Prin. Fair, I give you back again; and, welcome I have not yet: the roof of this court is too high to be yours; and welcome to the wild fields too base to be mine. King. You shall be welcome, madam, to my court. Prin. I will be welcome then; conduct me thither. King. Hear me, dear lady; I have sworn an oath. Prin. Our lady help my lord! he'll be forsworn. King. Not for the world, fair madam, by my will. Prin. Why, will shall break it; will, and nothing else. King. Your ladyship is ignorant what it is. Prin. Were my lord so, his ignorance were wise, But pardon me, I am too sudden-bold; To ask the question! Biron. How needless was it then You must not be so quick. Ros. 'Tis 'long of you that spur me with such questions. Biron. Your wit's too hot, it speeds too fast, 'twill tire. Rcs. Not till it leave the rider in the mire. Biron. What time o' day? Ros. The hour that fools shall 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, But that one half which is unsatisfied, We will give up our right in Aquitain, An hundred thousand crowns; and not demands, On payment of a hundred thousand crowns, To have his title live in Aquitain; Which we much rather had depart 3 withal, Than Aquitain divided as it is. 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, 3 Part. Where that and other specialties 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, be glad to see it. do my commendations; I would Biron. I would, you heard it groan. Biron. Sick at heart. Ros. Alack, let it blood. Biron. Would that do it good? Ros. My physick says, I. + Biron. Will you prick't with your eye? Ros. No poynt, with my knife. [Retiring. Boyet. The heir of Alençon, Rosaline her name. Dum. A gallant lady! Monsieur, fare you well. [Exit. Long. I beseech you a word; What is she in the white? Boyet. A woman sometimes, an you saw her in the light. Long. Pray you, sir, whose daughter? Boyet. Her mother's, I have heard. Long. Heaven's blessing on your beard! Boyet. Good sir, be not offended: She is an heir of Falconbridge. Long. Nay, my choler is ended. She is a most sweet lady. Boyet. Not unlike, sir; that may be. [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, sir, and welcome to you. 4 Ay, yes. [Exit BIRON. Ladies unmask. 5 A French particle of negation. Boyet. With that which we lovers entitle, affected. Prin. Your reason? Boyet. Why all his behaviours did make their retire To the court of his eye, peeping thorough desire: His heart, like an agate, with your print impressed, Proud with his form, in his eye pride expressed : His tongue, all impatient to speak and not see, Did stumble with haste in his eye sight to be; All senses to that sense did make their repair, To feel only looking on fairest of fair: Methought, all his senses were lock'd in his eye, As jewels in crystal for some prince to buy ;Who, tend'ring their own worth, from where they were glass'd, Did point you to buy them, along as you pass'd. His face's own margent did quote such amazes, I only have made a mouth of his eye, By adding a tongue which I know will not lie. Ros. Thou art an old love-monger, and speak'st skilfully. Mar. He is cupid's grandfather, and learns news of him. Ros. Then was Venus like her motner; for her father is but grim. No. Boyet. Do you hear, my mad girls? What then, do you see? You are too hard for me. [Exeunt. ACT III. 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? 7 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 8 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 snuffed up love by smelling love; with your hat penthouselike, o'er the shop of your eyes; with your arms crossed on your thin 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. Arm. How hast thou purchased this experience? but O, the hobby-horse is forgot. 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 have 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. Moth. As swift as lead, sir. Arm. Thy meaning, pretty ingenious? Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow? Moth. Minimè, honest master; or rather, master thy Arm. Some enigma, some riddle: come, l'envoy1; — 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'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, Moth. I will add the l'envoy: Say the moral again. Were still at odds, being but three: 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, Staying the odds by adding four. 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. We will talk no more of this matter. Arm. I mean, setting thee at liberty, enfreedoming thy person; thou wert immured, restrained, captivated, bound. Cost. True, true; and now you will 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 dependents. Moth, follow. [Exit. 1 An old French term for concluding verses, which served either to convey the moral, or to address the poem to some person. Moth. Like the sequel, I. Signior Costard, adieu. [Exit MoTH. Cost. 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! 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. 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, Cost. Guerdon,- O sweet guerdon! better than remuneration; eleven-pence farthing better: Most sweet guerdon!—I will do it, sir, in print.3- Guer. don remuneration. [Exit. Biron. O! And I, forsooth, in love! I, that have been love's whip; A very beadle to a humourous sigh; A critick; nay, a night-watch constable; A domineering pedant o'er the boy, Than whom no mortal so magnificent! This whimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy; This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid; Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms, The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans, Liege of all loiterers and malcontents, And I to be a corporal of his field, And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop! What? I! I love! I sue! I seek a wife! A woman, that is like a German clock, Still a repairing; ever out of frame; And never going aright, being a watch, But being watch'd that it may still go right? Nay, to be perjur'd, which is worst of all; : And, among three, to love the worst of all; And I to sigh for her! to watch for her! To pray for her! Go to; it is a plague That Cupid will impose for my neglect Of his most mighty dreadful little might. Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue, and groan; Some men must love my lady, and some Joan. [Exit. 2 Reward. 4 Hooded, veiled. 