and affection, to congratulate the princess at her pavilion, in the posteriors of this day; which the rude multitude call, the afternoon. Hol. The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is liable, congruent, and measurable for the afternoon: the word is well cull'd, chose; sweet and apt, I do assure you, sir, I do assure. Arm. Sr, the king is a noble gentleman; and my familiar, I do assure you, very good friend: For what is inward between us, let it pass: I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy; - I beseech thee, apparel thy head1; -- and among other importunate and most serious designs, and of great import indeed, too; but let that pass: for I must tell thee, it will please his grace (by 2 3 the charge-house-] perhaps, is the free-school. 4 I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy; I beseech thee, apparel thy head;] By "remember thy courtesy," I suppose Armado means—remember that all this time thou art standing with thy hat off. STEEVENS. the world) sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder; and with his royal finger, thus, dally with my excrement, with my mustachio: but, sweet heart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no fable; some certain special honours it pleaseth his greatness to impart to Armado, a soldier, a man of travel, that hath seen the world: but let that pass. The very all of all is, but, sweet heart, I do implore secrecy,— that the king would have me present the princess, sweet chuck, with some delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant, or antick, or fire-work. Now, understanding that the curate and your sweet self, are good at such eruptions, and sudden breaking out of mirth, as it were, I have acquainted you withal, to the end to crave your assistance. - Hol. Sir, you shall present before her the nine worthies. Sir Nathaniel, as concerning some entertainment of time, some show in the posterior of this day, to be rendered by our assistance, the king's command, and this most gallant, illustrate, and learned gentleman, before the princess; I say, none so fit as to present the nine worthies. Nath. Where will you find men worthy enough to present them? Hol. Joshua, yourself; myself, or this gallant gentleman, Judas Maccabæus; this swain, because of his great limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the great; the page, Hercules. Arm. Pardon, sir, error: he is not quantity enough for that worthy's thumb: he is not so big as the end of his club. Hol. Shall I have audience? he shall present Hercules in minority: his enter and exit shall be strangling a snake; and I will have an apology for that purpose. Moth. An excellent device! so, if any of the audience 5 dally with my excrement,] The author calls the beard valour's excrement in The Merchant of Venice. 6 chuck,] i, e. chicken; an antient term of endearment. 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? Arm. We will have, if this fadge not7, an antick. 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. SCENE II. [Exeunt. Another part of the same. Before the Princess's Pavilion. A lady wall'd about with diamonds! Look you, what I have from the loving king. Ros. Madam, came nothing else along with that? Prin. Nothing, but this? yes, as much love in rhyme, As would be cramm'd up in a sheet of paper, Writ on both sides the leaf, margent and all; That he was fain to seal on Cupid's name. Ros. That was the way to make his god-head wax ;9 For he hath been five thousand years a boy. 7 if this fadge not,] i. e. suit not, pass not into action. 8 Via,] An Italian exclamation, signifying courage! come on! to make his god-head wax;] To war anciently signified to grow. It is yet said of the moon, that she waxes and wanes. 9 |