Prin. Why, will shall break it; will, and nothing| Boyet. So please your grace, the packet is not else. Ros. Not till it leaves the rider in the mire. Biron. What time o' day? Ros. The hour that fools should ask. Biron. Now fair befall your mask! King. Madam, your father here doth intimate, But say, that he, or we (as neither have,) A hundred thousand more; in surety of the which, A hundred thousand crowns; and not demands, Which we much rather had depart withal, Dear princess, were not his requests so far From reason's yielding, your fair self should make Prin. You do the king my father too much wrong, Prin. We arrest your word: Boyet, you can produce acquittances, Of Charles his father. come, Where that and other specialities are bound, King. It shall suffice me: at which interview Prin. Sweet health and fair desires consort your grace! King. Thy own wish wish I thee in every place! [Exeunt King and his Train. Biron. Lady, I will commend you to my own heart, Ros. 'Pray you, do my commendations; I would be glad to see it. Biron. I would, you heard it groan? Ros. Alack, let it blood. Biron. Would that do it good? Ros. My physic says, 1.3 Biron. Will you prick't with your eye? Ros. No poynt, with my knife. Biron. Now, God save thy life! [Retiring. [Exit Long. Biron. What's her name, in the cap? Boyet. Katharine, by good hap. Biron. Is she wedded, or no? Boyet. To her will, sir, or so. Biron. You are welcome, sir; adieu! Boyet. Farewell to me, sír, and welcome to you. [Exit Biron.-Ladies unmask. Mar. That last is Biron, the merry mad-cap lord; Not a word with him but a jest. Boyet. And every jest but a word. Prin. It was well done of you to take him at his word. Boyet. I was as willing to grapple, as he was to board. No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips. Mar. You sheep, and I pasture; Shall that finish the jest? Arm. How means't thou? brawling in French? Moth. No, my complete master: but to jig of a tune at the tongue's end, canary to it with your Boyet. So you grant pasture for me. feet, humour it with turning up your eyelids; sigl [Offering to kiss her. a note, and sing a note; sometime through the Mar. Not so, gentle beast; throat, as if you swallowed love with singing love; My lips are no common, though several' they be. sometime through the nose, as if you snuffed up Boyet. Belonging to whom? love by smelling love; with your hat penthouseTo my fortunes and me. like, o'er the shop of your eyes; with your arms Prin. Good wits will be jangling: but, gentles, crossed on your thin belly-doublet, like a rabbit on a spit; or your hands in your pocket, like a man after the old painting; and keep not too long in one tune, but a snip and away: These are complements, these are humours; these betray nice wenches-that would be betrayed without these; and make them men of note (do you note, men?) that are most affected to these. Mar. agree: The civil war of wits were much better used By the heart's still rhetoric, disclosed with eyes, Prin. With what? Boyet. With that which we lovers entitle, affected. Boyet. Why, all his behaviours did make their To the court of his eye, peeping thorough desire: Methought, all his senses were lock'd in his eye, Did point you to buy them, along as you pass'd. I only have made a mouth of his eye, Mar. He is Cupid's grandfather, and learns Ros. Then was Venus like her mother; for her father is but grim. Boyet. Do you hear, my mad wenches? Mar. Boyet. No. What then, do you see? Ros. Ay, our way to be gone. Boyet. You are too hard for me. [Exeunt. ACT III. Armado and Moth. Arm. How hast thou purchased this experience? Moth. the hobby-horse is forgot. I Arm. Almost I had. Moth. Negligent student! learn her by heart. Moth. And out of heart, master: all those three Arm. What wilt thou prove? Moth. A man, if I live: and this, by, in, and without, upon the instant: By heart you love her, because your heart cannot come by her; in heart you love her, because your heart is in love with her; and out of heart you love her, being out of heart that you cannot enjoy her. Arm. I am all these three. Moth. And three times as much more, and yet nothing at all! Arm. Fetch hither the swain; he must carry me a letter. Moth. A message well sympathised; a horse to be ambassador for an ass! Arm. Ha, ha! what sayest thou? Moth. Marry, sir, you must send the ass upon the horse, for he is very slow-gaited: But I go. Arm. The way is but short; away. Moth. As swift as lead, sir. Arm. Thy meaning, pretty ingenious? Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow? Moth. You are too swift, sir, to say so; He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that's he: SCENE I-Another part of the same. Enter I shoot thee at the swain. Arm. Warble, child; make passionate my sense Arm. A most acute juvenal; voluble and free of hearing. Moth. Concolinel of grace! [Singing. By thy favour, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face; Arm. Sweet air!