ACT III. SCENE I. ANOTHER PART OF THE SAME. Enter Armado and Moth. Arm. Warble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing. Moth. Concolinel [Singing. Arm. Sweet air!-Go, tenderness of years; take this key, give enlargement to the swain, bring him festinately hither; I must employ him in a letter to my love. Moth. Master, will you win your love with a French brawl? Arm. How mean'st thou? brawling in French? Moth. No, my complete master: but to jig off a tune at the tongue's end, canary to it with your feet, humour it with turning up your eye-lids; sigh a note, and sing a note; sometime through the throat, as if you swallowed love with singing love; sometime through the nose, as if you snuff'd up love by smelling love; with your hat penthouselike, o'er the shop of your eyes; with your arms cross'd 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 betray'd without these; and make them men of note, (do you note, men?) that most are affected to these. Arm. How hast thou purchased this experience? Moth. the hobby-horse is forgot. Moth. No, master; the hobby-horse is but a colt, and your love, perhaps, a hackney. But have you forgot your love? Arm. Almost I had. Moth. Negligent student! learn her by heart. Arm. By heart, and in heart, boy. Moth. And out of heart, master: all those three I will prove. 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 embassador 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. Arm. Thy meaning, pretty ingenious? Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow? ter, no. Arm. I say, lead is slow. - Moth. You are too swift, sir, to say so: Is that lead slow which is fir'd from a gun? Arm. Sweet smoke of rhetorick! He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that's he: I shoot thee at the swain. Moth. By thy favour, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face: Most rude melancholy, valour gives thee place. Re-enter Moth and Costard. Moth. A wonder, master; here's a Costard broken in a shin. Arm. Some enigma, some riddle: come,-thy l'envoy;-begin. Cost. No egma, no riddle, no l'envoy; no salve in the mail, sir: O sir, plantain, a plain plantain; no l'envoy, no l'envoy, no salve, sir, but a plantain ! Arm. By virtue, thou enforcest laughter; thy silly thought, my spleen; the heaving of my lungs provokes me to ridiculous smiling: O, pardon me, my stars! Doth the inconsiderate take salve for l'envoy, and the word, l'envoy, for a salve? Moth. Do the wise think them other? is not l'encoy 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, Moth. Until the goose came out of door, And stay'd the odds by adding four. Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow with my l'envoy. The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee, 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 penny-worth 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. Cost. Come hither, come hither: How did this argument begin? D 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 And he ended the market. goose that you bought; 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. We will talk no more of this matter. " Cost. O, marry me to one Frances;-I smell some l'envoy, some goose, in this. Arm. By my sweet soul, I mean, setting thee at liberty, enfreedoming thy person; thou wert immur'd, restrained, captivated, bound. Cost. True, true; and now you will be my purgation, and let me loose. Arm. I give thee thy liberty, set thee from durance; and, in lieu thereof, impose on thee nothing but this: Bear this significant to the country maid Jaquenetta: there is remuneration; [Giving him money.] for the best ward of mine honour, is, rewarding my dependants. Moth, follow. [Exit. Moth. Like the sequel, I.-Signior Costard, adieu. |