Mar. He is Cupid's grandfather, and learns news

of him.

Ros. Then was Venus like her mother; for her father is but grim.

Boy. Do you hear, my mad wenches ?

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 festinately1 hither; I must employ him in a letter to my love.

Moth. Master, will you win your love with a French brawl? 2

Arm. How meanest thou? brawling in French?

Moth. No, my complete master: but to jig off a tune at the tongue's end, canary 1 to it with your feet, humor it with turning up your eyelids; 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-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 humors; 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 0,--but 0,—

Moth. -the hobby-horse is forgot.

Arm. Callest thou my love, hobby-horse?

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.

Canary was the name of a sprightly dance.

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. Minimè, honest master; or rather, master,

no.

Arm. I say, lead is slow.

Moth.

You are too swift, sir, to say so:

Is that lead slow which is fired from a gun ?

Arm. Sweet smoke of rhetoric!

He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that's he :

Thump then, and I flee.

[Exit.

I shoot thee at the swain.

Moth.

Arm. A most acute juvenal; voluble and free of

grace.

By thy favor, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face:

Most rude melancholy, valor gives thee place.
My herald is return'd.

Re-enter MOTH and COSTARD.

Moth. A wonder, master; here's a Costard1 broken in a shin.

Arm. Some enigma, some riddle: come,-thy l'envoy; 2-begin.

Cos. No egma, no riddle, no l'envoy; no salve in the mail,3 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?

1 Head.

2 A term borrowed from the old French poetry, which either served to convey the moral, or to address the poem to some particular person.

3 Mail signified a box or packet: from the French malie.

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?

Cos. 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,