-Go, tenderness of years; take Most rude melancholy, valour gives thee place. this key, give enlargement to the swain, bring him My herald is return'd. festinately hither; I must employ him in a letter to my love. Moth. Master, will you win your love with a French brawi ?' (1) A quibble, several signified unenclosed lands. Re-enter Moth and Costard. Moth. A wonder, master; here's a Costard broken in a shin. (4) Cana was the name of a sprightly dance. [Exit. Arm. Some enigma, some .ddle: come,-thy rance; and, in lieu thereof, impose on thee nothing P'envoy;-begin. but this: Bear this significant to the country-maid Cost. No egma, no riddle, no l'envoy; no salve Jaquenetta: there is remuneration; [Giving him in the mail, sir: Ó, sir, plantain, a plain plantain; money.] for the best ward of mine honour, is, reno l'envoy, no l'envoy, no salve, sir, but a plantain! warding my dependents. Moth, follow. Arm. By virtue, thou enforcest laughter; thy Moth. Like the sequel, I.-Signior Costard, silly thought, my spleen; the heaving of my lungs provokes me to ridiculous smiling: Ŏ, pardon me, my stars! Doth the inconsiderate take salve for enroy, and the word, l'envoy, for a salve? Moth. Do the wise think them other? is not l'envoy a salve? Arm. No, page: it is an epilogue or discourse to make plain Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain. I will example it: The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee, Were still at odds, being but three. There's the moral: Now the l'envoy. Moth. I will add the l'envoy: Say the moral again. Arm. The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee, Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee, Were still at odds, being but three: Arm. Until the goose came out of door, Staying the odds by adding four. Moth. A good l'envoy, ending in the goose; Would you desire more? Cost. The boy hath sold him a bargain, a goose, that's flat: Sir, your pennyworth is good, an your goose be fat. To sell a bargain well, is as cunning as fast and loose : Let me see a fat l'envoy; ay, that's a fat goose. Arm. Come hither, come hither: How did this argument begin? Moth. By saying that a Costard was broken in a shin. Then call'd you for the l'envoy. Cost. True, and I for a plantain; Thus came your argument in; Then the boy's fat l'envoy, the goose that you bought; And he ended the market. Arm. But tell me; how was there a Costard broken in a shin? Moth. I will tell you sensibly. Cost. Thou hast no feeling of it, Moth; I will speak that l'envoy: : I, Costard, running out, that was safely within, Arm. By my sweet soul, I mean, setting thee at liberty, enfreedoming thy person; thou wert immured, restrained, captivated, bound. adieu. Cost. My sweet ounce of man's flesh! my incony Jew![Exit Moth. Now will I look to his remuneration. Remuneration! O, that's the Latin word for three farthings: three farthings-remuneration.-What's the price of this inkle? a penny:-No, I'll give you a remuneration: why, it carries it.-Remuneration!why, it is a fairer name than French crown. I will never buy and sell out of this word. Enter Biron. Biron. O, my good knave Costard! exceedingly well met. Cost. Pray you, sir, how much carnation ribbon may a man buy for a remuneration? Biron. What is a remuneration? Cost. Marry, sir, half-penny farthing. Biron. O, why then, three-farthings-worth of silk. Cost. When would you have it done, sir? Cost. Well, I will do it, sir: Fare you well. Biron. It must be done this afternoon. Hark, slave, it is but this ; The princess comes to hunt here in the park, name, And Rosaline they call her: ask for her; Cost. Guerdon,-O sweet guerdon! better than Biron. O!—And I, forsooth, in love! I, that have been love's whip; A very beadle to a humourous sigh; Cost. True, true; and now you will be my pur-And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop! gation, and let me loose. Arm. I give thee thy liberty, set thee from du (1) An old French term for concluding verses, which served either to convey the moral, or to address the poem to some person. (2) Delightful. (3) Reward. What? I! I love! I sue! I seek a wife! (4) With the utmost exactness. (6) Petticoats. (7) The officers of the spiritual courts who serve citations. Still a repairing; ever out of frame; ACT IV. Against the steep uprising of the hill? [Exit. Enter Boyet. I know not; but, I think, it was not he. Well, lords, to-day we shall have our despatch; Prin. What's your will, sir? what's your will? Cost. I have a letter from monsieur Biron, to ore lady Rosaline. Prin. O, thy letter, thy letter; he's a good friend of mine: SCENE I-Another part of the same. Stand aside, good bearer.-Boyet, you can carve ; Break up the Princess, Rosaline, María, Katharine, Boyet, this capon. Boyet. Lords, attendants, and a Forester. I am bound to serve.This letter is mistook, it importeth none here; Prin. Was that the king, that spurr'd his horse It is writ to Jaquenetta. so hard Prin. We will read it, I swear: Break the neck of the wax, and every one give ear. Boyet. [Reads.] By heaven, that thou art fair, is most infallible; true, that thou art beauteous; truth itself, that thou art lovely: More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous; truer than truth itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal! The magnanimous and most illustrates king Cophetua set eye upon the pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenélophon; and he it was that might rightly say, veni, vidi, vici; which to anatomize in the vulgar (O base and obscure vulgar!) videlicet, he came, saw, and overcame: he came, one; sau, two; overcame, three. Who came? the king; Why did he come? to see; Why did he see? to overcome: To whom came he? to the beggar; What saw he? the beggar; Who overcame he? the beggar: The conclusion is victory; On whose side? the king's: the captive is enriched; On whose side? the beggar's; The catastrophe is a nuptial; On whose side? the king's-no, on both in one, or one in both. I am the king; for so stands the comparison: thou the beggar; for so witnesseth thy lowliness. Shall I command thy love? I may : Shall I enforce thy love? I could: Shall I entreal thy love? I will. "What shalt thou exchange for O short-liv'd pride! Not fair? alack for wo! A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise.-rags? robes; For tittles, titles: For thyself, me. But come, the bow:-Now mercy goes to kill, Not wounding, pity would not let me do't; If wounding, then it was to show my skill,' Thus, expecting thy reply, I profane my lips on the Thine, in the dearest design of industry, That more for praise, than purpose, meant to kill. Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar And, out of question, so it is sometimes; The poor deer's blood, that my heart means no ill. Only for praise' sake, when they strive to be Prin. Only for praise: and praise we may afford (1) God give you good even. (2) Open this letter. (3) Illustrious. 'Gainst thee, thou lamb, that standest as his prey; Submissive fall his princely feet before, And he from forage will incline to play: Prin. What plume of feathers is he, that indited this letter? What vane? what weathercock? did you ever hear better? Boyet. I am much deceived, but I remember the style. Prin. Else your memory is bad, going o'er erewhile." (4) Just now Boyet. Th Armado is a Spaniard, that keeps When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it here court; were, so fit. A phantasm, a Monarcho, and one that makes sport Armatho o' the one side,-O, a most dainty man! Prin. Come, And his page o' t'other side, that handful of wit! SCENE II.—The same. [Shouting within. [Exit Costard, running. Enter Holofernes, Sir Nathaniel, and Dull. Nath. Very reverent sport, truly; and done in Here, sweet, put up this; 'twill be thine another the testimony of a good conscience.. day. [Exit Princess and Train. finely put off! Hang me by the neck, if horns that year miscarry. Ros. Well then, I am the shooter. near. Finely put on, indeed! Mar. You still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at the brow. Boyet. But she herself is hit lower: Have I hit her now? Ros. Shall I come upon thec with an old saying, that was a man when king Pepin of France was a little boy, as touching the hit it? Boyet. So I may answer thee with one as old, that was a woman when queen Guinever of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit it. Ros. Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it. [Singing. Boyet. An I cannot, cannot, cannot, [Exeunt Ros. and Kath. Cost. By my troth, most pleasant! how both did fit it! Hol. The deer was, as you know, in sanguis,— blood; ripe as a pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of calo,-the sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crab, on the face of terra,-the soil, the land, the earth. Nath. Truly, master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly varied, like a scholar at the least: But, sir, I assure ye, it was a buck of the first head. Hol. Sir Nathaniel, haud credo. Dull. 'Twas not a haud credo, 'twas a pricket. Hol. Most barbarous intimation! yet a kind of insinuation, as it were, in via, in way, of explication; facere, as it were, replication, or, rather, ostentare, to show, as it were, his inclination,-after his undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather unlettered, or ratherest, uncon firmed fashion-to insert again my haud credo for a deer. Dull. I said, the deer was not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket. Hol. Twice sod simplicity, bis coctus!-0 thou monster ignorance, how deformed dost thou look! Nath. Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper as it were; he hath not drunk ink: his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts; And such barren plants are set before us, that we (Which we of taste and feeling are) for those parts Mar. A mark marvellous well shot; for they So, were there a patch2 set on learning, to see him both did hit it. in a school: Boyet. A mark! O, mark but that mark; A But, omne bene, say I; being of an old father's mind, mark, says my lady! Let the mark have a prick in't, to mete at, if it may be. Mar. Wide o' the bow hand! I'faith, your hand is out. Cost. Indeed, a' must shoot nearer, or he'll ne'er hit the clout. Boyet. An if my hand be out, then, belike your hand is in. Cost. Then will she get the upshot by cleaving the pin. Mar. Come, come, you talk greasily, your lips grow foul. Cost. She's too hard for you at pricks, sir; challenge her to bowl. Boyet. I fear too much rubbing; Good night, my good owl. [Exeunt Boyet and Maria. Cost. By my soul, a swain! a most simple clown! Lord, lord! how the ladies and I have put him down! O' my troth, most sweet jests! most incony vulgar wit! (3) Reached. |