Prin. Good wits will be jangling; but, gentles, agree.

This civil war of wits were much better used
On Navarre and his book-men, for here 'tis abused.
Boyet. If my observation, (which very seldom
lies,)

By the heart's still rhetoric, disclosed with eyes,
Deceive me not now, Navarre is infected.

Prin. With what?

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 margin did quote such amazes, That all eyes saw his eyes enchanted with gazes. I'll give you Aquitain, and all that is his,

An you give him for my sake but one loving kiss. Prin. Come to our pavilion: Boyet is dispos'dBoyet. But to speak that in words, which his eye hath disclos'd.

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 mother, for her father is but grim.

Boyet. Do you hear, my mad wenches?
Mar.
No.
Boyet.

What then, do you see?

Ros. Ay, our way to be gone. Boyet.

You are too hard for me. [Exeunt.

SCENE I.-Another part of the Same.

Enter ARMADO and MOTH.

Arm. Warble, child: make passionate my sense of hearing.

[Singing.

Moth. Concolinel 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 meanest 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 snuffed up love by smelling love; with your hat penthouse-like, o'er the shop of your eyes; with your arms crossed on your thin belly's 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 most are affected to these.

Arm. How hast thou purchased this experience? Moth. By my penny of observation.

Arm. But O,--but 0,

out, 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.

Moth. 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
horse, for he is very slow-gaited: but I go.
Arm. The way is but short. Away!

Moth. As swift as lead, sir.

the

grace!

By thy favour, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face: Most rude melancholy, valour gives thee place. My herald is return'd.

Re-enter MOTH, with 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 male, 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 men 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, 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, 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, Fell over the threshold, and broke my shin. Arm. We will talk no more of this matter. Cost. Till there be more matter in the shin. Arm. Sirrah Costard, I will enfranchise thee. 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 immured, 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; for the best ward of mine honour is rewarding my dependents. Moth, follow. [Exit. Moth. Like the sequel, I.-Signior Costard, 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

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-farthing-worth of silk.
Cost. I thank your worship. God be wi' you.
Biron. O, stay, slave! I must employ thee:
As thou wilt win my favour, good my knave,
Do one thing for me that I shall entreat.

Cost. When would you have it done, sir?
Biron. O! this afternoon.

Cost. Well, I will do it, sir. Fare you well.
Biron. O! thou knowest not what it is.
Cost. I shall know, sir, when I have done it.
Biron. Why, villain, thou must know first.
Cost. I will come to your worship to-morrow
morning.

Biron. It must be done this afternoon. Hark, slave,

Biron. O! And I, forsooth, in love! I, that have been love's whip;

A very beadle to a humorous sigh;
A critic, nay, a night-watch constable
A domineering pedant o'er the boy,
Than whom no mortal so magnificent!

This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy;
This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid;
Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms,
Th' anointed sovereign of sighs and groans,
Liege of all loiterers and malcontents,
Dread prince of plackets, king of cod-pieces,
Sole imperitor, and great general
Of trotting paritors, (O my little heart!)
And I to be a corporal of his field,
And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop!
What? 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;
A whitely wanton with a velvet brow,
With two pitch balls stuck in her face for eyes;
Ay, and, by heaven, one that will do the deed,
Though Argus were her eunuch and her guard :
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 almighty dreadful little might.
Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue, groan;
Some men must love my lady, and some Joan. [Exit.

SCENE I.-Another part of the Same.

Enter the PRINCESS, ROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, BOYET, Lords, Attendants, and a Forester. Prin. Was that the king, that spurr'd 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 a' was, a' show'd a mounting mind.

Well, lords, to-day we shall have our despatch;
On Saturday we will return to France.-
Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush,
That we must stand and play the murderer in?
For. Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice;
A stand where you may make the fairest shoot.

Prin. I thank my beauty, I am fair that shoot,
And thereupon thou speak'st the fairest shoot.
For. Pardon me, madam, for I meant not so.
Prin. What, what? first praise me, and again
say, no?

O, short-liv'd pride! Not fair? alack for woe!
For. Yes, madam, fair.
Prin.
Nay, never paint me now:
Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow.
Here, good my glass, take this for telling true.
[Giving him money.
Fair payment for foul words is more than due.
For. Nothing but fair is that which you in-
herit.

Prin. See, see! my beauty will be sav'd by
merit.

O heresy in fair, fit for these days!

A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise.-
But come, the bow:-now mercy goes to kill,
And shooting well is then accounted ill.
Thus will I save my credit in the shoot:
Not wounding, pity would not let me do't;
If wounding, then it was to show my skill,
That more for praise than purpose meant to kill.
And, out of question, so it is sometimes:
Glory grows guilty of detested crimes,
When, for fame's sake, for praise, an outward part,
We bend to that the working of the heart;
As I for praise alone now seek to spill

The poor deer's blood, that my heart means no

ill.

Boyet. Do not curst wives hold that self-sovereignty

Only for praise' sake, when they strive to be
Lords o'er their lords?

of mine.

Stand aside, good bearer.-Boyet, you can carve; Break up this capon.

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 Penelophon; and he it was that might rightly say, veni, vidi, vici; which to anatomize in the vulgar, (0 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; Whom 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 com

parison; 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 thy

every part.

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 weather-cock? did you ever hear better?

Boyet. I am much deceiv'd, but I remember the style.

Prin. Else your memory is bad, going o'er it ere-while.

Boyet. This Armado is a Spaniard, that keeps here in court.

A phantasm, a Monarcho, and one that makes sport To the prince and his book-mates.

Prin.

Who gave thee this letter?

Cost.

Thou, fellow, a word.

I told you; my lord. Prin. To whom shouldst thou give it? Cost. From my lord to my lady. Prin. From which lord, to which lady? Cost. From my lord Biron, a good master of mine, To a lady of France, that he call'd Rosaline. Prin. Thou hast mistaken his letter.-Come, lords, away.— Here, sweet, put up this: 'twill be thine another day. [Exeunt PRINCESS and train. Boyet. Who is the suitor? who is the suitor? Ros. Shall I teach you to know? Boyet. Ay, my continent of beauty. Ros.

Finely put off!

Why, she that bears the bow.

Boyet. My lady goes to kill horns; but if thou marry,

Hang me by the neck, if horns that year miscarry.
Finely put on!

Ros. Well then, I am the shooter.
Boyet.

And who is your deer? Ros. If we choose by the horns, yourself: come

not 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 thee 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.

Boyet.

Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it,
Thou canst not hit it, my good man.

An I cannot, cannot, cannot,

An I cannot, another can.

[Exeunt Ros. and KATH.

Cost. By my troth, most pleasant: how both did fit it!

Mar. A mark marvellous well shot, for they both did hit [it].

Boyet. A mark! O! mark but that mark: a 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!

When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it were, so fit.

Armado o' the one side,-O, a most dainty man!
To see him walk before a lady, and to bear her fan!
To see him kiss his hand! and how most sweetly
a' will swear!—

And his page o' t' other side, that handful of wit!
Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!
Sola, sola! [Shouting within.] [Exit CoSTARD.

SCENE II.-The Same.

Enter HOLOFERNES, Sir NATHANIEL, and DULL. Nath. Very reverend sport, truly; and done in the testimony of a good conscience.

Hol. The deer was, as you know, sanguis,-in blood; ripe as the pomewater, 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. 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