3 With the utmost exactness. Enter the PRINCESS, ROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, BOYET, Lords, Attendants, and a Forester. Prin. Was that the king, that spurred his horse so hard Against the steep uprising of the hill? Boyet. I know not; but I think, it was not he. Prin. Whoe'er he was, he show'd a mounting mind. Well, lords, to-day we shall have our despatch; Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush, O short-liv'd pride! Not fair? alack for woe! A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise. Only for praise' sake, when they strive to be Prin. Only for praise: and praise we may afford To any lady that subdues a lord. Enter COSTARD. Prin. Here comes a member of the commonwealth. Cost. Pray you, which is the head lady? Prin. Thou shalt know her, fellow, by the rest that have no heads. Cost. Which is the greatest lady, the highest? Prin. The thickest, and the tallest. Cost. The thickest, and the tallest! it is so; truth is truth. Are not you the chief woman? you are the thickest here. Prin. What's your will, sir? what's your will? Cost. I have a letter from monsieur Birón, to one lady Rosaline. Prin. O, thy letter, thy letter; he's a good friend of mine: Stand aside, good bearer. Boyet, you can carve; Boyet. I am bound to serve. This letter is mistook, it importeth none here; It is writ to Jaquenetta. 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 illustrate king Cophetua set eye upon the pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon; 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; saw, 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 entreat thy love? I will. What shalt thou exchange for rags? robes; For tittles, titles; For thyself, me. Thus, expecting thy reply, I profane my lips on thy foot, my eyes on thy picture, and my heart on thee. Thine, in the dearest design of industry, DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO. Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar 'Gainst thee, thou lamb, that standest as his prey; Submissive fall his princely feet before, And he from forage will incline to play: But if thou strive, poor soul, what art thou then? Food for his rage, repasture for his den. 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 it erewhile. 5 Boyet. This Armado is a Spaniard, that keeps here in court; A phantasm, a Monarcho, and one that makes sport Who gave thee this letter? Thou, fellow, a word : Cost. To a lady of France, that he call'd Rosaline. Just now. Prin. Thou hast mistaken his letter. Come, lords, away. Here, sweet, put up this; 'twill be thine another day. [Exeunt. SCENE II. The same. Enter HOLOFERNES, Sir NATHANIEL, and Dull. Nath. Very reverent sport, truly; and done in the testimony of a good conscience. Hol. The deer was, as you know, in sanguis, blood; ripe as a pomewater 6, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of cœlo, 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.7 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, unconfirmed 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! - O 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 thankful should be (Which we of taste and feeling are) for those parts that do fructify in us more than he. For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a fool, So, were there a patch set on learning, to see him in a school: But, omne bene, say I; being of an old father's mind, Many can brook the weather, that love not the wind. Dull. You two are bookmen: Can you tell by your wit, What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five weeks old as yet? Hol. Dictynna, good man Dull; Dictynna, good man Dull. Dull. What is Dictynna? Nath. A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon. was no more; Dull. And I say the pollution holds in the exchange; for the moon is never but a month old: and I say beside, that 'twas a pricket that the princess kill'd. Hol. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on the death of the deer? and, to humour the ignorant, I have call'd the deer the princess kill'd a pricket. Nath. Perge, good master Holofernes, perge; so it shall please you to abrogate scurrility. Hol. I will something affect the letter; for it argues facility. The praiseful princess pierc'd and prick'd a pretty pleasing pricket; Some say a sore; but not a sore, till now made sore with shooting. The dogs did yell; put L to sore, then sorel jumps from thicket; Or pricket, sore, or else sorel; the people fall a hooting. If sore be sore, then L to sore makes fifty sores; O sore L! Of one sore I an hundred make, by adding but one more L. Nath. A rare talent! Dull. If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a talent. Hol. This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; a foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions: But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it. Nath. Sir, I praise heaven for you; and so may my parishioners; for their sons are well tutor❜d by you, and their daughters profit very greatly under you you are a good member of the commonwealth. Hol. Mehercle, if their sons be ingenious, they shall want no instruction: if their daughters be capable, I will put it to them: But, vir sapit, qui pauca loquitur: a soul feminine saluteth us. Enter JAQUENetta and Costard. Jaq. Good morrow, master person. Hol. Master person, - quasi pers-on. And if one should be pierced, which is the one? Cost. Marry, master schoolmaster, he that is likest to a hogshead. Hol. Of piercing a hogshead! a good lustre of conceit in a turf of earth; fire enough for a flint: 'tis pretty; it is well. Jaq. Good master parson, be so good as read me this letter; it was given me by Costard, and sent me from Don Armatho I beseech you, read it. Hol. Fauste, precor gelidá quando pecus omne sub umbrá : Ruminat, - and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan: And raught 9 not to five weeks, when he came to I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice! fivescore. The allusion holds in the exchange. Dull. 'Tis true indeed; the collusion holds in the exchange. Vinegia, Vinegia, Chi non te vede, ei non te pregia. Old Mantuan! old Mantuan! Who understandeth Hol. Heaven comfort thy capacity! I say, the thee not, loves thee not. allusion holds in the exchange. 6 A species of apple. 7 To render some of the allusions in this scene intelligible to persons who are not acquainted with the language of parkkeepers and foresters, it may be necessary to mention, that a fawn, when it is a year old, is called by them a pricket; when it is two years old, it is a sorel; when it is three years old, it is a sore; when it is four years, it is a buck of the first head; at five years, it is an old buck. 8 A low fellow. 9 Reached. Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa. · Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? or, rather, as Horace says in his What, my soul, verses? Nath. Ay, sir, and very learned. Hol. Let me hear a staff, a stanza, a verse; Lege, |